Notorious Two Bit Street

Madams of brothels, houses of gambling, rampant government corruption—all these were found in a late 1800s Mormon community. This is the fascinating, well-researched, true history of Two-Bit Street—a street that became known throughout the world for its ladies of the evening and saloons that never closed. The American West’s wildest poured into this small Utah town after it was chosen to be the Junction City for the newly constructed 1869 transcontinental railroad. A history that spans three quarters of a century, this book shows how a pious people can be overpowered by an uncontrollable malignancy of lust. At times inspiring, this book also unveils the struggle between deep corruption and those who wanted this corruption to be destroyed. Infamous Twenty-Fifth Street in Ogden has been named as one of the ten great streets in America because of its past notoriety and its complete contiguous turn-of-the-century commercial architecture which remains as a witness of that colorful past. Lyle J. Barnes is the street’s original historian, and many other authors have quoted his history of Twenty-Fifth Street. With the fine additional research and writing done by Jean Barnes, this second edition makes Lyle’s best-selling history better than ever.

Men flooded to the Montana frontier for gold, furs, rich land, and jobs. Women followed, but their options were more limited. Here are stories of women who made a desperate choice, turning the law of supply and demand to their advantage. Many eked out a meager but independent existience; grit and business acumen brought remarkable wealth and influence—even respectability—to a few. From Alzada to Yaak, these enterprising women shaped Montana communities, in some cases helping to fund social programs and public education.

In 1845, Miles Goodyear founded a settlement at Fort Buenaventura, located near the confluence of the Weber and Ogden Rivers. The area was renamed Ogden in 1851 by Mormon Church president Brigham Young after Peter Skene Ogden, a Hudson's Bay Company fur trapper. Ogden prospered as an agricultural town and then thrived with the arrival of the railroads, when the growing community, often referred to as "Junction City," became a major railroad hub. Union Station became a well-known landmark surrounded by rowdy gambling houses and brothels as well as ethnically diverse residential neighborhoods. Since 1889, Ogden has also been an important center of higher education, and it is now home to Weber State University. World War II brought Ogden into the modern era as a transportation and military center with the establishment of Hill Air Field, Defense Depot Ogden, and the Naval Supply Depot.

A “well-researched and very readable new biography” (The Wall Street Journal) of “the Thomas Edison of guns,” a visionary inventor who designed the modern handgun and whose awe-inspiring array of firearms helped ensure victory in numerous American wars and holds a crucial place in world history. Few people are aware that John Moses Browning—a tall, humble, cerebral man born in 1855 and raised as a Mormon in the American West—was the mind behind many of the world-changing firearms that dominated more than a century of conflict. He invented the design used in virtually all modern pistols, created the most popular hunting rifles and shotguns, and conceived the machine guns that proved decisive not just in World Wars I and II but nearly every major military action since. Yet few in America knew his name until he was into his sixties. Now, author Nathan Gorenstein brings firearms inventor John Moses Browning to vivid life in this riveting and revealing biography. Embodying the tradition of self-made, self-educated geniuses (like Lincoln and Edison), Browning was able to think in three dimensions (he never used blueprints) and his gifted mind produced everything from the famous Winchester “30-30” hunting rifle to the awesomely effective machine guns used by every American aircraft and infantry unit in World War II. The British credited Browning’s guns with helping to win the Battle of Britain. His inventions illustrate both the good and bad of weapons. Sweeping, lively, and brilliantly told, this fascinating book that “gun collectors and historians of armaments will cherish” (Kirkus Reviews) introduces a little-known legend whose impact on history ranks with that of the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford.

Uncovering Sin, Scandal and Sensuality In the late 1840s, the new frontier west of the Missouri River opened its floodgates to opportunity and adventure. In a new land, where men were lonely and women scarce, prostitutes poured in to ply their trade wherever they could--under trees, in wagons or random shanties. Within decades, prostitution expanded into cities and towns. Red light districts, brothels and cribs sprouted like wildflowers. Ogden's notorious madam Belle London enticed Salt Lake Councilmen to hire her to oversee their one hundred fifty room crib stockade. Park City's Mother Urban successfully defended her sixteen row houses as "necessities" for thousands of miners. The ballyhooed brothels of Helper stimulated "hunting trips" for Salt Lake men willing to travel for sex. Award-winning author Eileen Hallet Stone combed newspapers, archives and court cases to examine the lives, equity and infamy of Utah prostitution.

"The controversy waned when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began to move away from polygamy in the 1890s, but resurfaced with the rise of the anti-Mormon American Party that sponsored the Stockade prostitution district. Nichols traces the interplay of prostitution and reform through World War I, when Mormon and gentile moral codes converged at the expense of prostitutes. He also considers how polygamy and religious conflict distinguished Salt Lake City from other cities struggling to abolish prostitution in the Progressive Era."--Jacket.

As settlements and civilization moved West to follow the lure of mineral wealth and the trade of the Santa Fe Trail, prostitution grew and flourished within the mining camps, small towns, and cities the nineteenth-century Nevada and Utah. Whether escaping a bad home life, lured by false advertising, or seeking to subsidize their income, thousands of women chose or were forced to enter an industry where they faced segregation and persecution, fines and jailing, and battled the other hazards of their profession. Some dreamed of escape through marriage or retirement, and some became infamous and even successful, but more often found relief only in death. An integral part of western history, the stories of these women continue to fascinate readers and captivate the minds of historians today. Nevada and Utah each had their share of working girls and madams who remain notorious celebrities in the annals of history, like Kate Flint and Dora Topham, but Collins also includes the stories of lesser-known women whose roles in this illicit trade help shape our understanding of the American West.