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Miss Laura's Social Club At one
time Fort Smith, Arkansas
was a wide open town where gamblers and prostitutes, bootleggers and
Indian traders all flourished on the traffic that came up the Any
trip into Fort Smith
's colorful past should begin at the city’s historic Miss Laura's One of
seven houses of ill-repute in the red light district located between the
river and the railroad tracks, two important sources of business, Miss
Laura's Social Club was known as the "Queen of the Row" in the
wild border town. The building was purchased in 1903 by Laura Zeigler, a
prostitute who had moved to
Customers were greeted in the house’s elaborately decorated parlor, where they enjoyed a cigar and brandy while chatting with the ladies, then they made their selection and headed upstairs to the private rooms. Miss Laura was a gracious hostess, but she did not suffer fools well, and a Smith and Wesson revolver sits handy on the nightstand of her bedroom in her private suite across the hall from the parlor. Miss Laura’s competition all but disappeared in the winter of 1910 when a fire raged through the row and destroyed five of the bordellos. Flames were licking at Miss Laura's gingerbread porch when the wind shifted and saved her business. Miss
Laura sold the brothel to Bertha Gale Dean in 1911 for $47,000 and left
town. The bordello continued to be known as Miss Laura's, and even
though legalized prostitution ended in 1924, Miss Laura’s stayed open
into the early 1940s, doing a steady business with soldiers stationed at
nearby
Following
the death of Bertha Dean in 1949, the building was bought and sold
several times and began to deteriorate. It was saved from the
wrecker’s ball in 1963 when a local businessman purchased it and
remodeled it as an upscale restaurant. In 1992 it became Fort Smith’s Help Honor America's Veterans At www.honoraveteran.com Visitors to Fort Smith can take a free tour of the old brothel and marvel at the handsome wood trim, stained glass windows, and beautiful textured wallpaper. If you did not know it’s history, you would believe that the building had been the home of a prosperous banker or merchant.
Today
visitors can take in a performance of The
Medicine Show on Hanging Day at the Visitor
Miss
Laura’s is located at 2 North B Street
near the U.S. Highway 64 bridge over the
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Laura
Zeigler turned her business into the classiest house on the “row.”
Her working girls were not allowed downstairs unless they were fully
dressed, and they received regular medical checkups, the results of
which were tacked to the appropriate bedposts. Miss Laura hired only the
best looking prostitutes and charged accordingly. While the
competition’s standard price was one dollar, Miss Laura's girls
charged three times as much.
Downstairs,
Miss Laura’s private suite has been totally restored, as well as the
reception parlor across the hall. Most of the bedrooms upstairs are now
used for office space, though one is open and decorated as it was during
the brothel’s working days. Above each door the occupant’s name is
etched into the frosted glass. Our tour guide told us that since having
the glass replaced when a girl left was too expensive, her replacement
just took on her working name. Several showcases display artifacts from