Webster Stanley and his Tavern

The “Father of Oshkosh” was a tavern keeper. Webster Stanley didn’t intend to take up that trade here. Yet his unplanned tavern proved to be foundational. It became the basis for what would be the City of Oshkosh. This is about Webster Stanley and what’s been left out of our conventional histories.

Webster Stanley

A Great Curiosity
Webster Stanley was a Connecticut Yankee, born in 1798. He settled here in the spring of 1836. He was not the first non-native settler, and this was not his first visit to the area. Stanley had been in the Fox Valley for about two years. He’d been working for the territorial government hauling supplies between Fort Howard (Green Bay) and Fort Winnebago (Portage). He’d been through here before. This time, though, he was coming to stay.

Stanley had departed from what is now Neenah. He came drifting down the shore of Lake Winnebago piloting a beat-up Durham boat overloaded with his wife, Sophia; their son, Henry; and a pile of milled lumber. They had tucked in provisions to last them a year.

An 1830s-style Durham boat.

They came to shore for a brief landing on the north bank of the Fox River where it flows into Lake Winnebago. A place called Saukeer. Stanley loved the beauty of this area. And he wanted to approach a small band of Indians passing through. They had been watching his boat skirt the shoreline. Stanley said they met him as a friend and with “great curiosity.” He cherished the memory of that greeting for the rest of his life.

A current view of the eastern most portion of what was once Saukeer.

But Saukeer wasn’t Stanley’s intended destination. He was going to see James Knaggs, about three miles upriver. Knaggs was a 52-year-old “quarter blood Menominee." He had been in the general vicinity for at least a decade and was well-known throughout the region. Knaggs kept a tavern on the northeast bank of the Fox River in what is now Riverside Cemetery.

Knaggs had also claimed a portion of land on the opposite shore (now part of Rainbow Park). He ran a ferry between the two points. The tavern and ferry had been launched about six years earlier by a Virginian named George Johnston. It was the first development by a non-native in what would become the City of Oshkosh. It’s quite likely that Stanley had ridden the ferry while working for the Government. By the spring of 1836, Stanley had probably known Knaggs for a year or more.

An 1834 map with Kanggs (Naggs) Ferry House (Tavern), landing and ferry crossing. Click image to enlarge.

The Stanleys spent their first night with Knaggs on the northeast bank of the river. The following morning, they floated over to Knaggs’ south-bank claim. Stanley shaped his stack of wood into a shanty there. The shanty would be their home for the next four months. Stanley worked as a ferryman for Knaggs that summer.

The Gallup boys arrived a couple months later. Chester Gallup was the father of Stanley’s wife. His sons, Henry and Amos, camped out at Stanley’s shanty and pitched in on the ferry. It’s at this point that the received history of Stanley slips into incoherence.

A Hot Tip and a Stolen Ferry
The standard version begins like this: Henry Gallup was manning the Ferry one day in late August or early September when Territorial Governor Henry Dodge stepped on board. Dodge was either coming from or going to the Cedars, near present-day ​​Little Chute. Sources disagree on his direction. But they all agree that at the Cedars, Dodge signed off on a treaty for the eventual transfer of about 4 million acres of Menominee land to the federal government. The ceded lands included Saukeer and the rest of what is now the City of Oshkosh north of the Fox River.

Henry Dodge, 1834.

During his ferry ride, Dodge is said to have given Henry Gallup a hot tip on the imminent land transfer. Acting on that tip, the Stanleys and Gallups scuttled downriver and claimed hundreds of acres of Saukeer as their own. Aside from Governor Dodge travelling on Knaggs’ Ferry, the hot tip story makes no sense.

First, there’s the intimation that Dodge’s hot tip on the Treaty of the Cedars was inside information. In fact, there was no inside information left to give. The essentials of the land transfer had been in circulation for a year. The Green-Bay Intelligencer newspaper had been helping to spread the word since the summer of 1835, if not earlier. The “hot tip” was news to no one.

Masthead for the June 13, 1835 edition of the Green-Bay Intelligencer. This issue contained a report on the opening of the land where Webster Stanley would eventually settle.

Second, whatever Dodge may have said to Henry Gallup changed nothing about the availability of the Saukeer land. At least not in the near term. The Treaty of the Cedars wasn’t finalized until February of 1837. That didn't matter to Stanley. He wasn’t waiting for a white man’s permission to settle at Saukeer.

Treaty of the Cedars Marker in the Village of Little Chute.

If the hot tip had been the trigger, Stanley would have quickly picked up and moved to the uninhabited Saukeer. Instead, he and the Gallup boys hung around at Knaggs’ place until an unspecified date in October. This may have been the plan all along. With fall and winter coming and ferry traffic dwindling, Knaggs would no longer need their help. Their October departure allowed Stanley and the Gallups to work through the summer for Knaggs while still leaving them time to get their new housing established at Saukeer before the snow fell.

