Michael....Any mention of Deadwood must include the infamous “cat houses” down on the lower end of town. They have been there for many years and are a relic of the rip-roaring days when the town was just a mining camp. There are three “cat houses” in our town. They are the Shasta, the Pine and the Cozy, all in a row.
My two friends and I after consuming two cans of beer among us decide we are men and we are going to partake of the activities that the “house” offers. We walk up the stairs and ring the bell. The madam comes out and looks us over and asks “How old are you boys?” It seems as though there is an age limit here. This may be a house of ill repute, but by some stretch of the imagination there are some rules that just cannot be broken. My friends can go in because they are already sixteen years old, but I readily confess to the glaring madam to being only fifteen. At this point my two friends decide that they are sticking with their underage friend and will not go in without me. Years later I sill remember just how terrified I was at that moment and how glad I was to retreat down those stairs, now completely sober, with my virtue and my money intact.
I recently received an email from my friend Richard in New Mexico detailing his eyewitness account of the closing down of the “cathouses” by the states attorney.
My wife and I decided to travel to Sioux Falls with our daughter who was two at the time. We were going to spend a few days with my folks over the Christmas holidays. We decided to leave very early in the morning and as we were going through town we were met with a whole downtown full of police and highway patrol cars. It seems that very morning (unbeknown to the local police) the state raided the town and shut down all of the “cathouses” on the strip. Upstairs, downstairs…every cathouse in town was unceremoniously being raided. People were running about in nearly every stage of dress…and undress. As I recall, they were shut down for some time after that. I honestly can’t recall if it was Christmas or Thanksgiving, but as I recall, it was at that time of year. When we returned from our vacation townspeople were still “murmuring” about the night the lights went out in our town. It wasn’t long after this that the states attorney that started all this was summarily booted out of office.
My two friends and I after consuming two cans of beer among us decide we are men and we are going to partake of the activities that the “house” offers. We walk up the stairs and ring the bell. The madam comes out and looks us over and asks “How old are you boys?” It seems as though there is an age limit here. This may be a house of ill repute, but by some stretch of the imagination there are some rules that just cannot be broken. My friends can go in because they are already sixteen years old, but I readily confess to the glaring madam to being only fifteen. At this point my two friends decide that they are sticking with their underage friend and will not go in without me. Years later I sill remember just how terrified I was at that moment and how glad I was to retreat down those stairs, now completely sober, with my virtue and my money intact.
I recently received an email from my friend Richard in New Mexico detailing his eyewitness account of the closing down of the “cathouses” by the states attorney.
My wife and I decided to travel to Sioux Falls with our daughter who was two at the time. We were going to spend a few days with my folks over the Christmas holidays. We decided to leave very early in the morning and as we were going through town we were met with a whole downtown full of police and highway patrol cars. It seems that very morning (unbeknown to the local police) the state raided the town and shut down all of the “cathouses” on the strip. Upstairs, downstairs…every cathouse in town was unceremoniously being raided. People were running about in nearly every stage of dress…and undress. As I recall, they were shut down for some time after that. I honestly can’t recall if it was Christmas or Thanksgiving, but as I recall, it was at that time of year. When we returned from our vacation townspeople were still “murmuring” about the night the lights went out in our town. It wasn’t long after this that the states attorney that started all this was summarily booted out of office.
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