Selling Sex in the Silver Valley

by Dr. Heather Branstetter

  In reality, the mayor appears to have communicated to the business owners that they would merely have to function under the radar. Wallace wasn’t alone in continuing with operations—throughout north Idaho and Shoshone County, towns reached similar arrangements, most likely because they knew the decreased revenue from alcohol licensing fees would dramatically affect the economy. Silver Valley towns made up for the missing income by instituting an unofficial taxation system. The money didn’t go into personal pockets, though; it went back into the community.126 By “licensing the bootleggers, gamblers and sporting houses,” the Mullan mayor would later explain, the city was able to raise money without having to levy taxes on the rest of the townspeople.127 It would have been illogical for Wallace to close down gambling and other vice interests if Kellogg, Mullan and other adjoining towns didn’t do the same. Wallace officials also considered the city’s “desperate need of improvements in bridges and a viaduct to the homes on the steep southern slope of town.”128 Problems were often worked out through extra-legal means. In many instances, the violators were arrested and charged but never prosecuted, as was the case with Anna Watson, who was selling sex and liquor out of the Metropolitan Hotel, which was located on the north side of Cedar Street between Fourth and Fifth Streets.129

  Despite the anti-gambling ordinance, then, speakeasies continued to feature a wide array of choices, with games ranging from penny ante poker to high-stakes card games. Firsthand accounts from men who were alive during this time reveal that during this era, the low-stakes card game panguingue (pronounced “pan-ghee-nee,” often simply called “pan”) became one of the most popular games around.130 As one miner put it: “Panguingue was invented to keep the tinhorns and pimps off the streets. And ah, as a result of that they had a class of people in town…there always was, in a mining camp there always were just as many people who tried to mine the miners.”131

  NORTH IDAHO’S “THREEFOLD CONSPIRACY”

  The Silver Valley, with its abandoned mines and rugged mountain terrain, was a moonshiner’s paradise. Eventually, it would be impossible for federal authorities to ignore the area’s blatant disregard for the law. The resulting conflict would culminate in an episode called the “north Idaho whiskey rebellion.” There are few oral histories about this significant event, which seems to have been forgotten by contemporary Silver Valley residents. The federal government sent in an undercover agent pretending to be a bootlegger looking to get into business. A local bartender told the agent whom to contact for supplies, advised him to “check with the police chief and sheriff when ready to open” and then displayed his wares, which included “bonded Canadian whiskey, moonshine, and Heidelberg beer.”132 One year later, in 1929, federal agents raided and attempted to prove a countywide conspiracy, resulting in a series of eighty-seven grand jury indictments against “soft drink proprietors, prostitutes,” city officials and law enforcement from Wallace, Mullan and Kellogg.133 An article appearing in the Spokesman-Review called Wallace a “modern Sodom,” and the Wallace Press-Times answered that those were “fighting words,” featuring a resolution asserting that more than one hundred businessmen would stop subscribing to Spokane papers and boycott the Spokane businesses that supported them.134 It wasn’t the first time the mining district had been upset with Spokane and its newspapers. During the mining labor wars in 1899, for example, the Mullan Mirror wrote that money from the Silver Valley’s mining district had “made Spokane what it is. Yet the people and prose of that hobo town are ungrateful enough to smite the hand that feeds them.”135

  The Wallace Press-Times described a few of the defendants as “visibly affected” when they were brought into the commissioner’s office, but the majority apparently “laughed and chatted.... Most jovial of all was fur-coated [sex worker] Babe Kelly, who draped herself in a chair, lit a cigarette, and began ‘kidding’ the officers and telling jokes.”136 Silver Valley residents and their lawyers were confident throughout the trial, which revealed the extent to which local government and law enforcement had institutionalized sex work, liquor distribution and gambling. Wallace mayor Herman Rossi unapologetically told the Seattle Star he would take his case all the way to the Supreme Court, because, “Wallace residents ‘knew that the miners demanded a certain amount of license, and they knew that certain conditions would exist, even if they did close their eyes. So they left their eyes open.’”137 During the trial, it was revealed that Mayor Rossi owned a quarter share of the Arment Rooms, as did Wallace city treasurer Charles Keating, who testified that Grace Beatty and later M.A. Davidson “managed the sixteen upper-floor ‘lodging rooms’ for the ‘very reasonable’ sum of $110 a month.”138