Finally, and perhaps most important, is this: in 1885, Stanley said that he staked his claim at Suakeer on or about July 18, 1836. This was about six weeks before Dodge stepped onto the Kanggs Ferry.

Stanley said his Saukeer claim was granted by Chief Oshkosh through Oshkosh’s interpreters, William Powell and Charles Grignon. It’s known that Powell was frequently traveling through the area and in regular contact with Chief Oshkosh at this time. Powell was also a known associate of James Knaggs. Stanley was definitely in the orbit of these people.

Chief Oshkosh (left) and William Powell.

There are two voices habitually missing from most histories of these events: those of Stanley and Knaggs. Neither has been well served by their omission. Which leads to another piece of this story that needs reconsideration.

Some sources claim that Stanley bought Knaggs’ Ferry and took it with him to Saukeer when he moved there. Other sources imply that Stanley pirated the ferry and made it his own. Neither version holds water. As we’ll see, the Knaggs Ferry and Tavern were still in operation at their original location years after Stanley left there.

Stanley’s Unintended Tavern
In October 1836, Stanley took down his shanty and resettled at Saukeer. Chester Gallup and his wife, Betsey, were also on the scene now. They camped out on land that coincides with the current northeast corner of Broad and Bay Shore streets. About 200 yards east of there they cleared a plot to build upon. By early November, they had a 200-square-foot log home. The two families lived together that first winter. Seven of them, overcrowded and utterly isolated.

Betsey Gallup (left) and Sophia Stanley, who shared the 200-square-foot log home with four men and an eight-year-old boy during the winter of 1836/1837.

Winter turned to spring. They built another log home, this one for the Gallups, and began clearing land for crops; primarily wheat. Stanley and Gallup had staked out almost 300 acres. The tract was bounded by what is now North Main and Merritt streets, and Lake Winnebago and the Fox River. Stanley claimed 117 acres lying west of where Bowen Street now runs. The Gallups claimed 170 acres to the east of that line.

Other settlers began arriving following the ratification of the Treaty of the Cedars. David and Thomas Evans settled north of Merritt. George Wright and his son William claimed land west of North Main. They kept on coming. Many of them were Yankees, and all of them were after cheap land. Stanley’s residence evolved into a tavern, the place where the new arrivals gathered.

Unfortunately, the early histories of Oshkosh devote little attention to the social scene at Stanley’s Tavern. They tend to be more concerned with listing the “Oshkosh Firsts” occurring there: the first religious service, the first school classes (taught by Emeline Cook in an adjoining room), the first county board meeting, the first elections… that sort of thing.

Civic affairs aside, it was by all accounts a primitive little dive. Log walls surrounded a floor made of half-sawed logs thatched with river cane. There’s no mention of an actual bar. But there are multiple references to the ubiquitous whiskey jug and avid drinking. Brandy may have been in the offing, as well. Ohio native and first Oshkosh mailman, Chester Ford, was said to have made a hard cider that was also popular among the pioneer imbibers.

Crosstown Rivals
At the end of 1838, there were still fewer than 100 people living in what would become Oshkosh. They were clustered around two points. The Knaggs Tavern on the north end and the Stanley Tavern on the east side. But the development adjacent to the Knaggs Tavern was stalled. Though his ferry remained part of the main route for people passing through the area, they weren’t coming to stay. Those who came to stay went downstream.

Two pieces from the same 1839 map. On the lefts Knaggs’ (Nagg’s) Tavern and ferry route is illustrated. On the right is Stanley’s (Stanly’s) Tavern. Below and to the right of the Stanley marker is a house symbol representing the Gallup home.

The predominance of the east side settlement was affirmed by the election of September 1838. Stanley’s Tavern was selected as the polling place for the precinct that would become Winnebago County two years later. Yet the place still lacked a proper name.

Mail sent to the area was often addressed to Stanley’s Tavern for want of a better identifier. That was a little too quaint for some. George Wright, who had been appointed Justice of the Peace for the settled area west of Lake Winnebago, called a meeting at his house to come up with something legitimate. “We have for a long time suffered great inconvenience in consequence of not having a name by which this noble town and interesting country might be known,” Wright complained.

On January 10, 1839, they came together for a whiskey-fueled vote on the matter. The folks living near the Knaggs Tavern united under the banner of Oshkosh. The folks living near Stanley’s Tavern split their votes among Athens, Osceola, Saukeer, and Galeopolis, among others. In February 1839, Wright published the results. “The name OSHKOSH received a large majority.” It would be the last political victory for the folks settled on Knaggs’ side of town.

