Ida Dorsey

Dorsey's life came into focus when Penny Petersen published Minneapolis Madams: The Lost History of Prostitution on the Riverfront in 2013.

Appearing to be an old ramshackle exterior at 125 Second Street North, inside the house held beautiful carpets, fancy wallpaper, and elegant furniture.

[8] In 1886, when she was twenty-two, Dorsey was convicted as "Mary Coon" of selling liquor without a license and running a house of prostitution.

Other madams were only fined, but Dorsey served 76 days of a 90-day sentence in the Minnesota State Prison in Stillwater, with time off for good behavior.

[9] Dorsey moved her business to what had become the city's premier red-light district, opening in 1887, on the site formerly used by Etta Forrest, at 116 Second Avenue South.

[4] A community largely of immigrants who lacked political clout was unable to resist the building of a new red-light district in its midst.

[12] Much like other brothels in the city, the land at 212 Eleventh Avenue South transferred hands in deals meant to conceal its ownership.

[14] A St. Paul paper said she refused entry even to Harris Martin, a storied African-American boxer known as "The Black Pearl".

[14] Petersen cites a Twin Cities Reporter account that said Dorsey would never be raided because "some pretty big guns would be grabbed there, and the papers would have some great stories.

A citizens' purity crusade, reformers' hysterical belief in white slavery, discrimination against about 86 Chinese immigrants, the Ames trials of a former mayor, grand architectural city remakes, the temperance movement, and anti-corruption activists were behind a raid and arrest of 19 madams including Dorsey in April 1910.

In 1913, she opened a brothel at 151 South Washington Street in St. Paul, a site owned by madam Nina Clifford.

[22] She was persecuted, beginning in 1914, by the publisher of the Twin Cities Reporter who called her vile names and enjoyed hounding her on his front page.