Graham arrived in Seattle by , [ 5 ] charged with "Keeping House of Prostitution" by King [County] Frontier Justice by ; [ 6 ] the city, barely three decades old, was at the tail end of a period from November 23, , until a series of court decisions in — [ 7 ] in which women's suffrage had led to a triumph of "reform" politics there.
Monied interests were voted out of political office, liquor licenses revoked, brothels closed, and relevant laws strictly enforced. The result for this frontier economy was, in the words of local popular historian Bill Speidel , that "The fines and licenses on liquor, gambling , and prostitution that had been the major source of income for the operation of the city dwindled to almost nothing. Graham approached Jacob Furth , and through him a number of the city's leading businessmen, [ 9 ] with a proposal for the establishment of a brothel comparable in prices and quality to the city's finest hotels.
Prices were to be openly posted as against charging what the traffic would bear from night to night , staffed by women who would be, as Speidel described them, "gorgeous,. With their forthcoming start-up capital she purchased the property at the corner of Third and Washington. Her first building was short-lived; it burned in the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, , but she had already profited sufficiently to rebuild in stone afterwards.
In less than 18 months she had done well enough to expand significantly. She established the young city's most refined parlor house at the southwest corner of 3rd Avenue South and South Washington Street, [ 2 ] "a discreet establishment for the silk-top-hat-and-frock-coat set to indulge in good drink, lively political discussions and, upstairs, ribald pleasures -- all free to government representatives.
During the period of Graham's ascendancy, Seattle wavered back and forth between "open city" and "closed city" policies. Graham's establishment briefly went dormant during one such "closed city" period in but soon opened wide its doors for business once again. The result was acquittal in a jury trial and according to Speidel the subsequent resignation of reform mayor Henry White.