  Many of those arrested were convicted for their role in what was called a “threefold conspiracy” to fund city operations through the “licensing of gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging,” but the judge went relatively easy on the sex workers, sentencing most of them to two months of incarceration in local jails.139 On January 1, 1930, the Spokesman-Review reported that Babe Kelly received a four-month sentence in a Kootenai County jail but did not pay a fine; the judge told her, “Too much of your money has been taken away from you for the support of the government already.”140 Judge Webster believed that the women involved were victims of circumstance and chafed at the defense’s claim that there was not a moral issue at the heart of the case. He preached:

  There is nothing in the scale of society that is more loathsome or despicable in the form of a human being than a man who will knowingly accept in whole or in part or live off the earnings of a fallen woman.... And how does accepting the earnings of a prostitute on the part of an individual become decent when it is practiced as a means of supporting a municipality? ...Instead of being willing to share their gain, it ought to be the impulse of every decent man to remove the crown of thorns from their brow. God knows they are hard enough off without taking the money that they degrade their persons and forfeit their souls to get, and surely the time has not come in this great country of ours where a municipality can openly live and exist upon money so filthy as that.... Surely, gentlemen, surely it has not yet come to pass that whole organized municipalities can accept money from these sources and do so brazenly in the name of the welfare of the city and expect any enlightened court to approve it? The welfare of the city! Yes, but what of its moral welfare?141

  The judge argued that in the case of Wallace and Mullan, city officials were essentially pimps profiting from sex workers’ wages in the name of community welfare. Webster shamed the chief of police for making “regular rounds in the houses of prostitution” to collect the “bloody spoils” from “the pitiable women whose fate has brought them there.”142 As he sentenced sex worker Mona McDonald, the judge speculated that she “ought to know what the seamy side of life means and what it leads to and the degradation and the grief that it entails,” urging her to

  find a place in society that will be worthy of you. I would rather be the wife of a respectable miner than to be the bedecked and bejeweled mistress of the finest bedazzled bawdy house in the world, and you will find in it more happiness and certainly more self-respect.143

  Ultimately, however, the Ninth Circuit court disagreed with the jury and Judge Webster, reversing most of the original verdicts and ordering new trials for the defendants who appealed their cases. The circuit court called the case “an interesting chapter in the history of vice and crime” because the defendants “without doubt” should have been guilty, but the convictions couldn’t be sustained because there was “not a particle of evidence in the record tending even remotely to establish or prove any such conspiracy.”144 The trials ended up demonstrating that “Shoshone County law enforcement was graft-free, allowing them to maintain control and respect of the citizenry” despite the fact that they were ignoring the law.145 Madam Dolly Summers, for example, asserted that she willingly paid the fee for police protection in case “anybody started a rough house in her place,” and city clerk L.L. Leighty testified that “ther
e was no graft and no secrecy involved, as the collections were a matter of public record.”146 In other words, because county residents trusted they were not taking payoffs and pocketing bribes in an obviously corrupt manner, the unofficial fee system for regulating vice enabled Shoshone County officials to more effectively enforce local preferences about legal and community priorities.

