Bad Girls of Butte tour digs into Uptown's lesser-known past

“My undergrad is in art history, and yeah, I have always really loved studying real stuff, whether it's artwork or objects or amazing places,” Hogan said. 

Her research took her to the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives, where she received the Carrie Johnson Fellowship to study the red-light district. Aubrey Jaap, executive director of the Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives, said Hogan used primary source materials to test stories that have circulated for years. 

“There's a lot of a myth around the red-light district, and a lot of storytelling around the red-light district. And so, she came to the archives to look at some of our primary source materials, to kind of confirm or deny some of those things, to make sure that the work she's doing is accurate,” Jaap said. 

One woman drew much of Hogan’s attention: Elinore Knott, who was tied to the Dumas Brothel, which operated from 1890 until 1982. Hogan said records challenged several parts of the story often told about Knott. 

 One of those records was Knott’s death certificate. 

“So, this is kind of the first weird thing. She's listed as never having been married. However, if you go to the courthouse, you can look at marriage certificates. And I have seen her marriage certificate. Elinore Knott was married,” Hogan said. 

Hogan said Knott’s death certificate listed a "coronary occlusion” as her cause of death. Rumors that circulate say she died of an overdose of pills, or that she was shot and killed. The certificate also says no autopsy was performed. 

The rumors say Knott signed over the deed for the brothel to a woman named Bonita Ferron hours before she died. However, in her research, Hogan found that deed records did not show Knott as an owner of the Dumas Brothel and that Bonita Ferron got the property in 1963, eight years after Knott died. 

“First of all, there's no Elinore Knott on the deed list. So, Elinore Knott never owned the Dumas Brothel,” Hogan said. “Bonita Ferron got the Dumas Brothel in 1963. Eight years after, so that’s false,” Hogan said. 

She said other records raised more questions, including mortuary notes that mentioned rheumatic fever on the backside. 

“Dundundun. What is that? What is that? So, just a document like this is so, so interesting because it reveals new things all the time,” Hogan said. 

That research now shapes Hogan’s “Bad Girls of Butte” tour in Uptown. The route includes Venus Alley, former brothel sites, the Covellite Theatre and the courthouse. 

Venus Alley was formerly lined with “cribs” where sex workers would meet with their clientele. The area looks much different now, and some of the buildings have been torn down, but a few still stand. 

The tour goes beyond the red-light district and also covers women including Ruby Garrett, identified as the final owner of the Dumas Brothel, and Dirty Mouth Jean, a bar owner who served time for killing a patron. Hogan said she wants people to see the human side of the stories. 

“There's obviously so much darkness and, you know, stuff that maybe wewouldn't do in our lives today. But there's also so much humanity. And we have mothers, we have grandmothers, and sometimes we have wives who shoot their husbands,” she said. 

Hogan offers day and nighttime tours. At night, visitors can go inside the Dumas or Myra brothels. 

“You might think like the truth is a little more nuanced and maybe not as good of a story. But really, the truth leads to so many other different stories and can really open up a door for learning a lot about this time period in history,” Hogan said. 

Visit here to learn more about Montana Wonder Tours and Bad Girls of Butte.