Published November 20, 2011
By Iris Nelson
From illuminating scraps of history, stories abound that add
dimension to the roots of our river community.
The good and celebrated, the bad and appalling, and the ugly and
unspoken are all part of a shared identity.
Reflected in the headlines of the
community record the news reported the mundane and the salacious. In the early
19th century the Mississippi River was emblematic of opportunity. Shortly after
Illinois became a state in 1818 and the Military Tract bounty land became
available, John Wood and Willard Keyes bought land in what they deemed a
perfect spot on the Mississippi.
Quincy,
referred to as “Bluffs” for many years, was a key spot on the upper Mississippi
where the water met the bluffs as an ideal port for steamboats, trading and
commercial prospects. Within a few years the riverfront bustled with
passengers, porters, tradesmen and speculators. The waterfront also became an
intriguing blend of those with purposeful pursuits and carousing folks who hung
out by day and night.
Odd characters, stated an early Quincy history, “always
succeeded whenever they chose in giving a carminal (red) tint to the town of
the most original and ruddy hue.”
Steamboats and Burlington railroad depot erected in 1864 brought to
Front Street a spirited mix of entertainment and river business. Front Street,
at one time known as Water Street and later “The Levee,” was a mix of dry goods
stores, saloons, hotels and restaurants.
Before and after the turn of the century saloons such as the Jefferson
Renfrow Great Western Saloon and the Olive Branch Saloon and hotels such as the
Steamboat Hotel, the Pacific Hotel, the Sherman House and the notorious New
Orleans represented vigorous business activity.
Early settlers of great energy
and enterprise sought to build a thriving community and a better life. Quincy
became home to a number of the finest pioneer leaders in business, law and trade.
Alongside these forces seedy indulgences prevailed. Social gathering
establishments grew and prospered. From
this amalgam of activity longstanding social vices multiplied at the water’s
edge. Disguised by front rooms, front people and a lively burlesque nightlife,
riverside bordellos generated a booming river culture. Centered near the
waterfront at the foot of Oak Street the initial red light district flourished
for decades.
From the beginning of
municipal government the red light district was legalized by the city council.
When the railroad depot was constructed at Second and Oak in 1899, most
bordellos were razed and many houses on Maine, Hampshire, Vermont, Broadway,
Spring and Oak streets were taken over by “ladies of the night.” Unhampered by
authorities, there were “50 brothels on Maine below Third Street” at the turn
of the century. Shortly after this time, aldermen voted to fix the district’s
limits at the river, Third Street, Vermont and Broadway. The hub of Quincy’s well-known and
longstanding “famous line of vice” was at Broadway and Second.
Finally by 1918
local officials were calling for an end to such longstanding practices.
Eight
years earlier James R. Mann, an Illinois congressman, introduced an act known
as the Mann Act or the White Slave Traffic Act, a federal criminal statute to protect
those being forced into prostitution. The term white slavery described
predicaments vulnerable females faced. The Mann Act also was used to prosecute
men who took women across state lines for consensual sex.
Eleven brothels
remained in Quincy in 1918 and police raid reports at times cited the names of
the city’s best known ladies, along with the dame who ran each house. The
newspaper reported that particular houses were “nearly always visited by famous
out-of-town criminals.” In reference to stories about women of ill-repute
newspaper articles published between the years 1907 to 1918 used what have
become outmoded euphemisms. The women were referred to as inmates or inmates of
“sporting resorts” or an inmate of Jane Smith’s “sporting establishment.” A red
cloth over the transom signaled services available and the term “red transom
district” or “tenderloin district” were popular orientations to the areas of town.
Headlines like “Police Raid a Broadway Resort,” “Red Transom District Raid” and
“Naughty Girls Fined $5 each” were common.
