Adaline “Ad” Cole was a well-known figure in Peoria’s early wide-open days on Washington Street. A larger-than-life character, she was one of Peoria’s first “colored” madams and had no compunction when it came to local laws or general efforts to contain her.<\/p>\n
Her boldness was legend. She loudly raced her team of black horses through the city streets. She disguised herself as a woman in a veil, then as a man, in order to enter a fair where “questionable characters” were forbidden. (The second disguise worked.) She flouted the authorities by offering to pay a $28 fine with a $1000 bill.<\/p>\n
Beyond her audacity, she also demonstrated what a lucrative business being a madam could be. The fortune she left behind at her death would have made her a millionaire by today’s standards.<\/p>\n
These clippings derive from a “Peoriana” column that appeared in Peoria’s Daily Record <\/em>in the 1940s (and perhaps before and after), and were helpfully collated by subject at\u00a0the Peoria Public Library.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Adaline “Ad” Cole was a well-known figure in Peoria’s early wide-open days on Washington Street. A larger-than-life character, she was one of Peoria’s first “colored” madams and had no compunction when it came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[340,346,6,18],"tags":[289,29,223],"class_list":["post-3257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-before-marie-pryor","category-1-women-who-blazed-marie-pryors-trail","category-north-washington-street","category-sin-city","tag-adaline-ad-cole","tag-madam","tag-peoriana"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n