The miners came in '49,
The whores in '51,
And when they got together,
They produced the native son.

Hankering for some shady San Francisco history? Visit the remains of the Barbary Coast —the nation's most notorious red light district from the 1860s to 1917.

As "miner-'49ers" flooded San Francisco for gold, whores worldwide set sail for the all-male boomtown by the Bay. Like most 19th century American cities, San Francisco allowed prostitutes to ply their trade openly within the limits of a red light district.

Since "respectable" women had to stay chaste or face ostracism, prostitutes were seen as a necessary evil. They provided an outlet for men's sexual urges —especially in San Francisco, where throughout the 1850s the ratio of men to women remained 30 to 1.

The heart of the Barbary Coast rose on the blocks now known as Jackson Square Historic District, bounded by Washington, Columbus, Pacific and Sansome. These few blocks boast the only cluster of commercial buildings that survived the 1906 fire and date back to the Gold Rush. By the 1870s local authorities had confined brothels, dives and dancehalls to 35 blocks bounded by Stockton, Kearny, Broadway and Market.

This region, named after the Barbary Coast of North Africa, reigned as the nation's most notorious red light district until 1917. In the most highly concentrated areas, virtually every building housed a brothel or bar where "pretty waiter girls" sold drinks and sexual services.

Although the city passed its first anti-prostitution law in 1854, local authorities showed more interest in extorting payoffs than in eradicating the oldest profession. Nonetheless, they frequently arrested and displaced prostitutes, narrowing the confines of the red light district to make way for legal businesses. These crackdowns primarily targeted Chinese brothels, forcing them into back alleys, while white brothels operated openly on main streets.

Many Chinese prostitutes traveled to the United States unwillingly, sold into sexual commerce. But not all these women were passive victims. Some started businesses that thrived, despite outright persecution. Chinese Madame Ah Toy maintained two houses at 34 and 56 Pike Street, now Waverly Place. Through the 1850s she resisted the tongs (or Chinese mobs) that eventually monopolized Chinese prostitution and wrested control from women entrepreneurs. Ah Toy also sued clients who refused to pay her and came to the legal defense of other prostitutes.

Three classes of brothels flourished on the Barbary Coast: the crib, cowyard, and parlor house. The low-end prostitutes worked in small cubicles or "cribs." Topless women leaned out the window, soliciting 10 cents to touch one breast, 15 for two and 25 to a dollar entrance fee.

Many of the cribs contained closets with secret back doors for thieves to pick money out of the customer's pockets while he was having sex with the whore. Morton Street (now Maiden Lane) was a "crib alley" just off Union Square. Upright ladies passing by were greeted with catcalls. "Look out girls, here's some charity competition! Get some sense and stop giving it away!"

As the catcalls suggest, many whores were proud of their work, although most cribs were located in high-crime areas. The 19th century Barbary Coast was a hotbed of violent crime. In the 1880s the pie-shaped block between Broadway, Kearny and Columbus (then Montgomery Avenue) was called Devil's Acre, and the east side of Kearny, known as Battle Row, was lined with low end "cribs" that witnessed one murder a week and five brawls a day.

The cowyard —usually a three-story building containing several hundred cribs —was considered a step up in class. The most famous was the Nymphia at Pacific near Stockton. Each of the three stories housed 150 cubicles. For five dollars a day a woman could rent a cubicle, which also functioned as a peep show. When you slipped a dime in the slot, the window shade would lift, exposing the prostitute and her client inside.

Elegant French parlor houses once lined the entire block of Commercial Street between Kearny and Grant. Although most of these buildings have been torn down, one still stands at 742 Commercial —the former home of Madame Marcelle's Parisian Mansion.

These high-end brothels catered to a variety of sexual tastes. Madame Gabrielle's Lively Flea featured a show between a woman and a Shetland pony. Madame Marcelle's favorite client paid a silver dollar each morning to sweep and dust the entire Parisian Mansion while wearing a dress. The madame never revealed his name.

In 1876 a female client, known as Jeanne Bonnet or the Little Frog Catcher, persuaded a group of whores to leave the parlor houses and form a girl gang, specializing in shoplifting and robbery. She was murdered later that year, supposedly by pimps of girls who had joined her gang.

Many prostitutes worked in dives and dancehalls instead of brothels. In dancehalls like the Bella Union on Kearny and Washington, dancers sold sexual services in the curtained booths in the back, like many dancers in exotic dance clubs today. There was considerable overlap between jobs, and it wasn't uncommon for one person to work as a harlot, dancer, actress, barmaid, con artist and freak show feature.

One star performer, Big Bertha "Queen of the Confidence Women," won thousands of dollars in 1885 by persuading suitors to prove their love by allowing her to invest their money (which she promptly pocketed). At the Bella Union, Bertha co-starred in Romeo and Juliet with Oofty Goofty, who also performed in a freak show as a wild man covered in tar and horsehair. Oofty Goofty made his living charging people a dollar to hit him with the baseball bat he carried at all times.

Although the 1906 fire leveled most of the Barbary Coast, this underworld haven rose from the ashes as a tourist mecca for middle class youth. The post-1906 Barbary Coast was tame and gentrified compared to its 19th century incarnation. Every establishment charged exorbitant prices and geared their shows to shock sightseers without scaring them away.

Between 1906 and 1917 brothels and dancehalls lined the entire 500 block of Pacific (except the firehouse at 515). The buildings still standing include:

535 Pacific, Little Fox Theatre Building;
544-550, Thalia ;
555, Hippodrome;
574, the site of a club called Dash that featured female impersonators. Dash closed in 1908 and was replaced by Purcell's, the most famous African-American dancehall on the Barbary Coast.