Waco madam's life recalled

TEMPLE, Texas — Before her life came to a violent end somewhere between Temple and Belton in August 1890, Cora McMahan had developed a salacious reputation everywhere she lived.
She was found by a passer-by who reported that McMahan was locked in an embrace with her love interest, notorious outlaw Pick Wiseman. She had been shot once with a shotgun at close range. Wiseman was shot 27 times.
Days earlier he was found not guilty in a murder case in which he was accused of gunning down a lawman.
The man who found the couple said their bodies were in a buggy, its horses tied to a fencepost.
Stories of the killings, which went unsolved, were printed in newspapers throughout the nation. In those accounts, McMahan was identified as a prostitute.
A new book, "The Oldest Profession in Texas: Waco's Legal Red Light District," written by James Plyant and Sherri Knight, reveals that McMahan was much more than a simple prostitute: she was a woman of influence in the brothel community.
By the time McMahan was 18 she was a madam in Brenham. She was illiterate. Tax records indicate her real name was Cora McGreal, Plyant said.
The way the prostitution trade in Texas worked in the late 1800s is madams established permanent residency in a city and the prostitutes traveled a circuit living in different cities and sometimes taking different names, Plyant said.
Perhaps McMahan's greatest success as the leader of a house of ill repute came during her time in Waco, where she is believed to have met Pick Wiseman.
Prostitution was actually legal within the Waco city limits during the time McMahan was running her brothel.
The Waco City Council, acting against state law, passed an ordinance that regulated the sex trade in the city, Knight said, adding that prostitutes were required to display their licenses and to have regular exams by a doctor to prevent the spread of venereal disease.
"It was kind of a farce," Knight said. "I doubt many men came in asking to see a certificate."
Even though prostitution was quasi-legal in Waco, county officials still made arrests based on state law.
In 1880, McMahan was found guilty on five counts of operating a "disorderly house." Each count carried a $100 fine.
"She wasn't really all that well liked in Waco," Knight said.
"Her bordellos had a tendency to draw police, and she was feisty."
Even though she wasn't well liked, McMahan still never served jail time for the convictions. At the request of several prominent Wacoans, including the county judge, Gov. O.M. Roberts pardoned her in 1881.
"I've never seen anything like that before," Pylant said about McMahan being pardoned before ever serving time.
McMahan had enough success operating her bordello in that environment that she branched out and opened a dancehall in a former military institute she had purchased.
In 1883, McMahan was found guilty of assault with intent to commit murder for a shooting death that happened at her dancehall. Her punishment was a $250 fine.
It is believed that McMahan got together with Wiseman in 1888, the same year she moved to Bell County.
Within two years of living here, McMahan and Wiseman became notorious characters in Bell County.
"She quickly became hated," Plyant said. "It wasn't the same climate as Waco."
Although McMahan mingled and did business among some of the most unsavory people in Bell County during the late 1800s, she apparently had a taste for fine things.
Upon her death an inventory of her estate listed lace curtains, vases, English china, marble tables and walnut furniture.
Her son, James McMahan, claimed the estate even though he had shielded his family from his mother's notorious background, Plyant said.
James McMahan appears to have avoided the same notorious reputation as his mother. He died quietly in the Los Angeles area in 1949 on what was his 80th birthday, Plyant said.