brag about the town’s old red light district. Usually with some pride.
Peace (not piece),
mangeorge
Bragging, or just being all historical about it?
I’ve read histories of Denver that never mentioned Larimer Street at all. Those histories were, to say the least, incomplete.
Kinda tongue-in-cheek bragging, Id guess. It’s usually when I see one of those travel shows where they’re talking to the local embassador.
I’ve seen it so often I’d be very surprised if many others haven’t. It’s usually one of those wink wink nudge nudge things.
The town historian where I grew up never talked about it. He did like to discuss the gay presence in Southern Nevada during the early 20th century, though.
…I guess being just outside of Las Vegas would have made talking about the red light district in a small town kinda lame, though.
I guess because it’s titillating. And because it’s all in a historical context, far away from our present lives, it’s difficult to consider it ‘rude’ or ‘in poor taste’.
Sure, we’re talking prostitution, but not like we’re talking about the time dad came rolling home drunk with two hookers. More like, ‘ladies of the night’ and ‘gentlemen rakes’. Perhaps.
Yes, lik that.
My town is lame. 
Yeah, no hookers. That is is sad.
No hookers here. Hell, we didn’t get liquor-by-the-drink till sometime in the '60s.
Instead I wonder why town historians are all either old, gay, or sort of funny-smelling.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being old, gay, funny-smelling, or any combination of the above…
Face it, what would YOU rather hear about: the local churches, or the whore houses?
Sex sells.
But what if they’re “old, gay, funny-smelling, or any combination of the above” pros?
It’s poor form to use a question mark at the end of a rhetorical statement. 
So there’s no one reading this who lives in, say, New Orleans? :dubious:
Because otherwise they have to babble about the time when, in 1862, John Smith’s gray mare shied on Main Street, scaring the other horses, and exposing the exceedingly proper Mrs. Smith’s ankle during the panic.
The existence of a whorehouse in a respectable town is about exciting as it ever got. Most places (in the US, anyway) didn’t have anything significant happen, ever, so the people who are interested in the trivialities of the past talk about hookers, simply to try to catch the attention of their listener.
You got that right.
Exactly.
There’s plenty of history in my neighborhood, but to keep people’s attention I don’t tell them about the nation’s first western-style textile mill, but rather that I live on the site of an execution ground where over 200,000 people were killed.
Oh, and there were plenty of whorehouses, too, but those are still around.
And I’m guessing they didn’t talk about the Brown Palace’s hooker tunnel? How boring.
Ya just gotta listen to the* right* local historians. The hussy’s red wallpaper, Ol’ Horace’s divorce from Augusta, and Baby Doe’s escape from the Titanic are standard tourist fodder.
Asking about the Brown Palace tunnel’s connection to opium dens might prove to be a bit more interesting. Loose women were a dime a dozen in that time & place, doncha know?
It’s even more interesting in Havre, because the red light district was beneath the main street. It’s possible to go on a tour of Havre Beneath the Streets and see a reconstructed whorehouse, female mannequins and all.
Then you can go see the buffalo jump, where Native Americans used to stampede buffalo off a small cliff to kill gigantic numbers of them as quickly as possible. Nobody seriously claims every part of those animals got used.
This place has been a real education.