Honora Ornstein ~ "Diamond Lil" Davenport

Honora Ornstein, later known as Diamond Lil Davenport, was born in Austria on 12 September 1881 to a prominent Jewish family in the cattle business. Described as remarkably good looking, she stood nearly six feet tall and had a voluptuous figure. She always sported an elaborate diamond collection, one of which was implanted into her teeth.

After leaving home at age 12, she was married and introduced to the finer things in life while helping her new husband spend his inheritance. When her husband ran out of money, Lil decided it was time to move on. Traveling across the country from Ohio, she became the “toast of the town” singing in saloons. Her naturally booming voice made her a favorite and, in 1904, she was the “Voice of St. Louis”, singing "Meet Me In St. Louis", in the Budweiser (Beer Garden) Pavilion at the World’s Fair.

As her popularity grew, so did the opportunity to find rich men, marry them and spend their money. In 7 years, she was married 13 times. During her long, interesting and glamorous life she was the “Toast of the Barbary Coast” and “The Belle of New York”, numbering among her many admirers, the Prince of Wales, Tex Rickard, Zack Taylor and “Diamondfield Jack Davis", who she later married. He was a Nevada gunman and gold miner in the boomtown of Goldfield.

Although the marriage didn't last long, Jack taught Lil how to speculate on mines and how to con people out of their mining claims and stocks! He supposedly gave Lil the large diamond she had mounted in gold on her front tooth.

While many women used the name Diamond Lil or Diamond Tooth Lil during the western boom years, only one of them, the one who plied her trade in boom camps all over the Mojave desert, stood apart from the rest. Perhaps it was because Lil lived to the ripe old age of 92, despite statistics that predicted otherwise for a woman of her profession, or that she never denied her history while other "soiled doves" carefully hid their pasts as they grew old. Or maybe it was her long-time association with Davis, that made her noteworthy.

She retired to Seattle, Washington in the 1920s and invested well in apartment houses. She was briefly married to George Miller who she divorced in 1923, just one week before learning she'd inherited $150,000 from her mother in Los Angeles. She announced she would use it to start a dramatic stock company, but her mind began to fail.

In 1935 friends committed her to the state hospital in Yakima, where she remained until 1960 when she was moved to a nursing home on welfare. A nurse who cared for her there recalls that Lil told her numerous stories about her life. She often talked about her younger brother and felt responsible for his death ... he was about 2 or 3 and fell out a window three stories up while she was watching him.

She died alone in 1974 and her diamond tooth was donated to the Idaho children's hospital. Her obituary in the New York Times read: 

YAKIMA, Wash., June 20 (UPI)—Diamond Tooth Lil, a famous dance hall queen of the Alaskan gold rush days, died this week at a nursing home here. She was 92 years old, and her real name was Honora Ornstein.

Lil spent the last 40 years of her life in institutions and watched two fortunes disappear after being the toast of the North.

She earned her first large wages, on the Pantages vaudeville circuit in Alaska, where she acquired her nickname because of the diamond fillings in her teeth. She also collected diamonds.

Committed to the Western State Hospital at Steilacoom, Wash., in 1935, she saw her fortune and her jewels go to the state over the years to pay for her care.

Diamond Lil was buried in a simple grave yesterday.