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CHAPTER 5

Denver’s Infamous Brothels

DENVER

The Navarre building, which is now a museum, used to house a brothel. Its location directly across the street from one of Denver’s most prestigious hotels caused some problems for businessmen who did not want to be seen going from one place to the other. Tunnels underneath the buildings helped to solve that problem.

BAR BRAWLS AND LOOSE WOMEN are indelibly part of the history of the Old West and, once Denver was established, it too had a red-light district. Some of these brothels became connected to expensive hotels via an intricate underground tunnel system that was built beneath the Mile High City, as its wealthy did not want to be seen coming and going from such establishments. Rumor has it that these passageways were put to further use during Prohibition, and many businesses used them to transport liquor and sometimes trade it with brothels. While the tunnels still exist underneath Denver, they are not widely used, many of them have been closed down, and some, like those underneath the capitol building, are used for storage. One of the brothels on this tunnel system could be found across the street from the Brown Palace Hotel, connecting the hotel to one of the city’s top businesses for ladies of the night.

THE NAVARRE

THIS BUILDING WAS ORIGINALLY BUILT as a school for girls in 1880 and was called the Brinker Collegiate Institute. While originally it served only women, it soon after became a coed institution. After the death of the school’s namesake in 1889, the building was sold and reopened as Hotel Richelieu, a more infamous type of establishment. Here gentlemen could dine with ladies of the night, either publicly or in more private areas of the building.

The thought process behind this idea was that there was a pool of clients just across the street, but business did not take off quite as quickly as its owners might have hoped. As noted, to be seen coming to and from The Navarre from the Brown was not ideal for a gentleman, and that was how the idea for the tunnel system was born. The first tunnel connected the basement of the Brown Palace Hotel to the Hotel Richelieu around 1892. Later, a whole system of tunnels would spread underneath Denver, connecting other hotels and even the government buildings of the city to the whorehouses.

Today, buildings can tap into the tunnels for hot or cold air, an unlikely heating and cooling system that is sold by the city of Denver. Bryan Bonner and Matthew Baxter of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society (RMPRS) said that due to movement of air, the tunnels can make a plethora of ghostlike sounds. They also said that, unfortunately, some of the tunnels are too dangerous to go into, and many have also been closed down or sealed. With the help of the tunnel, the Navarre became the second-best brothel in the city, after Mattie’s House of Mirrors—which, incidentally, is also considered to be haunted (see next page).

Many of the ghosts believed to reside in The Navarre, predominantly on the second floor, are said to be those of the working girls. Bonner said that on one of RMPRS’s ghost tours, a guest allegedly saw someone pull back a curtain while the group was standing in front of The Navarre. He said it was unlikely anyone was working in the building at the time, as it is now the home of the American Museum of Western Art—the Anschutz Collection. As all of the RMPRS tours are done at night and after business hours for the museum, only security personnel should have been in the building and, according to Bonner, they never leave their posts. His theory is that the mysterious figure who pulled back the curtain may have been the ghost of a working girl.

The building continued to be used as a brothel until the early 1900s, when it became home to a different kind of discouraged business: gambling. In fact, the building’s current name, The Navarre, came about after the building was lost in a card game. The new owner named the building for a French king. One of the building’s ghost stories is that of a man who was not gambling well one night and decided to pull his gun and shoot himself in the chest for everyone to see. It is said that visitors can hear him wandering the halls on the lower floor.

After the city began clearing out gambling halls and brothels, the building became a fine restaurant and eventually a top jazz club in the city. It was purchased in 1997 by the Anschutz Corporation. Regardless of who owns it, however, the RMPRS leaders say it is a good idea to keep an eye on The Navarre, as it currently seems to have a lot of ghostly activity happening in it.

MATTIE’S HOUSE OF MIRRORS

THE HOUSE OF MIRRORS BUILDING was built by Jennie Rogers in 1889 (and is today Lodo’s Bar and Grill). Rogers’s primary objective for the brothel was to compete with Mattie Silks, another brothel owner in Denver. When the building first opened it was located on Holladay Street, which within a few years was renamed Market Street. In 1894, before Rogers opened for business, the brothels were shaking in their boots after the murders of three prostitutes on Market, which became known as Strangler’s Row as a result.

Rogers ran the brothel until 1910. Silks then came in and the two ran the brothel together for a short time. During their ghost tour, Bonner and Baxter talk about one of the rumors, or urban legends as they refer to it, surrounding the competitive pair and how many people think Silks wanted the building so badly she challenged Rogers to a topless sword fight for ownership of it. Bonner and Baxter insist this is strictly a legend, albeit a fun one.