Lake Street Bordello
Archive
Even the little community of Saugatuck was occasionally visited by some of the "ladies" who were so common in the lumbering towns to the north. The "Lake Shore Commercial" records one such incident, and the community's response:
"Last Tuesday night a party of neighbors entered the "House" on Lake Street occupied by [an Allegan man] and the vile woman he brought with him from Allegan last fall, and as a warning to the notorious pair to clear out, they moved what meager household effects they found into the street. Nothing daunted, the pair moved back the goods and at present all is quiet on the Kalamazoo.
It seems incredible that such flagrant lawlessness should go so long in our village unrebuked by the authorities. All winter this woman who was expelled from Allegan for similar practices, has plied her shameful traffic on our streets, numbering among her victims many boys of from 12 to 15 years.
The action of the people who engaged in the "moving" last Tuesday night is entirely justifiable. It is not the first time that [the man] has brought a lewd woman to this place and established her in the neighborhood, and if the people endure it another day they are deserving of all the shame that attaches to such association."
Seeing no results from their first warning the neighbors paid a second "housecleaning" visit a week later with better results.
"The "ranch" on Lake Street was quite suddenly vacated by the inmates last Thursday night, their decision to quit being promoted somewhat by a call from a party of "housecleaners." As is usual in such cases the evictors of the unsavory pair did not stop short of the demolition of some property in order to insure the neighborhood a riddance of them. ... The woman was sent to the County House in Allegan and a young boy of 8 or 10 staying with her there to the state school in Coldwater. "
-- SDHS newsletter insert article by Bill Kemperman
2023.50.07
Undated newspaper account of local outrage about prostitution.
SDHS NL InsertsTrue crime
Winthers, Sally
Digital data in CatalogIt
Kemperman, William
This information was OCR text scanned from SDHS newsletter supplements. A binder of original paper copies is catalog item 2023.50.01
11/07/2023
11/18/2023