World War II brought a steady influx of men from nearby Ft. Lewis and McChord Field, so it’s not surprising that when Nellie Curtis decided to sell the LaSalle Hotel, she found her new home in Aberdeen. In 1952 Look Magazine identified Aberdeen as one of America’s hotspots in the “Battle Against Sin.” Nellie invested $25,000 to purchase the Cass Hotel and another $10,000 to remodel it. Nellie changed the hotel’s name to Curtis Hotel. Business was good. On weekdays, Nellie employed six employees; she added another five on the weekends and military paydays.

In 1958 Mayor Ed Lundgren encouraged city employees to support his bid for re-election. Two police officers refused to participate. After the election, they were arrested in a brothel and suspended for thirty days without pay.

Police Captain Nick Yantsin accepted the generally tolerant view the city took towards prostitution. But he balked when he perceived the use of whorehouses as political weapons. On the night of January 31, 1959 Yantsin wearing plain clothes and a secret tape recorder arrived at the Curtis Hotel. With him were two witnesses. Reverend Lloyd Auchard was a young Presbyterian minister. Jack Mecak was a carpenter and a friend of one of the framed policemen.

In his report, Yantsin said that a hefty woman at the top of the stairs called out, “Come in fellas! These are nice girls; you can hear them better with their clothes off.”

Yantsin asked if there were lots of girls. “We have plenty to take care of you.” The woman introduced Yantsin to Lora Summers.

Lora grabbed her client’s wrist and led the way down the hall, shouting “Coming through.” Once in her cubicle, Lora suggested they slip into something more comfortable. She went over her menu of services. The ‘old-fashioned way’ cost $5.00 Yantsin took out his money. Lora started to unzip his trousers. Yantsin pulled out his badge.

“You’re under arrest.”

“Nellie,” Lora shouted.

Nellie Curtis burst into the room reportedly wearing dark glasses, diamonds on her fingers, pearls, and what Yantsin later referred to as a ‘Bella Abzug hat.’

 “What do you think you’re doing?” Nellie demanded.

“You’re pinched,” Yantsin announced.

Yantsin arrested eighteen men, several women and Nellie herself.

The next morning Police Chief A. M. “Pat” Gallagher arrived at the police station to discovered a lobby filled with indignant women and embarrassed men. On the phone an angry Mayor Lundgren wanted to know what happened.

Yantsin’s bust was front page news. It was also the end of his career. Gallagher gave Yantsin a full time Special Assignment as a beat cop from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. Nellie filed charges. Yantsin, she said, entered her hotel illegally and seized evidence without a warrant. He had invaded the “privacy of her home.”

The case of Curtis v. Yantsin was heard at the County Courthouse on March 3, 1959. The prosecutor asked how many rooms Nellie rented. Nellie counted on her fingers. “eight . . . nine. . . ten.”

The defense attorney asked if Nellie had ever been a prostitute.

“I never was.”

“A madam?”

Nellie took the Fifth.

Did she employ prostitutes?

No answer.

Case dismissed.

Yantsin sued Nellie. This time the judge found her guilty of running a house of prostitution and fined Nellie $500. Astute businesswoman that she was, Nellie decided to retire. In 1964, she deeded her hotel to the City of Aberdeen in exchange for $8000 and moved to Alki Point in West Seattle.

There was one final drama in Nellie’s colorful life. The Internal Revenue Service pressed charges against Nellie for cheating the government out of $172,807.87. With penalties, she owed $251,000. In 1971 Nellie reached a settlement and paid $120,000.

Nellie died in 1976 at the age of 75. In 1948 Nellie wrote her nephew a letter pertaining to the Seattle mayoral election. It seems a fitting epitaph.

 “I have been at the same deal, with tougher ones and mean ones

and I am still in the same place doing the same,

and I took my ups and downs, worse than at present and come out on top

so it doesn’t matter to me who gets in.

I will always find my own outs, and go as I am.”

 Acknowledgements:

Featured Image Ad for Naughty Nellie’s Ale at the Pike Brewing Co. Photo by Author.

Information on Nellie’s career in Aberdeen from

John C. Hughes and Ryan Teague Beckwith. On the Harbor: From Black Friday to Nirvana. Stevens Press LLC. 2001.

The post Naughty Nellie and the Honest Cop first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

Nellie was Nellie Curtis except when she was Zella Nightingale or Yetta Solomon or Nellie Gray. Mostly, she seems to have been Nellie Curtis. I couldn’t find any pictures of the real Nellie, but the opening image is probably true to life. Nellie was a businesswoman who knew how to give men what they perceived as a good time.

As luck would have it, we sat at a table where Nellie has a permanent reservation. The label read “Nellie’s Table — Nellie Nightingale Curtis was small of stature with a big appetite. Always dressed to a T, she was often seen dining around town with local politicians and businessmen who shared her passion for the finer things in life.”

 Nellie arrived in Seattle and opened for business in 1933 at the Camp Hotel on First Avenue and Virginia. In 1942 Nellie took advantage of the post Pearl Harbor relocation of Japanese-Americans. She bought the lease to the Outlook Hotel located at First and Pike from the Kodama family, and renamed it LaSalle. One source suggests the name was a reference to General Motors LaSalle luxury car.

Nellie remodeled the 1909 four-story, fifty-seven room hotel with new wiring and plumbing, fresh cream paint, and classy furniture. Nellie’s girls dropped off calling cards for sailors coming into town for shore leave. The cards offered an enticing slogan: LaSalle Hotel, Friends Made Easily. Apparently the sailors needed friends and several hundred crowded around the entrance. The military declared the LaSalle Hotel off limits.

The LaSalle Hotel had seventeen permanent guests. Nellie once said, “If they stayed a week, I called them permanent.” Other guests were less rooted. Some rooms changed hands three times a night. Nellie said she didn’t know why guests left so quickly. “I never asked any personal questions.”

Nellie kept two rooms for her own use. She kept her collection of hats in one and her collection of money in the other. In 1951 Nellie sold the hotel to George and Sodeko Ikeda. Sodeko watched Nellie look for the key, and recalled “she couldn’t find the key…I saw a lot of money in every drawer she pulled out…she had a vanity and a dresser. She pulled out the lampstand drawers too. And in every drawer she pulled out she had a lot of cash.”

The Ikedas had a hard time convincing Nellie’s “clients” the new hotel was respectable. Finally they posted signs saying NO GIRLS.

 Nellie left Seattle and settled in Aberdeen, a small town near Gray’s Harbor, where she bought the Cass Hotel for $25,000 and invested another $10,000 in renovations. Nellie called the establishment Curtis Hotel.

Nellie’s life in Aberdeen became even more colorful than her Seattle reputation. More to come next week.

Acknowledgements:

Photos Taken by Author at Pike Brewing Company

Pike Brewing Company. Here.

Walt Crowley and Paul Dorpant. National Trust Guide: Seattle. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998.

William Dietrich. “A Century at the Pike Place Market.” Pacific Northwest Sunday Magazine. Seattle Times. June 3, 2007. Here. 

David Hearn. “Move Over Heidi Fleiss . . . It’s Nellie Time.” Seattle PI. Jan. 14, 2008. Here.

John C. Hughes and Ryan Teague Beckwith. On the Harbor: From Black Friday to Nirvana. Stevens Press LLC. 2001.

“Seattle’s Long History with Prostitution” iwantrest.com March 20, 2013. Here. 

The post NAUGHTY NELLIE – “a madam of legendary proportion” first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.