Selling Sex in the Silver Valley

by Dr. Heather Branstetter

  This book provides an overview of sex work in Wallace, focusing on the town’s decriminalized brothels and accompanying vice economies. I highlight the ways local culture enabled the acceptance of illicit activities. The story of selling sex in the Silver Valley was influenced by prostitution’s historic story nationally: the area was affected by the sex trafficking panic that the FBI invoked to justify its first major expansion during the early 1900s, and Wallace’s first steps toward regulating the bodies of sex workers coincided with the War Department’s social and moral hygiene propaganda campaign. By World War II, however, decriminalized brothel-based sex work had become rare throughout the rest of the country, although some other towns also chose to monitor or regulate illegal sex work. The houses in Wallace were unique because of their regional notoriety and notable for the way they were integrated into a community narrative that framed prostitution as an acceptable open secret, providing a service that offered economic and social benefits.

  The “madam’s suite” at the recently remodeled Lux Rooms, which is now a historic inn. Photo by Heather Branstetter.

  Remodeled Lux Rooms featuring a pink bathtub left from the days when madam Dolores Arnold managed it. Photo by Heather Branstetter.

  Remodeled Lux Rooms with one of the gold-veined mirrors preserved. Photo by Heather Branstetter.

  PART I

  “A MINING TOWN NEEDS

  BROTHELS”:

  THE EARLY DAYS

  1

  Mining Camp Lifestyle and the Politics

  of the Restricted District

  Wallace emerged as a mining boomtown and operated according to a code of frontier justice in the early days. The large population of single men and lack of women led the first residents to accept sex work as necessary. Men and women alike thought commercialized sex was a natural part of mining camp life—a requirement, even, if the town wanted to meet the needs of the miners. From 1884 until 1903, women owned and operated brothels throughout Wallace without much restriction. On average, there were at least a dozen houses of prostitution operating during any given year. Before 1903, the majority were located on Pine Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets, with a few on the southwestern corner of Fifth and Pine and one large brothel on the corner of Seventh and Cedar, where the Samuels Hotel would stand by 1908.

  By 1905, most of the women had been forced to migrate to an official restricted district on Block 23, the triangular patch of land where the Depot Museum is located today, between Sixth Street, Cedar Street and the south fork of the Coeur d’Alene River. The city built housing for the women along Avenue A, the alley in this block, after President Theodore Roosevelt visited town in 1903. Migration to the restricted district segregated the sex workers from the residential area of town, and it made the women’s bodies and business easier to control. During the early years, prostitution worked in symbiosis with saloons, but after sex workers moved, their workspaces evolved to include dance halls, “disreputable saloons” and variety theaters. Women lost ownership and control over the industry as “saloon men’s affiliations with prostitution grew more parasitic.”7 From 1910 to 1917, as the town developed into a longer-term mining community and calls for moral reform swept the nation, the city opted to regulate commercial sex work by requiring the women submit to health department inspections and pay licensing fees. In 1913, tax revenues from prostitution, gambling and the sale of liquor enabled Wallace to pave its streets and fund a general infrastructure upgrade, beginning with the section of town that housed the saloons and red-light district.8

  A map of Wallace brothels in 1896. Adapted from Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps.

  TABLE 1: BROTHELS, LOCATIONS AND PROPRIETORS, 1891–1916

  “A MINER’S SORT OF AN INDEPENDENT PERSON”

  The labor battles of the 1890s, baked into the Silver Valley’s origin story and sense of collective identity, illustrate the initial conditions that would lay the groundwork for the brothels’ longevity in Wallace. There were two notable conflicts in the “Rocky Mountain Revolution,” as Stewart Holbrook describes it. Mine owners hired Pinkerton Agency mercenaries as spies and strikebreakers in an attempt to stifle miners’ attempts to organize, leading to a series of battles that were among “the most violent labor-versus-capital confrontations in American history.”9 Miners fought back with political advantage and sabotage, eventually resorting to Winchester rifles and dynamite. After the first deadly series of events in 1892, when the unions fought the mine owners’ association—blowing up the Frisco mill and causing sixteen to eighteen casualties and $20,000 worth of damage—the governor proclaimed martial law and dispatched federal troops to the area, declaring Shoshone County to be “in a state of rebellion.”10

