January 23, 2026 • 7 mins
When the Great Fire of 1889 burned all of Seattle to the ground, one woman stepped in to help rebuild it bigger and better. She was one of the wealthiest people in the Northwest, but she also ran the ritziest bordello in the city. Here’s the thing: when the chips are down, even stuffy Victorians would take help where they could get it. So how did she make and spend all her money?
Feel free to DM me if you have a story you’d like me to cover . . on Facebook it’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know what, one of the coolest things about traveling
is kind of stumbling onto a fascinating personal story of
someone you never even knew existed, but who played a
major role in their place and time. I was in
Seattle this past week and I took a tour through
the city's historic underground. We saw the leftovers of the
city after it had been destroyed by a massive fire
(00:22):
and then rebuilt twenty feet above the ruins. I'm Patty Steele,
a madam who ran Seattle's fanciest and biggest bordello, was
the city's financial savior. That's next on the backstory. The
backstory is back. I love exploring the quirkier sides of
(00:42):
history whenever I visit a new place, So last week
I happened to be in Seattle and I took one
of their underground tours. It tells the story of the
building of Seattle in the Pioneer District. All of the
buildings there were made of wood, since logging was the
major industry in those days. As you can imagine, and
a lot of wooden buildings crowded together in a somewhat
(01:03):
industrial town can lead to disaster. The Great Fire of
eighteen eighty nine literally burned the entire city of Seattle
to the ground. When it came time to rebuild, nobody
was interested in lending the business owners any money, for
fear they'd never be able to pay it back. Enter
Lou Graham. No, not the lead singer of the band Foreigner.
(01:26):
This Lou Graham had been born in Germany in eighteen
fifty seven. By the age of sixteen, she found herself
in America alone, trying to make a living in a
very dangerous place for a young girl, New York City.
What she did there is kind of lost to history,
but by the time she was twenty seven she had
arrived in Seattle. She wanted to open a very classy,
(01:50):
very safe bordello. She would hire beautiful, intelligent young women
to do the sex work and make sure they could
engage their clients in scintillating conversation before taking them upstairs
for other types of scintillating activities. The place was a
hit right off the bat. Lou knew how to take
care of her business, her clients, her employees, and her
(02:13):
growing investment portfolio. Within a few years, she was one
of the richest people in the Pacific Northwest and She
owned more property in Seattle than all but a handful
of men. She kept her building pristine and expensively decorated.
Her clients had the best food and alcohol available, and
politicians were entertained there free of charge. The women who
(02:38):
worked for Lou were beautiful, young, healthy, and dressed in
the most gorgeous clothing. In addition, Lou insisted they get
an education, which she paid for. They could discuss art, history,
and politics, and Lou pushed the women to retire from
the bordello after just three to five years. She gave
them money to start their own businesses. Consequently, in the
(03:01):
late eighteen hundreds and beyond, Seattle had one of the highest,
if not the highest, percentage of female owned businesses. She
also was the first to hire women of color as
well as trans women. She employed indigenous women, which was
actually illegal at the time, and numerous Chinese immigrants in
an arrow when anti Asian sentiment was so vicious and
(03:25):
often led to full on riots. On top of that,
Lu took in and cared for multiple children whose parents
abused alcohol or drugs or who had gone bust in
the Klondike gold Rush. Since a lot of them outfitted
for the rush in Seattle and left on ships headed
north from there to the Yukon. At the time, the
(03:45):
women who worked for her and other bordellos were sort
of euphemistically called seamstresses and said to be working in
the sowing district, but an investigation by very intrigued city
council members found that the women had selling machines available. However,
the money was flooding in thanks to a city filled
(04:06):
with loggers and sailors, so the council decided to start
charging the seamstresses a licensing fee of ten bucks a month.
