New Book: History of Lethbridge's Red Light District

Employment opportunities for women in Lethbridge the 1880s were limited and what jobs there were, as a seamstress or in millinery, for example, paid poorly.

 

Couple that with harsh divorce laws and it?s no wonder some women established brothels or turned to prostitution to support their families.

 

?It was one of the few businesses a woman could run,? said Belinda Crowson, author of ?

,? prior to the official launch of the book Thursday evening.

 

Crowson, in her role as museum educator at The Galt, got so many questions about the city?s red light district she finally said she?d write the book for The Lethbridge Historical Society.

 

She found evidence suggesting brothels were in the area before the railway, having established themselves in the river bottom in Coalbanks. ?Respectable? families moved in and pretty soon brothels were considered to be too close. They were pushed to the other side of the river and Crowson?s research found references to the ?old brothel? area somewhere on the westside.

 

When the miners moved to the top of the coulees, the brothels followed and the area became known as The Point. The area was never called the red light district but was sometimes called the ?tenderloin district? or ?restricted district.?

 

Tension between the brothels and other segments of society seems to have been present right from the start. Crowson was surprised to learn how politically astute the women were. In 1894, a committee went before town council to get rid of the brothels. At that time women had no political rights; they couldn?t vote or go to council meetings. But they got together and sent a lawyer to speak on their behalf. The town council of the time said the matter was federal law as Alberta wasn?t yet a province.

 

?They passed the buck saying ?We can?t do anything about it,?? Crowson said.

 

Later when Lethbridge was a city, the brothels moved across the river at election time because they knew it would be an election issue.

 

?If the election went the way they wanted, they?d move back to town,? she said.

 

Lethbridge was unique in that prostitutes, who were euphemistically called ?denizens of the underworld? or ?inmates,? found good working conditions in the city and many married ranchers and farmers and went on to become respectable wives.

 

The Point had brightly painted houses that were typically large, well-kept, two-storey houses.

 

?It was more of a social venue than people might suspect,? she said.

 

Men would go there and learn to dance, listen to music and perhaps even to learn to read. Crowson came across a complaint that didn?t object to the existence of a brothel but to the loud gramophone music coming from it.

 

Crowson?s favourite story in the book is about Mayor Harry Bentley, Lethbridge?s second mayor. He operated a store on 5 Street.

 

?One year a bunch of women in Lethbridge were going around with a petition to close the red light district,? Crowson said. ?Of course they went to Bentley?s store to get him to sign. His response was ?Mrs. So-and-so, if you were doing a better job at home you wouldn?t need to worry about that district? and of course he refused to sign.?

 

In 1944, a new police chief and a directive from the province to close the district effectively closed the brothels.

 

The book is available for $20 at The Galt, Save-On Foods, Model Baron and other locations where Lethbridge Historical Society books are sold.