Busted?

From The Federal Reporter, vol 162, pg 621-622, which discusses a legal case concerning both homesteading obligations and perjury:



and



So... if I'm to understand correctly, Charles Watson, the man whose fulfillment of his legal homesteading claim obligations were in question, was given an alibi of someone seeing him at the Merchant's Hotel in Portland. Now, the Merchant Hotel block today might seem all lovely and respectable, what with its housing of the Nikkei Center, the Grassy Knoll Gallery, Old Town Pizza, etc., but back at the turn of the 20th century? Let's just say that the same things that are said about most all of the public establishments in what we now call Old Town are said about the Merchant Hotel: it was a villainous hive of iniquity and vice. A cat house. A cozy little hostel for ladies of the night.

Now, I know that Portland was a rollicking place a hundred years ago or so. But what I wonder is: was this kind of going on the record as far as one's presence at a whorehouse considered a public shaming, or was it just a matter of course? Maybe I have the timeline a little wrong here. The dates on these things tend to be a little fuzzy without some extensive time spent in the stacks (read: not while sitting on my couch exercising all the powers given to me by Google).

What I really wonder is whether someone has done a guidebook for all the houses of ill repute. I'm aware of the vice map of 1913, which can be accessed here (Score another thousand points to Vintage Portland!). I can only hope that someone runs with it.

Because, really, what self-respecting Portlander wouldn't pay good money to go on THAT tour?