One aspect of Wild West your editor particularly appreciates is its narrative scope. Despite the magazine’s colorful title, we publish stories that encompass every aspect of the American West, from wild to mild to anywhere in between. And that means sometimes covering the not-so-pleasant realities of life on the frontier. Among the latter is the dehumanizing and sometimes violent underworld of prostitution—the subject of our cover story.
While brothels contributor Chris Enss, “an open secret,” the women who quite literally sold themselves represented a disregarded class of society, largely unseen outside the brothel walls. This spring TwoDot published Enss’ book , which relates the history of the bordellos in Deadwood, from its 1876 founding in Dakota Territory to 1980, when state and federal law enforcement officers finally shuttered the four remaining brothels. Longtime contributor Linda Wommack sources Enss’ book in her feature “Deadwood’s Open Secret” (see P. 30).
