For nearly a mile the street was flanked solely by lumber-yards,
small mills, and factories. Then came a strip of unimproved land,
followed immediately by the wooden, ramshackle structures of Hell's
Half-Mile.
In the old days every town of any size had its Hell's Half-Mile, or
the equivalent. Saginaw boasted of its Catacombs; Muskegon, Alpena,
Port Huron, Ludington, had their "Pens," "White Rows," "River
Streets," "Kilyubbin," and so forth. They supported row upon row of
saloons, alike stuffy and squalid; gambling hells of all sorts;
refreshment "parlours," where drinks were served by dozens of
"pretty waiter-girls," and huge dance-halls.
The proprietors of these places were a bold and unscrupulous lot.
In their everyday business they had to deal with the most dangerous
rough-and-tumble fighters this country has ever known; with men
bubbling over with the joy of life, ready for quarrel if quarrel
also spelled fun, drinking deep, and heavy-handed and fearless in
their cups. But each of these rivermen had two or three hundred
dollars to "blow" as soon as possible. The pickings were good. Men
got rich very quickly at this business. And there existed this
great advantage in favour of the dive-keeper: nobody cared what
happened to a riverman.
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