A handdrawn map from March 1839 showing the Knaggs and Stanley locations with a road uniting the two settlement areas.

Routed
I mentioned earlier that some histories of this period imply that Stanley cheated Kanggs out of his ferry before moving to Suakeer. This is not accurate. The Knaggs Ferry was still running from its “Riverside Cemetery location” as late as February 1842, when it was mentioned in a bill under consideration by the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature.

Stanley hadn’t stolen the ferry and he hadn’t turned his back on Knaggs. In November 1839, Knaggs sued a man who had drunk brandy at his tavern, made use of his ferry, and then took off without paying. Webster Stanley testified on Knaggs’ behalf. He wasn’t the only East Sider who had remained hospitable to Knaggs. William Wright wrote that sometime around 1839, he and David Evans helped Knaggs build an addition onto his tavern. Both Wright and Evans were living near Stanley’s Tavern at the time.

In 1840, however, the connection began to fray. In August, Stanley applied to the Committee on Territorial Affairs for a license to operate a ferry on the east side of Oshkosh. That was the first step. Stanley then sought and received an appointment to a commission tasked with laying out a new territorial road through Oshkosh. The new road bypassed Knaggs’ ferry. It led, instead, to Stanley’s ferry near the current Wisconsin Street Bridge.

Detail of an 1841 map with a dotted line showing the territorial road passing through Knaggs’ Ferry near the confluence of Lake Butte des Morts and the Fox River.

The new route appears to have been completed in 1842. Soon after, Stanley moved his ferry further down river, to the approximate site of the current Canadian National Railroad Bridge.

From an 1844 map showing the Territorial Road now passing through Stanley’s Ferry.

Stanley didn’t steal Knaggs’ Ferry, but he had made it redundant. Knaggs went broke, closed his tavern, and struggled to get by as a farmer. At the end, he was down to a cow, a calf, and four pigs. James Knaggs died in 1847. By that time, his old friend Webster Stanley was getting his own taste of poverty and failure. That part of the story will be coming soon.

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Some Notes on Sources...
For the most part, I write these stories for my own pleasure. And because I find listing sources unpleasant, I usually don’t. But in this case, I want to call out several sources for anyone who would like to carry this research forward. What follows will be of little interest to most, but here we go, anyway…

At last count, I had collected and absorbed something in the neighborhood of 80 sources (I’m well past that point now) while researching this story and the related story about Johnston’s Tavern. I’m not going to list all of those, but here are a few that have helped to clear away some of the half-truths and errors that seem to have become axiomatic in the conventional histories of this city.

First, there’s the work of Dr. Charles D. Goff, late professor of history at the Wisconsin State University - Oshkosh (now UW-Oshkosh). His 1976 article in the Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters (Volume LXIV) and his Chapter in the 1976 book Prairie, Pines, and People are both essential texts on the initial settlements of non-natives here.

To the best of my knowledge, there’s information in the present piece concerning the events surrounding Webster Stanley’s settling at Saukeer that has not appeared in other histories. The bulk of this was gleaned from statements Stanley made in the last decade of his life. The most telling of these appears in an article published in the Oshkosh Morning Times on August 30, 1885. Stanley was interviewed extensively for the article. He provided details of his first years here, some of which contradict the often-told stories of that time. To my reading, Stanley’s version of these events is more tenable.

As for those “conventional histories” I’ve mentioned here, there are two primary sources that have seeded almost everything that has followed.

The Geographical and Statistical History of the County of Winnebago, published in 1856, appeared 20 years after Stanley settled at Saukeer. The mythologizing was well underway even at this early date. Stanley was still in the area at this time, but it doesn’t appear that anyone involved in the project ever bothered to get his input. This volume is also the source for the erroneous assertion that Stanley stole the Knaggs Ferry. In reference to Stanley, it mentions that “He took the ferry of Knaggs, who was a half-breed, and commenced keeping it himself.” This error was compounded by the subsequent interpretation that “took” implied theft.

The other primary text is Richard Harney’s History of Winnebago County, published in 1880. Harney has cast a long shadow over this history, and his book is invaluable, but some of it can’t be taken at face value. His Anglo chauvinism often skews his interpretation of events.

Lastly, I was able to get added insight into James Knaggs by reviewing the extant probate records of his estate. The first filings in that record were made in December 1847. It would be an especially interesting document for anyone researching Knaggs or the early settlement that existed near his tavern and ferry. I was able to access that source through Ancestry.com.

The First Tavern

It began with a tavern by the river. This tavern was the first step to what would become the City of Oshkosh. It was the project of a man born more than 240 years ago. His name was George Johnston.

George Johnston’s tavern as he may have envisioned it. As we’ll discover, it turned out to be a more primitive affair.

