Journal Notes

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Jessie Hayman turned the flame down in the gas lamp sitting on a giant fireplace mantle in the parlor of her well-known brothel. Apart from the lit, red lantern hanging off the porch, the room was blanketed in darkness. It was approaching four in the morning and all of the home’s boarders were settled in their rooms with their overnight guests. Madam Hayman’s palatial bordello was one of the most popular businesses in San Francisco in 1906. Thirty attractive women of various ages and nationalities worked for Jessie. The income earned from the stable of employees was more than $4,000 a night. Consequently, Jessie was one of the wealthiest madams in the city.

As Jessie went about the routine of closing up shop, a heavy knock on the front door startled her. It was too late for callers but not out of the realm of possibility. As she made her way to the foyer she removed a pistol from a pocket of her dress. She cocked the gun just as she opened the door and raised it even with the face of an overweight man standing opposite her. The stunned man threw his hands up and took a step back. “If you’re a gentleman caller who got a late start, please forgive me,” Jessie stated firmly. “But if you’ve come to rob the place you’ve got to get past me first.”

After apologizing for the intrusion and assuring Jessie that he was merely interested in the company of one of her ladies, she let the frazzled man inside. Before Jessie had an opportunity to ask about his preferences he hurried off up the stairs. He seemed to know exactly where he was going. “Guess he’s been here before,” she said aloud to herself. “Wouldn’t do to shoot a regular,” she added playfully.

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The light from a full October moon filtered through the open window beside Rose Ellis’s bed. The eighty-four-year-old woman stared thoughtfully into the night sky then closed her eyes in a half-hearted attempt to block out the peaceful image. Tears rolled off her tormented face onto the pillow underneath her head. The evening was calm and still, but her emotions were not. The sheets and blankets that once neatly covered her bed were crumpled and some were lying on the floor. Rose was restless, troubled. “Don‘t worry,” she whispered to herself, “I know what must be done.”

The Belmont Rest Home in San Francisco where Rose had just moved was a sparsely decorated, sterile environment—a stark contrast to the parlor houses she had furnished and managed in her younger years. Rose’s eighty-two-year-old sister, Buena, was lying in a bed a few feet away from her. Buena had lived with Rose her entire life. She wasn’t any more accustomed to her homogenized surroundings than Rose, but she had managed to fall asleep. Rose was grateful for that. Buena was developmentally disabled and seemed least harassed by the challenges of life when she slept.

As Rose watched her sister’s slow, steady breathing she thought back to the promise she had made her father to take care of Buena. On November 11, 1918, news that the Ellis girls’ father had died sent Buena into shock. Doctors performed a lobotomy on the distressed woman, which left her brain damaged. Rose pledged to care for her only living relative for the rest of her life.

Old age, lack of funds and limited options forced Rose to commit herself and Buena to the rest home. Although it was not an ideal situation, Rose was resigned to the living conditions. When doctors informed her that she had little time to live she decided to reevaluate the arrangement. The alternative she arrived at was extreme but necessary. It weighed heavily on her heart.

Lifting herself out of her bed, Rose shuffled over to a large bureau and slowly opened the top drawer. She removed a .38 caliber, nickel-plated revolver hidden under a stack of camisoles. She opened the gun and loaded two bullets into the chamber. Taking a deep breath she made her way to Buena’s bed, knelt down and kissed her on the cheek. Using all the strength in both her aged hands she pulled the hammer back and held the weapon to her sister’s ear. A shot rang out and Buena was gone.

Tears streamed down Rose’s face as she cocked the gun again and pressed it to her own temple. “See you soon, my darling sister,” she whispered to Buena’s lifeless form. The final shot was fired. Rose fell in a heap on the floor, the smoking gun still clutched in her hand.

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A parade of horse-drawn carriages deposited fashionably dressed San Francisco citizens at the entrance of the Tivoli Theatre. A handsome couple, holding hands and cooing as young lovers do, emerged from one of the vehicles. A figure across the street, hidden in the shadows of an alleyway, eyed the pair intently. Once the couple entered the building, Tessie Wall stepped out of the darkness into the subdued light of a row of gas lamps lining the busy thoroughfare. Tears streamed down the svelte blonde’s face. The pain of seeing the man she loved with another woman was unbearable.

