By western author Nick Brumby
“So help me Jane, step on my foot again and I’ll shove that nightgown right where the sun don’t shine.”
Jennies Place Brothel, Jerome Arizona – bar on the bottom and brothel on the top.

Sporting ladies, scarlet women, dance hall girls, sweethearts of the night, soiled doves. It had many names, but throughout the American West, prostitution was big business.

In the early days of the frontier women were few and far between, The first Californian Census in 1850 found that women made up less than 10% of the whole population. Many saw a business opportunity.

Prostitution in the Old West was widespread. Sporting ladies were found in bordellos, brothels, houses of ill repute, opium dens, hotels, tents, saloons. mining camps, railroad stops, trading outposts, boom towns, and military forts.

In the smaller settlements, only one or two soiled doves might be found. Often, they worked out of a room above the local tavern.

In larger towns, sporting ladies worked out of brothels in the community’s red-light district. Although town planners tried to keep the morally questionable activities off the main city street, they also benefited from the money the brothels brought into the town in the form of fees, taxes, and licenses.

Some women made fortunes and retired wealthy, although they were kept at arm’s length by ladies of society. Some became famous as a result of the company they kept, either famous criminals or lawmen in a society where the difference between the two was sometimes hard to distinguish.

In the Old West dance hall girls were seen as providing a vital service. They weren’t necessarily women of loose morals, or desperate women with no other choices. They were often shrewd businesswomen who ran their brothels with a strict set of standards. Several of them parlayed their careers into lucrative businesses that allowed them to retire in comfort and without reliance on a husband.

For other sweethearts of the night, however, their chosen career path led them further astray. It was not uncommon for a soiled dove to die of gonorrhea or syphilis, or from a botched abortion.

They are all as much a part of the legend of the Old West as any cowboy, outlaw or sheriff.

About Nick Brumby

I like a good story. And of all stories, I love westerns the most.

As a kid, I spent far too many afternoons re-watching Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, picking up ‘Shane’ for just one more read, or saddling up beside Ben Cartwright when ‘Bonanza’ was on TV each afternoon.

I’m a former journalist and I love horses, dogs, and the occasional bourbon whiskey. I live with my wife, daughter and our ever-slumbering hound in a 1800’s-era gold mining town – our house is right on top of the last working gold mine in the area. There may not be much gold left, but there’s history wherever you look.

I hope you enjoy my westerns as much as I enjoyed writing them!

Happy trails,

Nick