Kopelman Building The Kopelman Building at 512 1st Ave. North, currently occupied by the Red River Women’s Clinic, was built around 1906 by wig maker Jacob Kopelman. It became a wig shop that was ran by his wife Lena Kopelman when he passed away in 1908. She was also a skilled wig maker and the store became Kopelman’s Beauty Shop, one of the very first beauty shops in Fargo. Lena Kopelman also had a business agreement with the Fargo Hebrew Congregation to help run mikvah rituals in the basement of the store, where women could purify themselves for their religious obligations. The business became a formalwear shop in 1972 and was then home to a few different restaurants before becoming the clinic in 2000.
West Fargo
Melvina Massey’s brothel at 201 3rd St. N., The Crystal Palace, around 1917.
Melvina Massey:
Fargo’s Most Notable Madam One of Fargo’s most common early vices was prostitution and many prostitutes came to town with the railroads where there was construction. That’s how Melvina Massey became such a successful African American businesswoman in the city’s early days. Fargo had a “red light district” along the river downtown toward the lower end of Front Street, roughly in the area of the current city hall building and the Civic Center area, that was commonly known as “The Hollow.” From the 1880s to the early 20th century, it is said that Fargo almost had two parts to it, one part being the slum or poorer section (“The Hollow,” “Fargo in the Timber,” “Fargo in the Woods”) and the other side being the nicer part of town occupied by the respectable settlers, dubbed “Fargo on the Prairie.” By 1910, the “red light district” had expanded north along Third Street. Massey owned and operated a notorious brothel out of her home built in 1891 called The Crystal Palace (201 3rd St. N.), roughly
where the current city hall parking lot stands. In 1910, the Federal Census showed at least eight houses of prostitution operating in Fargo even though brothels and prostitution were illegal at the time, so law enforcement would have the brothel owners arrested and brought to court. Each month, Massey paid the $56.50 fee to avoid prison and went back to operating her business until the next month. It wasn’t until 1901 that she was finally sent to prison on liquor charges at a time when alcohol was illegal in the city. Her business continued on throughout her nine months in prison until at least 1905. Massey died in 1911 and according to her estate and her belongings, she was a very successful local woman “of high class” who enjoyed many of the finer, expensive things in life. She is reported to be buried at an unmarked grave in Fargo’s Riverside Cemetery.
West Fargo started as a village supposedly called Riverside and then became a city called Haggart sometime around the 1930s. The Haggart name came from one of the area’s first settlers, John Haggart, who owned almost 2,000 acres of land along the Sheyenne River between Fargo and Mapelton, now known as the area of West Fargo. Haggart was a man of many positions in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but he was commonly known as one of the city’s first fire chiefs and Cass County sheriffs. In 1967, residents voted to become the City of West Fargo.
Other resources to check out:
fargohistory.com library.ndsu.edu/fargo-history fargomoorhead.org/aboutfargo-moorhead/history 27