Several hours before, Tessie and her ex-husband, Frank Daroux, entertained passersby with a robust argument over the other woman in his life. After accusing the man of being a liar and a thief, Tessie begged him for another chance and promised to make him forget anyone else with whom he was involved. Frank angrily warned Tessie that if she started anything he would put her “so far away that no one would find her.”

The words he had said to her played over and over again in her head. “You’ve got my husband,” she mumbled to herself. “And you’ll get yours someday. It’s not right.” She choked back a torrent of tears, reached into her handbag, and removed a silver-plated revolver. Hiding the weapon in the folds of her dress, she stepped back into the dark alleyway and waited.

It wasn’t long until Frank walked out of the theatre, alone. Standing on the steps of the building, he lit up a cigar and cast a glance into the night sky. Preoccupied with the view of the stars, Frank did not see Tessie hurry across the street and race over to him. Before he realized what was happening, Tessie pointed the gun at his chest and fired. As Frank fell backwards, he grabbed hold of the rim of a nearby stage. Tessie unloaded two more shots into his upper body. Frank collapsed in a bloody heap.

Tessie stood over his near lifeless frame, sobbing. When the police arrived, she was kneeling beside Frank, the gun still clutched in her hand. When asked why she opened fire on him, she wailed, “I shot him ‘cause I love him, God damn him!”

Tessie Wall was one of the Barbary Coast’s most popular madams. Since entering the business in 1898, her life had been mired in controversy. Born on May 26, 1869, she was one of ten children. Her mother, who died at the age of forty-four, named her chubby, ash-blond daughter Teresa Susan Donahue. Her father, Eugene, was a dock worker and spent a considerable amount of time away from home. Teresa and her brothers and sisters took care of themselves. By the time she turned thirteen, Teresa, or Tessie as she was referred to by friends and family, had developed into a beautiful, curvaceous young woman. She turned heads everywhere she went in the Mission District where she lived.

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A tall, hump-shouldered man with gray, bushy hair and a hangdog look on his long, lumpy face pulled a stack of chips from the middle of the poker table toward him. Minnie Smith, the gambler who had dealt the winning hand, scowled at the player as he collected his earnings. “You’re sure packin’ a heavy load of luck, friend,” Minnie said in a low, clipped tone.

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” the man replied. “You may be right at that,” Minnie snapped back. She pushed back from the table a bit and eyed the bullwhip curled in her lap. The man gave her a sly grin, “You’re not sore about losing?” he asked. “No,” Minnie responded calmly. “I get mighty sore about cheating though.” A tense silence filled the air as Minnie and the gambler stared down each other.

In the split second it took the man to jump up and reach for his gun, Minnie had snapped her whip and disarmed him. In the process of jerking the weapon out of his hand, a breastplate holdout that had been tucked inside his jacket sleeve dropped onto the floor. The man looked on in horror as the face cards attached to the hidden pocket scattered around him.

“I hate a cheat,” Minnie snarled. All eyes were on the dealer as she reared back and let the whip fly. After a few painful strikes, the man dropped to his knees and desperately tried to find cover from the continued beating. Minnie was relentless and finally had to be subdued by the other card players around her. The gambler was helped off the floor and escorted to the town doctor.

That kind of violent exchange wasn’t unusual in the rowdy railroad town of Colorado City, Colorado, in 1887. What made the event unique, however, was that a woman was the aggressor. The public display further enhanced the quick-tempered reputation of the madam and sometimes gambler, Minnie Smith. There were very few in and around the area that hadn’t heard of her.

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The cold, gray January sky above Virginia City, Nevada, in 1867 unleashed a torrent of sleet on a slow-moving funeral procession traveling along the main thoroughfare of town. Several members of the volunteer fire department, Virginia Engine Company Number One, were first in a long line of mourners following a horse drawn carriage transporting the body of soiled dove Julia Bulette. Playing “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” the Nevada militia band shuffled behind the hearse. Black wreaths and streamers hung from the balconies of the buildings along the route which the remains of the beloved thirty-five-year-old woman were escorted. Miners who knew Julia wept openly. Out of respect for the deceased woman, all the saloons were closed. Plummeting temperatures and icy winds eventually drove most funeral-goers inside their homes and businesses before Julia was lowered into the ground.

