Speakeasys, Opium Dens, and Brothels Part 3

The middle of the Pendleton underground tour actually took us up two flights of stairs to the second floor of a building that had been in the same family for years. After the brothels were run out of town, the daughter of the original building owner had the second floor boarded up. She didn't want anyone to know they had that profession working in their building.

At one time one full block on both sides of  Emigrant Street had 18 brothels on their second floors.When the cowboys were in town, girls would hang out the windows waving to the lonely cowboys as they roamed the street. Many of the brothel's were set up and called boarding houses, but it was pretty clear what really went on in the boarding houses.

The one on the tour was last run by Stella Darby before it was boarded up. And because it was boarded up a lot of the furniture and items in the rooms were there when they pulled down the boards and persuaded the woman who owned the building to allow the historical society to give tours.

One of the bedrooms

Stella took in young women who had no where else to go. They did work as prostitutes, but she also taught them domestic chores and most girls worked there in hopes of finding a husband. There was a room with an organ that allowed the girls to have church on Sunday with a traveling minister. The prostitutes weren't allowed in the regular churches but Stella gave them the opportunity to attend the small "chapel" which any other day but Sunday was  where the clients waited their turn.

Stella also had a doctor come regularly to make sure the girls were healthy.

Girl's Claw foot tub

The girls had their own bedrooms and one they used for "business". They had a pretty claw foot tub in a communal lavatory for their use.

Where the men "cleaned up"

Down the hall was a small room with a table, pitcher and bowl, soap, and a razor.This was the Gent's Toilet where "customers" went to make sure they were clean before visiting a girl.

In Stella's bedroom there is a secret passage that leads out of her bedroom and into the room of their one tenant who was an artist and their "bouncer".  If there was a prominent local man visiting during a raid they could hide him in the passage until the room had been searched then let him out and down the stairs before anyone saw him.

Speakeasys, Opium Dens, and Brothels Part 2

As promised another part to my underground tour in Pendleton, Oregon.

The underground tunnels were made as a means not only for the Chinese to travel about the city without setting foot  above ground but for valuables to be hauled from the train station to down town and the banks.

Back in the late 1880s Pendleton was a wild bustling town. It had famous outlaws and a reputation for lawlessness. It was also one of the largest towns close to the Blue Mountain gold mines.

bunk beds where they slept

Many Chinese immigrated to the U.S. looking to make money to send back home. But the Chinese Exclusion Act only allowed male Chinese to enter the U.S. It was felt if the women and children weren't allowed to come over they wouldn't stay. They were quiet people who lived together, did menial jobs(if in the cities) or continued to pan in gold mines others had left.  The also worked long hours on the railroads for less pay than their white counterparts.

Kitchen in the same room as the beds

In the cities they weren't allowed to travel the streets after dark. That was one of the reasons the underground tunnels were built in some cities. It provided a way for the Chinese to move about without the threat of harm from drunk cowboys or whites who believed the Chinese were fair game for ridicule and abuse. They lived communally in the tunnels under the bustling streets.

Hop Sing's laundry

The underground tunnels had regular cities with the same conveniences that were found above ground. Hop Sing (the real one not the one on Bonanza) had a lucrative laundry business in the tunnels for 30 years. Boys would pick up the finished laundry from a door leading from the basement laundry to deliver it and bring back the clothes to be laundered. Since Hop Sing was also heating water for washing clothes, he also had bathing facilities. The first bath of the day with fresh clean water was $.50 as the day progressed, rather than lug so many buckets, after each bath he would take out two buckets of the dirty water and add two hot fresh buckets. The last bath of the day was only a nickle and would have water from everyone who bathed before you. I didn't ask about where the dirty water was dumped but the fresh water was from a cistern in the tunnel.

Bath at Hop Sing's

Another unique feature that will make it into one of my books is the Chinese Running Door. While the cowboys who came down to the tunnel's gambling houses drank, the smart Chinese didn't drink and were  adept gamblers. When a China man started winning big, it was in his best interest to get going before the drunken cowboy decided to make an example of him. Without the law on their sides, the Chinese had to always be vigilant to danger. In the tunnels leading out of the gambling establishments there were Chinese Running Doors. These doors looked like all the other doors, but were held in place by a bar in the middle. When a China man saw a cowboy was getting riled, he'd dive for the door, duck, and crawl under the door as it hinged up. The cowboy would run at the door with his hand or arm out,and the bottom would smack him in the shins. He'd kick the bottom, and the top would swing down and bonk him in the head. By the time the cowboy figured out the door, the Chinese man would be long gone down the maze of tunnels.

Cistern and pump in the tunnel

Unfortunately, one of the things the Chinese brought with them from their homeland was opium smoking. Down in the tunnels there were opium dens where the Chinese, prostitutes, or anyone wishing to smoke to get away from their real life could go.

Most items that are in the tunnels are items that were unearthed when the tunnels were reopened in the 1990's. When the tunnels were boarded up very few things were taken from the areas.

More to come....

Speakeasys, Opium Dens, and Brothels- Part 1

I have been jealous of my oldest daughter for a long time. While playing basketball in high school, her coach took the team to the Pendleton Underground Tour. It was a place I have wanted to check out for years. my dream finally came true this past weekend!

When I discovered my presentation on Saturday at the Word Round-Up have been canceled I decided I was going on the Underground Tour.  Saturday morning, I had to drive downtown Pendleton to go to Wal Mart and purchase a plug-in for my phone. On the way I saw signs pointing to the Underground Tour. After getting the plug, I followed the signs and found the tour office. It was closed but said they did have tours at 10:30 and 1:30 that day and to call for reservations. I tried calling and received a voice message that didn't take messages.

I tried again at 9am and still the phone message, finally at 10:01 I found a real person on the other end of the line and made my reservation. Then I closed the computer, shoved my phone in my person and left the motel room because I didn't want to miss the tour!

There were a dozen or so people milling around the gift shop when I entered. I paid and waited with nervous tension until they called us into the parlor. In there we watched a short DVD that told the history of the underground tunnels. Once the video was finished, Kricket, our guide took us outside and noted the different street names carved into the street corners and how the street names were changed when the military had an airfield in Pendleton in the 1940's

Next, she motioned to the spikes sticking up on the handrail that led down to one of the underground bars. The reason the spikes were added had to d do with keeping cowboys and other males from loitering, sitting on the railing while talking with the sporting girls hanging out the second floor windows.

The first room we came to was an underground bar that was reached from the stairs leading down from the sidewalk and had a door that led into the underground tunnels.

Kricket explained how back in the days when gold was being found in the Blue Mountains and the miners came to town to spend it, the bartenders could make an extra $50 a night by having sticky fingers. He would pinch gold dust out of the miners pouch, weigh, it and announce if it was enough for the drink. he'd then pour the gold into the saloons till while spilling some on the bar. His trusty bar rag would swipe the dust onto the floor and the one hour out of twenty-four when the bar closed, the bartender would go outside, get mud on his feet and come back in walking back and forth behind the counter until he had all the gold stuck to the mud on his shoes. Then he'd take the shoes and dip them in a bucket of water until the mud came off. The water would then be panned in the back room.

The saloon girls would take a strand at the nape of their neck and and slick it with butter or lard. Then during their shift when snuggled up to a miner gambling with his poke, she would run their finger across the sticky strand, put their finger in the dust, then rub her finger in her hair again. Adhering the gold to her hair. After shift, she would wash her hair and have gold in the bottom of the bucket over which she rinsed.

That's all I have for the first room on the tour. But I have more tidbits that will be coming your way.

Photos by: Paty Jager