  DEPRESSION ERA

  The Depression affected the mines and all of the industries associated with them, including prostitution. During this era, “it was very difficult. Very, very difficult,” miner Maidell Clemets lamented during a 1979 oral history interview, noting that even though books were written about how the Depression affected rich people and those who had invested in Wall Street, those books

  never told of the troubles and misfortunes of the mining camps, and the common ordinary small communities.... The bubble broke all right. It was about in the latter part of October, around the 29th [of 1929].... They came down and laid off all the single men. Those with families, they kept.147

  Residents of Wallace did what they could to get by in the rugged landscape, using the old logs that had been burned in the 1910 fire for warming their houses.148 Prostitution in Wallace and Wardner continued to “run at a very orderly fashion,” with the women having to get a license at city hall, pay a fee each month and submit to “medical inspection every week.” Wallace “had a lot of prostitution there. That’s right. It was wide open. Even held on through the ’30s there were prostitutes in the community,” Clemets explained.149

  According to Mary White Gordon’s unpublished autobiographical narrative, Wallace was a very condensed town of about 2,800 people in those years. Gordon knew everyone, except in one district, which had a high fence around some of the buildings. This section of town was quiet and unnoticed, she explained: “I don’t remember at all how I eventually found out that this was a thriving red-light district and had steady business, but when it was payday at the mines the place was really jumping.”150 One madam used to walk by Gordon’s house on sunny afternoons

  wearing beautiful clothes and big willow plumes in her hat. Jack and I thought she was lovely, but she never came to our house or to any of the houses of our friends. She was very pleasant and friendly and we would try to say something to make her smile, because she had a beautiful diamond flashing in her front tooth.151

  Lead Creek Derby, around 1940, from the hill northwest of town, looking southeast. The restricted district was to the right of the river and left of the line of cars. Many houses had been demolished by this time. Historic Wallace Preservation Society.

  One of the madams at the Oasis, which was possibly called the Club Rooms during this time, was named Helen Rose. It was said that people driving in from out of town would mistake the brothel for a legitimate place to stay because of the “Rooms” sign. When this happened, “Rose supposedly took pity on a few of them and would send them to the café next door and spring for a meal.”152

  During this time, the brothels were partially under the purview of the health officer and the Street and Alley Committee. Many of the businesses in the restricted district became dilapidated, and a number of them were torn down at the recommendation of the Health and Sanitation Committee. In August 1931, for example, the committee, along with the fire chief and chief of police, recommended to the city council that the brick building on Avenue A owned by Madam Anna Brass, alias Mrs. Julius Brass, should be torn down.153 The committee explained that the property “is so dilapidated and/or is in such condition so as to menace the public health and/or safety of persons and/or property on account of increased fire hazard and/or otherwise.” The council ordered Anna Brass to have the building removed within ten days, or else the city would demolish it for her and tax her for the cost. The city drew the same conclusions regarding the “Frank Flood Estate,” which was also on Avenue A and appears to have been a brothel.

  A map of the brothels still standing by the end of the Depression era. Adapted from Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps.

  Kelly Building—the original Lux Rooms was on the second floor, with the entrance in “Kelly’s Alley.” Historic Wallace Preservation Society.

  After 1933, when the town’s taverns were once again able to operate openly, bar owners and madams were required to buy bonds at $250.00 apiece, along with a fee of $6.25, for the privilege of selling beer again.154 Slot machines appeared in about the 1930s, which was when “people really went to gambling.”155 Taxing prostitution, gambling and liquor continued to be a major source of municipal revenue. Fire insurance maps reveal the shifts in the restricted district during this time, when prostitution consolidated into five brothels.

  PART II

  SEX WORK IN WALLACE

  DURING AND AFTER

  WORLD WAR II

  4

  The Madam Next Door

  During World War II, women finally regained control over the commercial sex industry in the Silver Valley, funded in large part by men at nearby military bases. The economy was thriving once again, and the invention of penicillin meant that most sexually transmitted infections could be treated with a course of antibiotics. These events led to a renaissance of sorts in the business; the houses did very well after the war ended, and so this time was more or less the post–pioneer era heyday for sex work in Wallace. Even though the town was officially off-limits to the military during the war, sailors from Farragut Naval Base and airmen from Fairchild Air Force Base found clever ways to sneak around the rules. The prohibition against visiting Wallace during leave continued through the years, and men who were in the military during the 1960s and ’70s explained how the list of cities military men were not allowed to visit backfired in one key way: “They were telling us exactly where we could go to have fun.”156

