Good Time Girls of California by Jan MacKell Collins

Author:Jan MacKell Collins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TwoDot
Published: 2021-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

Like any other madam in Frisco, Jessie occasionally suffered run-ins with the law. In 1905, for instance, both the madam and another woman, Leona Brooks, were suspected of aiding one Edward Smith who had been pilfering money from the city and had hidden a stash of forty-five thousand dollars somewhere. Even Pinkerton’s detective agency suspected that Leona and Jessie, who was “en route to New Orleans,” knew where the money was.36 All of that was forgotten, however, on the day of the earthquake. Jessie and her girls had closed around four o’clock that morning, and the madam was dining at a nearby restaurant when the quake hit. Hastening to her parlor house on Ellis Street, Jessie observed that only the chimney was damaged. She next ordered a car and took her frightened employees with her (as well as much of her wine collection wrapped in their clothes) to her private residence on Post Street. The damage was minimal there, too, and the party stayed the night. In their absence, some soldiers lit a fire inside the empty Delmonico’s restaurant to heat up coffee. The flames grew into a conflagration and burned numerous buildings, including Jessie’s parlor house.

According to one witness, Jessie was at another of her brothels on Devisadero Street the day after the quake when three businessmen came by. Believing she was open for business, the men knocked on the door which was answered by a distraught Jessie. Two of her girls had already left her, she said, and the others were threatening to flee the city. The men were offered drinks if they agreed to stay “and keep the girls occupied” as Jessie’s caretaker managed to round up several boxes of food.37 Next, three firemen showed up, presumably to help Jessie put wet rags on her roof since fires were still burning throughout the city. Jessie begged them to stay too. She even sent a message to the men’s wives, assuring them their husbands were safe, were busy fighting the fires, and were not cavorting with her girls. Then she made dinner for everyone herself.

Another legend states that Jessie and her girls helped other victims of the quake by cooking meals and giving out clothing. If Jessie was indeed a heroine in the aftermath of the quake, her deeds remain unrecorded in any official capacity. She did, however, pick up business faster than her competitors, her only loss being the Ellis Street house. But any good deeds Jessie might have performed in April were quickly overshadowed in August, when district attorney Henry Langdon announced he was going to “close down dens of vice.”38 Jessie was his first victim, arrested at another one of her brothels on Post Street.

Two months later, Henry Goldman took Jessie to court. A month before the earthquake, Goldman said, he had rented the first-floor rooms and the yard at Jessie’s place on Devisadero Street to use as a saloon. Now, he claimed, Jessie was “building rooms in the yard” and had “practically blockaded” the entrance to his tavern.

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