When officials in Eureka, California passed an ordinance forcing the women of the lower levels to stay within certain city boundaries, four of the city’s madams got together and hired a boat builder (unbeknownst to him he later claimed) to build a floating brothel.

By June of 1908 the (literal) pleasure craft was completed and anchored off Tuluwat Island (then known as Gunther Island). Come midnight, the sound of drunken debaucheries carried easily across the water and the good people of Eureka soon had enough.  Officials insisted the ladies move the floating center of sin.  The ark was taken north and anchored closer to Arcata but “the orgies and midnight revelries of the owners and friends are not pleasing to the guardians of the city.”

For the next few months, the boat was simply moved around the bay until public protest forced a new approach. An unnamed investor secured property in the marsh at the north end of the little port town of Fields Landing where the ladies planned to ground the boat- and give it permanent berth.

The boat was hauled to the marsh but when the contractors attempted to move the boat across the tracks to its new location, railroad employees stopped them. News of the plan quickly spread. At a mass meeting, residents of the ‘Landing unanimously decided to keep “the degenerate women …. And their vice sodden male companions”  out of their community. They appointed a nightwatchman to thwart any attempts to land the craft and appointed a committee to file an injunction to legally stop them.

It worked. The floating brothel was never permanently grounded, but the working ladies were, returning to the landlocked brothels of Eureka’s restricted district.