Hell's Grandchild: The Red Dog Saloon, OKC

In 1911 a serial newspaper story carried mention of several mythical saloons. "Sandy Bent Hoke" by M. Quad, copyright 1911 by the American Literary Press was carried in several Oklahoma newspaper including the Capital Hill Press (Oklahoma County). "M.Quad" was a pseudonym of  Charles Bertrand Lewis (M Quad) (1842–1924).

In the series he names two saloons, The Red Dog Saloon and the Dead Shot Saloon.

They may have given inspiration in later days to local establishments made notorious. One in particular: The Red Dog Saloon.  (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc937123/m1/5/zoom/?q= "Red Dog" "saloon"&resolution=1.5&lat=5002.197888175628&lon=734.8107253333612). 

In the 1960's and the following several decades a notorious establishment was a hot spot for partying, crime, drug use and violence in general. The Red Dog Saloon was primarily a hot party site and strip club.

For most of its early years the Red Dog was located at 7118 N. Western Avenue in Oklahoma City. In 1968, they were advertising for "Go Go Girls" aged 18-25, at $75 a week. In December of 1969, the saloon was locked and closed by local law enforcement agents.

By 1992 it was up and running again, and as reported in a Feb 1, 1992 issue of the Oklahoma Gayley, it was listed - on a scale of 1-10 with ten being the most desirable- as a 1 in the northwest area of Oklahoma City among establishments serving liqueur.

"Hell's Half Acre" was considered squashed by reformers in the early 1900's when most of the houses, dens and saloons were closed, restricted or recreated. The truth was that the raw and wild creature of vice simply learned how to function in polite socitety and lived on....and on....on on.

   

Oklahoma Gazette article from 2017-  https://www.okgazette.com/oklahoma/cover-story-red-dog-documentary-chronicles-a-childhood-spent-in-one-of-okcs-longest-running-strip-clubs/Content?oid=2981077

Documentary trailer:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQiyG-M-Ioc

MAPS: Hell in OKC

cMarilynAHudson, 2015

Ardmore and a Sad Tale: Vivia Gale aka Rose Welch 1894

Daily Ardmoreite. (Ardmore, Indian Terr.), Vol. 1, No. 214, Ed. 1 Tuesday, July 10, 1894 carries a sad story on its front page of a woman who committed suicide in east Ardmore.  She left behind a letter she had received from a brother in law that had 'blasted' her and the two letters she wrote to him and to her estranged husband.  Then, she laid down on a bed, placed a chloroform cloth over her face and died. She was known as Vivia Gale alias Rose Welch.

The newspaper alleged she was a fallen woman, who had been widely known the year before playing piano for a musical comedy troupe, but her letter indicate that perhaps more was going on in her life and that truly she was a victim of circumstances facing a woman on her  own.

Her brother in law was identified in the article and the letter as J.M. Barton of Iowa Park, Texas and her husband as John Gale of Butte, Montana.  A later article in another paper will identify him as "J.O. Gale of Spokane Falls, Washington."

The news writer was quick to point out that she was a fine example of womanhood and did not appear as many in that life but left the reader with the assurance she was indeed such a woman of ill repute.  Strangely, townsfolk, allegedly stepped forward to give her a decent burial but the second news article carrying that story does not say where she was buried or who may have shown the 'Christian charity' such an act required.  

It was a sad tale and one that may answer the questions of distant relatives of these individuals. Attempts to locate a grave for the woman have so far met with no success. The newspaper indicates she was buried in the Ardmore area but her grave may be unmarked.  If anyone knows more about this grave and these people, I would love to hear more. 

All in all it is a cautionary tale for all that forgiveness is the best gift we can give another human being and charity should be for everyone and not a select few..

Her haunting fnal words via her last letter was " my heart is breaking that I have been condemned without being given a hearing. Yours, Vivia."