  The second major conflict took place in 1899. Known locally as the “Dynamite Express” incident, it was inspiring from conception through execution. Union miners hijacked a train, loading it with four hundred pounds of powder stolen from the mill blown up in the previous battle, and rolled slowly through the Silver Valley amid the cheers of townspeople, picking up nearly one thousand miners along the way as they headed toward the nonunion Bunker Hill and Sullivan mill. Then, “with the discipline and precision of a perfectly trained military organization,” the miners blasted “one of the largest concentrators in the world, costing the company the enormous sum of $250,000,” which would work out to about $7.5 million in contemporary currency.11 Idaho governor Frank Stuenenberg declared martial law, and federal troops were again brought in to quell the unrest.12

  Troops marching on Sixth Street in 1892. Barnard-Stockbridge Collection, University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives.

  The “bull pen” on Hotel Street where men were held without regard to habeas corpus, 1892. Historic Wallace Preservation Society.

  During this time, the “law-and-order element,” a phrase used pejoratively by the miners’ union leaders, was associated with the army troops brought in “to suppress insurrection” as they rounded up union supporters by the hundreds and incarcerated them in military prison or concentration camp–style bull pens without regard to habeas corpus.13 This was the first of many instances when federal or state authorities would selectively intervene in the governance of the Silver Valley while suspending respect for basic civil rights. Written laws, especially those imposed by outsiders, came to be seen as unnecessary, oppressive and inconsistent with the pioneers’ understanding of human liberty that organized Wallace’s anarchic sense of order. There arose a perceptual gap between “justice” and “the law,” a distinction between an unwritten code of conduct and the official written rules. For example, in a series of oral histories initiated by David Barton in 1979, Silver Valley miner Maidell Clemets tells a story about a gambler making moonshine during Prohibition. When agents destroyed his operation, he explained, the gambler did not get a jury of his peers or receive a fair trial because it was a federal offense, which meant he was not tried locally:

  He said he knew that if he’d been tried in Wallace, Idaho, they’d turn him loose. He said he’d got justice in Wallace, but in Coeur d’Alene, all he got was law. And ah, that was the attitude oft times. Some of the district here...that attitude is still, more or less, predominant.... They don’t like to have people from the outside tell ’em what to do. A miner’s sort of an independent person.14

  Independence—including from the necessity of following laws written and imposed by outsiders—became a key value that manifested in discourse about the brothels. The town developed a reputation for being “wide open,” which meant that a person could easily find an avenue for any variety of illicit activities, especially gambling and prostitution. According to local historian John Amonson, wide open also implied “no real respect for the more technical aspects of the law as long as everybody was satisfied.”15 Wallace’s leadership filtered national and state laws through the lens of unofficial local rules, in accordance with community custom. When asked whether prostitution has been legal or quasi-legal in Wallace, for example,
another one of Barton’s research participants responded, “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I think the law enforcement people—your leadership in the community, has, has, might say, tolerated, under certain restrictions—with certain restrictions, the existence of them.”16 In other words, city leaders and politicians historically felt it was appropriate to enforce a local code of conduct in lieu of state or national law.

  Bunker and Sullivan Concentrator destroyed in “Dynamite Express” episode of the Silver Valley’s labor wars, April 29, 1899. Historic Wallace Preservation Society.

