David writes:
I grew-up in Spokane and had heard that bordellos were operated in Wallace. I had no first-hand verification of these rumors until some years later. A friend had a bachelor party in State Line ID. Next to the bar was a cat house. The proprietress made it clear what they were doing there, without directly saying it. This made me conclude that it may not be legal, but is tolerated. A few years later I was in a situation where I needed to drive between Sun Valley ID and Spokane every month, always late at night/very early morning. I mainly used a route which took me right past (really over, since it was an elevated part of the freeway) Wallace on I-90. The architecture looked interesting, but I never stopped; I had a 500 mile trip, which was either just starting or nearly over. Plus I would be going past between midnight and 5 AM.
I did end up going there once. I picked-up a hitchhiker on one of the trips. Yes, back in my 20’s I was pretty care-free and thought the chances of being murdered were remote. I soon found out I had picked up a prostitute who needed a ride into Wallace, for work. I don’t remember how she told me, but I remember it was pretty matter-of-fact. Me: This is certainly an odd hour to need to be anywhere. Her: I work at the bordello, my car wouldn’t start and this is a good time of the night for this line of work. Me: Glad I could help. She was dressed provocatively, so I assumed she wasn’t some sort of support staff. In fact, she may have just come out and told me she was a hooker, but it’s been over 30 years and memory fades.
Down in the city, it looked like an interesting place and I wanted to go back and visit in the day time. But the thing is that it was kind of a hike from Spokane (about 90 miles), so I never did. Also, I now live near Boston, which may not be the center of the universe, but is claimed to be the hub of the universe. So, I’ve always kept some kind of central point not too far away.
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