The Gem Variety Theater was overflowing with curious clientele, all there to see eight-year-old performer Mary A. McDonald, better known as Baby McDonald. It was the summer of 1877, and the popular, diminutive star was sharing the stage with her father James, the originator of skate and pedestal dancing. Miners, business owners, their families, ladies, and children filled every available seat and when the talent alighted from the wings to begin their act, the audience erupted in applause.
Al Swearingen, the owner of the theater, a short, husky, fiendish looking man with greasy, black hair and a black, slicked down mustache, watched the excitement unfold from behind a nearby bar. His taurine eyes glittered at the sight of the number of people in his establishment. A sold-out crowd meant a substantial profit for the evening. Baby McDonald was a great draw and the amusement-loving people of the Black Hills responded liberally to the petite attraction.
Given the variety of ticket buyers enjoying the show, a passerby might believe there was nothing objectional about the Gem. Like Swearingen, in which the only agreeable thing about him was the tailor-made, three-piece suits he wore, the least offensive activity at the theater was the innocent song and dance routine presented by the little girl on stage.
The second floor of the building was reserved for Swearingen’s stable of prostitutes. Men from every occupation visited the women who worked there. Some of those women were willing participants and others were lured into the trade, having traveled to the Black Hills on the pretense of being an actress at the Gem Variety Theater. Swearingen frequently visited major East Coast locations looking for female entertainers. Aspiring actresses, singers, and dancers enthusiastically responded to the call and when they arrived in Deadwood, they learned there were no jobs performing on stage. Void of prospects and lacking the funds to return home, the desperate women succumbed to working for Swearingen in his brothel.
Born in Mahaska County, Iowa, on July 8. 1845, entrepreneur Ellis Alfred Swearingen arrived in Deadwood in May 1876 with his wife Nettie and an unnamed young man. The trio relocated to the town from Custer City with the news that gold had been discovered. Swearingen operated a house of ill repute in Custer City with fourteen prostitutes in his employ. Two of those professionals were his wife and the man who accompanied him to Deadwood Gulch.
To learn more about Swearingen and the history of Deadwood’s brothels read An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos. Join me at the Brothel Deadwood Museum on Sunday, September 24 from 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. for a tour of the brothel and stories of the many raids on the houses of ill repute in the Black Hills.
