SigMT

44 | SIGNATURE MONTANA claim that the historic Commercial Hotel, now a popular bar and casino, housed cribs on its third floor. e sprawling hotel sits conveniently across from the railroad tracks. ird-story dormers, added sometime before 1922, suggest unusually small rooms. Proximity to the tracks, the third-floor arrangement, and the period of construction are a tantalizing combination. Removal of the interior lobby stairway now prohibits access, and third-floor use must remain speculative. Public women oen worked out of hotels. In Great Falls, by 1891, the early red-light district had located along Second and ird Avenues South, but there were extensive red-light activities in the upper floors of hotels and rooming houses. During the 1910s into the 1960s, prostitutes worked rather discreetly in the 300 blocks of Central Avenue and First Avenue South. Building owners found surviving remnants of their presence, including cribs and sinks, in the upper floors of 317 Central Avenue and 308 First Avenue South. Social pressures, the closure of red-light districts aer 1917, and a second closure during World War II impacted the built environment and changed the landscape of prostitution. Even One of four tiny cottages on Livingston's B Street, homeowners converted this duplex to a single-family home, adding modern plumbing, a kitchen, and an upstairs loft. Amber Williams photo. Scobey, the seat of Daniels County, boasts Montana's only brothel-turned- courthouse. Carroll Van West photo. The Commercial Hotel in Townsend includes tiny third-floor dormers added before 1922. Their use remains speculative. Author photo. Public women worked out of the historic Belmont Hotel at 308 First Avenue South until the 1960s. Signature Montana photo. Bue's robust district gradually dwindled as the city razed its red-light properties or converted them to other uses. But Montana's premier red-light remnant is Bue's Dumas Hotel. Paerned aer legitimate rooming houses, and like Gleim's businesses in Missoula, only its location at 45 East Mercury hints at its original use. But later interior changes interpret the evolution of prostitution in Bue. Upstairs, large suites where wealthy men repaired aer hours remain intact. Copper kings, however, were gone by 1900, and interior door-window cribs replaced the grand first-floor spaces. More dim, dingy cribs still line the basement. From opulent to seedy, the Dumas operated until 1982. Its historic layers illustrate Bue's changing economy like no other resource. Focusing on the built environment brings hidden red-light histories into the public domain, lends credibility to the historical record, and promotes the preservation of these special places that help tell Montana's story. S MT

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