Bad girls, good girls and Ironhorse ladies
From the very beginning in 1873, Texarkana’s reliance on its women has evolved through changing times. The first women, or “bad girls,” followed the railroads and built their homes of ill repute among the barrooms and gambling dens along Front and Broad streets — forever known as the “Swampoodle District.”
As the bars multiplied and an opium den arose, madams prospered. One such “professional” woman was Zoe LaRoy, who was rumored to have paved the entry hall to her home with silver dollars.
“According to the 1900 city directory and United Census, Texarkana had four madams and 186 prostitutes,” said Dr. Beverly Rowe, during the March First Thursday event at the saloon in Old Town, above the Lindsey Railroad Museum on Broad Street. “This was the first year those titles were officially used in those documents.”
The event, titled “Bad Girls, Good Girls and the Ironhorse Ladies,” consisted of photos and research documents of the town and people of the area.
Within 20 years of the founding of Texarkana, the “good girls” arrived, married the railroad men and tried to civilize the town. Churches sprang up on nearly every corner, and preachers duked it out on State Line Avenue. The opium den was raided, and the “Railroad Young Men’s Christian Association” opened on Front Street.
Fred Harvey, the freight agent for the railroad, wanted to establish family diners along the routes with a proper moral atmosphere.
“Young women between the ages of 18 and 30 were hired to work in the diners,” Dr. Rowe said. “Each had to be well-groomed, carefully trained, uniformed, unmarried, educated to the eighth grade and highly moral.”
These women, known as “Harvey Girls,” were perhaps the first female workforce in America (if you don’t count the prostitutes). Harvey was known to say that “they don’t get drunk, they’re neat, and they’re always on time.”
During the war years, 1941-1945, while the men were fighting overseas, women were taking their places
at the local ordinance plants and railway jobs. The latter were known as the “Ironhorse Ladies.”
“The biggest employer of women at that time, in our area, were Red River Ordinance Depot and Lone Star Ordinance Plant,” said Dr. Rowe. Those plants later became Red River Army Depot and Lone Star Ammunition Plant.
In 1943 the population in Texarkana (both sides combined) was 50,000. Of that number, 49% were women — a total of 24,500. Of those women, 38%, or 9,310, were between ages 18 and 50; 5% of the working women, or 400, worked for the railroads or ordinance plants. While many were clerks, stenographers, or nurses, there were a good many who worked on assembly lines.
“Texarkana’s women have always worked, Public view of that work changed over time as civilization spread over the city,” Dr. Rowe said. “Women gained professional credentials as more and more graduated with college degrees.”