George Johnston was born in Virginia in 1784. He roamed away as a young man and wound up in Detroit. The city was rapidly developing from a fur-trading outpost into a multi-cultural boom town. Detroit was a magnet for the young and ambitious. People like George Johnston.

A bird's eye view of Detroit as it looked when George Johnston arrived there.

Johnston had been in Detroit for at least two years when the War of 1812 broke out. The conflict promised the sort of adventure he’d been seeking. Johnston joined the Michigan Militia to fight the British and their Native American allies. He survived the disastrous Brownstown Battle, where U.S. forces were routed by a small band of Shawnee warriors. But in a later clash, Johnston was captured by British soldiers. They sent him to Canada as a prisoner of war.

Fort George on the Niagara River where Johnston was held as a prisoner of war.

Johnston was released from Fort George in March of 1813 and returned to the fighting. After the war ended in 1814, he went to Fort Howard, at what is now Green Bay. Johnston made his living there selling provisions to troops stationed at the garrison.

A view from the Fox River of Fort Howard about the same time that Johnston was there.

In 1818, Brown County was created as part of the Michigan Territory. Johnston was appointed its first sheriff. He held that post until the end of 1829. And this is when he begins looking south to where the Fox River flows into Lake Winnebago.

The exact date of Johnston's arrival here is unknown. But the summer of 1830 may be the best bet. George Johnston became the first non-Native settler in what would become the City of Oshkosh. He was not entirely alone, though. There were several Indian villages nearby. But those weren’t the folks Johnston had in mind for the tavern he was building.

The Tourist's Pocket Map Of Michigan” showing travel routes and Indian villages in the vicinity of Lake Winnebago. The map was already outdated when it was published in 1835.

In the spring of 1830, Congress set aside money for the opening of a new route between Fort Howard (Green Bay) and Fort Winnebago (Portage). Passing through the current Oshkosh would have been the best way to go. Except that soldiers, mail carriers and other travelers hated the thought of swimming their horses across the Fox River.

Johnston had a solution: a ferry crossing. And a tavern to cash in on the traffic coming his way. He planted his log tavern, his log home, and his ferry launch on the northeasterly bank of the Fox River. The Johnston complex was situated in the South East Quarter of Section 10, Township 18 North, Range 16 East, 4th Principal Meridian. Or as we call it now, Riverside Cemetery.

The approximate location of Johnston’s Tavern in what is now Riverside Cemetery, and the ferry route across the Fox River.

Johnston didn’t own the land he had settled on. He was squatting on Indian territory. And he was well established by the time the Army got around to surveying the area for that new route between Fort Howard and Fort Winnebago.

A portion of the map drawn by Lt. Alexander J. Center based on the survey he made in the summer and fall of 1832. Johnston’s name is misspelled and Lake Butte des Morts is identified as Lake Wing.

Johnston’s Tavern was as rugged as the country it inhabited. There is no surviving drawing of the tavern’s exterior. But its log construction was probably similar in appearance to the home George Wright built here a few years later.

Wright’s cabin. It was located close to where Jackson and Algoma streets now meet.

The interior of Johnston’s place was just as rough. An 1831 visitor mentioned that venison and bear meat were served and that the accommodations amounted to “one room, bare and dirty” with a floor “thickly covered with mud and dirt.” You can get away with that when you run the only place in town.

Johnston wasn’t here long. In the summer of 1832, he was offered a commission to fight in the Black Hawk War and co-lead a troop of more than 300 from the Menominee Tribe. Johnston was closing in on 50 and still craving adventure. Off he went, never to return. Johnston was 67 when he died in Green Bay in 1851. Two years later, Oshkosh became a city. And by that time, Johnston was on his way to being forgotten.

An 1834 section map showing the Ferry House (tavern), in the southeast quarter of Section 10, and the ferry crossing to the border of Sections 10 and 15. Click image to enlarge.

The tavern and ferry survived Johnston’s leaving. He sold the business to Robert Grignon, a nephew of Augustin Grignon. Augustin had established the first permanent trading post in Winnebago County in the summer of 1818 at Butte des Morts. Robert Grignon had worked at that trading post before buying Johnston’s tavern and ferry. But Robert Grignon didn’t stay long, either.

Grignon sold out to James Knaggs in 1835. Knaggs had been working for Robert Grignon before buying him out. In fact, there’s evidence that points to Knaggs working at the tavern when Johnston owned it. Unlike the previous owners, Knaggs has been memorialized here. In Rainbow Park, there’s a marker for Knaggs’ Ferry. It’s better than nothing, but the marker has almost nothing to say about Knaggs. It’s mostly about the man who gets too much credit for being Oshkosh’s first settler.

