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Dolly's House

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by 1906. 24 Creek St.
  • Dolly's House (Jet Lowe)

Creek Street was the red-light district of Ketchikan from 1902 until 1954. Due to an ordinance prohibiting more than two ladies in a brothel, the houses were small. Built largely on pilings, the houses were reached by a boardwalk.

The one-and-a-half-story building at number 24 is wood framed, covered with beveled siding. The gable front has a bay window at the first story, and two doors, the one on the left added later. On the interior, there is a double parlor on the right side and stair hall and kitchen on the left. The upstairs has two bedrooms.

The building is open to the public, interpreted as a museum concerned with the life of Dolly Arthur, a prostitute. She lived here from 1919 until 1973, and the furnishings—most of them her own—include pieces from all of the decades she lived here, the typical accumulation of a lifetime.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Alison K. Hoagland
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Data

What's Nearby

Federal Building
Gilmore Hotel
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Citizens Light, Power and Water Company
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Citation

Alison K. Hoagland, "Dolly's House", [Ketchikan, Alaska], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/AK-01-SE072.

Print Source

Buildings of Alaska, Alison K. Hoagland. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 204-205.

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