  WIDE-OPEN WALLACE

  Some historians have made the argument that prostitution was initially tolerated as a part of mining enterprises because it was central to the economic system. That is, commercial sex kept the miners mining.17 This sentiment provides useful context, but there is also the more obviously pragmatic justification for the initial presence of sex work in historic mining towns like Wallace: “In the reality of the American mining West, a combination of demography and geography brought the moral and immoral cheek to cheek. In early mining camps women were a minority, and frequently the first and most numerous female migrants were prostitutes.”18 Hundreds of women cycled through the Silver Valley’s houses, and turnover rates in the area were high. Most of the women stayed in one town for only six months or less, and of the 105 prostitutes working in Wallace and Wardner during 1908, for example, only 25 were still working there by 1910, even though there were still around 94 total verified sex workers during this time.19

  Although mining towns have earned a reputation for being particularly laissez faire in their approach to sex work, most city councils passed ordinances prohibiting prostitution and gambling.20 Because attempts to control vice elements in frontier western communities usually failed, however, city leaders focused their efforts on regulation, control and taxation instead of prohibition.21 Wallace’s city council minutes from 1895 reveal that early citizens preferred the houses “be removed to some less conspicuous locality” rather than removed entirely, so town leaders introduced an ordinance to license dance halls. Reform would not begin to affect the town seriously until 1903, when a series of articles appearing in the regional newspapers reveal how President Theodore Roosevelt’s visit coincided with a temporary shutdown of the sex industry initiated by Mayor Connor.22

  Bird’s-eye view of Wallace before the 1910 fire, year unknown. The Pacific Hotel is pictured in the lower right. Historic Wallace Preservation Society.

  During the early days, saloonkeepers served as prostitution directories, providing newcomers with services, prices and insider information, such as quality ratings. Much of the available written information about the early mining camp days comes from newspaper sources, but reporters often wrote libelous and wildly exaggerated material, especially when covering prostitutes. In fact, nearly “the only coverage working women received in western newspapers involved accounts of prostitutes’ attempted suicides, arrests, fights, or other escapades.”23 An article appearing in the Wallace Free Press on October 10, 1890, offers a striking example of such sensationalism, reporting an argument between two “angels of the night”: Lulu Dumont stabbed Frankie Dunbar seven times with her stiletto. Dunbar was critically wounded but survived the attack. The fight was over money and happened in the street near Fifth and Pine after a night of working in a parlor house called the Star, one of the city’s most “high-class” establishments.

  Looking south along Sixth Street before the fire of 1890. Historic Wallace Preservation Society.

  Looking southeast along Sixth Street after the fire in 1890. The south fork of the Coeur d’Alene River is in the foreground. Historic Wallace Preservation Society.

  The Star was owned and operated by Gracie Edwards and Jerome B. Smith. They also operated houses in Wardner, which was home to a thriving red-light district at this time. Cynthia Powell, who documented a thorough history of prostitution in the Silver Valley during the early years, wrote:

  The Star catered to a more elite clientele and Edwards emulated larger city parlor houses by furnishing the brothel with lavish fixtures. Her “girls” entertained customers in an environment of relaxed luxury. After-midnight dinners, wine from crystal goblets, and satin spreads and pillow shams on the beds indicated that Edwards knew from experience the ambiance upperclass brothel patrons required.24

  Powell reported that Edwards probably left Wallace around 1903 rather than relocate to the restricted district, where she would have been subject to control by saloon men. Despite this decision, Edwards “knew the value of maintaining discrete [sic] alliances with the powerful men in the district, especially liquor dealers,” as evidenced by the fact that she “raised over twelve hundred dollars within a year” by mortgaging her property to expand operations.25

  Newspaper ad for Gracie Edwards’s high-class parlor house at the corner of Fifth and Pine Streets. From the Wallace Press, December 20, 1890.

  Despite the voyeuristic and sometimes tragic tales that appeared in the local papers, the sex industry offered some women economic opportunity and political influence during the boomtown phase of Wallace’s development. During this time, women who owned or operated brothels were “central figures in the economic life of many early mining towns,” controlling much of the local real estate and using their profits to invest in local business interests and mining operations.26 Revenues to the city and its officials were also significant. On March 18, 1905, the Idaho Press reported a case in which a city judge sued the city of Wallace because he was not paid his three-dollar fee for his share of a monthly fine against whores. The judge counted 352 cases for which he was not paid his fee between June 20, 1904, and March 13, 1905, for an average of about forty women per month.

