Tim Crumrin Ordre des livres

Home to uproarious saloons, swindling gambling dens and thriving brothels. Terre Haute's infamous West End was so wild that the Chicago Tribune called it "the scene of a hundred all night carousings." Pimps, pickpockets and con men roamed the crowded streets where the legendary madam Edith Brown's pleasure palace was the crown jewel of brothels. More than a mere den of iniquity, the West End was also a community where people could put bickering differences aside and pull together to help their neighbors. It wasn't just a place for seedy enterprise, but rather a place for stores, cafés and homes. Historian Tim Crumrin presents the first complete history of this legendary area and separates myth from reality to reveal the very human side of the West End--Back cover.

Join local historian Tim Crumrin as he reveals the blackguards, rogues and swindlers of Terre Haute's rough and rowdy past.For more than a century, Terre Haute earned its reputation as a sin city. One of the most notorious red-light districts in the Midwest, the West End, housed sixty brothels and nearly one thousand prostitutes at its height in the 1920s. Across this sordid scene strode the stylish and indomitable Edith Brown, the city's most famous madam. When Prohibition made the city bootlegger central, violence erupted as rival gangs vied for turf. Gamblers flooded in from all corners of the country, making Terre Haute's Wire Room second only to Las Vegas. Through it all, corrupt politicians like Mayor Donn Roberts profited handsomely from grift and deception.