Bea Wheeler's Annex

"Sonnie"

"Phyliss and the Pooch"

"Madame Bea"

"Tommie"

"Sonnie"

"Tommie"

Upon the town's inception in 1876, Deadwood, like many other western towns gold rush towns, developed a vice district where drinking, gambling and prostitution thrived. Unlike most other boom towns of the american west were progressive law, order and community eventually prevailed, Deadwood's red light district, known as the Bad Lands, prospered well into the 20th century.
Prostitution, always illegal in the state of South Dakota, flagrantly persisted on Deadwood's main street until 1980. During the 1940s, Deadwood's brothels were perhaps at their most vibrant. The 1939 city phone directory boldly listed seven Deadwood brothels operating on its main street. At least four other unlisted bordellos were also successfully operating during this time frame.
An unwritten legal code commanded a restrained existence for Deadwood's brothels. When coupled with the competitive and lucrative nature of these businesses, the code generated creative and astute marketing tactics that madams used to quietly draw attention to there houses over those of their competition.
One ingenious madam secured the seal of approval from the attending physician at nearby Fort Meade, whom she had hired to give her girls their weekly examinations. The good doctor would then not only assure the women a clean bill of health, but would also recommend that particular brothel to those soldiers at Fort Meade who were inclined to visit Deadwood during weekend liberty. Many Deadwood residents still recall the weekend spectacle of servicemen lined up for blocks patiently waiting for the opportunity to make a house call of their own.
Deadwood's upstairs girls developed an unwritten code of conduct with town leaders and law enforcement. The girls would remain confined to their second story rooms, never parading themselves on Deadwood streets. A specific afternoon each week was set aside when they could visit the doctor and do their shopping. Respectable women would not be out during this time. While in public, prostitutes were not allowed to sport makeup, were compelled to wear scarves over their heads and dressed very conservatively.
Additionally,no alcohol would be served in the houses until after the town's bars were closed. As one prostitute explained, "... the city makes them (saloon owners) happy by letting them have the whiskey business and we get them (customers) afterwards." Finally, if the city requested that the bordellos close temporarily for any special city event, the madams would comply. In exchange for this cooperation, any 'john' causing a disturbance in a brothel would summarily be removed, courtesy of Deadwood's finest.
Due to the gross inequality in opportunity and financial compensation women faced in 1940s america, many would-be "girls next door" were enticed into prostitution because it offered financial stability. Still others made tremendous individual sacrifices to keep their children from the poverty that often confronted single mothers.
After losing her husband in World War II, one woman attempted to support her two children by working as a secretary, a waitress and a bartender. None of these occupations allowed her to sustain her family. Finding no alternative, the distressed young lady left her children with her mother, traveled to Deadwood and prostituted herself so that her family might live in relative comfort and perhaps secure a better life.
One aspect that developed as a result of living the life of a prostitute was a kind of sisterhood among the women confined to this situation. Many of the girls had left or been forced out of broken homes or threatening circumstances only to discover prostitution as their most practical alternative.
With financial and structural security bringing about the comfort of a father figure, law enforcement protection feeling somewhat like a big brother and the nurturing guidance of a mother figure provided by the madam, the girls, working together in the mundane activities of the brothel, such as dining at one table, cleaning and sharing, could assume the role of sisters to one another. Genuine or artificial, permanent or temporary, the brothel became a home and, for many, a sanctuary of acceptance and commonality.
Among many positive and endearing qualities prostitutes were consistently said to possess was their charitable inclination toward those less fortunate in the Deadwood community. In fact, the ladies of the brothels would often compete with one another in generosity. Having given the Red Cross volunteer twenty-five dollars for fundraising toward the construction of the Deadwood school playground, one madam challenged another madam to match the donation. The second madam not only matched the donation but added another ten dollars to the pot.
Similarly, during the 1940s, a certain disadvantaged young Deadwood boy growing op in the First Ward often performed various odd jobs around the houses. He would consistently receive five dollars for work he knew to be worth only about fifty cents. The girls' kind and generous nature was but one of several factors contributing toward their continued acceptance in the 20th -century Deadwood community.
Picture a hard-working miner toiling and risking his life to find gold in the sweaty dankness of a dangerous mine only to line someone else's pockets, or an insecure and traumatized man fresh from being forsaken by the only woman he has loved, Imagine a frightened eighteen-year-old World War II soldier about to ship overseas into the horrors of the 20th-century warfare, or a lonely ranch hand on temporary leave from the countless hours of drudgery and isolated existence on the plains.
Serving as a sexual partner was one of many acts of kindness a prostitute might offer such a man. Counselor, companion, nurturer, advisor, confidant, educator, listener and friend are just some of the many roles an upstairs girl might play during a typical session. While often chastised or devalued for their sexual mores, many ladies of the evening, in actuality, offered services consistent with era's more revered professions.
Although closed by the mayor's orders in 1949, the brothels' durability was evidenced by a successful raid two years later. Their ongoing presence was cemented by failed legal actions in 1952 and 1959. In 1952, the first of four madams was tried for operating a house of prostitution in Deadwood. She was given an immediate acquittal by a jury of her peers, a decision that not only prompted the prosecutor to dismiss his case against the other three madams but to refrain from any further actions against the ladies during his tenure.
A subsequent raid by an outside prosecutor in 1959 was curtailed by a madam's legal challenge to the state supreme court over a procedural technicality. The court found in favor of the madam which delayed further prosecutorial action until the firebrand attorney was defeated in the 1960 election. The ladies and their sister successors continued in Deadwood's trade until a federally-led raid and a state legal action compelled their closure in 1980, leaving the ladies gone, but certainly not forgotten.