Hell's In Far Off Places

In 1900, in the Oklahoma State Capital newspaper of January 30 was an article on Rose Francis Blumpkin, Girl Gambler.  The 18-year old woman  in Dawson, Yukon Territory of Alaska, was playing the tables winning like a man and acting thus unwomanly.

Some associate her vaudevillian life with prostitution, others say she was just a drink and dance girl at a house in Dawson (or elsewhere) when she was between theater shows. What this article explains is she was daring, cagey and polished player.

"The other day she lost $3000 at...risky game called "craps." That same night she "beat the house" by no less than a sum of $5000."

This, the opinionated writer stressed, just could not be because, "When a man gambles he becomes as coldly metallic in his nervous system as the coin he covets. His nerves, in face, are nerves of steel.

When a woman gambles she becomes hysterically excitable in her nervous system. The eventual result is one of two things: she either commits suicide or is herself committed to a madhouse."

Apparently, the writer never hear of Poker Alice, Elenore Dumont, or Kitty LaRoy....

Oklahoma City's First Female Entrepreneurs: Some Early Madam's

Most of the attention, deserved or not, in writings about the early days of "Hell's Half Acre"

went to Madam Annie Wynn Bailey aka "Big Ann" or "Big Annie."  There were lots of predecessors and competitors.  Here is a working list of some of the Madams and Working Girls found to date. Are these there real names?  Sometimes. Like many women in similar lives, they changed names and histories like some changed shoes. A woman might become someone new on leaving one location. Maybe as a way to start fresh, to hide, or pretend.

Some of the earliest papers are filled with one Mable Warren who ran a stable of saucy women who often took their parties out into the streets of "Hell" to the shock of nearby new citizens. One instance saw two women with two cowboy friends, the women in scanty clothes, and freely sharing bottles of liquer, shouting, cursing, and generally putting on quite a show for the people in a nearby hotel/boarding house seated on a balcony.

Ann Wynn Bailey does not show up in a police court report until 1895. The pages do contain many other women fined for operating a hose of prostitution or being an "inmate" of the same.

In 1898, a Lillian Day was fined for running a house of prostitution but no location was given.

The Vendome, Bunco Alley (24 1/2 W. Grand now Sheridan)  in Hell's Half Acre, was the most elite establishment with Brussels carpets and fine furnishings was run by Ethel, sometimes called Eva, Clopton. They also had a woman there known as "Sportive Lizzie."

In about 1890, most of the houses were moving out of "Hell" and going 'uptown' taking over W. 2nd (now Kerr) between Harvey and Hudson Streets. That area was called "Harlot's Lane" and many large houses did enthusiastic business there on both sides of the street: Etta Woods Creole Girls, The Arlington (an elegant established owned by Big Ann but run by Madame McDonald), Nina Truelove's place, a circus atmosphere prevailed at the building shaped like a ship called 'Noah's Ark' run by Big Liz aka Mary Belle Everhardt and sometimes Evans and Big Anne's Place 444 (once the Clopton Club) managed for her by Effie Fisher until she died by a mysterious assassin in 1903.

 In 1905, Jean (Julia) Lamonte, aka Madam Brentlinger was heading the "Red Star" at 431 W. 2nd (now Kerr).  She had come, with Big Anne, on the day of the run in 1889.

In 1906, Eva Ryan's house of prostitution was at 28 1/2 W. Grand when she was fined; Irene James was fined for operating a house but no address or name given in police court records Eva had been around a long time too and was apparently well known for offering wild entertatinment as well. 

At the same time Naomi Harris, Emma Bryan, Bernice Daniel, and Mary Mangold were fined for working in a bawdy house. That same year, it was recognized that one Ethel Preston was an 'inmate' of the Corn Exchange at 326 W. Grand, when one man shot and killed another over her favors.

In 1907, a 'high tone house' was being run in April by a "Mrs. Summers" at Broadway and Washington. The City Directory lists a widow Sara L. (Mrs. John) Summers at 129 W. Washington who may or may not be the same woman.

 In 1909, the inmates of a house at 31 W. Washington were fined...Mary Johnson, Nell Johnson, and Grace Davis.

