While I was, in fact, going to a part of Pueblo with a reputation as a hotbed so to speak of the sex trade industry, I was getting there a few decades too late to actually participate in the activities that took place there. If I were so inclined. Which, for the record, I am not. It sounded like a chance to learn about some local history not likely to be found in chamber of commerce brochures. That hunch turned out to be correct.
Need a break? His tour focused on the period of time from the s until around World War I, when Union Avenue attracted a decidely different type of window shoppers.
At the start of the tour, Little urged us to clear our minds of biases we might have about the prostitution trade taking place in seedy rooms inhabited by women who were less-than-willing participants. Actually, Little said many of the brothels featured ritzy parlors and nicely appointed bedrooms. The women of that era willingly chose the profession because it was one of the most economically profitable jobs they could have in a male-dominated business world.
Little said the pool of clients back then was large. It included mill workers, farmers and travelers waiting in Pueblo for their trains to arrive. Most of the historic buildings along Union Avenue have two stories. Prostitution was illegal then, but Little said police often would extort kickbacks from madams and prostitutes in exchange for looking the other way from what they were doing.
While the thriving sex trade seemed pretty much like an open secret, it still was frowned upon in some quarters. Some of the buildings had side entrances that allowed johns to come and go on the sly. There also were campaigns to raise awareness about the dangers of contracting sexually transmitted diseases through prostitution. The sex trade during that time period used a somewhat unusual payment system. Johns would pay madams in cash, in exchange for which they received brass tokens.
