Morgan Street Vice District
Before downtown was remade, Morgan Street was part of St. Louis's landscape of saloons, brothels, and vice.
The historic Morgan Street corridor was associated with nineteenth-century downtown vice during an era when prostitution operated openly in parts of St. Louis.
The Story
Nineteenth-century St. Louis contained several overlapping vice districts rather than a single red-light neighborhood. Morgan Street was part of that changing geography of saloons, lodging houses, brothels, and entertainment near the river and commercial core.
The city's attempt to regulate prostitution in the early 1870s made this hidden economy unusually visible through registration, inspection, policing, and public controversy.
Morgan Street itself later disappeared from the modern downtown street map, making the former vice district a literal piece of Lost St. Louis.
What Remains Today
Visiting Information
Location
Historic Morgan Street, downtown St. Louis, Missouri
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