In 1918 public spirited citizens
wanted change. A story in the Quincy Daily Journal declared that Quincy’s
famous line must go after 50 years of “deadened public sentiment” on social
evil. Newspapers reported that public sentiments
were at “white heat.” Aldermen Samuel S. Hyatt called upon Mayor J.A. Thompson
and Chief of Police Louis N. Melton to enforce the state and city laws against
prostitution. The full reading of Hyatt’s resolution was printed in the paper
and editors stated it “is expected to pass the council by a unanimous vote. It
is not believed that in the face of crystallized public opinion, any alderman
will take his political life in his hands by voting against the measure.” Mayor
Thompson declared “the time was ripe for action” and in one of the “shrewdest
political maneuvers in the history of Quincy,” said the paper, Mayor Thompson
took away from Alderman Hyatt the credit of the resolution and announced that he already had abolished the red light district
and its 11 houses on lower Broadway and Vermont by an order to take effect July
1.
Charges of political maneuvering were thrown back and forth. One June 30,
1918, Quincy’s colony of prostitutes was officially ended after 60 years.
Though new laws went on the books, enforcement was notably absent. Even after
city, state and national attention focused on prostitution in the Tri-state
are, practices continued. “Sporting resorts” in Quincy remained in operation
and court cases surfaced as a result.
Nearly 20 years after the repeal of the
permissive law, an April 5, 1838, newspaper headline, for example, read: “… a white slave case defendant describes
operation of Murray Resort at 301 Vermont.” A long line of witnesses was placed
on the stand on charges of violating the Mann Act. The line of questioning was
chronicled in the newspapers for all to read. The resort keeper and three
others were found guilty of the charges, notably for transportation of women to
Quincy from other states. Eventually, taverns with “girls in the back,”
businesses with “girls upstairs” and gambling dens crept into the shadow of the Adams County
court house.
Illicit practices flourished and houses remained unrestrained in
the district except for an occasional raid. The seedy side of life had a strong
hold in the community during the colorful years of the Roaring ‘20s. Official
crackdowns continued sporadically through Prohibition years and decades beyond.
Our river town gained a reputation as “Little Chicago.”
Civic-minded people
worked to clean up its rough underworld,
especially after particularly ugly
aspects of our checkered past regarding local gambling corruption made
the headlines of Collier’s magazine, a
respected national publication, just over 60 years ago.
The history of the red
light district in Quincy and the criminal world of gambling and gangsters that
flourished alongside respectable merchants and residents is part of the oral
history of the community. However, it is not written on the pages of local
history publications. Nevertheless, the facts were chronicled in the public
record and add to the multifaceted social history of our town and its evolving
character.
Iris Nelson is reference librarian and archivist at Quincy Public
Library, a civic volunteer, member of the Lincoln Douglas Debate Interpretive
Center Advisory Board and other historical organizations. She is a local
historian and has authored articles in historical journals.
Sources:
“Choir Girl
in Tenderloin,” Quincy Daily Journal, August 1, 1907.
” … Convicted
by Jury in Federal Court on Charges of Conspiracy, White Slavery: Howard Murray
Found Guilty on Three Counts Together with Virgil Mayberry, Phyllis Hatfield
and Clarice Burham; Verdict Returned Friday Night,” Quincy Daily Journal,
April 9, 1838.
“Fight in the Red Transome (sic) District,” Quincy
Daily Journal , April 12, 1907.
“Hyatt To Ask Aldermen to Abolish
Line,” Quincy Daily Journal, June 17, 1918.
“Julia J. Basford, White
Slave Case Defendant, Describes Operation of Murray Resort at 301
Vermont,” Quincy Daily Journal, April 5, 1838.
“Mayor Hastens To
Abolish Red Light District,” Quincy Daily Journal, June 18, 1918.
“Old Days Pass Forever Sunday When Line Ends,” Quincy Daily Journal,
June 29, 1918.
“Police Raid a Broadway Resort,” Quincy Daily Journal,
July 30, 1913
“Red Transom District Raid,” Quincy Daily Journal,
October 14, 1903.
Tillson, General John. History of the City of Quincy, revised
and corrected by Hon. William H. Collins by direction of the Quincy Historical
Society. [S.L.: s.n.], 1992.
