The Wild West's Nevada Bordellos

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

Our review of some of Nevada's Wild West towns along Highway 50 and Interstate 80 reveal some of the motives westward travelers and frontier settlers had in migrating from points east. Watering holes and bodies of water along overland trails (like the existence of the trails themselves); the building of the Transcontinental Railroad; discoveries of silver, gold, lead, and other ores; and politics brought men, women, and children west, where the frontier seemed a land of possibilities and, perhaps, for some, wealth, as well as adventure.

We can pretty well guess why prostitution was widespread throughout the West. There were few women and lots of men. The law of supply and demand made brothels lucrative business ventures—for their owners, at least—and provided employment for women, which was scarce on the frontier. There were, after all, only so much demand for laundresses, schoolmarms, seamstresses, store clerks, waitresses, and the like, and, aside from these occupations, respectable women had few options. Sometimes, a woman became a “soiled dove” simply because she had no other alternative.

 

Today, Donna's Ranch continues to cater to its clientele.Source: Yelp

What else can we discern by investigating some of the brothels known to have existed in Nevada during the nineteenth century? A fairly well documented establishment of this type was Donna's Ranch in Wells. During its Wild West heyday, this bordello, which has been in operation since 1867, had two major types of clients: the men constructing the Central Pacific Railroad and the cowboys who drove herds to the railroad's cattle-boarding locations and sometimes paid for the prostitutes' services with cows in lieu of dollars. Its more recent owners have included heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey (1895-1983).

 The Desert Club's contemporary look. Source: Desert Club Girls

 The Desert Club, a Battle Mountain brothel that first opened its doors in the late 1800s, includes only five rooms. It's back in business, having reopened under new management in 2016, after closing in 1991, having been temporarily transformed into a mining museum during the interim. Unfortunately, nothing much is known about its operations during its frontier days.

 

The whips on the wall of a bedroom at today's Rainey's Dance Hall (now Big Four) provide unique decor. Source: booked.net

 

 Rainey's Dance Hall was open for business beginning in the late 1800s. As Big Four, it still operates in Ely, Nevada, but, of course, under new ownership. It has in common with the Desert Club the fact that little remains known of its glory days.

The Pussycat Ranch (aka Pussycat Saloon, aka Pussycat Brothel) once stood on Riverside Street in Winnemucca, but it has since not only close but been demolished. In its flower, the Pussycat boasted a large, ornate bar, among its other diversions.

The Cosmopolitan, presumably, has seen better days. Source: nevadaadventures.com

Located in Belmont, the Cosmopolitan Saloon satisfied the needs of his clientele during the latter half of the 1800s. The July 27, 1874, edition of the Belmont Courier's June 27, 1874, noted that the law provided the means by which to quickly suppress such business enterprises and suggested that local government officials had the moral duty to do so. Such a “hurdy dance house,” the paper proclaimed was “a moral wrong,” if ever there was one, injurious to young and old alike, should they succumb to the establishment's “alluring temptations.”

The Cosmopolitan was a dangerous place to visit because of the gunfire that sometimes occurred on the premises as well, the article noted, although, admittedly, recent shootings had not resulted in any fatalities. Should a death occur as the result of such irresponsible conduct, however, the Courier reckoned that the county was likely to bear a cost of “$3,000 to $10,000 to prosecute the case.”

In commenting on the Courier's article, in “Hurdy houses, hurdy girls flourished in boom towns,” an installment in the Pahrump Valley Times's series of articles concerning Nevada's “history of prostitution,” the author, historian Bob McCracken, points out that “prostitutes were among the first arrivals in a mining boom town” and that they were held in esteem by men, who “generally saw them as tough and resourceful, passionate and fun-loving people with big hearts who provided an essential human service.”

 Belmont, Nevada. Source: Pinterest

Among the other bordellos that the article mentions is the Crook Shop. Regarding this establishment, McCracken reports on the double standard of the times regarding men, women, and prostitution. Men who availed themselves of “hurdy girls” might retain their respectability; the prostitutes, on the other hand, who were guilty of the same risque behavior, were regarded as disgraceful:

“It was noted that a woman who danced in the Crook Shop (a local brothel) was not admitted to a 'respectable party' while the man who danced with the 'hurdy-gurdy girl' suffered no diminished in respectability. Why should that be, the item asked: 'If there is any difference between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, we confess our ignorance' (Belmont Courier, June 27, 1874).”

  Hurdy gurdy girl. Source: hurdygurdyanthropology.
 

Note: Most historians make a distinction between "hurdy gurdy girls," German frauleins who played the hurdy gurdy and danced with men for a price (usually fifty cents per dance and another fifty cents for the couple's drinks) and "soiled doves" who entertained their clients in a much more "intimate" manner.

Western Towns Along Nevada's Interstate 80

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

Although Nevada isn't always the first state that pops into the thoughts of Western readers, its history, like that of other states west of the Mississippi, is replete with a colorful past directly related to the settlement of this vast frontier.

