Entry No. 21 — the Des Moines file — filed under: brothel history

Valley Junction's Hidden Red-Light History (5th Street)

Today's tidy antique-and-gift district along 5th Street was, after its 1893 founding as a busy railroad switching town, a notorious strip of saloons, pool halls, bootleggers and brothels — the seedy underbelly of a stop where 26 passenger trains a day rolled through. The vice is gone but the original buildings survive as a National Register historic district (listed 2017), so the macabre backstory is hiding in plain sight beneath the boutiques.

The move: Walk the three blocks of 5th Street reading the historic buildings as a former red-light strip — pick a bar in one of the old storefronts and trade guesses about which building once housed a brothel or a bootlegger's back room.

📍 Before you go The district runs three walkable blocks along 5th Street in West Des Moines, anchored where it crosses Grand Avenue. Free parking lots sit off 4th and 6th Streets, tucked behind the storefronts on either side; they fill fast on the liveliest nights. The biggest draw is Thursday evenings, roughly May through September, when a long-running farmers market closes the 100-to-300 blocks to traffic and many shops and bars stay open late. Be patient with the premise, too: there are no plaques or marked trail for the red-light past, so this is a self-guided imagination walk that pairs well with browsing the antique shops and grabbing a drink in one of the old storefronts.

• 📍 Valley Junction (West Des Moines)
• 💸 Free
• ⚡ Up for anything
• 🌗 Outdoors

Where: Historic 5th Street, West Des Moines, IA 50265

Hours: Outdoor public street, walkable anytime; shops and bars keep their own hours. The vice history is a backstory layer, not a marked attraction.

Plan a visit & invite your people →

Further reading: Official site · Wikipedia

last checked: 2026-06-06