Once when I was visiting a friend in Monticello, Iowa he pointed out a lady walking downtown and declared, “That’s the town hooker” which I thought was hilarious. I thought this was a fairly small town but Wiki claims there are 52,000 citizens. But even then the impression I got was that everyone knew her.
So what is the smallest town you have actually seen a hooker in?
Dennis
My city, Chillicothe, Ohio has about 21,000 residents. We have a serious opioid problem, and dozens of hookers, none of whom I know.
I took an Amtrak from DC to Glacier National Park. All of the stops from North Dakota to East Glacier, MT were in little towns, some of them with populations under 2,000. Within a block of the train station at every single stop was a bar, a casino, and a motel/inn. I didn’t get off the train so I couldn’t verify one way or another that’s what they were, but I assumed at least some of the women hanging out in front of any of these places were prostitutes.
Apparently prostitution arrests are exceptionally rare in North Dakota so maybe they were just trashy local women, but I’ve no doubt prostitution does exist there.
I’d imagine in smaller towns, it’s more of a part time/opportunistic sort of thing, not a full-time job.
Out in Nevada, where there is legalized prostitution, there are lots of small towns with obvious brothels – Elko, Ely, Wells, Carlin. I drove through some of these, just to see (honest!) But I don’t think that’s what the OP had in mind.
The smallest town where I’ve seen a lady who was undoubtedly prostitute “in the wild” was New York City.
We were recently in a small bar/restaurant in Saltsburg, PA (population 873). My gf went to the ladies room and a woman down the bar slid over and asked if I wanted to have some fun. She quoted me $200 for me and my gf, who she thought was cute. I told her we had plans for the evening, but thanked her just the same.
I told my gf about the encounter on our drive home. She said I handled the situation well.
My home town has about 1800 people at the moment. It was significantly smaller when I moved away 25 years ago.
We didn’t have prostitutes plying their trade in the open, as far as I can remember. It was more of a “everyone knows who to go visit/pick up in the bar” kind of situation.
Define seen.
In Rocket Boys, Homer Hickam talked about the Coalwood town prostitute, and the town population was around 2000. That’s pretty small.
However, I have never been sure I’ve ever seen one in the wild, so to speak. Just because a woman is walking down the street at 6am in a skin tight party dress doesn’t mean she’s a whore. Can’t assume anything.
“I said, baby, what’s the goin’ price? She told me to go to hell!”
Glassport PA (population 4k and change) and Charleroi PA spring to mind; and they aren’t all that hard to spot. I believe I’ve seen a few in a couple places in the Wyoming Valley as well. In a lot of the old rust and hard-coal towns hooking is about the only industry left. Some is knowing the places to look (Charleroi you want to check the laundromat) but its not all that tough.
There are a couple dozen Monticello places in the U.S.–so you might have hit one of those by mistake.
There are truckstops at most interstate exits and many are in very small towns–it is possible some of these have prostitutes working in the parking lot or vicinity.
Barstow, CA (population 22,639 in 2010) is the smallest place I’ve been propositioned. I was refilling my water jugs outside a grocery store before heading out into the desert on a camping trip. It was only about 9 am. Didn’t ask for a price quote.
It makes sense, as there are a lot of truck stops in Barstow as that is where I-40 splits off from I-15.
Dude! Always ask for a price quote. I’ll assume you knew enough to get a receipt, rather than just relying on your cancelled check.
I had some reason to be in an upstairs storage room of a truck stop near West Memphis. There was a large flat couch and a rather attractive woman reading a magazine. She gave me an inquiring glance when I walked in, but lost interest when it became apparent I was on some errand. I’ve always wonder if she were a hooker.
Looks like it. I might have used the ZIP code instead of the population.
Dennis
If there are ten people in town, look around. If you can’t spot the prostitute, it’s you.
Isn’t that the saying? I may be confusing this with another saying.
It’s not a “town,” but there was a lady in our condo complex (maybe 500 residents?) who we were pretty sure was a call girl. She was very nice and liked our dogs, so I had no problems with her.
I thought “liking” dogs costs extra.
Population 2. Never did figure out why they didn’t get married 
There is a money joke there, but it just isn’t working out.