Jayme Lynn Blaschke - Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch: The Definitive Account of the Best Little Whorehouse

ADVANCED PRAISE FOR INSIDE THE TEXAS CHICKEN RANCH

Jayme Blaschke has done a superb job in telling the story of the famous (or infamous, if you prefer) Chicken Ranch of La Grange, Texas. He delves into the perhaps mythical history of its ancestor, Mrs. Swines establishment. He deals affectionately with civic benefactor Miss Edna and her boarders, as well as their protector and civic leader, Fayette County sheriff Jim Flournoy. This is the best account of the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas ever written.
former five-term Texas Lieutenant Governor William P. Bill Hobby Jr.

Broadway and motion pictures popularizedand trivializedthe story of the famed Chicken Ranch brothel in La Grange, Texas. The real story is far more interesting, presenting a mirror to mores and conventions not just in that one locale, but for much of America. From its heyday to its ignominious demise, the Chicken Ranch was the story of enterprise, politics, power and even patriotism, writ in the garish hues of cheap makeup. Jayme Blaschkes Inside the Texas Chicken Ranch is a compelling and brilliantly researched exploration of a unique icon of Texas history and society and what its rise and fall says about America. One comes away with the feeling that when outside pressure finally closed down the Chicken House, it was an act of cultural vandalism.
William C. Davis, author of Three Roads to the Alamo and Lone Star Rising

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2016 by Jayme Lynn Blaschke

All rights reserved

First published 2016

e-book edition 2016

ISBN 978.1.43965.704.1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016934536

print edition ISBN 978.1.46713.563.4

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For Aunt Jessie, Miss Edna and every other woman who ever found herself at the Chicken Ranch through fate or circumstance.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

No book is ever written in isolation, but this project in particular has brought me into contact with an amazing array of people who have been exceptionally generous with their time and assistance. Without their assistance and cooperation, this book would not exist. I am forever grateful to the following:

Lisa Elliott Blaschke, Edna Milton Chadwell, Robert Kleffman, Mike McGee, Dan Beck, Jay Briones, Robert Hardesty, Bill Hobby, Kaitlin Hopkins, Cait Coker, Leerie Giese, William Trigger Rogers, Thad Sitton, Scott Cupp, Ronald W. Jeffrey, Bill Henry, Mark Finn, Willie Pankoniem, Red ONeil, Ron Smith, Robbie Davis-Floyd, Ken Walters, Virginia Pritchett, Kathy Carter, Sherie Knape, Allison MacKenzie, La Grange Chamber of Commerce, La Grange Visitors Bureau, Fayette County Heritage Museum and Archive, Paula Sanders-Hollas, Yvonne Stryk, Harvey Dipple, Robert Anderson, Erin Maxey-Whilhite, Jim Walton, Randy Sillavan, Lee Martindale, Ray Prewitt, Sue Owen, Debbie Rivenburgh, Diana Wilson, Jimmy Margulies, Herb Hancock, Oliver Kitzman, Stan Kitzman, Ray Grasshoff, Pete Masterson, Larry Conners, Patrice Sarath, Elizabeth Moon, Marc Speir, Bill Crider, Sara Cooper, T. Cay Rowe, Mark Hendricks, Steven Davis, Michele Miller, Bill Cunningham, William Davis, Tim Buchholz, Christine Buchholz, Joy Jones, Mark Carlson, Charlie Duke, Bill Anders, Jess Nevins, Chris N. Brown, Derek Johnson, the Scarlet Hens, La Grange Episcopal Women, Cait Coker, Gary McKee, Wittliff Collections, Seraphina Song, Bob Mauldin, Gary Cartwright, Terre Heydari, Ramiro Martinez, Jennifer Reibenspies, Delores Chambers, Halley Grogan, Michael Gross, Irwin Thompson, David Guzman, Gregory T. Bailey, Roy Bragg, Linda Barrett, Cathy Spitzenberger, Jose Chapa, Nancy Naron, Katharine A. Salzmann, Linda Hass, Carolyn Heinsohn, Joe Southern, Steven Kantner, Elizabeth Haluska-Rausch, Mike Cox, Al Reinert, Travis Bible, Peggy Dillard, George Frondorf, Rox Ann Johnson, Terry Baer, Gene Freudenberg, Sherri Knight, Tina Swonke, Terre Heydari, Nick Rogers, Joan Gosnell, Ralph Rosenberg, Laurie Rosenberg, Thomas Van Hare, Timothy Ronk, Tom Copeland, Hilary Parrish and Christen Thompson.

Chapter 1

A HISTORY THAT GROWS IN THE TELLING

The Chicken Ranch was a brothel, pure and simple. Not so pure, and nowhere near as simple, were the motives of those who closed it down. Therein hangs this tale.

Not that this story hasnt been told before, after a fashion. Four decades removed from its spectacular, primetime closure by a crusading Houston television station, the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas remains one of the most infamous brothels ever to operate in the United States, if not the world.

Yet the trappings of the tawdry, media-driven sex scandaltitillation, notoriety, celebrityare ill suited to what never amounted to anything more than an unassuming little country whorehouse tucked back amidst the post oaks and cedar trees just beyond the city limits of La Grange, Texas, less than a mile off State Highway 71 on an unpaved county road.

The Chicken Ranch, unlike the personalities that came to dominate its final days, was never larger than life. The owners kept their heads down and noses clean, paid their taxes and stayed on the good side of the law and politicians. The brothels relations with the community at large were helped immensely by its madams being generous civic benefactors.

The fact that prostitution flourished in La Grange for well over a century did not make the town unique. In that aspect, at least, La Grange claimed no different pedigree from the scores of other cities and small towns across Texas that found a booming trade in illicit sex.

What set the Chicken Ranch apart was its venerable history. By 1973, it was the last man standing, so to speak, the lone holdout against changing times that shuttered pretty much all of its one-time contemporaries. The story of the Chicken Ranch is very much the story of Texas, in a literal as well as metaphorical sense.

The Chicken Ranch, circa 1973. William P. Hobby Sr. Family Papers, 19141997, 2011, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS of the Republic of Texas, long before vast oilfields covered the landscape and black gold made the state rich, the Texas economy depended on three industries: cattle, cotton and timber. A casual observer of the time could not be blamed, though, for thinking of prostitution as a fourth major cash crop.

As Texas frontier society developed, sex followed settlements. One of the earliest records of prostitution dates to 1817 in what eventually became San Antonio, when nine women were run out of the Spanish colonial outpost for whoring. Unsurprisingly, that did not end vice in San Antonio, or anywhere else in Texas for that matter.

Prostitutes soon appeared in every Texas settlement of note. El Paso, the westernmost city in Texas and a crossroads of the Spanish empire in the New World, had to contend with prostitution on an ongoing basis, but the newer, Anglo-American settlements found out firsthand that commercial sex was not a genie easily kept in the bottle. Houston, established following Texas 1836 independence from Mexico, grew so rapidly that by 1840, the Harris County Commissioners Court licensed scores of bordellos in a futile attempt to keep the citys rampant vice under control. Galveston, which developed into an important seaport after its founding in 1830, attracted prostitutes right from the start to satisfy lusty sailors. Despite this statewide precedent, prostitution did not find its way to La Grange quite so quickly or directly.