Butte’s unapologetic last madam dies

BUTTE – Ruby Garrett ran the last brothel standing in this mining town’s once-lively red-light district with a reputation for kindness toward her girls, but the grandmotherly figure was also a husband-shooting, tax-evading madam who once said that prostitution should be considered a commodity.

The first time Garrett went to prison, it was for shooting her husband five times during a card game in 1959. She killed him, she said, because he had abused her repeatedly.

She went to prison again in 1982 for failing to report her earnings. While she was investigated, the sheriff padlocked the doors of the Dumas Hotel in late 1981, marking the end of the brothel that had catered to the miners in the Montana boomtown since 1890.

Butte’s last madam died Saturday at Crest Nursing Home at the age of 94, the Duggan-Dolan Mortuary confirmed Tuesday. The cause of her death was not immediately known.

Garrett, also known as Lee Arrigoni, told the Montana Standard in 1991 that prostitution should be considered a commodity instead of being morally wrong.

“If you don’t think it’s morally wrong, then it’s kind of fun,” she told the Butte newspaper.

People who knew Garrett in her later years remembered a kind person who looked out for the women who worked at the Dumas. Ellen Crain, director of the Butte-Silver Bow Archives, said Garrett was a savvy businesswoman who felt strongly about treating the women well and took pride in keeping the brothel clean and orderly.

“She was truly one of the last living legends in Butte, from the end of Butte’s famed red-light district,” said Chris Fisk, a Butte High School history teacher who met Garrett two years ago.

Former Sheriff Bob Butorovich, who shut down the brothel, said Garrett never held a grudge against him for closing down her establishment.

“She was a wonderful old gal,” he said. “Part of Butte history is gone.”

Garrett was acquitted of a first-degree murder charge for shooting common-law husband Andy Arrigoni but served nine months for the shooting on a manslaughter conviction. Garrett had said that he beat her, and Crain said she was a domestic-violence victim.

“She was beaten so bad that day that when she walked in that Board of Trade to shoot him, they couldn’t recognize her,” Crain said.

Garrett was raised a Catholic, sang in the church choir and prayed regularly, she said. She made no apologies for what she did, but she told the Montana Standard that she would have made some different decisions if she could do it over again:

“I don’t think I would have become a nun or a sister, but I would have done some things different.”