Unseen Missoula: Carnal Enterprises

Since its existence along the historic Mullan Road, West Front Street has been dubbed Missoula’s ‘red light district’ implicating that district remained a place of vice, sin, and corruption influenced by the radical reformist religious movements of the late 19th century. While most in Missoula are familiar with the name Mary Gleim or the brief history of West Front Street, many of the district’s stories remain untold including Gleim’s and her businesses.
This new tour offered by the Unseen Missoula program of the Downtown Missoula Partnership uncovers these stories and explores the district through storytelling. The tour changes the narrative from “red-light district”, a hotbed of seediness leading people down a path of immoral corruption, to a “restricted district”, an ostracized community of people separated from the mainstream culture due to class, race, sex, and/or occupation. From 1889-1917, West Front and West Main Streets became home to a vibrant ‘restricted’ community of working women, Chinese laborers, African American soldiers, and lower-class immigrants who built the environment we have come to love today.