Madera’s ‘Soiled Doves’ — Happy Valentines Day

For The Madera Tribune

Sheriff John Barnett (right) came up against Madera’s flourishing Redlight District and lost.

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Prostitution was a fact of life in Madera from its early beginnings. The town had barely been founded when entrepreneurs of the world’s oldest profession descended upon the little village, and by the turn of the century the illicit traffic in human flesh was an embarrassment to most of the “law-abiding” folks.

Although occasionally a saloon or hotel east of the tracks provided the “ladies of the night” with a place to conduct business, most of the dens of iniquity existed on the west side of town. By 1900, no less than five houses of ill fame occupied the entire block between 4th, 5th, F, and G streets.

The proliferation of Madera’s “red light” businesses did not mean that there were not attempts to stamp them out. Indeed, there were, and these efforts to clean up the town reached a crescendo while John Barnett was Madera’s Marshal.