Old West Prostitutes: The Public Arch Shooting by Ramblin' Bob

OLD WEST LEGENDS

El Paso Madams: The Public Arch

Shooting

By Ramblin' Bob

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When the train finally reached the wild and woolly border town of El Paso, Texas, it disgorged a variety of good honest people, along with an abundance of less savory individuals. In its march toward gentler times and more gentle civilization, a number of frontier characters passed through, including Dallas Stoudenmire, Doc Cummings and the Manning brothers, John Wesley Hardin, Elfego Baca and a host of others. Along with the gamblers, con men, gunslingers and regular cowboys, there also came the Ladies of the Night.

El Paso, Texas in 1888.

Etta Clark came by train -- petite, and five foot tall -- she brought with her a mean temper and a fiery mouth. However, she must have also had some charms because it was said she had a way with some of El Paso’s better heeled gentlemen.

El Paso had the usual assortment of these ladies of the night. It began with the streetwalkers and crib girls who advertised their wares from the windows of the one-room apartments, or cribs. Then came the saloon girls who worked in the lofts behind the saloon or upstairs. At the top of the heap were the madams.

The parlor houses in El Paso lined Utah Street (now Mesa Street). In these establishments were employed only the most beautiful women, in the finest gowns possible. These establishments only catered to wealthiest men in town. The men of El Paso had a wide variety of gals to choose from - crib girls worked for as little as fifty-cents to a dollar. While parlor house women charged from $3 to $5 (remember we are talking the 1880’s here).

Madams were experts at making money off their girls. The girls were charged for the use of their rooms, meals, laundry, and any clothes provided them. Since the girls often had trouble meeting their expenses the madams frequently permitted them to make a charge account.

Often a girl became so hopelessly in debt that she could not catch up, and quite often a madam would inflict punishment on a girl for not making up her losses. A common discipline was to confiscate a girls clothing until her arrears were caught up.

Several of Etta Clark’s girls found themselves in this state and from December until April 1882, they sued Etta - claiming she “wrongly appropriated their belongings” -- eight lawsuits in all were filed. Clark lost the case and had to pay the girls who had sued her.

Madams advertised their business in various ways. In the 1901, Worley’s Directory of the City of El Paso, Clark recorded her occupation as the owner of furnished rooms, and listed her name as Madam Etta Clark. Most of the men who looked at the directory knew that meant she rented her rooms by the hour and the “furnishings” included a girl. Leather-printed cards and advertisements in souvenir booklets for large city events were used. The ladies were indeed cunning business women.

As stated, Clark was a great business woman. Her weakness was her terrible temper, considered beautiful by some, others found her vicious. She often ran off customers with her foul mouth, creating more enemies than friends.

Alice Abbot

Madame Etta Clark

Alice Abbot

Known as “Fat Alice”, Alice Abbot was Etta Clark’s rival located just across the street from Clark’s establishment. Alice arrived in El Paso in 1880, at six feet tall and weighing a formidable two-hundred pounds, Alice was a force to be reckoned with. No one seems to know why the two became such bitter rivals. At one time Alice was quoted as saying that “Etta Clark was a whore to niggers” - the ultimate insult in that prejudicial time.

On April 18, 1886, an argument erupted between Abbot and one of her girls, Bessie Colvin, who wanted to leave and work for Etta Clark. Bessie sought refuge in Etta’s parlor, with Fat Alice in pursuit. Alice pounded on Etta’s door with her ham-like fists. When Etta finally opened the door, Alice punched her in the face. With great pain and anger, Etta turned and ran to grab a gun.

Continued Next Page

One of the many soiled doves who worked the

saloons of the Old West.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

Also See:

Harlots of the Barbary Coast

Leading Madams of the Old West

Painted Ladies of the Old West

Saloons of the Old West

The Painted Ladies of Deadwood Gulch

Women of the American West

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From the Rocky Mountain General Store

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