 

Source: Wikipedia

Traveling from east to west along Interstate 80, we encounter Wells, Deeth, Halleck, Elko, Golconda, Winnemucca, Oreana, Lovelock, Reno, and Verdi, many of which appear as settings in On the Track of Vengeance, the fourth book of my series An Adventure of the Old West.

 Source: Wikipedia

 

 Source: Amazon

 

Wells was settled in the 1850s, when it was known as Humboldt Wells, taking its name from the nearby river and springs of the same name and, possibly, from its position at the head of the Humboldt Trail. Situated along the future routes of the Transcontinental Railroad, as a rest stop for railroad passengers, the site caught fire toward the close of the nineteenth century. Seeking assistance, the message "Wells is burning" was telegraphed, which event led to the shortening of the name to simply "Wells."

Source: Pinterest

The telegraph followed the Transcontinental Railroad. In 1869, a branch line station including telegraph service was built near Deeth, Nevada, a rural area through which the Central Pacific Railroad ran. Six years later, a post office was constructed to serve local ranches and farms, and a town began to take shape. Mining also attracted newcomers, and the fledgling community, named for a local pioneer, soon boasted a Mormon chapel, stables for horses, merchants' stores, a blacksmith, and, of course, the inevitable saloons. In fact, Deeth became a cattle shipping point and a trading center for ranchers in the vicinity of the town.

Source: Wikipedia
 

Established in 1867, Camp Halleck, named in honor of U. S. Army Major General Henry Wager Halleck, protected the California Trail and Central Pacific Railroad workers until 1879. Two years after the camp opened, the town of Halleck was built as a shipping point for supplies bound for the military post.

Among the town's buildings were two hotels and a saloon, the patrons of which were often soldiers stationed at the nearby military installation. In 1874, both a store and a school opened, the latter continuing to educate the townspeople's children until the 1950s. The camp developed into Fort Halleck, but its abandonment in 1886 led to the town's decline.

 Source: Elko Daily Free Press 

The construction of the Transcontinental Railroad across Nevada also led to the 1868 settlement of Elko at the east end of the California Trail. After the railroad's construction, Elko persisted as a shipping center for ranching, mining, rail freight, and sundry other supplies.

 Sourve: Wikipedia

Named after Golkonda, the diamond mining district in India, Nevada's Golconda, founded in 1869, grew up around mines that produced copper, silver, gold, and lead. Home to French, Portuguese, Paiute, and Chinese residents, the town, by the first decade of the twentieth century, boasted a train depot, a few hotels, a school, various business establishments, newspapers, and two bordellos. However, after the ores were exhausted, the town declined.

 

 Chief Winnemucca

Source: Pinterest

For Western fans, Winnemucca has several claims to fame. It is named after nineteenth-century Chief Winnemucca, of the North Paiute tribe, whose members occupied a nearby camp. The town was situated along the Central Pacific Railroad's portion of the Transcontinental Railroad. On September 19, 1900, Butch Cassidy's gang robbed the First National Bank of Winnemucca of $32,640. The town is also home to the Buckaroo Hall of Fame and Heritage Museum.

In both the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, Chinese railroad workers numbered about four hundred and lived in a portion of the city known as Chinatown, which featured the Joss House on Baud Street, a visitor to which was future Chinese President Sun Yat-Sen, who was touring the United States to raise funds to help finance the Xinhai Revolution. As Tombstone's Doc Holliday might have said, Winnemucca was "very cosmopolitan," indeed.

Source: Wikipedia

Nevada mines produced so much ore of various kinds that mills were erected to process the materials. One such operation, the Montezuma Smelting Works, built in Oreana in 1857, not only smelted ores from the Arabia and Trinity mining districts, but was also the first lead smelter to ship lead commercially; others shipped their output only locally. From the 1870s through the first two-and-a-half decades of the twentieth century, Orena Station was also a stop on the Central Pacific Railroad, serving as a supply depot for Rochester mines.

Source: nevadaweb.com

 Situated halfway along the Humboldt Trail, Lovelock, or "Big Meadows," as it was originally known, was a bustling mecca of activity in 1849, with as many as two-hundred-and-fifty wagons present at times, as wagon trains came and went throughout the day and livestock, including cattle and mules, grazed in nearby fields in which settlers harvested rye. 

However, it was the silver and gold mining and the Central Pacific Railroad in particular, that gave the town a solid foundation. Now the seat of Pershing County, the town was named in honor of English settler George Lovelock's family. In addition to three newspapers, Lovelock included the Big Meadows Hotel, a train station, a school, several churches, and a thriving business district.

Source: Amazon

Gold mining plays a large part in Blood Mountain, the third action-packed novel in my series An Adventure of the Old West, when former bounty hunter and sheriff Bane Messenger discovers a gold mine on property that he and his wife Pamela just purchased, as a result encountering unscrupulous men who will do anything to get their hands on his precious ore.

Source: Wikipedia

Travel along the California Trail, the discovery of gold near Virginia City, and, most of all, the discovery of silver in 1859 at the Comstock Lode brought thousands of prospectors and miners West, many of whom sought their fortunes in and near Reno, which was founded in 1868 and incorporated in 1903.