There was also the Foss House at Washington and Robinson, south of Reno. Many of these streets were eradicated or renamed over time.

 

--(c) Marilyn A. Hudson

THE TRAGIC DEATH OF CORNELIUS VOORHIES (1915)

In February of 1915, an elderly recluse who owned a small farm near Jennings that was finally making some money for the first time because of the oil under it, made a trip to the bank in Maramac, Oklahoma. He collected about $200 dollars and then headed back home. Once there, two men waylaid him and ransacked his home, loaded him onto a wagon, perhaps nursing a head where one of the men had struck him and headed toward the nearby Cimarron.  The man's dog followed, barking and raising noise. The men shot it and tossed it into the river.  Soon after, the men stopped, walked the elderly man toward the river and killed him before shoving his body into the river.

Nearly a month later, after stories of his disappearance appeared in numerous newspapers in the region, a body was found just two miles south of Yale, Oklahoma.  Charles Cable found the body, reported it and soon Police Chief Byron was calling together in quest led by Justice Dixon.

Doctors Stark and Shortbaugh examined the remains and it was clear the man had been killed. There was a bullet hole to the back of the head. It soon became apparent the body belonged to the missing 72 year old man, Cornelius Voorhies, who had gone missing February 25, 1915.

There was little known about the elderly man, he had come into the Pawnee County area "in the early days", was apparently a bachelor, and was somewhat of a recluse on his small farm.

Evidence revealed he had drawn money from the bank at Maramec, a team known to belong to him had been left at a livery stable in Cushing, Oklahoma, and police had a description of the man who had left the team there.  They had a working theory that the day he withdrew money, or possible the next day, he had been robbed at his home, killed and then taken to the river, where his killer or killers had thrown the body into the river. They believed it had remained there in that place since the murder. Early remarks seem to indicate that the farm place looked disheveled but there had been no blood. That, coupled with the fact the body was found south of Yale, and the man's farm was far north along the river. Since the often bending course of the river is essentially to the east and south it meant the man had been thrown in the river closer to his home.

The remains were turned over to the Green and Combe Undertaking firm, prepared for burial and then it was noted they would be taken to Maramec.

Just how the case concluded is difficult to determine. Hobson counter sued in 2019 and an ex parte appeal by Rowe failed.

Federal census records provide some background on the victim. He was apparently the son of Isaac W. Voorhies and Salley Bozer Voorhies and had been born in Missouri in 1843/1844. His grave stone has the 1843 date. He can be found in Valley, Pawnee County, Oklahoma in 1910. In McElroy Twp., Pawnee, Oklahoma boarding with Frank and Rebecca Hoover. Note, this is also were Arthur Rowe is located. He can be found in Buchanan County, Missouri 1850, 1860, 1880.


In May 1916, the case came back to life with a convoluted story about a local "boy" who confessed to the murder while residing in Kansas City. Arthur Rowe, 32 was the son of a local Oklahoma farmer named A.C. (Alonzo Rowe). Some sources spell it as "Roe".  Rowe confessed he had lived in "terror for two years" because he had been the pawn of a stronger personality that had threatened him if he did not go along with some vague plan of vengeance against the old farmer. Rowe named the other man as Joe Hobson, of Kansas, as the actual murderer.

Rowe, however, had brushes with the law earlier in Oklahoma. He had, in fact, been charged with forging checks in October of 1915 and sent for two years to the penitentiary.

May 12, 1916, a Marshall was returning Rowe to Oklahoma and law officers were seeing Hobson on charges of murdering Cornelius Voorhies in February of 1915.

Pawnee and the surrounding areas, even as late as 1915, were 'in the neighborhood of hell' - a new hell created by the new wealth as useless oil was found to have a profitable market. In such times, cattle booms or oil booms, there are always those to whom the easy way to wealth had more appeal than effort, sacrifice, work and planning. For those people, no one, not even an elderly recluse of a man who troubled no one, would stand in their way.

