Sunset Lodge in Georgetown

Book excerpt: The true, “carefully researched” story of a Depression-era brothel in a Bible Belt town that thrived for over three decades and the woman who owned it (Lee Gordon Brockington, author of Pawleys Island: A Century of History and Photographs). Hazel Weisse moved to Georgetown, South Carolina, in 1936, and opened a brothel three miles south of Front Street. Aside from objections by a few ministers, most people in town looked the other way—and the business remained open for thirty-three years, until Weisse’s retirement in 1969. She was well known, making appearances every week at the stores on Front Street—and in the newspaper as a donor to charitable causes. She sent her “sporting ladies” to town for their weekly doctor visits, banking deposits, and shopping trips. But, aware of the conservative community around her business, she did not allow her employees free access to Georgetown. She approved their choices of clothes to wear in public, warned them not to look at men on the sidewalk, and forbade soliciting. Based on research, interviews, and local lore, David Gregg Hodges attempts the unravel the history behind a place spoken of in whispers—and reveals the people and stories behind the Sunset Lodge.