Though Galena, Kansas is a sleepy little town of only about 3,000 people today, it wasn’t always so. In the late 1800’s this town was rockin’ and rollin’ with more than 30,000 miners working to pull rich lead and zinc ores from more than 250 area mines.
With that many working men in a relatively new town, the settlement was a haven for transients and outlaws. It’s innumerable saloons, gambling halls and bawdy houses added to the decadence of this early city. During this time, many hardworking miners were lured inside to lose their hard earned gold at the gaming tables and other questionable pastimes. Some were never seen again.
Galena, Kansas, had a population of almost 30,000 in 1898.
It was at this time that one enterprising woman by the name of Steffleback decided to profit from the many miners, prospectors and businessmen when she opened a two story bordello in the 1890s. In no time at all, the Steffleback house was the most popular place in town, as it filled with heavy-drinking miners, gamblers, and those in search of more bawdy pastimes. Steffleback grew quite wealthy over the next few years, but she was a greedy woman and the sight of the amount of money carried by many of her customers was more than she could handle.
Soon, the ambitious woman found an even better way to fill her coffers. One evening when a local prospector sat at a table drinking whiskey, Steffleback noticed that he paid for his drinks by pulling gold coins from a heavy leather sack tied to this belt. Estimating the sack held several hundred dollars, a new idea struck her. When the customer was drunk, she lured him into a back room, where she instructed one of her sons to sneak up behind the man. In moments, the man’s head was split open with an ax and Steffleback was several hundred dollars richer. Later, when no one was around Steffleback’s son placed the corpse into a canvas bag, loaded it on a horse and moved the body to an abandoned mine shaft, where it was dumped
With the numbers of transient miners passing through the area, Steffleback soon decided that eliminating these prospectors and relieving them of their money was a faster way to get rich. Over the next several years, she allegedly lured as many as thirty victims into her back room, later depositing their bodies in the many mine shafts of the area.
For years she got away with the murders, minimizing suspicion on herself, as she lived quite frugally. Further alleviating any suspicion, she never deposited the money into a bank, instead squirreling it away somewhere in Galena.
Then one night she got into a heated argument with one of her “girls,” fired her and kicked her out of the house. Seeking revenge, the angry woman immediately went to the authorities, telling them of the madam’s murderous activities. Steffleback was arrested the next day. Once incarcerated, the lawmen searched Steffelback’s property for any sign of the stolen cache, but found nothing. Branching out, they also searched several abandoned mine shafts in the area which yielded more than a dozen bodies, but none of the stolen money.
Tried in 1897, Steffleback never admitted her guilt, nor revealed where she had hidden her fortune. Sentenced to the State Women’s Prison in Lansing, Kansas, she was watched and listened to carefully believing that she would one day give up her secret. However, she died in 1909, without ever revealing where she had hidden the treasure.
Following her death, the story was revived and treasure hunters flocked to Galena from as far away as Colorado. Floors of the old bordello were ripped up and walls pulled down, but again, the money was never found. Today, the treasure is still said to be buried somewhere near the site of the now long gone bordello or in one of the many old mine shafts surrounding Galena.