The Knaggs Ferry Marker.

Webster Stanley didn’t get here until the spring of 1836, about six years after George Johnston got the ball rolling. Stanley was born in Connecticut, and lived in Ohio, Green Bay and Neenah before reaching what is now Oshkosh. Upon his arrival, Stanley built a shanty near the ferry landing and went to work for Knaggs as a ferryman.

Some accounts say Stanley bought out Knaggs. Others say Stanley swindled him. Both versions of the story are suspect (more on that in a coming post). In any case, Stanley remained at the Knaggs Ferry landing for just a few months before leaving in the fall of 1836.

Webster Stanley

Stanley headed down river. He built a home, a tavern, and new ferry crossing nearer to the lake. Later, he came to be mythologized as the first white settler to reach Oshkosh. George Johnston, Robert Grignon, and James Knaggs – all of whom arrived here before Stanley – were overlooked. Why?

William Wallace Wright may be the key to unlocking that riddle.

William Wallace Wright

William Wright came here with his parents in 1837. He was 17 years old. The young man was impressed by Webster Stanley's ambition. Wright was on hand as Stanley became a leader of the settlement. His admiration for Stanley never waned.

Some 50 years later, Wright began documenting his eyewitness accounts of Oshkosh’s early history. He wasn’t the first to paint George Johnston out of the picture, just the most persistent. Local historians Richard Harney, Henry Gallup, and others had already published pieces that omitted Johnston. Like William Wright, Harney and Gallup came here after Johnston left. And each of them knew Webster Stanley personally.

They also knew Robert Grignon and James Knaggs. But those guys had traces of Indian blood. A disqualifying feature for founder status in the eyes of Yankee settlers. The 19th century had its own version of cancel culture.

There were other historians who also looked past Grignon and Knaggs, but were unwilling to ignore Johnston. The Illustrated Historical Atlas of Wisconsin, published in 1878, and the History of Northern Wisconsin, published in 1881, both placed Johnston here before Stanley. The ultimate forgetting required the repetitive re-telling of the Webster Stanley legend. And that brings us back to William Wright.

W.W. Wright… “Who Knows More About Early History of Oshkosh Than Any Other Person.” Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, July 7, 1899.

By the late 1880s, William Wright was one of the few from the early days not yet residing in a coffin. His senior status and narrative skills made him the go-to source for all things related to the early history of Oshkosh.

Wright penned a series of essays about the white settlers who came to tame this place. Webster Stanley, who died in 1887, always played the lead role. And by the time of Wright’s death in 1903, at the age of 84, Webster Stanley had been enshrined as Oshkosh’s “First White Settler.”

Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, August 26, 1903.

This isn’t to say that Webster Stanley didn’t play a vital role in the making of Oshkosh. He certainly did. And as far as I’m concerned, his role was far more interesting than that of “first white settler.”

I’m going to start working on that story now… HERE's the link to that post.

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Oshkosh After Dark

In 1913, private detectives from the Wisconsin Vice Committee began slithering into Oshkosh. They came to infiltrate the city’s illicit sex scene. It was so easy. Oshkosh had been running hot for decades.

Main Street Oshkosh, early 1900s.

The operation began after the State Legislature established a committee to investigate Wisconsin’s white slave traffic. “White slavery” being a euphemism for sex trafficking. America was in the throes of moral panic over sex for hire. Nobody was more panicked than Howard Teasdale, head of the Wisconsin Vice Committee.

Howard Teasdale

Teasdale was a stout and dour man with a left eye set to permanent wink. He’d been elected to the State Senate in 1911 to represent Jackson, Juneau, and Monroe counties. Farm country. He was a hardcore moralist and an enemy of city life and its trappings. His political views were framed by his disdain for liquor and unlicensed sex. A rock-ribbed Methodist and workaholic, Teasdale appeared hell-bent on proving that everyone was having more fun than he was.

As captain of the vice committee, Teasdale hired private detectives to sneak around the state and sniff out commodified pleasure. He hoped to create a lurid exposé that would send a shock through the system. And in turn, build a groundswell of support for invasive policing to prosecute the erotic pursuits that he considered sinful.

Uncovering the goods in Oshkosh was literally a walk in the park. Teasdale complained that public parks were “dangerous to public morals” because they “furnish convenient places for immoral practices.” His anxiety was inflamed by what his men stumbled on in Oshkosh.

Waiting for Dark in Menominee Park.

Park & Ride
An investigator prowled Menominee Park on a warm evening in early summer. After midnight, the action became so heavy that he had to step around the “many” young couples feasting on one another in the picnic area. The romance in the meadow soured his mood. “There should be a special policeman for this park by all means,” the snoop complained to Teasdale.

