The Architecture of Seattle’s Historic Prostitution Trade

By Marques Vickers

“The Architecture of Seattle’s Historic Prostitution Trade” is a photographic examination of 48 documented and probable buildings employed in Seattle’s historical sex commerce. The edition illuminates the historical background, building detailing and known anecdotes behind each structure. The principal Seattle red-light neighborhoods include the Pioneer Square and the Ballard districts. The infamous LaSalle Hotel in Pike Place Market and the former Lester Apartment complex located on Beacon Hill round out the compilation. The 500-unit Lester building was once considered the largest operating brothel in the world.

Seattle’s wide-open frontier environment in the late 19th century stimulated a proliferation of vice related services including gambling houses, saloons and houses of prostitution. Statutes were loosely enforced, law enforcement corruption rampant and the tax revenues levied against brothels and sex workers essential to maintaining a financially destitute municipality.

Many historians have noted that the prostitution industry saved the expanding settlement and literally paved the sidewalks of the commercial district. The timber industry, Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899) and the city’s seaport location swelled the region’s influx of males seeking entertainment, social diversions and female companionship.

The book profiles some of the most colorful and influential personalities including theatre impresario John Considine and notable Madams Mary Ann Boyer (nicknamed Madame Damnable), Lou Graham and Nellie Curtis.

The author elaborates on the documented history, owners, architects, tenants and historical uses of each building. His text cites distinctive architectural details on the composition, façade components and alterations over the decades following the initial construction. Each building is photographed from multiple angles offering a multi-faceted glimpse of a historic era.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marques Vickers
• Release date: Aug 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215460986

Marques Vickers

Visual Artist, Writer and Photographer Marques Vickers is a California native presently living in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, Washington regions. He was born in 1957 and raised in Vallejo, California. He is a 1979 Business Administration graduate from Azusa Pacific University in the Los Angeles area. Following graduation, he became the Public Relations and ultimately Executive Director of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce between 1979-84. He subsequently became the Vice President of Sales for AsTRA Tours and Travel in Westwood between 1984-86. Following a one-year residence in Dijon, France where he studied at the University of Bourgogne, he began Marquis Enterprises in 1987. His company operations have included sports apparel exporting, travel and tour operations, wine brokering, publishing, rare book and collectibles reselling. He has established numerous e-commerce, barter exchange and art websites including MarquesV.com, ArtsInAmerica.com, InsiderSeriesBooks.com, DiscountVintages.com and WineScalper.com. Between 2005-2009, he relocated to the Languedoc region of southern France. He concentrated on his painting and sculptural work while restoring two 19th century stone village residences. His figurative painting, photography and sculptural works have been sold and exhibited internationally since 1986. He re-established his Pacific Coast residence in 2009 and has focused his creative productivity on writing and photography. His published works span a diverse variety of subjects including true crime, international travel, California wines, architecture, history, Southern France, Pacific Coast attractions, fiction, auctions, fine art marketing, poetry, fiction and photojournalism. He has two daughters, Charline and Caroline who presently reside in Europe.

Book preview

Felker House (Burned Down in the Great Fire of 1889)

Corner of Jackson Street and First Avenue South

Brothel Status: Documented

It seems only appropriate that the tiny village of Seattle’s first hotel, the two-story Felker House, ultimately evolved into a renowned brothel. The Madame, Mary Ann Boyer became legendary during her lifetime and also following her death and reburial.

In 1853, Boyer was abandoned in Port Townsend, Washington by her Alaskan whaling lover, Captain David Bull Conklin. He reportedly had tired of her persistent nagging. She migrated her way to the Seattle settlement and found employment as the matron of the Felker House. Financially shrewd, she eventually converted the upstairs bedrooms into a brothel.

Mary Ann Boyer maintained her thorny nature throughout her lifetime and earned the nickname Madame Damnable based on her demonic character and foul vocabulary. Her temper and abrasiveness were evidenced by her habitual tendency to accumulate rocks in her petticoat apron for hurling at the passing curious. She seasoned her assaults by cursing at them in five salty languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese).

Anecdotes abound regarding unpleasant confrontations between Madame Damnable and lawyers, seaman and any representative of authority. Given her professional status, the need for projectiles and protective dogs seems perfectly understandable.

What separates Mary Ann Boyer from other local historical biographies occurred several years following her demise. She was initially buried in the old Seattle Cemetery, later converted into Denny Park. The old cemetery was renowned for flooding and during the rainy season, creating bobbing coffins and darkened corpses.

An 1884 article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer described her unusual condition when her body was exhumed. The coffin weighed nearly 400 pounds because Mary Ann Boyer had hardened into a substance resembling stone. It has been speculated that her body may have been coated with adipocere, a substance known as grave wax that can develop when fat decomposes in wet soil. The phenomenon creates a weighty composition similar to clay.

Whether this account is accurate or a similar hoax to petrified corpses being reported by newspapers during that era is speculative. Boyer’s body was reportedly relocated to the Washelli Cemetery, which later became Volunteer Park. In 1887, the cemetery was renamed Lake View Cemetery and is currently the resting spot for most of Seattle’s first families, Chief Seattle’s daughter and actors Bruce and Brandon Lee.

The Felker House burned down during the Great Fire of 1889 and the site was restructured to accommodate commercial structures. None of the buildings on each corner bear the taint of prostitution. Each was regarded as a respectable operation and the foundation for rebirth of the Pioneer Square district.