Out of Dodge we went, through South Park to the Arkansas River valley, where the water is running high and huge, swollen with runoff. Every other vehicle on U.S. 285 seems to be either towing a raft trailer or carrying a roof rack with a couple of kayaks.
I wondered what the railroaders, homesteaders and miners who settled this region would think of grown men and women getting paid to play in the rapids in brightly colored boats.
Buena Vista has changed mightily in a century’s time, and some of the changes are brought to light in a dramatic presentation, “Madams of Central Colorado,” which makes for a fun evening in this down-
to-earth Chaffee County town.
Kathi Perry wrote the script, directs the play and appears as Elizabeth “Cockeyed Liz” Spurgeon, who lost an eye in a brawl at her parlor house. In the play, she accuses rival madam Belle Brown of engineering the brawl to make her house look less respectable.
Cockeyed Liz’s Palace of Joy operated until Spurgeon married. Although she spent 30 years as an honest woman, when she died no minister would bury her. Her husband held her funeral in their front yard.
Among the bawdy stories are hints of shame and loss. “Some of us women even faked our own obituaries so our families wouldn’t know how we made our living,” Brown says. Alcohol and laudanum numbed the pain for many. Others drank carbolic acid and died for real.
Salida had an operating brothel well into the 20th century. Laura Evans was a well- known character in Leadville until she took sides with mine ownership during a strike and crossed a picket line with $27,000 in payroll hidden in her bustle. She was sent packing to Salida with a suitcase full of champagne and operated her parlor house on Sackett Street from 1896 to 1950.
Walking a fine line
Played with brio by Jodi Grieb and Billie Love, Laura Evans comes across as equal parts businesswoman, fine lady and tough old bird.
To work in a parlor house, she says, “you had to have a good education so you could carry on a decent conversation.” Less-refined women worked the “cribs,” dressed in a nightie for faster turnover, and the most desperate walked the streets and serviced customers in rented rooms or behind buildings.
Like many in her business, Evans had to walk a fine line between the town’s polite society and its late-night requirements. Brothels paid monthly “fines” that amounted to fees that allowed them to operate. Shown on city maps as “female boarding houses,” the parlor house and cribs across the street were convenient to the Denver Rio Grande & Western railyards just across the river.
Many prominent men who would cross the street to avoid a prostitute in daylight would cross the street again to visit after dark. In Leadville, Evans slugged Mayor Samuel Nicholson after he bit her on the thigh. “At the doctor’s office, I found out he did that to all the girls,” she crows.
Madams and girls spent freely on fine clothes, jewelry, face paint and “nose paint” (liquor). And Evans slipped thousands of dollars to needy families, charities and churches in Salida over the years. During the 1918 flu epidemic, her “girls” worked as nurses.
Both the parlor house and the cribs still exist. The cribs are now six small apartments, and Miss Laura’s house now houses the Shriners. The Mon-Ark Shrine Club accepted the building after Evans died in 1953 at age 91. Her family had tried to give it away to churches and civic groups, but nobody wanted it.
The facts, and much of the dialogue, come from Colorado history books and interviews with locals. Although the subject matter is mature, and children are discouraged from attending “Madams of Colorado,” it’s not profane or shocking.
Jeanine Peterson, who shares the character of Laverne with Sarah Johnson, gets the most straightforward dialogue about pregnancies, diseases and the work schedule of a working girl – all of it taken from interviews with the real Laverne, who worked at Laura Evans’ house in Salida.
Perry admits to being too embarrassed to read parts of her own script. “But I’ll say anything,” Peterson says with a laugh.
Buena Vista Heritage makes good use of local thespians, who appear in costume to re-enact history at various events throughout the summer. You can catch them at cemetery tours and a Heritage Raft Trip Aug. 12, where boats will pull out of the whitewater to meet costumed characters who will talk about life along the Arkansas a hundred years ago.
Up Chalk Creek in Nathrop, we found a cozy bed and breakfast, La Roca de Tiza, where Cheri Radway shares her spacious timber-framed home and cooks tasty puffed pancakes and poached eggs. Finishing the day in Radway’s geothermal hot tub, listening to the creek and counting the stars, seemed the perfect way to combine the modern world with the things that have always been there.
The details
“Madams of Central Colorado” plays several times through the summer, including Friday, July 6 and Sept. 1. All performances are at 7 p.m. at the Buena Vista Heritage Museum in the former Chaffee County Courthouse, 506 E. Main St., Buena Vista. Tickets are $12 and available in advance at the museum and the Buena Vista Chamber. Info: 719-395-8458 or
Other BV Heritage events this summer include Mount Olivet Cemetery tours July 14, Aug. 4 and Sept. 8; Saturday night concerts at Turner Farm through Aug. 18; a silent auction to benefit restoration projects in St. Elmo Aug. 4; Heritage raft trips down the Arkansas River Aug. 12; the King Boletus Mushroom Festival Aug. 25-26; and the Turner Farm Apple Fest Sept. 8. Info: 719-395-8458 or
buenavistaheritage.org.
La Roca de Tiza Bed & Breakfast, 16420 County Road 289A, Nathrop, 719-395-8034 or Three rooms in a 3,200-square-foot home on Chalk Creek with views of the chalk cliffs and the Collegiate Range. $85-$165 per night depending on season.
