He’s Hooked On Souvenirs Wallace Man Collects Memorabilia From Town’s Old Bordellos

If you’ve got an old Wallace brothel calendar hanging in the basement, Dick Caron wants to talk to you.

Caron, a Wallace gift shop owner, collects the calendars, matchbooks and pens given out by the city’s prostitutes and madams in years past.

“They never advertised the, uh, activity,” he said. “The places were referred to as rooms or hotels.”

For $2, Caron will sell you a risque matchbook from the “U and I Rooms,” part of a stash he bought at a bordello garage sale in the late 1980s. “You’ll love our service,” the matchbooks promise.

“People die for this kind of stuff,” he said, unrolling a 1959 pinup calendar. “What we view today as art, 50 years ago was pornography. I don’t know what that says about our society, but it’s true.”

“Everything,” he said, “gains respectability, with time.”

Over at The Oasis bordello museum, they’d agree. So far this year, 2,700 people have plunked down $4 each to tour the former bordello, and it’s just the start of the busy summer season. The brothel was hurriedly vacated in 1988, when its residents were tipped off to a pending police raid. Locals say they went to Nevada, Spokane and Missoula.

“Now that the bordellos are gone, nobody would want them back,” said museum manager Michelle Mayfield said. “But while they were open, nobody paid any mind. It was like walking by the bank.”

Still, some tourists show an odd familiarity with the building. At least five former Oasis prostitutes, Mayfield said, have taken the tour.

“The first girl was rather brazen about it. The second one took the tour, then told me,” Mayfield said. “And another one took me aside and told me. She was with a man who was soon to be her husband, and I got the feeling he had no idea what she did.”

Caron says the last two Wallace prostitutes left in 1991.

“It was the end of an era,” he said. “Whether right or wrong as an activity, it was just another piece of our history that died.”

Before they left, he had a couple of the madams autograph the calendars.

“In ‘84, you didn’t have to be a genius to know the brothels weren’t going to last forever,” he said.

Today, there are no more brothel calendars, matchbooks or pens at The Oasis.

There are, however, plenty of caps, mugs and garters for sale in the museum gift shop. There also are nightshirts, and shot glasses, candy and soap, cup holders, dolls, candles and sweatshirts.

“A few people around town would rather forget the bordellos, but history doesn’t change,” said Mayfield. “And if it attracts people, you roll with it.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo