History
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French Canadian brothers Arthur and Joseph Nadeau built the Dumas Hotel as a house of prostitution in 1890. Reflecting the architecture of the trade, each room features a door and window so customers could “shop.” In 1900, when Grace McGinnis was madam, the Dumas stood in the heart of a red-light district roughly two blocks square and crowded with saloons and gambling halls. Prostitutes worked everywhere from squalid alley “cribs” to high class “parlor houses” such as the Dumas. Although prostitution was never legal in Butte, it was tolerated as a necessity for miners and “gentlemen” alike. The district faded as years passed, but women at the Dumas serviced customers until 1982.
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Butte-Silver Bow (balance), Montana · United States
