Fannie Porter
Fannie Porter was a well-known madam in Texas during the late 1800s. She was born in February 1873 in England and moved to the United States with her family as a baby. By 15 she was working as a prostitute in San Antonio, and by 20 she had opened her own brothel. It stood at the corner of Durango and San Saba streets in San Antonio’s Sporting District and became the most popular brothel in the area. Porter was admired for her friendly, trustworthy manner, for keeping a neat appearance, and for hiring attractive young women who cleaned up well.
Her brothel drew many famous outlaws. Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Kid Curry, and other members of the Wild Bunch were known to visit. One worker, Della Moore, became the girlfriend of Kid Curry for a time. Another worker, Lillie Davis, was linked to outlaw Will Carver. The stories about the Sundance Kid meeting Etta Place while Porter’s girl work is part of legend and not confirmed. A third worker, Laura Bullion, is thought to have worked for Porter between 1898 and 1901. Porter was known for discretion and for protecting her girls, and she would not betray outlaw friends to the authorities.
In 1899 the building’s owner canceled her lease, so Porter moved her operation. She is credited with creating an early “call service” in Texas: a network of runners and telegrams to carry requests to her boardinghouse, where she would assign a girl to a client. Porter kept a tight, caring grip on her business and treated lawmen who visited with courtesy.
Porter faced legal trouble, being arrested in 1888 and 1891. After the lease was canceled, she moved to running the operation from her own home in 1901 and eventually retired. What happened next is unclear. Some stories say she married a wealthy man, others say she returned to England or lived in seclusion. Rumors also claim she lived until 1940, possibly dying in a car accident in El Paso, Texas, but these details are not certain.
Today, Porter is remembered as a discreet, protective madam who ran a popular and influential brothel in the Old West.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 02:38 (CET).