 It was not uncommon for brothels in Western towns to operate openly, without the stigma that was beginning to emerge in East Coast cities as a result of anti-prostitution activism.Gambling and prostitution were central to life in these western towns, and only later, as the female population increased, reformers moved in and other civilizing influences arrived, did prostitution become less blatant and less common.After a decade or so the mining towns attracted respectable women who ran boarding houses, organized church societies, and worked as laundresses and seamstresses, all while striving for independent status.