Prostitution has long been a feature of the Texas social landscape. Spanish-speaking prostitutes resided in San Antonio from its early days under Texan rule. Anglo prostitutes joined them during the s and s, and by both groups were entrenched. Galveston had prostitutes from its beginning in the s, while the city of Houston was barely three years old when, in , a local newspaper decried the town's houses of ill fame.
Zachary Taylor 's army was catered to by prostitutes during its eight-month stay in the Corpus Christi area before invading Mexico in , and in an observer noted that the newly incorporated town of Brownsville was "infected with lewd and abandoned women" who kept "dens of corruption. Prostitution was thus not an uncommon phenomenon in antebellum Texas , but neither was it rampant. In many communities it was either unknown or occurred on such a small scale that little public notice was taken.
The vice zones, usually located within a few blocks of the downtown business district and the railroad depot, featured saloons, gambling houses, and prostitutes who worked mainly in bawdy houses and shack-like cribs but also in dance halls and variety theaters. At a price of twenty-five cents to three or even five dollars, prostitutes attracted local residents from all walks of life and an array of visitors that, while varying from town to town, generally embraced sizable numbers of cowboys, farm hands, other laborers, ranchers, businessmen, conventioneers, soldiers, politicians, students, gamblers, and drifters.
In El Paso and San Antonio, and undoubtedly in other cities, some prostitutes had pimps, but brothel prostitutes were managed and protected primarily by madams. Prostitution also became common on the Texas frontier after the Civil War. It thrived at army forts, in cow towns and railroad towns, and at other gathering points. From the late s to the s soldiers stationed at federal military posts in West Texas and along the Mexican border generated a lively commerce in prostitution.
Camp laundresses sometimes doubled as prostitutes, and prostitutes also congregated at the sordid settlements that sprang up near such army posts as Saint Angela the future San Angelo , across the Concho River from Fort Concho, and "the Flat" below Fort Griffin.