  Another sensational newspaper account reported that Ione Skeels, also known as “Broncho Liz,” shot her husband, Charles, after she heard he was spending the night with a variety actress. According to stories that appeared in the Wallace Free Press on December 21 and 28, 1889, “Mrs. Skeels armed herself with a pistol and proceeding to the building, enticed her husband from the room by sending word by a messenger boy that he was wanted at his place of business. Skeels when he saw his wife struck her and she put three bullets into him.” It was “a pretty strong case of justifiable homicide,” and Ione was not punished for the murder because the evidence revealed “the deceased was a bad and dangerous man in the community.” An “unusually high percentage” of sex workers in these days had likely turned to prostitution because their family of origin had been “severely disturbed” economically—they “came from families that were not originally destitute; rather, certain conditions had disrupted the entire family’s means of survival.”27 Women like Skeels did what was necessary to make a living, and mining communities were violent, rough places where stabbings and shootings were commonplace.

  Some women in Avenue A did not live in the rooms where they worked, behind the saloons that opened up onto the north side of Cedar Street. Instead, they rented from bar owners on a daily or weekly basis. The rooms they worked out of were called “cribs.” Richard Magnuson related the situation to me in this way:

  There are remnants from the old cribs in the alley behind what used to be the U&I, around the back and to the east of where the Oasis Bordello Museum is now. Back there, you can see a small door-window-doorwindow, which was how the cribs were structured—they were little oneroom places with just a door, a window and a bed. That whole alley used to be lined with cribs, and the women would pay their rent by the day or week to the saloonkeeps. That alley had a gate across it, which you can see in old pictures taken looking east. My father and his brother used to sell newspapers and would fight for who got to sell on the corner by that gate, because the tips were the best there. Back in those days, there were all sorts of newspapers, including ethnic ones, from all countries, like Sweden. The cribs are now in disrepair, but one might still have a doorbell if you look closely.28

  Two men who handled the Avenue A rental
process were the Lieb brothers, who ran the Montana Bar.29 The son of one of the Lieb brothers later became the newspaper editor Wes Lieb, who ran the Wallace Press-Times.30 Dan McInnis, who owned the Lobby Bar in the Arment Building on the corner of Sixth and Cedar, likely profited from a primitive crib rental arrangement as well; he requested that a partition be built around the rear entrance to his building, which opened up onto Avenue A.31 Through the years, McInnis was associated with several disreputable rooming houses or dance halls, both in Wallace and in Burke, including the Arcade and the Owl. Some of the women who rented rooms in the alley lived in places like the Sweets Hotel. Magnuson told me the story of reading a letter written from the Sweets Hotel back in these early days. One of the sex workers had written to her boyfriend, “Business is so good!” but the madam had warned her, “Slow down, you haven’t seen anything yet; just wait until payday.”

  Newspapers reported several black women who were madams or sex workers as well. Even though race relations in the area were intolerant, African American women in Wallace lived in red-light districts, where they often operated laundry facilities and sometimes worked as sex workers as well, Powell explained, adding that “there existed an indisputable demand for black prostitutes during the labor war of 1899, when a black regiment was brought in to quell labor tensions.”32 According to Magnuson, the government chose black soldiers in particular because they were seen as less likely to befriend or sympathize with the miners. Like the white women, black sex workers appeared in the paper most often because of violence or crime. Ella Tolson, “who lived over the Troy Laundry in Wallace’s Pine Street sector,” was reported to have shot Howard B. Johnson, who was “described as ‘the most widely known colored man in Wallace.’”33 Irene Thornton owned a laundry business and the land it occupied in Wardner before moving to Wallace, where she was arrested for “conducting a disorderly house.”34 On March 25, 1893, the Coeur d’Alene Miner reported that “‘a colored woman who live[d] on the opposite side of the street,’ from the disreputable Montana Saloon, witnessed a brutal beating. Her vantage point, according to the newspaper’s description of her Wallace location, was an ‘Avenue A’ crib.”35 In the Silver Valley, black men and women seem to have inhabited roles that were relegated to Chinese immigrants in other western mining communities.