brothels netted 16 women, including at The Brothel,” Weber said. “One was wood story. “There are rooms that are madams and prostitutes. curated from 1876 to 1900. Then the next a cleaning lady, one was a liquor store The Brothel project was funded with a owner, some were young kids who would working room will represent 1920s and $50,000 loan to DHI from NeighborWorks come up here to sell their raffle tickets the next one will represent 1940s-50s and Deadwood Historic Preservation, as or get money for whatever organizaand then the next one 1960s-70s. Those well as a $400,000 loan to Nugget, LLC tion they were involved with. And then, are the working rooms. There are four from Deadwood Historic Preservation. of those. Then there’s one, what I like to The idea for The Brothel came from call, real bedroom that women could ocDeadwood Historic Preservacupy if the house wasn’t at full capacity … otherwise you had There a re so ma ny t hings people ca n t a ke tion Officer Kevin Kuchenbecker and former Main Street Inito live out of your work room away, but I just li ke t he huma n aspect of tiative Chairman Bill Pearson. all the time.” “They were looking at ways A parlor, a madam’s office, a it . These were rea l people. Li ke a ll of us. to better utilize second-story madam’s bedroom, and a gift Mothers, wives, sisters, friends. levels of historic buildings shop are also part of The Brothon Main Street and then they el Deadwood. brought in a South Dakota State Univera young guy who used to deliver dry “The rooms are good sized, which sity architecture class to get their input lends itself well to the tour,” Weber said. cleaning here to the ladies. So, there are a lot of people with a lot of different sto- on what they thought would be good “The Madame here was Tommie Cox, uses of these buildings and when they ries that we captured and it’s really fun also known as Elsie Irwin.” found out what this one was, they said because they have a lot of good memoA small theater area is also curtained ries. Some of them are funny stories and ‘Why don’t you just turn it into a museoff that features 15 minutes of streamum or a tour related to the brothel as it some of them are really touching.” ing interviews with nine local individused to be?’” Weber explained. “So that’s Employing an estimated eight women uals who interacted where that came from.” at a time, the Beige Door Brothel is one or had first-hand Weber said that, ultimately, when of four “houses” in operation when they experiences patrons finish the tour, she would like were raided and shut down in 1980. with the them to have the following take-away. “You had your slow seasons and your “girls” back “That this was a business that was busy seasons, like deer hunting season in the day. was crazy,” Weber said. “They’d bring in a big part of Deadwood’s economic “They success. They contributed greatly to the had varying extra girls to work during deer hunting community here through their generexperiences season.” osity to charitable organizations. They Weber said that a 1959 raid of all four up here
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Fall, Winter • 2020–2021
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Destination Deadwood©
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