That money went to rebuild the city's terrible roadways, But
then disaster struck. In June of eighteen eighty nine, a
man making glue in a carpentry shop accidentally let the
(04:26):
pot boil over. He tried to put it out with water,
but it was made with animal fat. The gunk exploded
into massive flames. Since the fire department relied on ocean
water and it was low tide, their hoses wouldn't reach.
All they could do was sit back and watch the
entire city again, all made of wooden buildings, completely burned
(04:49):
to the ground. Immediately, local businesses wanted to rebuild. New
laws were put in place, limiting buildings to brick and
stone construction. The city also mandated that all buildings had
to have first floors that were twenty feet above the
old height to solve tidal flooding problems, to give them
room to install new below the surface infrastructure that meant
(05:13):
raising the earth. It was a massive and very expensive plan,
and no local banks would risk the cash for the
needed rebuild. Again, enter Lou Graham, the town's savior. She
offered loans at a slightly higher rate, but said the
owners didn't need to pay her back until their businesses
were up and running again. Historians say she was instrumental
(05:36):
in the rebirth of the city, which quickly rebuilt bigger
and better than ever. Lou's own building was rebuilt as
a four story red brick building that still stands today
in the Pioneer District. Ironically, it's now the Union Gospel Mission,
which houses the homeless. On top of that, she used
a ton of her money for charity. In her day,
(05:58):
Lou contributed more moneyed to the public schools in Seattle
then all the other wealthy citizens combined, and when the
bank panic of eighteen ninety three hit. She deposited enough
cash in several Seattle banks to keep them afloat until
the panic ended. In nineteen oh three. Lou died suddenly
at the age of just forty six, without having made
(06:20):
a will. While we don't know her net worth, the
inheritance tax on her estate today would equal as much
as a million dollars After years of court battles by
relatives in Germany. A large portion of her estate went
to one of her favorite causes, the public schools of Seattle.
In her day, Lou Graham was never socially accepted by
(06:41):
Seattle society, but records show the majority of wealthy families
in town had relied on her for loans during tough times.
She was Seattle's savior financially and on so many other levels.
Hope you like the Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave
a review. I would love it if you would subscribe
war or follow for free to get new episodes delivered automatically,
(07:04):
and feel free to DM me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.
(07:24):
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history
you didn't know you needed to know.
You know what, one of the coolest things about traveling
is kind of stumbling onto a fascinating personal story of
someone you never even knew existed, but who played a
major role in their place and time. I was in
Seattle this past week and I took a tour through
the city's historic underground. We saw the leftovers of the
city after it had been destroyed by a massive fire
(00:22):
and then rebuilt twenty feet above the ruins. I'm Patty Steele,
a madam who ran Seattle's fanciest and biggest bordello, was
the city's financial savior. That's next on the backstory. The
backstory is back. I love exploring the quirkier sides of
(00:42):
history whenever I visit a new place, So last week
I happened to be in Seattle and I took one
of their underground tours. It tells the story of the
building of Seattle in the Pioneer District. All of the
buildings there were made of wood, since logging was the
major industry in those days. As you can imagine, and
a lot of wooden buildings crowded together in a somewhat
(01:03):
industrial town can lead to disaster. The Great Fire of
eighteen eighty nine literally burned the entire city of Seattle
to the ground. When it came time to rebuild, nobody
was interested in lending the business owners any money, for
fear they'd never be able to pay it back. Enter
Lou Graham. No, not the lead singer of the band Foreigner.
(01:26):
This Lou Graham had been born in Germany in eighteen
fifty seven. By the age of sixteen, she found herself
in America alone, trying to make a living in a
very dangerous place for a young girl, New York City.
What she did there is kind of lost to history,
but by the time she was twenty seven she had
arrived in Seattle. She wanted to open a very classy,
(01:50):
very safe bordello. She would hire beautiful, intelligent young women
to do the sex work and make sure they could
engage their clients in scintillating conversation before taking them upstairs
for other types of scintillating activities. The place was a
hit right off the bat. Lou knew how to take
care of her business, her clients, her employees, and her
(02:13):
growing investment portfolio. Within a few years, she was one
of the richest people in the Pacific Northwest and She
owned more property in Seattle than all but a handful
of men. She kept her building pristine and expensively decorated.
