The Wickedest City on the Mississippi

 

A typical street scene in a Mississippi River town at
the turn of the century.

In the early 1900s, Davenport was known as the “Wickedest Town on the Mississippi,” and for good reason. On the east side of town, in the two-block stretch they call Bucktown, forty or more houses of ill repute were clustered like vultures in a roost. This is not rumor but record: city directories, police logs, and criminal dockets all confirm that Bucktown was the nerve center of the city’s sex trade.

Davenport made vice official in 1893. That year the city began licensing brothels — not to punish them, but to collect their dues and, officials claimed, to control disease. From that moment, the underworld of Bucktown became part of the municipal ledger.

The city required each brothel and woman to register. They had to pay a monthly fine—in advance—so authorities would largely look the other way. The logic: “If men are going to visit these houses, then we may as well regulate them, test for disease, and take their money.”

Police matron Sarah “Sadie” Hill became one of the few regular presences inside that shadow world. Appointed in 1893 to succeed Annie Davis, Hill served until 1920 as Davenport’s matron, living inside the House of Detention (the so-called Bridewell) at Fifth and Main. She was paid around $55 a month in 1900—and was on duty day and night.

Police matron Sarah Hill did what she coould
to help and protect the girls in her charge.

Her job was to watch after “the girls” when they passed through arrests or medical inspections, try to maintain decorum, prevent abuse, and report disease. Though Sarah’s power was limited, her presence sometimes prevented the worst violence in the lockups.

Inside Bucktown, the system was clear: pay your fee, stay open, don’t cause a scandal. The operators called many of their houses “boarding parlors” or “rooming houses” to mask the business. But the red curtains and lobbies with perfume, piano music, and discreet uniformed men told the authentic story. The business was well known, not hidden. As historian Jonathan Turner noted, brothels “flourished within two blocks,” side by side with saloons, beer gardens, and theaters.

Among the better-known houses was the Kimball-Stevenson House, built in 1873. By the early 1900s it had become known locally as “Geraldine’s Place,” one of Bucktown’s most notorious houses of ill fame. Clients prized its larger rooms, piano parlor, and relative discretion. The city directory listed many addresses in Bucktown by name: the Cozy Corner, the Midway, the Royal Palace—each house playing its role in the nightly circuit.

In 1903, Anita Ray said, “Chicago is a paradise when compared to the Iowa town … For a town of this size, there is more vice than in any other city in the country.” She decried how wealthy sons came into Davenport, caroused in theaters and saloons, and spent hundreds in Bucktown where, “the police make no attempt to stop it.”

Newspapers printed her words, fueling outrage among reformers. The reformists were loud and persistent. Churches marched, newspapers printed exposes, and temperance leagues demanded the city council act. Catholic Bishop Henry Cosgrove thundered from pulpits: “Shut the houses, or the city’s soul is lost.” Yet aldermen and officials—many of whom were themselves clients of Bucktown—dragged their feet. The income from licensing brothels and saloons padded city coffers.

A rare police raid in Bucktown, done more
for show than justice.

It was in that tension that Mrs. Hill’s duty became both moral and precarious. When prostitutes were arrested for “lewd conduct,” Hill supervised their intake at the Bridewell. She made sure women weren’t assaulted, wrote reports, and sometimes intervened when beat officers abused their authority. She lived on site in the House of Detention, existing in the gray borderlands among criminals, reformers, and city bosses.

The streets of Bucktown heard everything. Piano notes floated through open windows; perfume, whiskey, cigar smoke, and damp river air mingled. Men slipped into alleyways, paid their fees, and left with a young woman steered through a curtained doorway. The next morning, police wagons might carry a woman for “disorderly conduct”—but if her house had paid the city fine in advance, she might be returned quietly, without public scandal.

By 1908, the pressure turned. Newspapers ran full-page exposes naming madams, listing addresses. One headline blasted, “Forty Houses of Shame Flourish Under Police Protection.” Public sentiment shifted from amused toleration to moral panic. Men who once strolled the saloons now crossed the street at night.

Yet Bucktown did not collapse in one night. Houses shut quietly; others were raided for appearances. The fines rose. The once-steady advance tribute became too costly for some. The curtain dropped gradually on Bucktown’s glory days. By 1910, the district was already fraying. The music lightened; the saloons dimmed.