Julia Bulette was murdered on January 19, 1867, at 11:30 in the evening in her home on North D Street in Virginia City. The fair but frail prostitute told her neighbor and best friend Gertrude Holmes she was expecting company but did not specify whom the company might be. Twelve hours later Gertrude discovered Julia’s lifeless body in bed. She had been beaten and strangled. Gertrude told the authorities that Julia was lying in the center of the bed with the blankets pulled over her head and that the sheets under her frame were smooth. She told the police that it appeared as though no one had ever been in the bed with Julia.

The authorities believed the scene had been staged. Marks on Julia’s body and tears on the pillow used to smother her indicated she struggled with her attacker. The murderer then set the room to look as though nothing was out of the ordinary. He covered Julia’s body in such a way that, at a passing glance, she would merely appear to be asleep. It had fooled the handyman she had employed to come in and build a fire for her each day. When the gentleman entered Julia’s home at eleven in the morning, he believed she was sleeping. He explained to law enforcement officers that he was quiet as he went about his work and left when the job was done. A search of the modest home Julia rented revealed that many of her possessions were missing. The citizens of Virginia City were outraged by the crime.

Julia Bulette was born in London, England, in 1832. She arrived in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1863. Men in the bustling, silver mining community supported several sporting women, and Julia was no exception. She was an independent contractor. She did not work as a madam of a house of ill repute managing other women in the trade. She had a few regular customers including Thomas Peasley. Peasley owned a local saloon and was known to be Julia’s favorite paramour. In addition to running a business, Peasley was a volunteer firefighter. Julia’s interest in the Virginia Engine Company Number One began with him. She supported them monetarily when she could and cheered them on whenever they were called to a job. In recognition of her service, she was presented with a handsome feminine rendition of a fireman’s uniform. It consisted of a fireman’s shield, front shirt, belt, and helmet embossed with the insignia of Virginia Engine Company Number One. Julia was the only woman who was an honorary member of the volunteer force.

To learn more about soiled doves like Julia Bulette read

An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos

An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos is a top recommendation for American history library collections interested in 19th century events in general and South Dakota history in particular.

It narrows the focus to South Dakota’s bordellos and the madams who operated them, using the historical novel format to capture real-life events that shaped the culture and nature of the small town of Deadwood, South Dakota. This town was burned to the ground, yet its survivors persisted against all odds, facing hardships and abuse during battles the town’s women fought.

An Open Secret‘s candid look at the profession of prostitution during these times and the impact it held on men and women’s lives embraces historical fact without glorifying it. This choice brings the motivations, struggles, and people of the town to life through the eyes and experiences of madams who fostered reputations as tough but fair managers. Readers will be surprised to note their efforts didn’t ruin young girls, but actually supported them in different ways.

Rowdy patrons, murders, and gamblers all come to life as Chris Enss and Deadwood History, Inc. explores the world of Deadwood and its people, adding vintage photos that bring this milieu to life.

The choice of pairing historical fiction’s action and vivid descriptions with facts embracing Deadwood’s history and culture results in a special brand of regional history that will prove surprisingly accessible to a wide audience, from history readers to those who enjoy 19th century settings and rollicking good stories based on vivid characters and events.

Libraries strong in historical novels that center on 19th century American history will find An Open Secret‘s powerfully compelling examination of prostitution, bordellos, and the madams who ran them to be an involving, enlightening experience that is highly recommended for book club discussion groups, as well.

