El Paso County Grand Jury Indictment

Collection

Identifier: THR/01/2023.s271

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection consists of one document; a partially printed indictment form providing a summary of a case in the District Court in the county of El Paso, Texas against Mr. A. Prousally, a manager of a dance house that sold liquor and employed prostitutes in the late 19th century.

Dates

1895-06-24

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Biographical / Historical

In the late 1890s as El Paso became a western boomtown, it also became "Six Shooter Capital" and "Sin City," where scores of saloons, dance halls, gambling establishments, and houses of prostitution lined the main streets. At first the city fathers exploited the town's evil reputation by permitting vice for a price, but in time the more farsighted began to insist that El Paso's future might be in jeopardy if vice and crime were not brought under a measure of control. In the 1890s reform-minded citizens conducted a campaign to curb El Paso's most visible forms of vice and lawlessness, and in 1905 the city finally enacted ordinances closing houses of gambling and prostitution. (W. H. Timmons, “El Paso, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online)