AN UNMITIGATED NUISANCE

WHEN WE ALL MET DOWNTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT   A brass band played on the courthouse balcony as families wearing their “Sunday best” came downtown to shop on Saturday nights. Here’s another description that appeared in the Press Democrat:

“One of the biggest crowds that have attended Saturday night band concerts in Santa Rosa in the past, listened to the music rendered by the Santa Rosa Band in front of the court house and the other attraction provided by the merchants at the other end of the street. It consisted of moving pictures, illustrated songs and other features of entertainment in the Hopper Block, The pictures were thrown on a large canvass against a building on one side of the street. The crowd of spectators was a dense one, completely blockading the thoroughfare at times” (Press Democrat, June 11, 1905).

Color postcard of the courthouse courtesy Denise Hill.

SANTA ROSA’S QUEST FOR A HEART   “Kroncke’s Park” drew up to 1,500 visitors to Santa Rosa each Sunday. As these special excursion trains continued, problems mounted because the trips were attracting more and more trouble-makers.

MORALITY LAWS APPLY TO THEE, NOT TO ME   In the webinar I skipped over most of the 1890s except for the anecdote about the Rev. John B. Reid Jr. In 1892 he was voted in as permanent pastor of the Presbyterian church in Santa Rosa, then fired in 1895 because he “greatly displeased some of the wealthiest members of the congregation” with his sermons against “dancing, card-playing and other matters.”

The first mention of the redlight district was in 1892, when the City Council discussed a building under construction on D Street between Second and Third. A citizen protested there were “other houses of ill fame which have been for some time running on D street in open defiance of the law” (Sonoma Democrat, April 23 1892). In 1897 someone wrote a letter to editor complaining about “an unmitigated nuisance that has been maintained in our neighborhood for several years. The nuisance alluded to is the houses of ill-fame located in the vicinity of D, First and Second streets. Nearly all these houses — all we believe with but one exception, are owned by citizens of the city, who are renting them to women in violation of law, to be used for purposes of assignation and prostitution.” (Sonoma Democrat, May 29 1897).

THE END OF THE OTHER NEWSPAPER   In 1904 the Santa Rosa Republican was leased to W.B. Reynolds and W. H. James, muckraking journalists who set about to expose Santa Rosa being something of the Sin City of the North Bay. If not for their abrupt departure after the 1906 earthquake, there can be little doubt that they would have followed the lead of the San Francisco papers and call for Grand Jury hearings on the town’s political elite for graft and corruption.

WIDE-OPEN TOWN   In August 1905 the Santa Rosa Republican published an exposé of saloon gambling that left no question that Santa Rosa had become a deeply corrupt place. The “Wide-Open Town” series has four chapters.

SALOON TOWN   There were probably about 35 saloons in Santa Rosa during 1905. About a dozen saloons each were clustered around the train station and Courthouse Square. The places closer to the courthouse seemed to appeal to men from the town’s business class and gamblers visiting Santa Rosa. The ones closest to Railroad Square apparently catered to a rougher crowd.

THE YEAR SANTA ROSA LEGALIZED PROSTITUTION   The City Council approved the ordinance in secret session – with no public notice or citizen debate – so we don’t know the reason for their decision. Although it was likely because of complaints about venereal disease, the reason given in the newspapers was that it was somehow better than having the police do a monthly shakedown of the brothels for liquor sale violations. (The account of Doc Summerfield poisoning himself with a drug used to treat syphilis can be found here.)

MISS FARMER’S NEIGHBORS   If you asked Nancy Lou Farmer about her neighbors, you’d better have some time to spare. Miss Farmer taught sixth and seventh grade at the Fremont School, seen here in 1907 or 1908.

HOW DO YOU CLOSE A TENDERLOIN?   In the 1908 elections, Santa Rosa voters that year had to choose between two radically different slates. On one side was a “fusion” ticket created jointly by the Democratic and Republican parties that represented the old guard that had long held a political grip over the town. Running against them was a new grassroots coalition of progressives and prohibitionists, led in part by Luther Burbank. Both sides wanted to shutter the redlight district, but on the very morning of election day, the fusion candidate for mayor announced he had a trick up his sleeve. See also: ELECTION 1908: THE WRONG ROAD TAKEN

LET’S DUMP THE PROSTITUTES ON THE ITALIAN DISTRICT   Following the city elections of 1908, the clique that ran the town wanted to keep the red light district around at all costs. The craziest idea was to create a tenderloin district on West Sixth Street in the Italian section of town: “…This would leave them within the city limits and thus under police control, and yet they would be away from practically everybody.”

TENDERLOIN CRACKDOWN   Finally in April 1909, the state supreme court upheld the Farmer decision and ruled a property owner may not injure his neighbor by permitting his premises to be used for prostitution. But that didn’t stop the property owners for trying to find a loophole.

ALL ROADS ALWAYS LEAD TO THE ROADHOUSE   From 1910 on, the roadhouse and its offshoots took more of a central role in Sonoma County history. But increasingly activities in the unincorporated parts of the county would be tied to more serious crimes, including prostitution.

THE HOME FOR DELINQUENT WOMEN   In the early 1920s the state turned the mansion at the old Buena Vista winery near the town of Sonoma into the “California Industrial Farm for Women.” Prostitutes were to be held under an indefinite quarantine because they had venereal diseases considered nearly incurable at the time. Correction: in the Q&A I said inmates were sent to the farm before the U.S. entered WWI. A plan was being formed at that time, but the first women did not arrive until 1922.

WHITE SLAVERY IN SONOMA COUNTY?   A woman in El Verano was arrested in 1909 for having forced her teenage sister into prostitution. For more on El Verano prostitution and other vice, see: THE VILLAGE OF VICE IN THE VALLEY OF THE MOON

A GLIMPSE OF SANTA ROSA’S UNDERWORLD   The Santa Rosa Republican began publishing more items from the police blotter in 1907, although the paper still couldn’t bear admitting in print that there were prostitutes in town; the women were instead described euphemistically as vagrants, a “tenderloin habitue,” or a “member of the demi-monde.”

THE SHORT CRAZY SUMMER OF DAREDEVIL DOOLEY   Of all the events at the Santa Rosa Fairgrounds I’ve read about in the old newspapers, there’s one I’d have truly loved to have attended: On July 4, 1918, Ed Dooley and another driver slammed their massive cars together head-on at an impact speed of 100 MPH, the men jumping out at the last second. At age 39, Dooley had never done anything like this before; he was a portly ex-salesman who apparently woke up one morning and decided he was fearless. Correction: in the Q&A I said this happened in 1914, but the correct year was 1918.