From a Press Release
The longest running brothel in the United States, now nationally registered Historic landmark, is now to become the Cultural Center, permanent museum and art gallery for the unusual collection of works belonging to The International Sex Worker Foundation for Art, Culture and Education (ISWFACE). Built in 1890 as a brothel, the Dumas Hotel in Butte, Montana, remained an active house of prostitution until 1982, and is the last remaining example of "Victorian Brothel" architechture in the US.\n In keeping with their IRS approved mission statement of purpose, ISWFACE is purchasing the fascinating 43 room remnant of the "old West," because it is a "tangible embodiment" of the prominent socioeconomic role that prostitution played in communities through American History. ISWFACE will bring sex workers from around the world to work with archaeological and engineering students to excavate and restore the cribs, tunnels and adjacent property for the long buried artifact treasures of which Montana Historical Society writer Ellen Baumler says "the structures and artifacts that remain are of such monumental significance that they transcend their immediate location and become intrinsic to the history of the American West."
