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.Though arthritis hadconfined her to a wheelchair, she was determined to keep herhouse decent. She had to double her duty of rolling down thehallways from room to room, listening at the doors when someparticularly frisky customers came in.If she detected noisesthat indicated that something else was going on besides theusual, modest position, she would burst in with a long iron rodand send the culprit flying with at least one red mark acrosshis buttocks.One client recalled that he didn t go back for a week.Thenshe wouldn t let me in.Not till I d showed her I could be righthappy with just your ordinary piece of tail. When the Depression hit in 1929, the effect on MissJessie s was especially devastating.Not only were there fewercustomers, but more girls came seeking employment.Still,prostitution continued to flourish during the thirties.Nobody had any money, and Miss Jessie had many mouthsto feed.Swiftly, she hit on the perfect solution.She convertedto the poultry standard : she charged one chicken for onescrew. every state needs a chicken ranch 193 08_147_09_Ch08.qxd 5/13/08 6:02 AM Page 194It was the perfect solution.Farm boys could always findchickens.Moreover, the birds were a self-renewing resource.Every farm had at least one rooster, who serviced the hens.They reproduced themselves by laying eggs.At night theywere kept in coops and little houses with simple latches on thedoors and, although they did make a terrible racket if theywere awakened, a careful man could grab and go. Men whodidn t keep chickens could also count on finding them thesame places the farm boys did.Soon the whole parking lot was full of chickens, and thegirls ate eggs and chickens until they were practically squawk-ing themselves.Hence, the name the Chicken Ranchbecame famous throughout central Texas and beyond.And noone went hungry, and every girl had plenty of customers.The Depression began to ease only after the election ofFranklin Delano Roosevelt to the presidency.At Roosevelt sinsistence, Congress passed a bill authorizing the building oflabor camps throughout the country for jobless young men.Many were needed to provide jobs of all different kinds.At thesame time, Tennessee Valley Authority built a magnificent damover the Tennessee River and created enough electric power totake care of most of the towns east of the Mississippi.TheRural Electrical Administration brought lights to the farms.Miss Jessie s girls could now have electric lights and ceilingfans.Another program especially dear to Jessie and her girls wasthe CCC camp Civilian Conservation Corporation.A wholecampful of young men went to work as forest rangers at jobsdedicated to improving the national, state, and county parksand to contributing to the general beautification of the envi-ronment, as well as conservation enterprises in central Texas.Thus, one might find the following inscription in auto-graph books that young girls of that time filled with the epi-grams and signatures of their friends: When you get married,don t marry a tramp.Just marry a boy from the CCC camp. 194 outrageous texans 08_147_09_Ch08.qxd 5/13/08 6:02 AM Page 195Camp Swift was built just a few miles down the road fromLa Grange, and it proved a boon to Miss Jessie and the girls.The men from the camp literally piled into their trucks androde over to the Chicken Ranch night after night, bringingmoney and incidental improvements in the girls menu withthe occasional side of beef.When World War II exploded, the girls even got gasoline fortheir roadsters because the farm boys got unlimited rationcoupons since raising crops was an essential industry.Unfortunately, when Miss Jessie tried to teach the girls how totake care of a victory garden, she ran into trouble.Though thecustomers might be rural, the girls had ceased to be.No longerwere they pitiful creatures like Mrs.Swine s two original Piglets
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