Her clients had the best food and alcohol available, and
politicians were entertained there free of charge. The women who
(02:38):
worked for Lou were beautiful, young, healthy, and dressed in
the most gorgeous clothing. In addition, Lou insisted they get
an education, which she paid for. They could discuss art, history,
and politics, and Lou pushed the women to retire from
the bordello after just three to five years. She gave
them money to start their own businesses. Consequently, in the
(03:01):
late eighteen hundreds and beyond, Seattle had one of the highest,
if not the highest, percentage of female owned businesses. She
also was the first to hire women of color as
well as trans women. She employed indigenous women, which was
actually illegal at the time, and numerous Chinese immigrants in
an arrow when anti Asian sentiment was so vicious and
(03:25):
often led to full on riots. On top of that,
Lu took in and cared for multiple children whose parents
abused alcohol or drugs or who had gone bust in
the Klondike gold Rush. Since a lot of them outfitted
for the rush in Seattle and left on ships headed
north from there to the Yukon. At the time, the
(03:45):
women who worked for her and other bordellos were sort
of euphemistically called seamstresses and said to be working in
the sowing district, but an investigation by very intrigued city
council members found that the women had selling machines available. However,
the money was flooding in thanks to a city filled
(04:06):
with loggers and sailors, so the council decided to start
charging the seamstresses a licensing fee of ten bucks a month.
That money went to rebuild the city's terrible roadways, But
then disaster struck. In June of eighteen eighty nine, a
man making glue in a carpentry shop accidentally let the
(04:26):
pot boil over. He tried to put it out with water,
but it was made with animal fat. The gunk exploded
into massive flames. Since the fire department relied on ocean
water and it was low tide, their hoses wouldn't reach.
All they could do was sit back and watch the
entire city again, all made of wooden buildings, completely burned
(04:49):
to the ground. Immediately, local businesses wanted to rebuild. New
laws were put in place, limiting buildings to brick and
stone construction. The city also mandated that all buildings had
to have first floors that were twenty feet above the
old height to solve tidal flooding problems, to give them
room to install new below the surface infrastructure that meant
(05:13):
raising the earth. It was a massive and very expensive plan,
and no local banks would risk the cash for the
needed rebuild. Again, enter Lou Graham, the town's savior. She
offered loans at a slightly higher rate, but said the
owners didn't need to pay her back until their businesses
were up and running again. Historians say she was instrumental
(05:36):
in the rebirth of the city, which quickly rebuilt bigger
and better than ever. Lou's own building was rebuilt as
a four story red brick building that still stands today
in the Pioneer District. Ironically, it's now the Union Gospel Mission,
which houses the homeless. On top of that, she used
a ton of her money for charity. In her day,
(05:58):
Lou contributed more moneyed to the public schools in Seattle
then all the other wealthy citizens combined, and when the
bank panic of eighteen ninety three hit. She deposited enough
cash in several Seattle banks to keep them afloat until
the panic ended. In nineteen oh three. Lou died suddenly
at the age of just forty six, without having made
(06:20):
a will. While we don't know her net worth, the
inheritance tax on her estate today would equal as much
as a million dollars After years of court battles by
relatives in Germany. A large portion of her estate went
to one of her favorite causes, the public schools of Seattle.
In her day, Lou Graham was never socially accepted by
(06:41):
Seattle society, but records show the majority of wealthy families
in town had relied on her for loans during tough times.
She was Seattle's savior financially and on so many other levels.
Hope you like the Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave
a review. I would love it if you would subscribe
war or follow for free to get new episodes delivered automatically,
(07:04):
and feel free to DM me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.
(07:24):
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history
you didn't know you needed to know.
Host
Patty Steele
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