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The old west was home to more than cowboys. In addition to merchants and
professionals, there were trappers, loggers, prospectors and other
laborers. Most unskilled jobs were beyond the physical strength of the
average woman who ventured out onto the frontier. Positions that
remained socially acceptable (seamstress, laundress, milliner, waitress,
etc.) paid very little. Owners usually tended their own shops;
schoolteacher positions were scarce; and few towns lacked a
seamstress. Single woman who lacked independent financial resources had
to make a living in a difficult and rugged man's world. Many unprotected
and desperate woman turned to prostitution. History records more than a
few of these "soiled doves".
Of the nearly forty thousand residents of Montana recorded by the 1880
census, more than six thousand lived in and around Helena. Helena had no
city charter; no paved streets or sewers; but it did have nine hotels,
two banks, fifteen lawyers, ten doctors, and two undertakers. Saloons
and brothels outnumbered all of these significantly, and were the
boomtown's true measure of prosperity.
Charlie Russell had grown more devil-may-care as he began his ninth year
in Montana; and the saloons and brothels became a second home.
Much of his enjoyment was found in the company of woman whose
virtue was negotiable. In Helena, where Charlie spent most of his time
when not in Judith Basin, there were at least half a dozen sporting
houses employing nearly a hundred girls. Numerous customers reported
seeing Charlie's drawings pinned to the walls of brothels, although the
consensus is that they were presents, not payments for services
rendered.
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