During the Pikes Peak Gold Rush in Colorado, mining camps quickly grew into bustling towns. Glimpses of history can be seen through architectural remains and objects left behind, even red light districts can provide a tangible link to the past.
If you look hard enough at the aspen-covered hillside just below the old Coeur d’Alene gold mine in Central City, you can kind of see what it used to be. The plot of rugged earth was once Central City’s red light district, five houses outside of town where residents went to unwind after a long day.
“They were brothels,” says Jade Luiz, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Metro State University of Denver. “This never was legal, but the community sort of largely tolerated its presence.”
But that’s not why Doctor Luiz and her team of student archaeologists have come up here every summer since 2023 and spent days digging in the dirt. It’s because they want the stuff the residents and patrons of the brothels threw away. Things like bones from meals, old fabric, corsets and lots of shoes.
“The everyday stuff that’s not glamorous and not sexy,” said Luiz. “Because this tells us most about everyday life and how people are engaging with the landscape up here, interacting with each other, interacting with the town.”…