Mona Bell's Grave

Mona Bell's Grave. . , The story of Mona Bell is not an uncommon one. Women like her could be found throughout the mining camps of the West. What is uncommon about Mona's story is how her very public death allowed her tale to be told in a time when the identities of most working women were obscured by a string of aliases and a tendency to never stay in one place too long. , Mona Bell was born Sarah Isabella Peterman on October 20, 1887, in Battle Creek, Nebraska. When she was 15, her family moved to Seattle. Soon after she graduated from Ballard High School in 1906, Isabel met and married Clinton Columbus (C.C.) Heskett and they settled in Arrow, Colorado, where, by all accounts, Isabel was a dutiful wife. , In 1907, C.C. was accused of forging checks and quickly left town. On his way out, C.C. asked his friend, Fred Skinner, to look out for Isabel. Fred and Isabel quickly fell in love and headed west, causing trouble along the way: Isabel was arrested for vagrancy for combative behavior in saloons and Fred gambled heavily in every town. , Soon, gold and silver drew them to Central Nevada. It was reported that Isabel first became a working girl in Fallon, Nevada. The couple moved to Manhattan, Nevada, in October 1907 where Isabel, now going by the name of Mona Bell, worked at the Parlor Saloon in the Red-Light District. A month after arriving in Manhattan, Mona and Fred were arrested for allegedly robbing one of Mona's clients., Although acquitted of the robbery, Fred was re-arrested for punching the judge as he was escorted from the courtroom. , While Fred was serving his jail sentence in Tonopah, Mona moved to Rhyolite in search of work to pay off Fred's $300 fine. She soon found employment in Rhyolite's Adobe Dance Hall and changed her name to Norma. A local newspaper stated "she drank and smoked and swore like a pirate.", After Fred was released from jail, he and Mona continued down a turbulent path. On January 3, 1908, Fred ran down the street screaming that he had shot Mona and Mona had shot him. Mona died that night. , As a small crowd formed in the daylight, rumblings of anger built in Rhyolite. Even though Mona was a prostitute, many felt that she was a kindly woman who had been led astray by Fred Skinner. In March, Fred was sentenced to first degree murder and life in prison. , After news of Mona's death reached her family, her estranged husband, C.C. Heskett, traveled to Rhyolite to claim her body. Mona was put to rest in the Peterman family plot at the Crown Hill Cemetery in Ballard, Washington., Many years after the deaths of Mona and Rhyolite, Mrs. Herschel Heisler, who ran a small museum and gift shop out of the train depot, built Mona's false grave, here at the edge of town, and told tourists that Mona was not buried in the town cemetery because of her profession.