“Our Ladies of the Tenderloin: Colorado’s Legends in Lace,” by Linda R. Wommack (Caxton, 250 pages, $16.95)
Hookers have made a comeback, at least in the pages of Western history. Long a staple of Western lore, stories of prostitutes fell on hard times as writers discovered other victims of westward expansion. But with the publication of the seminal “Hell’s Belles” a few years back, writers are once more enamored of Colorado’s soiled doves.
“Our Ladies of the Tenderloin” is the third work on the subject in less than a year. And like the old boys who once dominated Western history with their tales of the tenderloin, today’s writers concentrate on the salacious and tongue-in-cheek rather than the social issues. What’s different about these new tomes is they’re written by women.
There’s not much new in “Our Ladies of the Tenderloin,” the latest of the trio. But it is a lively, well-written account of some of Colorado’s favorite characters. One of course, is Mattie Silks, the best known of Colorado’s madams. Mattie always referred to herself as a businesswoman, and Wommack writes that when Mattie decided to set up a bordello on Denver’s row, she went to her friend Lizzie Preston for advice. The older madam told her which politicians and city officials to pay off and leased Mattie one of her brothels. Mentoring among madams generally doesn’t bring to mind business arrangements, which makes this an intriguing bit of information.
Wommack writes about the social order of prostitutes, the parlor houses at the top of the scale, run by madams like Laura Evans in Salida. Girls were told to watch their language and to dress elegantly, because men saw plenty of calico at home. A soft touch, Laura found it hard to get rid of aging prostitutes and either kept them on or found them jobs elsewhere.
Other madams were not so sympathetic, and as their prostitutes aged or fell victim to drugs or drink, they made their way downhill to cheap bordellos and eventually cribs, where their behavior was more depraved.
Any story of prostitution includes tenderloin tragedies, and there were plenty in Colorado – murder, suicide, pneumonia, tuberculosis. In 1894, three women were strangled in their Denver cribs, prompting the newspapers to report a Jack the Ripper was on the loose.
More common was suicide, especially on Christmas, the loneliest night on the row.
“Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America,” by Linda Lawrence Hunt (Anchor, 301 pages, $14)
In 1896, Helga Estby, 36, a Norwegian immigrant living near Spokane, Wash., and her daughter, Clara, 18, set out to walk across America. The trek was a desperate attempt to win a $10,000 award promised by an unnamed New York woman and thereby save the Estby farm. The two agreed to wear comfortable, modern dress, and the sponsor may well have been in the clothing business.
The trip was foolhardy. No woman had ever walked across the continent in such a manner. There were no maps or roads, and under the terms of the contract, the women were forbidden to ride the railroad or accept virtually any rides. So the two forded swollen rivers, were tracked by mountain lions and spent three days lost in lava beds. Those were just the challenges nature threw at them. Even more treacherous was the highway man outside Denver who tried to rob them. (Clara used her pepper spray gun on him) and the tramps who accosted them. The women shot one with a pistol. More common were everyday kindnesses, however. Railroad men in Wyoming left bottles of water along the tracks for the thirsty women.
Linda Lawrence Hunt came across Helga Estby’s story when a schoolboy descendant wrote about the trip. The two women eventually made it to New York, but the ending was not a happy one.
Helga’s family turned against her, later destroying her accounts, letters and all but two newspaper accounts. She never wrote a book or gave lectures, both ventures she had hoped would raise money, and the subject of the trip was verboten in the Estby household for two generations.
Hunt has done an excellent job of re-creating the cross-country trip against a background of 1890s America, and of piecing together the Estby family’s ultimately tragic story.
Sandra Dallas is a Denver novelist who writes a monthly column on new regional nonfiction releases.
