Excerpts from 85 S. Market Street 

            The whorehouse was owned by Chicco’s son.. According to Burneston Baker, “It was a whorehouse in the 1930s, It was called 85 Market Street. It was gone by W.W.II. There was a bar downstairs and a whorehouse upstairs.”

            The city directories of the 1930s list the occupant of 85 Market as Wilmar Blair.

            According to J. Douglas Donehue, “That area was a red light district. It died out in the 50s. You did not want to be in that area after dark unless you were with a friend. At that time the Navy had moved north, and the main customers were merchant sailors.

            “The most notorious madam in Charleston was a woman named Kitty Blair,. She held forth on West Street which was sanctioned by the Navy. Sanctioned doctors used to inspect the girls. The Navy presence made the town into a pretty good liberty port because there was an upper-class, a middle class, and lower class of white people.

            “Kitty Blair had the best looking girls and the cleanest house. She was the premiere Madame of her day and she was a friend of the admirals and the captains and all these people who had the power to keep these people out of there if they wanted to. There were stories about her being a graduate of Mount Holyoke. She came here with an eye to making money. To my knowledge, she was never married. I heard she was not an unattractive woman, but she was an older woman. in her late 40s or early 50s. She was a hell of a business woman, because she was the top-dog Madame in Charleston. If she were that well known, that even I as a child knew about her, that had to say something. You mentioned the name “Kitty Blair” and everyone knew who you were talking about.”

            Chances are Kitty and Wilmar were one and the same.

            One must understand that, even in the 1970s and early ‘80s, black prostitution flourished in the areas around Archdale, Fulton and Clifford street. West Street was the city’s anchor to prostitution for 60 years.

            This author gave a “Ladies of the Evening Tour” for five years and picked up a lot of stories and information.

            One interesting story is that like his predecessors, Mayor Burnett Rhett Maybank found the city’s coffers deeply in the red during the Great Depression. His solution was to raid the blind tigers and whore houses once a month whereby the fine was paid and no one carted off to jail. Not only did this put the city’s fiduciary standing in very good stead within four years, but continued the tradition of bag men until the 1970s.

            Another story told on that tour was of a merchant seaman who came to Charleston every year and was particularly enamored of a girl in local cat house. Every time he came to port, he wouldn’t even cruise Market Street for a couple of pops. He went straight to see the object of his lust and imagination.

            One year, he came to Charleston and dashed to the house to see the girl, where he was crestfallen to find she had already been booked up for the night.

            “John, since you’re such a valued customer,” offered the madam, “and I know Doreen would love to see you, why don’t you help yourself to the cigars and liquor, and when she’s finished, you two can have a little visit?” 

            The whore house was in one of the myriad single houses that make up the prevalent architecture of Charleston. A Charleston single house is a building that is one room wide, the porches face south and the door opens on the porch. Single houses are perfect for use as houses of ill-repute for egress and ingress to the house can be strictly monitored and controlled.

            Sitting up on the second-floor hallway awaiting Doreen, John sulked. The more he drank, the gloomier his mien. Glancing out the window, he saw the roof of the porch, As he helped himself to the liquor, he noticed a pile of used mattresses in a dark corner of the hallway.

            When Doreen came out to greet him,  the merchant seaman tossed the mattresses and the girl out of the window onto the roof of the side porch. He climbed out in the same movement, and, overcome by want and desire, the two of them began rutting like farm animals. So intent were they in the ecstasy of  passion, that they didn’t realize that a forwards and backwards motion also engendered a back and forth rolling motion.

            They rolled off the porch and fell to the ground, still so encumbered. The fall rendered them both unconscious, but still intertwined.

            A drunk passed by the house, and chanced to glance in the driveway where his eyes lit upon the couple.

            Frantically, he banged on porch door until the madam came.

            “What do you want?” she inquired with an air of disapproval.

            “Idd’n thish a whorehouse?” he asked.

            Imperiously, the madam answered, “Yes, what of it, you sot?”

            “”Gee lady, you don’t have to get rude,” the drunk replied, “I just wanted to tell you that your sign fell down.”

            In late September of 1938, another catastrophe struck.

            Imagine for a moment being a merchant seaman who has paid for an entire evening at 85 Market. It’s been a long night; honor and offer, proffered and accepted. Suddenly awake and alarmed, that seaman rushes to the window where he can see other side of the market. It sounds like a freight train from hell is barreling down right upon him. Before he can leave the room,  the northern side of the market building explodes and evaporates.

            At roughly 8 a.m. on the morning of September 29, six tornadoes touched down on Charleston, S.C. like nature’s stormtroopers,  One of them damaged  St. Michael’s Church. Another ripped through northern side of the market, destroying everything in its path. When that tornado got to East Bay Street, it veered a bit and took the river side market building apart and lifted it, carrying it in the harbor and out to sea. The loss of life was substantial as the hapless victims, buyers and sellers, were swept away.

            As with every disaster the market had seen before, the living emerged from the wreckage to rebuild.