THE BELLE OF THE CIMARRON : A POSSIBLE SOURCE FOR THE 'ROSE OF THE CIMARRON' LEGEND, SADIE MCCLOSKEY

The local legend was that shortly after the opening of the Sac and Fox lands was present in the Cushing and Ingalls, Oklahoma areas, a woman whose husband was killed. She went into or back to "business."  Reports were she was named Sadie  Comley McCloskey...

She went "into business" in the area, she opened and ran a gambling room in small Ingalls, and kept a couple of girls.  The outlaw element in the area liked to visit the small communities of Ripley, Ingalls, Cushing and elsewhere to drink, game, visit the ladies, and on more than one occasion they attended church fundraising suppers or community events. 

Now along with the outlaw groups better known - the Daltons, the Doolin's and the Dunns - there was a constantly shifting association of small-town bad guys and their hangeron's.  They were not above claiming the glory for some criminal activity to enhance their 'street cred' of that time period.

One bad guy was known as "Doc Stutzman" and he was often accompanied by his "wife." Now, this women seems to have changed names and appearance on more than one occasion. A local in the Cushing area was named Billy Johnson and he had a saloon with hardcore and wild regulars. One was "Doc" and it was alleged Doc's wife was named "Sadie McCloskey" (Young Cushing in Oklahoma Territory, pg. 37).

The time frame, the locales, and the descriptions of this woman at one point make her a likely candidate for the legend of the "Rose of the Cimarron" label that was slapped on to the most likely innocent young sister of the Dunn brothers.  

She was probably also responsible for some of the things people laid at the feet of Flora Quick Mundis aka "Tom King" and possible other women of that day.

In the autobiography of ex-cowboy and Rough Rider, Billy McGinty, he indicated "Sadie" wore a white hat, cowboy style, rode astride instead of side-saddle and was a "fine looking woman." (Oklahoma Rough Rider; Billy McGinty's own story. McGinty, Billy. Ed. by Jim Fulbright and Albert Stehno. Norman, Ok: U. of Oklahoma Press, 2008)

Some descriptions indicate she had a fine pair of pale horses pulling a fancy buggy.

She loved big hats with long feathers and trimmings. Sallie, Sadie Comley aka McCloskey, was "widow of a BAR X cowboy killed right after the Sac and Fox Land " opening September 22, 1891. It was said she had a "parlor" with 304 girls working in Ingalls.  Early maps of Ingalls do indicate the location of such a house.  

One year after the opening of the Sac and Fox lands, September 1, 1892, was the day of the Battle of Ingalls, according to Glenn Shirley's West of Hell's Fringe (pg.151,157), on that day outlaw Bittercreek left a card game and headed to the small building where "said Comley" was located - where she kept her "girls."

She ran two-three women from a gambling hall at Ingalls prior to 1893. She was later in the company of 'Doc Stutzman" and was called "Sadie McCloskey" but may have adopted several names including "Stella", "Daisy", and "Bertha."

In fading memories, confused accounts, and simple make believe - this woman was no doubt the source of the added layers of "information" related to the horse thief TOM KING aka Flora Quick Mundis, the more daring aspects of the "LITTLE BRITCHES" and "CATTLE ANNIE" escapades, and the relationships with members of the DOOLIN GANG aka Wild Bunch, and the DUNN group later. 

There is evidence of confusion in the later memoirs and interviews of some famous ex-U.S. Deputy Marshalls operating in the areas for the time period. They confused dates, places, and accounts but their words were accepted as gospel and used by writers - and even historians - without regard to validating the information. 

Charles Colcord, in his biography, reports accompanying a woman to a Massachusetts Reformatory. The person and the dates do not match his known legal duties at the time. 

Reporters hot and hungry for a good story are revealed to have made up, added on, and strongly embellished accounts of all events.  These included accounts of female outlaws where the added layer of sexual innuendo was strongly added to the whole account. Unfortunately, all of these elements combined to produce several decades of incorrect accounts and false representations of everyone.