Midwest Book Review

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Prostitutes, by nature of their profession, often find themselves in trouble with the law. It was not uncommon for a nineteenth-century harlot to be accused of blackmail, theft, or even murder. Such was the case of a soiled dove in northern California. The curious criminal proceedings were held before Justice John Anderson in 1852, and an article in an August edition of the Union Times attempted to unravel the mystery for its readers:

 “A public woman, popularly known as “Old Harriet,” kept a saloon on Broad Street in Nevada City, overlooking Deer Creek. She had a man who kept bar for her and did any necessary fighting. Opposite her establishment was a dance house. A man named Pat Berry was mining on the opposite side of Deer Creek at Gold Run. Owing to a recent freshet there were no bridges at the foot of the town, but a tree had been cleared of limbs and felled across it, over which foot passengers made their way. The stream was still high and raged among the naked boulders and logs which were then innocent of tailings.

“On Saturday Berry came over to town, having made some money during the week, and rigged himself out with a new outfit. He spent the evening until late at the dance house and then went over to Old Harriet’s place, which was the last ever seen of him alive.

“In the course of the night a man in the neighborhood heard what he took to be a cry of “murder,” but he may have been mistaken. Two or three days after, about six miles below Nevada City, in an eddy in the creek, Berry’s body was found, completely naked. On the forehead was a large, extravagated wound, the blood discoloration proving that this wound was given while the person was alive. Finding him in this condition led to a search for previous traces of him; and it was discovered that he had spent the evening at the dance house, and then gone to Old Harriet’s, where all further traces of him were lost.”

Harriet and her fighting man were arrested and charged before the justice with murder. Other victims were discovered when authorities further investigated the incident. But was Madam Harriet guilty?

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A grim-faced bartender led a pair of sheriff’s deputies up the stairs of Deadwood’s Lone Star Saloon to the two lifeless bodies sprawled on the floor. One of the deceased individuals was a gambler named Kitty LeRoy, and the other was her estranged husband, Sam Curley.

The quiet expression on Kitty’s face gave no indication that her death had been a violent one. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed and, if not for the bullet hole in her chest, would simply have looked as though she were sleeping. Sam’s dead form was a mass of blood and tissue. He was lying face first with pieces of his skull protruding from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In his right hand he still held the pistol that brought about the tragic scene.

For those townspeople who knew the flamboyant twenty-eight-year-old Leroy, her furious demise did not come as a surprise. She was voluptuous beauty who used her striking good looks to take advantage of infatuated men who believed her charm and talent surpassed any they’d ever known.

Nothing is known of her early years: where and when she was born, who her parents and siblings were, or what she was like as a child. The earliest historical account of the entertainer, card player and sometime soiled dove lists her as a dancer in Dallas, Texas, in 1875. She was a regular performer at Johnny Thompson’s Variety Theatre. She had dark, striking features, brown, curly hair, and a trim, shapely figure. She dressed in elaborate gypsy-style garments and always wore a pair of spectacular diamond earrings.

Kitty’s nightly performances attracted many cowboys and trail hands. She received standing ovations after every jig and shouts from the audience for an encore. The one thing Kitty was better at than dancing was gambling. She was a savvy faro dealer and poker player. Men fought one another—sometimes to death—for a chance to sit opposite her and play a game or two.

In early 1876, after becoming romantically involved with a persistent saloon keeper, Kitty decided to leave Texas and travel with her lover to San Francisco. Their stay in Northern California was brief. Kitty did not find the area to be as exciting as she had heard it had been during the Gold Rush. To earn the thousands she hoped as an entertainer and gambler she needed to be in a place where new gold was being pulled out of the streams and hills. California’s findings were old and nearly played out. Kitty boarded a stage alone and headed for a new gold boom town in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

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Libby Thompson twirled gracefully around the dance floor of the Sweetwater Saloon in Sweetwater, Texas. A banjo and piano player performed a clumsy rendition of the house favorite, “Sweet Betsy from Pike.” Libby made a valiant effort to match her talent with the musician’s limited skills. The rough crowd around her was not interested in the out-of-tune playing; their eyes were fixed on the billowing folds of her flaming red costume. The rowdy men hoped to catch a peek at Libby’s shapely, bare legs underneath the yards of fabric on her skirt. Libby was careful to only let them see enough to keep them interested.

Many of the cowboy customers were spattered with alkali dust, grease, or plain dirt. They stretched their eager unkempt hands out to touch Libby as she pranced by, but she managed to avoid all contact. At the end of the performance, she was showered with applause, cheers, and requests to see more. Libby was not in an obliging mood. She smiled, bowed, and hurried past the enthusiastic audience as she made her way to the bar for a drink.

