Priscilla Henry's Brothels

Priscilla Henry was born enslaved in Alabama and came to St. Louis after emancipation. With the assistance of Tom Howard, she established a brothel at 206 S. Sixth Street and later expanded into the adjoining 208 S. Sixth.

Accounts of the houses describe one serving Black women and the other white women in a city whose laws prohibited interracial cohabitation. Henry nevertheless built a highly successful enterprise and became one of the remarkable figures of St. Louis's nineteenth-century vice economy.

The houses are gone. Their former site is now occupied by Metropolitan Square, placing one of the city's most unusual stories beneath the modern downtown skyline.