Dolly's Place

Destination

Experience History at Dolly's Place

By Michael Grimm, Freelance Writer

February 2008

Established in 1919, Dolly's Place still attracts thousands of vivitors each year, though perhaps of a different sort.

The tide had risen nicely, as the small rowboat worked its way underneath the Creek Street dock pilings. In the dark of the evening, even with the smooth water, it was still a challenge to navigate your way to the right place…the one with the small ladder leading to the back entrance to Dolly’s Place. But, only a few of the city fathers were aware and encouraged to make this visit as Dolly Arthur was the number one “Lady of the Night”, catering only to Ketchikan’s political elite. Tonight would be no exception, as the city council member ascended the seven steps of the ladder leading to the rear of the small home at number 24 Creek St. A small light, over the back door, beckoned.

Thelma Dolly Copeland was born in Idaho in 1888. She had an unhappy childhood and left home at thirteen, moving to Montana and then to Vancouver, B.C.,where she worked as a waitress. A statuesque beauty, she soon collected a retinue of male admirers and candidly admitted, “By the time I was 18 or 19, I realized that I could make a lot more money from the attention of men than I could waiting on tables.” She moved to Ketchikan, changed her name to Dolly Arthur, and set up her establishment at 24 Creek Street in 1919.

Every night was party-time on Creek Street. Miners, fishermen, loggers and townspeople, such as the city father who had just arrived, gathered to carouse, drink and visit the clapboard bordellos built along the boardwalk. Music floated out over the water and lights glowed from the windows, while the girls paraded, titillating and semi-nude, behind lace curtains. Although drinking was against the law, prostitution was legal, and the “sporting women” of the red light area of Creek Street, registered their businesses with the city police. Creek Street, set against wooded pine slopes of Deer Mountain, its hookers, and Ketchikan itself, roared through the 20s, 30s, and 40s.

Creek Street still thrives, but today its boardwalk brothels have been transformed into curio and souvenir shops. All of them that is, except Dolly’s House which is now a museum crammed with memorabilia of her life and times. The rooms are much the same as when she lived there, and visitors can be forgiven if they feel her presence beside them as they peer at old black and white photographs standing on her bedroom dresser, or run their fingers over the cool brass railings of her queen-sized bed.

Does her shadow pass fleetingly over the birdcage standing to one side of the room, or pause in front of a favorite Victorian painting in the hallway? Can one hear faint echoes of the rumble of her old sewing machine or the stutter of the keys on her typewriter? Do the faded brocade-covered sofas and armchairs in the parlor still carry a whiff of her perfume in their folds? Perhaps.

Although 24 Creek Street is considered a museum, you can still buy a few souvenirs. One that tells the story best is a T-shirt with the encryption: “Ketchikan and Dolly’s Place, where the salmon and miners come to spawn”. Add this to the girls in period dress, typifying some of Dolly’s competitors, that give you a very thorough tour of the modest home, and you have the ingredients for a very educational and enjoyable visit…one where you can look back in time and, for a few moments, visualize the Roaring 20s—Ketchikan style.

Dolly continued to live in her house, even after the brothels were closed down in the late 1950s and the area assumed a mantle of respectability. She grew increasingly frail as she aged and spent the last year and a half of her life in a nursing home. When she died in July of 1975 at the age of 87, all the major newspapers on the West Coast carried her obituary, paying tribute to a woman whose indomitable spirit exemplified the tough, roistering years of Ketchikan’s early history.

**Photo by Michael Grimm