The plaque on the building reads:
"Tetzlaff Building
This Victorian-Romanesque style building, designed as a saloon and a bordello was built in 1897 by German tailor August Tetzlaff. Offering female complany in eight cribs and an elegant parlor, it also boasted a two-story outhouse, whiskey, pool tables and poker games provided entertainment on the ground floor, as did the Chinese restaurant and opium den located at the back of the building. This brick building stopped the devastating 1901 and 1903 fires that burned down all of "Saloon Row" to the East. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places."
According to Legends of America (
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Red Garter's website (
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"While bunking down at the Red Garter Bed & Bakery in Williams, Arizona, you will not only sleep alongside a rich history, but perhaps a ghost. The building that houses the Red Garter has been standing for more than a century serving as a saloon, a bordello, a rooming house, a general store, and more.
Built in 1897 by August Tetzlaff, a German tailor, Tetzlaff planned to cash in on the expected silver and copper boom anticipated at the Grand Canyon. The building first a housed a saloon on the first floor and a brothel with a parlor and eight cribs upstairs, where the girls were often known to hang out of the windows calling to the working men below. A steep flight of stairs known as the “Cowboy’s Endurance Test” led to the girls upstairs rooms. The second floor also boasted a two-story outhouse off the back of the building, so that brothel “guests” wouldn’t have to navigate the steep stairs once again.
Behind the saloon, two rear rooms of the building once housed Chinese railroad workers, who both lived and operated a chophouse and opium den crowded into the small space. During this time, the local sheriff was often called to the site to investigate a murder, only to arrive to find nothing out of the ordinary. At one point, the tales became so frequent, that the local garbage collector was lowered into the cesspool below the outhouses to look for bodies, only to be lifted again, having found nothing.
The saloon was operated for years by a man named Longino Mora, who was a notable figure as a U.S. Cavalry Scout and his heroism in the Indian Wars. Born in 1848 in Socorro, New Mexico, Longino also became legendary in Williams for having five wives and twenty-five children over the years. When his youngest child was born, his oldest child was sixty years old.
The saloon and bordello thrived as miners, loggers, cowboys, and railroad workers stopped in for a drink and often to partake of the painted ladies upstairs.
By the turn of the century, Williams had gained a reputation as a rough and rowdy frontier town, filled with saloons, brothels, gambling houses, and opium dens. Soon, the town restricted the houses of vice to an area called “Saloon Row” on Railroad Avenue.
Though Arizona outlawed prostitution in 1907, the law was only loosely enforced. Even during prohibition, the saloon and brothel continued to operate, hiding its bar and poker tables behind a divider. Both businesses continued to operate successfully until the mid 1940s, when a murder was committed on the stairs of the Red Garter, leading to a city-wide crackdown on houses of ill-repute. The crackdown ultimately led to the closure of the saloon and brothel after more than forty years of operation.
Over the next several decades the building would house different types of businesses, including a rooming house and general store. In 1979, a man by the name of John Holst bought the building but continued to lease it out until 1994. At that time, Holst renovated the building converting the eight cribs into four guest rooms, each with its own bathroom, and opened the Red Garter Bed and Bakery."
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This is also listed under the NRHP Waymark: WM5MC2
Williams Historic Business District **
(added 1984 - Coconino County - #84000436)
Roughly bounded by Grant and Railroad Aves., and 1st and 4th Sts., Williams
(250 acres, 44 buildings)
Historic Significance: Event, Architecture/Engineering
Architect, builder, or engineer: multiple
Architectural Style: Romanesque, Other
Area of Significance: Architecture, Entertainment/Recreation, Transportation, Commerce
Period of Significance: 1875-1899, 1900-1924, 1925-1949
Owner: Private
Historic Function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic
Historic Sub-function: Department Store, Hotel, Restaurant, Warehouse
Current Function: Commerce/Trade, Vacant/Not In Use
Current Sub-function: Business, Restaurant, Warehouse