Undesireables Have Their Place

What happened to these women "of the evening" once the gold rush was over?  Some stayed in the trade and followed the miners to the next boom town.  Some insisted they got married and lived a respectable life. Some met with violence, some disappeared into obscurity.

One "Red Stocking" as she was known appeared in Colorado in 1860, supposedly boasted of a Boston heritage, seduction in Paris, and humiliation in Denver.  A year later, she was seen accompanying a well-known gentlemen to the theater as his public mistress, much to the disgust of the respectable women attending.

The affair had divided the town when the mistress decided she deserved to live among the respectable women and so moved into their neighborhood.  The women would cross the street to avoid passing her house in a attempt to ignore the problem. She would not be ignored.

The evening after the appearance at the theater, the gentleman, Mr. Cora, got in an argument over his actions.  Mr. Cora shot and killed the US Marshall during the argument.  Cora pleaded self-defense, but the newspaper were adamant that "he was a disgrace to the city's morals."  His mistress hired two of the best layers she could afford to defend him.  The sensational trial produced a hung jury and so Mr. Cora went back to jail and the newspaper had a hey day.

When the editor of the newspaper, the Fireman's Journal, was also shot and killed for his opinions on the case, the town had had enough.  The respectable men of the city, no doubt under the influence of their wives, found both Cora and the editor's murderer (not Cora) guilty. Cora, to his credit, went to his execution married to his mistress, but the incident sent a loud and clear message to the less desirables- leave our town!

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that by 1857 vice was less visible and the prostitutes "knew their place" in their city's respectable neighborhoods.

Next time... Women clean things up