An Old Town Brothel

Down by the antique shops and Teriyaki restaurants in Old Town Bellingham, there is a building that has been around for over a hundred years. Currently, it serves as a marine consignment shop called the Pacific Marine Exchange, but less than 100 years ago the building was a brothel.
What it is Today

For the past 14 years, the Pacific Marine Exchange has operated as a venue for consigned marine supplies. The isles are stacked high with boater paraphernalia from sails to complicated self steering mechanisms and GPS devices.
Lettered Street resident Mike Kimmich started the store in 1993. In 1994, his wife started the marine art gallery in the other half of the store. The couple has managed to create a successful business that caters to the 1,417 boats at the Port of Bellingham.
The Kimmich’s have been renting the building from the Parberry family, whose name is painted on the side of the building over a mural of an Orca Whale. The old brick building appears to have seen better days on the inside and the out. In the basement there are buckets to catch drips falling from the ceiling and there are spider-web fractures in the walls. One can’t help but to imagine the days when the old building was a newly built bordello.

The U.S. Hotel

The building acted as a hotel at the beginning of the 20th century. The U.S Hotel was the name of the place. It was a hotspot for local fishermen and industry workers. Kimmich said guys would come up from Seattle for a night of excitement and then head back down when they needed to go to work. In his book, “Brothels of Bellingham,” Curtis S. Smith writes about the estimated 27 brothels in Bellingham and Fairhaven. Smith writes, "Bellingham was a liberty town for service men. During World War II, 700 to 800 men were in the city on the weekend to be entertained." In the book, he includes pictures of the U.S Hotel in the early 1900s when it employed prostitutes and madams.

An Attempted Abolition

In 1910, the city of Bellingham began to institute some rules regarding the sex industry. The Bellingham Municipal League passed an ordinance to abolish the red light district in Bellingham. Rules are meant to be broken, though, as the old saying goes. Prostitution continued despite the ordinance. At the time, Bellingham Mayor J. P. de Mattos confessed that the city wasn’t going to crack down on prostitution because, although it was banned, it brought a lot of revenue to the city. He insisted that without the collection of sex worker fines, the city would have to dismiss two fire trucks. Over time, the city grew less tolerant and eventually shut down all the brothels. (Smith)

The Craigslist Killer

Prostitution is still illegal in Washington but you don’t have to look much further than the Craigslist adult section to find ads like this one---
“Hello I am a petite, fit, warm and friendly long legged, exotic brunette and i have some time today until early afternoon 31 yrs 34 a 24 34.”
The rules governing online sex ads like this are becoming more regulated after a man killed a woman he met over Craigslist about a year ago. The site’s founder, Craig Newmark, decided to eliminate the erotic services section. Now, Craigslist has human sorters look over every ad in the adult section to scan for illegal activity.

The World’s Oldest Profession


“It’s scary to think that people are meeting random hookers off somewhere alone. What if it’s a dude with a knife?” Mark Pederson, a Port of Bellingham resident, said. Dealing with anonymous people over the internet is not as safe as going to a bordello. The way it used to be was pretty safe, Smith said, the police would protect the women from their clients if things got out of hand and they would ensure that the women didn’t get ripped off.
The scenery has changed and the venue has changed, but the “world’s oldest profession” is still alive and kicking. The old U.S Hotel used to employ the same kind of people who are meeting on line and rendezvousing at the local pay-by-the-hour motels that are scattered around Bellingham today.

Although the U.S. Hotel building is old, it is not a registered historical site. Most people don’t even know about the background of the old building. Matt Marquardt, a former employee at the Pacific Marine Exchange said he had no idea it was a brothel.