South Park was just as lusty. The detective found young folks gathering there at dusk, preparing for an evening hook-up. Most were underage. The investigator claimed to have been approached by no fewer than eight young women offering him sex for a nominal fee. He saw couples making out on benches. Others were going at it on the grass. A young man he spoke to said that South Park was known as a "Lovers' Paradise." The detective confirmed that the park was “certainly on a level” with its reputation.

A Lovers' Paradise, South Park in the early 1900s.

The Tunnel
Lower Main Street had been crawling with hustlers for years. But Teasdale’s detectives managed to finger just one of their hot spots: the celebrated saloon at the northwest corner of Main and Marion (now Ceape) called the Tunnel Sample Room. The Tunnel in the name was a reference to the railroad corridor next door. The photo below, from the mid-1940s, is annotated with an arrow pointing into the train tunnel and a red dot at the entrance to the old Tunnel Sample Room.

That is long gone, but in 1913, this place was a gem. William Fenrich took over the saloon in 1904 and later installed a Palm Garden, hoping to attract more women into the place. Teasdale was haunted by the very thought of a Palm Garden. He referred to them as "infernos" of sin “commonly frequented by prostitutes seeking customers. They freely mingle with inexperienced young people, and moral contamination surely follows.”

The moral contamination at the Tunnel was spreading fast on the night when Teasdale’s sleuth slipped in. He clocked a pack of hustlers working the room. At least six women “were seen there to pick up men and go off with them.” Maybe they were on their way to this next place.

Calamity Jane’s
Ella Merry was a 60-year-old widow living on the 300 block of Division Street. She couldn’t get by on the Civil War pension she inherited from her late husband, Franklin. Yet she found a way to make ends meet. Ella's little home had a set of bedrooms at the back. She sublet them to couples seeking privacy. The lease expired upon the consummation of their endeavor.

The yellow floor plan illustrates the layout and location of Ella Merry’s home directly behind what is now Barley & Hops Pub and Beer Garden.

Ella was a legendary character among those in the know. They called her “Calamity Jane,” and she was proud of the service she provided. The Teasdale snoop who interviewed her seemed surprised by her candor. "She has a good trade for which she is well known," he reported with a note of grudging respect.

The Ozark Flats
This saloon and bawdy house was one of the longest-lived and most flagrant “hells” Oshkosh has ever produced. It was near the north bank of the river on what was then Light Street and is now the southernmost run of Division Street. “The Flats” began proffering liquor, gambling, and flesh in the mid-1890s. It had been gushing mayhem ever since.

The layout and approximate location of the Ozark Flats (#22).

The Ozark Flats occupied the middle unit of an ugly building next to ribbons of railroad track. It was wood-framed and wrapped in sheet iron to keep it from being ignited by sparks that popped off the rails. The main attraction was the women who made the place infamous for the pleasures they peddled in the adjoining rooms.

When the vice-sniffer came around, he found the place unusually quiet. He managed to get Pearl J., the madame of the place, to spill the beans. She told him that she usually kept 14 to 16 women busy at The Flats. At the moment, though, there were just six.

Teasdale had taken a special interest in the Ozark Flats. He wanted a scandal he could use to smear Martin T. Battis, a political foe from Oshkosh. Battis had an ownership stake in the property where the rent was charged at five times the going rate. A typical predicament for a brothel.

M.T. Battis, in the light suit, hanging out on Main Street in the early 1930s.

Battis was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1912 and was considered a rising political force. And he was stridently opposed to everything Teasdale was fighting for. Battis was also rumored to be behind a conspiracy to put a lid on the flesh trade in Oshkosh while Teasdale’s men were here. In the end, Battis seems to have outfoxed his rival. Teasdale failed to make hay from Battis’ connection to The Flats.

Ethel Miller’s Brothel
Teasdale’s detective headed for the Southside and Ethel Miller. The veteran sex worker was born in Illinois in 1875 or 1876. She hit the bricks as an Oshkosh streetwalker in the early 1900s. Ethel later joined Frankie Howard’s stable. Frankie had been in the underworld trenches for more than 20 years as both a street hustler and a house madame. Ethel bought Frankie’s brothel in 1909. The place operated out of a large home on 6th Avenue, just east of Nebraska Street.

The layout and location of Ethel Miller’s brothel on 6th Avenue.

The detective reported that Ethel had just two women working for her. She may have deceived him. Ethel was known to house as many as six inmates, along with a middle-aged housekeeper willing to turn tricks in a pinch. In any case, Ethel told the undercover operator that, at the moment, there was no room for him at her inn. She sent him on his way, saying he could come back later if he wished. He didn’t. Good riddance.

