Ranch

services, until the Civil War, when she and a faithful prostitute named Tillie were run out
of town as Yankees and traitors. After the war, prostitution continued to operate in
conjunction with the saloons in La Grange, but no official records were kept. By the
end of the nineteenth century, prostitution had moved out of the hotels and into a red-
light district on the banks of the Colorado River. There Miss Jessie Williams (born Faye
Stewart) bought a small house soon after her arrival from Waco in 1905. She continued
the custom set by her predecessor of good relations with the law and ran the only
respectable house on the banks of the Colorado River; she admitted politicians and
lawmen but excluded drunkards. Through her connections she learned of an impending
crusade against the red-light district, sold the house she owned in Waco, and bought
two dwellings and eleven acres outside of the city limits of La Grange and two blocks
from the Houston-Austin highway. This became the location of the Chicken Ranch.

In 1917 two sisters arrived at the house and were taken in and promoted to "middle-
management" positions by Miss Jessie. They were in charge of public relations and sent
packages and letters to local boys fighting in World War I. One of the sisters eventually
married an older, wealthy customer and moved to San Antonio, where she became, as
one author says, "a beloved benefactor and patron of the arts". The other sister
stayed in her middle-management position until her death. As the war ended and
America entered the twenties, automobiles made the establishment accessible to many
more customers. New prostitutes came and necessitated more rooms and new
furniture. The rooms were simply built onto the main house in a haphazard fashion as
needed, a style that continued until the closing of the place. Miss Jessie stayed on
good terms with the sheriff, Will Loessin, who visited every evening to pick up gossip
and get information on criminals who had visited the whorehouse and bragged of their
exploits. Many crimes in La Grange were solved in this way. While the sheriff kept a
tight grip on criminals, Miss Jessie ruled the house with a firm hand. Nothing exotic was
allowed, and none of the bedroom doors had locks on them. Miss Jessie would walk the
halls, and if she heard a customer giving one of her girls a hard time she would chase
him out of the room and house with an iron rod and perhaps never admit him again.

As the Great Depression hit and the economy fell, Miss Jessie was forced to lower her
prices. Though initially she still had plenty of clients, as times grew harder, customers
were not so plentiful and the girls grew hungry. Miss Jessie therefore began the
"poultry standard" of charging "one chicken for one screw". Soon chickens were
everywhere, and the establishment became known as the Chicken Ranch. The girls
were never hungry. Miss Jessie supplemented the income by selling surplus chickens
and eggs. The economy began to turn around as the Civilian Conservation Corps began
construction of Camp Swift near La Grange, and the shortage of men and money
declined. The establishment used the same public-relations tactics in World War II as in
the First World War, and the ranch began an economic recovery from the depression.
As the war ended, Miss Jessie was confined to a wheelchair by arthritis but still ruled
the house with her iron rod. She did so into the 1950's, when she was confined to her
bed and cared for by her longtime nurse. She spent her last few years with her wealthy
sister in San Antonio and died in 1961 at the age of eighty.

Edna Milton had arrived at the Chicken Ranch from Oklahoma in 1952 at the age of
twenty-three. She soon took over for Miss Jessie and proved just as capable and
entrepreneurial. When she bought the ranch from Miss Jessie's heirs for $30,000 - much
more than the property value - she already had established herself as a competent
madam. She had a good relationship with the new sheriff, T.J. Flournoy, who had been
elected in 1946 and had immediately put in a direct line to the Chicken Ranch, so he
could replace the nightly visits of his predecessor with nightly calls. Edna also
interacted with the community in the same ways Jessie had: social contact between
the girls and the residents of La Grange was forbidden; however, the girls saw the
doctor weekly and were allowed to shop with local merchants; and commodities and
supplies were bought from local stores on a rotating basis. Edna also continued Jessie's
custom of giving money to local civic causes and became of the town's largest
philanthropists. The generosity of her donations points to the success of the ranch.
During the 1950's the ranch reached its sixteen-girl maximum. On some weekends there
was a line at the door, made of students and soldiers from the nearby military bases.
One base even supplied transportation via helicopter to the ranch. A visit to the
Chicken Ranch also became part of freshman initiations at Texas A&M.