In that era, unmarried women lacking male relatives to care for them had few options for supporting themselves. Ladies did not work in offices or invest in the stock market; their choices for earning income were limited to domestic slavery in private homes, or working as poorly paid seamstresses and schoolteachers. Small wonder many of them turned to prostitution.

Fanny Hill (also spelled Fannie) was a 20-something young woman when she migrated to the Black Hills. She claimed to have born in Iowa in 1869, but may not have been using her real name and probably learned the tricks of the trade working for another madam before she opened her own brothel in Lead.

A Deadwood newspaper took note of a new sporting house on March 2, 1897:

Fanny Hill, well known in the Tenderloin district of Lead, will soon take possession of the Miller block on Mill Street and will give a grand reception that night. Many of the prominent businessmen claim to have received invitations, but chances are but few will join in the revelries of the occasion.

Reporters either didn’t know (or refrained from printing) names of the men who accepted Fanny’s invitation to a free supper and "other activities." The grand opening was described as a "hot time." Perhaps "other activities" included free samples of what the girls had to offer.

The new resort was known as the "555" or "Three Nickels." One historian claimed porters on railroads serving the Hills wore belt buckles engraved with three fives and told traveling drummers what the numbers signified.

Maybe that was one of Madam Hill's promotional ideas. She certainly had no compunctions about proclaiming her profession in federal census records.

A 1900 census taker wrote "prostitute" as the occupation of women living on North Bleeker Street with 31-year-old "widow" Fannie Hill, listing their names as Bessie Condon, Julia Pinkham, Bessie and Anna Garvin.

Madam Hill’s brothel apparently was successful enough to double the number of working girls. The 1910 census showed nine white and two black females, aged 20 to 61, living at 112-114 North Bleeker Street with Miss Fannie Hill.

The town of Lead struck a vein of gold by mining the prostitution business. Routinely arrested once every month, girls and madams were released after appearing in city court and paying $5 to $25 fines. The Black Hills Daily Times on June 2, 1894, commented on the crowded court scene:

The demi monde of Lead have all been arrested for being prostitutes on the 28^th of May, and following that occupation for a living. At noon yesterday eleven of the soiled doves had appeared before Justice Smead and plead guilty and paid their fines, $7.50 each. Warrants have been issued for nineteen more, who will have to report to his honor.

By 1902 city fathers decided to halt the parade of prostitutes through the courtroom and simplify record keeping for the court clerk. Instead of running in the entire bevy of working girls, law officers arrested only the madams who were then charged with keeping houses of ill fame and assessed substantially larger fines.

City coffers benefited to the tune of more than $34,000 from prostitution related arrests between 1897 and 1911. Fannie Hill was arrested 136 times and paid more than $10,000 in fines.

Madam Hill’s operation seemed to be reasonably peaceful, belying the prediction of the Deadwood Daily Independent when her bordello opened. "Unless it is conducted a little more orderly than such houses generally are," the newspaper commented, "the institution will be short-lived."

There were some incidents that made the news, however. One of Fannie’s girls was involved in a 1903 escapade reported in the Lead Daily Call.

Apparently Gussie Edwards went out looking for her "solid man" and found him at Nellie Ward’s place, engaged in hanky panky with one of Nellie’s girls. After shooting her unfaithful lover in the hip, the pistol-packin’ prostitute went back to Fannie’s house where she was arrested a short time later.

On June 22, 1905, the Daily Call carried a vivid description of a cat fight at Fannie’s cathouse:

The scene of the trouble was located in the maison de joi conducted by Miss Fannie Hill, and tangled up in the midst of it was the landlady and another inmate. They chewed and scratched one another, slugged and tore hair, swore, yelled at each other and at the top of their voices fractured ordinances against the use of vulgar language.

When law officers separated the scantily clad women, "their nakedness was partly covered by a cloak of gore" and Fannie had a black eye "beautifully and artistically painted upon her face by the fist of her opponent."

Madam Hill was by no means the loser in the confrontation. She gouged deep fingernail gashes in her sparring partner’s face and bit a big chunk of flesh from her chin.

The Call said both women were "escorted to apartments in the city jail, where the services of a physician were needed for the boarder who had the temerity to begin the argument with her landlady … Judge Walsh, settled with both at the usual rate of discount for cash. "

Saloons and houses of ill fame that flourished in Lead’s tenderloin district in early years have long since disappeared. Even the streets where Fannie and other madams mined the miners vanished into the expansion of Homestake's Open Cut and beneath the Sinking Gardens city park.