Ella Stewart’s Sporting House
There was a warmer reception a block away on 7th Avenue. A saucy sporting house was there just around the corner from what is now Bottoms Up bar. The owner was Ella Stewart, an Illinois expat by way of Milwaukee. Ella was 54 and widowed when she moved to Oshkosh in 1909 to take the helm of a bawdy house that had been launched several years earlier by a hustler named Ollie May.

Ella Stewart's Sporting House was located at what is now 133 W. 7th Avenue, the current site of M.P. Kelly Plumbing.

Ella had seven women working in her brothel. This wasn’t a come-and-go joint. Ella’s place included a parlor saloon where she sold beer and whiskey. Guests were encouraged to linger in the parlor before and after conducting their affairs. A bottle of beer cost 50 cents. The romance went for $2 a pop, or about $50 in today's money.

Teasdale assumed that his crusade would lead to the shaming and rejection of women like Ella Stewart. From his cloistered point of view, that probably made sense. But Ella Stewart was never shunned. Her family members, including her widowed father, her siblings, and their children, often visited and stayed with Ella at her brothel on 7th Avenue. Her situation allowed her to support them when they were ill or in need. Of course, none of this made its way into Teasdale’s report.

Emma Grave’s Place
Teasdale's report also had little to say about the tactics of his investigators. They had been vetted by the American Social Hygiene Association, a group dedicated to fighting venereal disease with scare tactics and moral stigma. So it’s probably safe to say that the Teasdale squad didn’t go to the extent of pressing flesh during their carousing.

A poster from the American Social Hygiene Association.

At Emma Graves’ place, we see how these guys operated. The investigator told Emma he was shopping for sex and wanted to know what she offered. Emma gave him the tour. The snoop described it as “a regular parlor sporting house with three inmates and a hustling housekeeper.” At $2 a toss, Emma was charging the standard rate.

The Teasdale man said he’d be back. Emma told him to bring his co-workers, too. She probably thought nothing of the encounter. Emma Graves had seen it all by then. She had opened her brothel on 8th Avenue in 1903 when she was about 25 years old.

The layout and location of Emma Graves brothel, just around the corner from Houge’s Bar.

1903 was a fine time to get into the flesh trade in Oshkosh. The city was allowing its brothels to run wide open. There was one hitch. The keepers were ticketed at least once a year for selling liquor without a license. The Daily Northwestern complained about “the city’s method of legalizing disreputable houses” to boost the city’s coffers. But most folks seemed OK with it. Emma Graves paid her fines and was left to conduct her business as she saw fit.

Pick-Up on Nebraska Street
The private investigation of Oshkosh vice turned into something more like a stroll through a public market. Half a block away from Emma Graves’ house, an investigator ran into three couples leaving a bar at 8th and Nebraska. He correctly assumed that the women were hustlers. He asked if he could get in on the action. He was denied, but told to try again later, "If he had the price." He learned that they were headed up to Jess Gokey’s place in the Town of Oshkosh. The Teasdale man followed.

The saloon (no longer standing) at the northwest 8th and Nebraska where the Teasdale man met three couples headed for Gokey’s. This was taken about 40 years after the encounter.

Gokey’s Roadhouse
Jesse Gokey enjoyed a long and sleazy career as a saloon keeper and pimp. His freak flag flew at the Ozark Flats and what is now Oblio’s. But those are earlier and dirtier stories for another day. In 1913, Gokey was running a roadhouse in what was then the Town of Oshkosh. He called it the Way Side Inn. It was the last stop on the way to what is now the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. In Gokey’s day, it was called the Northern Hospital for the Insane. Gokey’s advertising advised the unwell to “Drop in on your way to the State Hospital and he will save your life.”

The Cheatin’ Heart Bar now resides at the former site of Gokey’s Way Side Inn.

Gokey’s roadhouse saloon doubled as a coitus resort. Hustlers would pick up men and lead them to Gokey's for a few drinks, followed by a copulation session in one of the “neatly furnished bedrooms.” Due in no small part to Gokey, the Town of Oshkosh voted itself dry in 1911. So every bit of what was going down there in 1913 was patently illegal.

That Town of Oshkosh dry decree seemed to whet the township’s appetite for vice. By 1913, there were at least four roadhouse saloons in the Town of Oshkosh linked to the sex trade. The Teasdale snoop found his way into another of them about half a mile south of Gokey’s place.

Ella Cass’ Roadhouse Brothel

Ginger Snaps at 2314 Harrison Street where Ella Cass ran a brothel and roadhouse.

Teasdale’s detective was impressed by Ella’s place. This is from his notes...

"On the first floor is a neat bar room, at the side of which there is a large wine room. In the wine room there is an electric slot piano and a nickel in the slot gambling device. Upstairs are furnished rooms let to couples for assignation purposes, price $1 to $1.50. They have no license, but found them drinking whiskey and what appeared to be brandy. A young woman was tending bar. Bought a bottle of beer, 25¢. Said they had to ask that because of the risk they took in selling it to accommodate their friends."