The city was named for Major General Jesse L. Reno, a veteran of the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, a "soldier's soldier" who often fought side-by-side with his troops. Even today, Nevada remains the world's third-largest gold producer, after South Africa and Australia.

In 1868, Verdi, originally O'Neil's Crossing, was renamed by Charles Crocker, the founder of the Central Pacific Railroad. The original name of the town had honored the man who'd built a bridge there in 1860. The name change was as much a matter or chance as it was of intention, havi g resulted from Crocker's having pulled a slip of paper bearing the famous Italian opera singer's name from a hat.

 Source: Elko daily Free Press

The gateway to the Verdi Range in California, the town of Verdi was the approximate location of a train robbery in 1870. On November 4 of that year, five men blocked the track near a lumber camp in the vicinity of Verdi, causing the train, which was traveling from San Francisco to Virginia City, to stop. The robbers made off with about $40,000 of the $60,000 of gold and silver the train was carrying. The same train was robbed a second time near either Pequop or Moor, Nevada (reports differ), and the robbers escaped with about $3,000.

Western Towns Along Nevada's Highway 50

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Source: Wikipedia

Nevada, has a lot more to do with the Wild West than might be apparent to those unfamiliar with the history of “The Silver State.” The impetuses that led to the founding of its towns, large and small, often indicate their role in the settlement of that part of the great American West that lies in and about the Great Basin and its immediate environs.

Using Highway 50, “The Loneliest Road in America,” as a handy route across the state, and raveling from east to west, we chart the towns that were settled during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, appreciating, in the process, how each contributed to the civilization of the Western frontier.

 

Source: Harry Shipler

Ely, the seat of White Pine County, was founded in 1906 as a stagecoach station on the Pony Express and Ventral Overland Route. Later, with the discovery of copper in the area, which supplemented earlier gold discoveries, Ely became a mining town subject to the ups and downs of similar boom towns.

Western points of interest in Ely include the Nevada Northern Railway Museum and the East Ely Depot.

 

Source: Online Nevada

Settled in 1864, the mining town of Eureka, a source of silver and lead, proved to be the second-most productive in the state, with only the famed Comstock Lode producing more ore. Unfortunately, Eureka's mines were played out by 1878, although “The Friendliest Town on the Loneliest Road in America” survives.

The California Gold Rush is responsible for the settlement of Fallon, which became the final stop of men whose intention of joining the Forty-Niners in their search for California's gold but, instead, called it quits after crossing the Carson River. The settlement was named after local rancher Michael Fallon and his wife Eliza.

 

Wild horses near Stagecoach, Nevada. Source: YouTube.

As its name suggests, Stagecoach began as a station along the Overland Stagecoach route, which also served as a Pony Express station. Before 1857, when the Overland Stagecoach company was founded, U. S. mail was delivered to the West by way of steamers routed through Panama.

 

Source: Flickr

Of those towns on our list so far, Dayton is, in some ways, probably one of the most historic. Its original name, Ponderers Rest, recalls the pondering of travelers who rested here as they watered their animals and decided whether to follow the river southward or continue their journey to the west.

The population soared after gold was discovered at nearby Gold Creek, a Carson River tributary. To avoid California's tax, Chinese miners immigrated from the Golden State to the Silver State, and, when the Comstock Lode was discovered in 1859 and many miners traveled to Gold Hill and Virginia City to seek their fortunes, the number of Chinese workers in Dayton became great enough a year later that the settlement was renamed China Town.

It wasn't until 1861 that it was officially named Dayton, after John Day, a local surveyor who later became the Surveyor General of the United States. Thereafter, Dayton capitalized on its proximity to the Carson River by becoming the Comstock's major milling center, experiencing rapid growth. One of the “Great Fires” that occurred during the years 1866 and 1870 burned down much of the town, but Dayton survived, reduced both in size and importance, after the construction of the Carson & Colorado Railroad in 1881.

The Dayton Courthouse and the Union Hotel are among Dayton's places of interest to Western fans.

 

Source: Wikipedia

Finally, our trip west on Highway 50 brings us to Carson City. Named, in 1843, by John C. Fremont in honor of his scout Kit Carson, Carson City had its start as a Utah Territory trading post along the Carson Branch of the California Trail and was governed by Salt Lake City officials. The discovery of the Comstock Lode increased Carson City's population dramatically, and it became the seat of Ormsby County. Its Warm Springs Hotel, which has served as the territorial legislature's meeting hall, was converted into the region's first prison and remains part of this institution even today.

Nevada became a state in 1864, and Carson City became its capital. Its economic base switched from mining to commerce and railroad construction, in which Chinese workers played an enormous role. Although the building of the Central Pacific Railroad through the Donner Pass reduced Carson City's size and status, it remained an important frontier city into the twentieth century.

There are several places of interest for Western devotees, including several museums, the Stewart Indian School, the Sears-Ferris House, the Silver Saddle Ranch, the Mexican Dam, Prison Hill, and Lake Tahoe.

Mining, stagecoach lines, the Pony Express, politics, and railroads helped to settle the Western towns of Nevada, just as they helped to bring civilization to many other states of America's Wild West.

Next up: Western towns along Nevada's Interstate 80.