THE BLOCK OF SIN

In today's blog, I let you in on some of the latest quirky finds in my research of the times and places surrounding my fictional character, Madam Emeline Cummings. 

This week, as I manufactured the slivers and flecks of Emeline Cummings' life, I began discovering social engineering escapades left and right that were actually occurring in 1890-1908 western US.  I found two in particular to be of great interest, and I hope you will take an interest as well. 

One such effort of social engineering over a hundred years ago happened in Salt Lake City.  The mayor and some of the councilmen invented a novel way to corral all purveyors of flesh into a "block of sin" as it was sometimes called.  It ultimately became known as "The Stockade", technically Block 64 of downtown, between 1st and 2nd Street South and 5th and 6th Street West.

The block of sin actually led to the greater proliferation of prostitution -- the exact opposite of what was desired, or expected.  It was no half-hearted effort -- but it bombed, nevertheless. 

Wealthy and Respected

Madam Dora Topham

The city wanted to crack down on prostitution, once and for all.  Enter the famous-in-her-time Madam Dora Topham, one of the most successful madams of the west.  She considered herself a reformer.  She operated in Ogden and had invested her money wisely.  When Mayor Bramsford of Salt Lake City came to call, she was worth a half-million dollars. That used to be a lot of money!   He recruited her to bring the "Stockade" to life and manage it prudently.

She purchased the land herself, started a corporation called "the Citizens Investment Company" and sold shares to finance the construction of what amounted to a humongous brothel with one hundred brick cribs from which prostitutes could conduct their business, paying up to $4 per day for rent.  The block of sin was a business, run like a business by Madam Topham.

"Stockade" Final Day of Construction

Meanwhile, in my Emeline's neck of the woods....

The Equality Colony 1898

Skagit County, WA

In my book, The Boardinghouse Journals of Madam Emeline Cummings, Emeline's property abuts the Equality Colony in Skagit Valley. 
In actual history, The Equality Colony existed in the Bow-Edison area through the 1880's and '90s and into the first decade of the twentieth century, disbanding in 1904.  It was a socialist colony that grew and prospered under a national organization, The Brotherhood of Co-operative Commonwealth, headquartered in Warren, Maine. 

The colony expanded several times and wound up with 600 acres, a printery, creamery, lumber operaton and many buildings including "apartment dwellings for inhabitants of the colony, kitchen, dining hall and so forth.  Their expansion will play a role in my fictional Emeline's early history. 

Children of Equality Colony 1889

The purpose of the Equalty Colony was to nudge the state of Washington toward Socialism, with the national intention of a Socialist continent.  They disbanded in 1904 without having been successful.  I find it interesting that some of the principles of the colony are being debated nationally today, well over a hundred years later. 


Now ---  Back to Salt Lake City ---

I must tell you that the Stockade fared no better at its mission than the Equality Colony of Skagit County, Washington.  But, failure was for a very different reason.  Prostitution, being the oldest profession, doesn't like to be corralled.  Some prostitutes did move into the Stockade, but only half the cribs were rented.  Madam Topham, being a chief investor, didn't want to lose.  She recruited prostitutes from out of town to fill the Stockade.  Salt Lake City prostitutes who had stayed unaffiliated with the Stockade were still doing business as usual in Salt Lake City. 

The net result was increased prostitution in Salt Lake City -- the opposite of what the mayor and council wanted.  Red faced and scandalized, the City eventually plowed over the entire operation -- literally -- and everyone pretended it never happened.

Whatever happened to Madam Dora Tophem?  She was convicted and sentenced to eighteen years in prison when a minor boy was discovered with a prostitute at the Stockade.  The governor eventually commuted her sentence. 

I can't help but notice that successful madams generally know men in high places. 

Dora Tophem, convict, was freed.  She moved to California to raise a daughter and conduct various successful businesses there.  In 1925, she was helping an employee with a car when she was crushed between two cars, and died. 

Dora Topham in California

Is it just me or does she look happier?