Matilda Quigley ~ "Big Minnie"

Matilda Quigley was born in England on 31 March 1852. At 6' tall and topping the scales at 200+ pounds, "Big Minnie" was first an entertainer, dazzling audiences by performing in pink tights, then an entrepreneur.

With husband Joe Bignon, she owned the Bird Cage Theater in Tombstone. With the decline of Tombstone's mining industry, the couple moved across the Dragoon Mountains to Pearce, Arizona in 1896.

In Pearce, they opened a saloon ... the first in the area. Various sources refer to it as the "Pioneer," or "Palace." It was hailed for being lavish in its appointments and offered faro, roulette and "the finest spirits." Though nothing was said about prostitution, some of the Birds in the Cage likely followed the Bignons to their new flourishing business.

Minnie died in Pearce on 4 August 1900 and was buried in Pearce Cemetery, her blue granite tombstone sculptured with a fancy design (and her first name misspelled). Within a year, Joe remarried to Ellen McGrogan of Patterson, New Jersey. He died in 1925 and is buried near Minnie.

See post for "The Bird Cage Theatre".