  Women came to work in the Silver Valley’s houses seeking wages comparable to what they’d made working in wartime industries. They rotated into and out of town from mining and logging towns in Nevada, Montana, California, Oregon, Utah and Washington. Women who called themselves Dolores Arnold and Loma Delmonte came to Wallace during this time, and together with Ginger Murphy, who arrived around 1963, they brought the image of “class” to Wallace’s brothels, despite Loma’s reputation for chewing out misbehaving customers and teenage-boy pranksters with a stunning array of expletives.157 It was said that these madams “ran a tight ship,” and they cultivated a reputation for discretion and civic contribution.

  TABLE 3: BROTHELS, LOCATIONS AND PROPRIETORS, 1947–91

  There were five houses active from the 1940s through the late 1970s, which was when the Arment shut down, leaving four houses in operation until 1986 or 1987, when Dolores finally closed her two houses. The Oasis continued until 1988 and the U&I Rooms lasted until 1991. Dolores ran the Lux, while Loma managed the Jade, which later turned into the Luxette under Dolores’s management. All of the houses were located on the second floors of their buildings. The Arment was above the Silver Corner at 601½ Cedar Street. Ginger managed the Oasis at 605½ Cedar, and the Western at 611½ Cedar turned into the Jade Rooms in 1953 and then the Luxette when Loma left town in 1967. Lee Martin ran the U&I Rooms at 613½ Cedar, and in later years, she began to leave more of the management responsibilities to Tanya, who arrived in Wallace around 1985.

  The original Lux was the only house not located on the north side of Cedar Street between Sixth and Seventh. It was located at 212½ Sixth Street with the entrance in Kelly’s Alley. Then in 1977, when the State of Idaho bought the building with the intent to demolish it to make room for the freeway, Dolores’s flagship house moved to replace the Arment. The four Cedar Street brothels featured both front and back entrances—the front doors were used most often by out-of-towners while local patrons more often used the back doors. The back-door access stairs rose up from the area of the former restricted district once known as “Avenue A” but often called “Chicken Shit Alley” during this time because it featured a more discreet entrance. Most of the houses had business signs until a temporary
shutdown in 1973, when the signs were replaced with notices that said, “We’re closed—beat it.”158 Signs with the houses’ names never went back up after that. This chapter documents how the sex industry was balanced with the interests and identity of the community from the Second World War until the time when the houses closed. It also discusses the standardized practices of the houses and closes with a spotlight on Dolores’s impact.

  Post–World War II houses. Pictures altered from actual signs or text from calendars, matchbooks and similar; photos and design by Heather Branstetter.

  “YOU DON’T HAVE TO OBEY THE LAWS,

  BUT YOU DO HAVE TO FOLLOW THE RULES”

  Almost every person I talked to during my oral history interviews repeated phrases like “The houses offered relief for single miners and kept local women from getting raped,” “The women were checked out by the doctors and didn’t solicit around town or on the streets” and, especially, “The houses gave so much back to the community.” After Dolores expanded her operations with the Luxette, people used to say, “It’s even become corporate.”159 Pithy puns and jokes consisting only of a single punch line, both innocent and suggestive, were repeated freely in Wallace. For example, many people related versions of a clever story about bar owners beneath the houses complaining, “Business is great, but there’s too much fucking overhead.”160 Another man told me about running into the father of his girlfriend at the time as he was coming back down the stairs on his way out the door. His apprehension quickly dissolved when the father said to him, “Boy, am I glad to see you here.”161 Men who were grocery boys back in the days love to tell stories about their jobs delivering to the houses, which were known for handing out generous tips.