A surly bartender served her a glass of apple whiskey, and she headed off to the back of the room with her beverage. When she wasn’t entertaining patrons, Libby could be found at her usual corner spot by the stairs. A large, purple, velvet chair waited for her there along with her pets, a pair of prairie dogs. As Libby walked through the mass of people to her spot, she saw three grimy, bearded men surrounding her seat. One of the inebriated cowhands was poking at her animals with a long stick.

“Boys, I’d thank you kindly to stop that,” she warned the unruly trio. The men turned to see who was speaking, then broke into a hearty laugh once they saw her. Ignoring the dancer, they resumed their harassment of the small dogs. The animals batted the stick back as it neared them, and each time the men would erupt with laughter.

Libby watched the three men for a few moments then slowly reached into her drawstring purse and removed a pistol. Pointing the gun at the men, she said, “Don’t make me ask you again.” The drunken cowhands turned to face Libby, and she aimed her pistol at the head of the man with the stick. Laughing, the man told her to “go to hell.” “I’m on my way,” she responded, pulling the hammer back on the gun. “But I don’t mind sending you there first so you can warn them,” she added. The cowboy dropped the stick, and he and his friends backed away from Libby’s chair. One by one they staggered out of the saloon. Libby put the gun back into her purse, scooped up her frightened pets, scratched their heads, and kissed them repeatedly.

To learn more about women like Libby Thompson, better known as Squirrel Tooth Alice, read

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Rosa May sat beside the bed of a dying miner and wiped the sweat off his feverish brow.  She looked around his rustic, one-room cabin, past the sparse furnishings, and fixed her eyes on a tattered photograph of an elderly man and woman.  “Those are my folks,” the man weakly told her.  “They’re in Marshall County, Illinois.  Where are your folks?”

The question stunned Rosa.  No one ever asked about such things.  No one ever asked her much at all.  Conversation wasn’t what men were looking for when they did business with her.  Rosa glanced out the window at a couple of respectable, well-dressed women.  They watched her through the clouded glass, pointed, and whispered.  She knew what they were saying without hearing it.

Rosa was just one of a handful of “sporting women” living in Bodie, California, in 1900 and she knew what people thought of her.  It used to bother her years ago, but not now.  It was an occupational hazard she’d learned to live with.

“Don’t you have people anywhere?” the miner asked.  Rosa dabbed the man’s head with a cloth and smiled.  “I don’t know anymore,” she answered.  “If I did have, they’d be back in Pennsylvania.”

Rosa’s parents were Irish – hard, strict people.  Rosa had dreamed of the day she would be out of their puritanical household.  She had left home in 1871, at the age of sixteen and soon found there weren’t many opportunities for a poor, petite, uneducated girl with brown eyes and dark, curly hair.  She ended up in New York, hungry, homeless, and eager to take any job offered.  The job offered was prostitution and five years later she came west with other women of her trade, hoping to make a fortune off the gold and silver miners.

Prostitution was the single largest occupation for women in the West.  Rosa hoped to secure a position at a posh brothel with crystal chandeliers, velvet curtains, and flowing champagne.  The madams who ran such places were good to their girls.  They paid them a regular salary, taught them about makeup, manners, and how to dress, and they only had to entertain a few men a night.  If a high-class brothel wasn’t available, Rosa could take a job in a second-class house and work for a percentage of the profits, turning as many tricks as she could each night.  If all failed, she could be a street walker or rent a “crib” at a boardinghouse.  Cribs, tiny, windowless chambers, had oilcloths draped across the foot of the bed for customers in too big of a hurry to take off their boots.

Rosa May arrived in Virginia City, Nevada in 1875 and went to work for a madam known as Cad Thompson.  Cad was a widow who ran several parlor houses in town, including a three-story, brick structure called the “Brick House.”  Cad and Rosa became fast friends, confiding in one another and talking about meeting their Prince Charming.  “Whores dream of falling in love, too,” Cad frequently told Rosa.

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An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos