Journal Notes

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

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.

To learn about Rosa May read

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

Meet the Kellys is on the rise!

Amazon reports it’s #4 in Crime & Criminal Biographies.

#9 in United States Biographies.

#26 in United States History. 

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

The discovery of gold in the southern Black Hills in 1874 set off one of the great gold rushes in America. In 1876, miners moved into the northern Black Hills. That’s where they came across a gulch full of dead trees and a creek full of gold and Deadwood was born. Practically overnight, the tiny gold camp boomed into a town that played by its own rules and attracted outlaws, gamblers, and gunslingers along with the gold seekers.

Deadwood was comprised mostly of single men. In the beginning the ratio of men to women was as high as 8 to 1. The lack of affordable housing, the hostile environment, the high cost of travel, and the expense of living in Deadwood prevented many men from bringing their wives, girlfriends, and families to the growing town. Hordes of prostitutes and madams came to Deadwood to capitalize on the lack of women. By the mid-1880s, there were more than a hundred brothels in the mining community.

One of the most notorious cat houses in Deadwood was owned and operated by Al Swearengen. Swearengen was an entertainment entrepreneur who opened a house of ill-repute shortly after he arrived in town in the spring of 1876. Initially known as The Gem, the brothel was host to several well-known soiled doves of the Old West from Eleanora Dumont to Kitty LeRoy.

Among the many madams who ran other cat houses in and around Deadwood were Poker Alice Tubbs, Mert O’Hara, and Gertrude Bell. The names of some of the most popular brothels in Deadwood Gulch were the Shy-Ann Room, Fern’s Place, The Cozy Room, the Beige Door, and the Shasta Room. After more than a hundred years of continual operation, the brothels in Deadwood were forced to close in 1980.

The brothels in Deadwood were raided numerous times during their 103-year existence. The Shasta Room located at 610 ½ Main Street was raided by authorities nine times between 1936 and 1964. Some of the madams were charged with the illegal sale of liquor and some with disturbing the peace. On January 11, 1939, a customer named Lodell Jay was taken into custody and charged with assault and battery after beating Madam Reid and creating a disturbance at the brothel.

To learn more about busts at the brothels read An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood’s Most Notorious Bordellos. Visit www.chrisenss.com for more information. An Open Secret is available everywhere books are sold, on Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, and at the Brothel Deadwood in Deadwood.

Enter now to win a copy of

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

Alice Ivers studying a winning hand

Madam Alice Ivers

Deadwood was a rough and tumble gaming town not fit for a fine English lady. But that’s exactly where Ms. Alice Ivers found herself. Widowed and broke, this lady began playing poker to support herself. Nicknamed “Poker Alice,” she became a cigar-smoking, straight-faced, gambler who very rarely lost. She was so legendary that men came from all around just for the chance to beat her—but few of them did.

Reportedly, her favorite saying was “Praise the Lord and place your bets. I’ll take your money with no regrets.” She met and married a local Deadwood man and had seven children, but she never gave up the game of poker and used her winnings to help support the family. In her later years, Alice claimed she won over $250,000 at the gaming tables – but never cheated. Poker Alice died in 1930 and is buried in Sturgis, SD.

Madam Dora DuFran

Though most “sporting girls” who worked in  Deadwood remain nameless, others, such as Madame Dora DuFran, were more notable. An immediate success once she arrived in Deadwood, she continued to build her business until she soon had “branch” houses in Sturgis, Rapid City, and Belle Fourche.

Born in England, Dora eventually immigrated to  Nebraska with her parents. A good-looking girl in her youth, she arrived in Rapid City as Amy Helen Dorothy Bolshow and began working as a dancehall girl. However, by the time the gold rush was on in Deadwood, she had obviously “promoted” herself to a full-scale madam.

Madam Mollie Johnson

Born in Alabama in 1853. She was twenty-five years old when she opened her house of ill repute in Deadwood on Sherman Street. She was known as the “Queen of the Blondes.” All the women who worked for her had golden hair and pleasing figures. In addition to being prostitutes, they were also entertainers. Some were balladists, and some were dancers. Mollie was a shadow dancer. She performed wearing little or no clothing, but patrons could only see her shadow projected on a screen by a bright light. Advertisements to attend parties in which Mollie would appear were posted regularly in newspapers throughout the Black Hills, and people flocked to the bordello to see her.

Madam May Brown

Born Anna Piergue on December 2, 1859, in Saxony, Germany, she was a precocious child who enjoyed spending time with her five brothers and four sisters and possessed a talent for painting. She ended up in Deadwood in 1884 and was hired at a brothel. She changed her name to May Brown and by 1885 was running her own house.

In addition to operating a house of ill repute in Deadwood and Rapid City, May also funded train robberies. She was found guilty of her crimes in December 1888 and sentenced to fifteen years hard labor at the territorial penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

Madam Pam Holliday

The last madam in Deadwood. She opened a bordello called the Frontier Rooms, later renamed the Purple Door. Between five and seven girls, ranging in ages from twenty-one to forty, were regularly in her employ.

The state shut down the Purple Door in June 1980. She went to prison for tax evasion in 1982 and was released in 1986. She then moved to Minnesota to be near her daughter and grandchildren. She died of natural causes on July 25, 2003, at the Hospice Facility in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. She was seventy-two years old when she passed away.

To learn more about the madams who worked in Deadwood read An Open Secret: The Story of Deadwood Most Notorious. 

Visit the Brothel Deadwood September 26 and 27 from 11 A.M. to 6 P.M. to hear a presentation about the history of soiled doves in the Black Hills.

Enter now to win a copy of

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

Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake) Gunsmoke

Kate Elder (Linda Darnell)  My Darling Clementine

Stella  (Linda Hunt)  Silverado

Goldie (Marie Winsor) Support Your Local Gunfighter

Dora DuFran  (Angelica Houston)  Buffalo Girls

Belle Watling (Ona Munson) Gone With the Wind

Frenchy  (Marlene Dietrich)  Destry Rides Again

Joanie Stubbs  (Kim Dickens) Deadwood

Kate Elder  (Jo Ann Fleet) Gunfight at the OK Corral

Constance Miller (Julie Christie) McCabe & Mrs. Miller

Women in that line of work in Deadwood from 1876 to 1980 will be the topic of discussion at the Brothel Deadwood on September 26 and 27 from 11 A.M. to 6 P.M.

To learn more about the history of the trade read

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

Enter now to win a copy of

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

Ottoman and Johanne Gotsch never knew what led their daughter Anna to a life of prostitution in the Black Hills. Born on December 2, 1859, in Saxony, Germany, she was a precocious child who enjoyed spending time with her five brothers and four sisters and possessed a talent for painting. The Gotsch family moved to America when Anna was four years old, and they settled in Iowa. For a time, Anna considered becoming a teacher, then she met a soldier from Illinois named Edward Piergue and decided to be a wife. The couple traveled from post to post between 1873 and 1879. Their son Lawrence was born in October 1879 in St. Joseph, Missouri, and their daughter Josephine in 1882 in Humboldt, Iowa.

Not long after the birth of their second child, Edward decided to abandon his military career and take up prospecting. Gold had been discovered in Idaho, and Edward believed he could find a fortune. He left Anna and their children behind at her parents’ home. Within weeks of Edward leaving, Anna set off on her own. By the spring of 1884, she was working at a house of ill repute in Deadwood.

Anna Piergue changed her name to May Brown, and, in time, she earned enough working for various madams in town that she went into business for herself. May’s house was small but a favorite of many men in the area. It wasn’t long until she opened a brothel in Rapid City. The local newspapers reported the numerous departures and arrivals via stage May took traveling back and forth between businesses. She often made the journey with fellow courtesans Lottie Bright and May Melville.

Lottie, Mattie Smith, May Melville, Flora Hogan, and May Brown were all members of the same profession and good friends as well. They had a reputation for hosting wild parties where alcohol was in abundance. After an all-night celebration in early May 1886, the women decided to literally paint the town red. They paraded up and down the streets with paint brushes and buckets of red paint and marked various buildings with the scarlet color. When May thought the behavior of the group she was with had gotten too far out of control, she attempted to put a stop to the frivolity by leveling her pistol at them and firing a couple of shots. The police responded to the gunfire and arrested the four. May paid a $10 fine for discharging her weapon in public. The others had to pay a similar amount for drunk and disorderly conduct.

To learn more about Madam May Brown read

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

Enter now to win a copy of

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

The discovery of gold in the southern Black Hills in 1874 set off one of the great gold rushes in America and Deadwood was born. Practically overnight, the tiny gold camp boomed into a town that played by its own rules and attracted outlaws, gamblers, and gunslingers along with the gold seekers.

In the beginning the ratio of men to women was as high as 8 to 1. Hordes of prostitutes and madams came to Deadwood to capitalize on the lack of women. But the mid-1880s, there were more than a hundred brothels in the mining community.

During the 1920s, more than forty years after the town was founded, prostitution was still big business in Deadwood. One of the most popular madams there was a woman of German descent named Pauline Longland. She came to South Dakota in 1910 and opened two bordellos located at 616 and 618 Main Street. When she was arrested for running a disorderly house in August 1920 and paid a sixty-dollar fine for the crime, the court warned her against further offenses. Pauline’s line of work was so lucrative she wasn’t inclined to leave the profession for any reason.

On May 16, 1921, authorities raided her business and she was taken into custody and charged with “keeping a house of ill fame.” Between 1922 and 1930, she was arrested four more times for the same violation and three times for possessing and selling alcohol. In 1929, Pauline was sentence to ninety days in jail on various liquor offenses and ninety days for maintaining a public nuisance.

Her bordellos remained open until her death in February 1931.

To learn more about Deadwood’s most notorious bordellos read An Open Secret

If you’re traveling to Deadwood the week of September 23,

stop by the Brothel Deadwood Museum for a

presentation about the history of the trade in the Black Hills.

Tumbling Tumbleweeds starring Gene Autry

Young Buffalo Bill starring Roy Rogers

Son of Paleface starring Bob Hope

The Fighting Kentuckian starring John Wayne

Ride Ranger Ride starring Smiley Burnette

The Oregon Trail starring Fred MacMurray

Git Along Little Dogies starring Gene Autry

Johnny Guitar starring Joan Crawford

Rootin’ Tootin’ Rhythm starring Gene Autry

Gun Lords of Stirrup Basin starring Bob Steele

Gail Russell in the arms of John Wayne

To learn more about the many films made by the small, but mighty studio read

Cowboys, Creatures, and Classics: The Story of Republic Pictures.

The Kellys travel with me next to South Dakota. Can’t wait to be back in Deadwood.

American gangster George Kelly Barnes (1895 – 1954), aka Machine Gun Kelly, with his wife Kathryn at their trial for the kidnapping of businessman Charles F. Urschel, at the Federal Court in Oklahoma City, 9th October 1933. Kelly has a bump on his head after being hit with a pistol butt during an altercation on his arrival at court. Kelly and his wife pleaded guilty and were sentenced to life imprisonment. (Photo by FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images)