The woman in charge was a storied Oshkosh lady of pleasure named Ella Cass. Ella was born in Iowa, but had been around Oshkosh selling carnal delights since at least 1900. She had previously operated brothels on 7th Avenue and on State Street. She even found time to establish satellite love shacks in Appleton, Neenah, and Lincoln, Nebraska. A busy lady.

Ella set up shop at the Harrison Street roadhouse in late 1912. When the Teasdale detective dropped in, she had two women turning tricks in the roadhouse’s “furnished rooms.” Ella never liked to hang around any place for too long, though. By 1916, she was done with the roadhouse on Harrison. The property was later sold to Rudolph and Olive Foelsch. Rudy died a few years later, but Olive continued the tradition, selling amour there well into the 1940s.

Olive Foelsch’s Harrison Bar and love nest in the 1940s.

The Dirty Laundry
Beginning in January 1914, Teasdale held a series of hearings across the state to report his findings. It turned into a humiliation tour. In city after city, Teasdale was derided for his meddling, his methods, and his zealotry. He took his lumps in Oshkosh on June 30, 1914.

Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, June 30, 1914.

The hearing began on a Tuesday morning at City Hall. Teasdale and his crew came armed with a pile of photos and revealing evidence. But his typical bluster and moralising were under wraps. He began the day praising city officials for the progress they had made in cleaning up this notoriously wicked city. He probably came to regret that.

The first set of “witnesses” included local physicians and clergymen. Most of them shared Teasdale’s view of sex as a filthy compulsion in need of regulation by people like him. They favored eugenics and enforced sterilization. Teasdale was in his element. And then Frank Stein crashed the party.

Stein had recently opened a women’s clothing store on Main Street called the Style Inn. Most of those who worked there were women. Teasdale’s narrow mind struggled with the idea that some women preferred selling sex over conventional work. He hoped a guy like Stein might have an acceptable explanation. Stein was the wrong guy to ask.

Frank Stein (standing near center of image) with workers from his store.

He came out swinging: “I want you to know that I am not in accord with this investigation,” Stein began. He told Teasdale that his committee was doing more harm than good. That he didn’t like the way Teasdale “tried to make out that every girl was a prostitute." He told Teasdale that he ought to hear what people were saying about him behind his back. Teasdale got pissed and threatened to charge Stein with contempt. But Stein refused to be intimidated. The senator was struggling.

It didn’t get any better. Teasdale brought through a parade of local officials. They toyed with him. Municipal Court Judge Arthur Goss gave him a thorough gaslighting. Goss said that since the launch of the vice campaign, his court had handled more cases concerning brothels and sex workers than at any time in the past 20 years. In fact, the opposite appears to be true. Court reports indicate such prosecutions had decreased since the start of Teasdale’s investigation.

Judge Goss, circa 1913.

When Police Chief Henry Dowling came up, Teasdale grilled him about sex in the parks. And how the Oshkosh pool rooms were filled with teenagers. Dowling brushed him off, saying the police were criticized for everything and given credit for nothing. Teasdale’s agitation grew. He demanded to know if Dowling was aware that young men were hanging out in the pool rooms. “I believe they are,” Dowling casually replied. Teasdales kept at him. Are you aware that it’s illegal for minors to visit pool rooms? “Yes, I suppose so,” Dowling said with total disinterest. It was the chief's way of politely telling the senator to go fuck himself.

Oshkosh Police Chief Henry Dowling.

It went on like this, from the Oshosh mayor to the city attorney. Teasdale’s righteousness smothered in the bog of their indifference. He was worn out and angry by the time he got to Thomas McCool, Chairman of the Town of Oshkosh.

Thomas McCool, Town of Oshkosh Board Chairman.

Teasdale lit into McCool about the rampant prostitution in the township’s roadhouses. McCool was either subnormal or adept at playing the part. He responded by saying he didn’t know what a roadhouse was. Teasdale couldn’t take any more of this. He raged at McCool, warning him that if he didn’t clean-up the township, the state would. Another threat that fell flat. Teasdale was finished. He rode the morning train out of town.

The Vice Committee's final report was submitted on December 2, 1914. Teasdale's obsession with alcohol won out. The report concluded that demon rum was the cause of it all. And Prohibition the only solution. A hard sell in a state like Wisconsin. Impossible in a city like Oshkosh. The recommendations in the report were ignored. The hustlers and brothels of Oshkosh endured.

        “Certain disorderly houses are being conducted on the sly.”
               – February 10, 1915, Oshkosh Daily Northwestern.

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