Carol Erwin is credited as being one of the last women to run a brothel in one of the last legally recognized redlight districts in the United States (in Fairbanks, Alaska).
Carol’s story wouldn’t be complete without acknowledging the significant role sex work played in Alaska’s colonial history. In 1902, a legal case surrounding a prostitution ring led to Alaska’s official shift from district to territory. The case hinged on whether a couple running a bar with a brothel could be tried with a jury of six people or twelve. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled that, since Alaska was incorporated, its citizens were entitled to full constitutional rights — a ruling that gave Alaska a seat at the table in Washington. So, yes, Alaska owes its statehood, in part, to the ‘ornery old pros’ who ran the underground economy so often found in colonial projects.
Born into a family of nomadic gamblers and farm laborers in the early 1900’s, Carol carved a life for herself that reflected her remarkable resilience and unwavering independence. Much of her life was made possible by her participation in the sex industry.
Carol Erwin escaped poverty and built an independent life for herself by flouting respectability and taking advantage of the opportunities that were available to her. One of the most successful ways to make a fortune in the Far North was to own a bar or stake a mining claim. These were not options open to women — at least not legally. So what did women like Carol do? They mined the miners. As sex workers and brothel owners they built businesses that helped make so many remote outposts more livable for settlers.
Carol’s story wouldn’t be complete without acknowledging the significant role sex work
played in Alaska’s colonial history.
Carol's life, as wild as it was, should be understood as part of a larger history of colonial women surviving in systems that aren’t built for them, and are not separate from the systems of settler colonialism. In Alaska, and much of the west, semi-legal sex work was rampant — practical, profitable, and often safer than many more legitimate jobs available to women at the time.
At 14 years old, after an abusive incident with her father, Carol left home and began jumping trains. Becoming one of only a few women historically documented in that dangerous subculture. She rode the rails, dodged the law, and navigated the rough-and-tumble world of boomtowns and outlaws. She worked as a waitress; moving from town to town, learning about the service industry, and meeting a variety of characters who helped expand her worldview.included several madams, brothel owners, and ‘sporting women,’ a common euphemism for sex workers at the time.
Despite her familiarity with bawdy houses, Carol Erwin didn’t establish her own until just after the end of World War I, in 1919. As a madam, her first house was in a boomtown in Wyoming, where she recruited women and learned how to appease local law enforcement (bribery) and fellow business owners (also bribery). By all accounts, Carol Erwin was a straightforward business woman who treated her customers and employees well. She established a good reputation in every town she worked in. These skills would serve her well over the next five decades. In Texas, she fell into a relationship with a gambler named Swede. Together, they opened a store, started a card game for sporting women, and built a house. They lived on the edge – gambling, working, and camping. It was the kind of life that could only exist outside the bounds of ‘respectable’ society. Carol wasn’t looking for respectability. She was looking for freedom, and she found it in the company of women like herself.
Brothels in frontier towns often doubled as infirmaries, banks, libraries and community centers, filling a variety of needs in their community. The women who ran these establishments had full control of their own spaces and services, and some even operated as unofficial bankers and brokers in small towns where trust meant everything. Miners often trusted madams to hold their money for them when they went on dangerous excursions, more than they trusted banks – a reasonable position before many consumer protection laws. Madams also occasionally lent money to emerging businesses and made investments in schools, indoor plumbing, and the arts that helped communities thrive. Because of these contributions, sex workers in colonial Alaska were respected amongst their own communities. Many of these women were older — some as old as 70 — and they ran their houses with dignity and a strong sense of community. Miners would trust the madams with thousands of dollars in gold, knowing it was safer in their hands than anywhere else. Women like Carol helped establish and maintain this reputation.
Brothels in frontier towns often doubled as
infirmaries, banks, libraries and community centers...
After traveling the country setting up brothels and meeting a wide variety of characters, Carol moved to Alaska during WWII, where she ran a roadhouse, then a brothel, and eventually became a cab driver — a respected role in the colonial frontier. Cab drivers in those days were more than just chauffeurs; they were lifelines in a community where freezing to death was a real possibility. Carol helped during the Japanese attacks on the Aleutian Islands – driving disabled residents to bomb shelters in the dead of night. She even worked for a year in the Far North where people had to tunnel between businesses in the winter.
Eventually Carol opened a house in the famously thriving red light district in Fairbanks, which operated openly for decades. She joined a well established community and also developed a reputation as a painter. She painted a beautiful mural in the brothel she ran, established an art studio, and showcased her work. Her work attracted other artists and her brothel became a creative hub for the community.
Eventually, the federal government succeeded in their efforts to shut down the red-light district in the 1950s, after decades of resistance from locals who recognized the value that people like Carol brought to the community. When the padlocks and eviction notices finally came, Carol didn’t fight it. She pivoted.She spent the rest of her life traveling from town to town, offering to paint people’s houses. When she got desperate she carried a letter from a friend at the post office claiming that, legally, all mailboxes had to be painted and offered her services to fulfill this fraudulent ordinance. Carol Erwin was absolutely a part of the violent colonial project. Her life defied the conventions of her gender and class, but not her race. Carol Erwin’s story is a testament to the strength and independence taken up by the white women who helped settle the Far North, the Wild West and Alaska.
Women like Carol chose to live lives on their own terms. They ran businesses, supported prospectors, and helped shape a society that depended on them more than anyone cared to admit. These women didn’t just provide a service; they held entire settler communities together. Their legacy and resilience is woven into the fabric of the frontier and the modern United States, through both their achievements and colonial transgressions.
She was tough and resourceful— the kind of woman who refused to be tied down by anything as flimsy as a piece of paper or the expectations of a society that never truly saw her worth.
