Wild women of the Wild West - inside the brothels worked by the 'white doves'

They were known as the 'soiled doves' - the girls in white dresses who flocked to America's boom towns to keep working men 'company'.

And these rare photos show inside the brothels where they worked at the turn of the 19th century.

Colorado boom towns like Denver were a magnet to these girls, keen to make as much cash as possible from lonely bachelors.

Other photos show the infamous bordellos with madams, men, women, maids and even babies having a time of it in the Wild West.

The highly mythicized American Frontier saw economic workers traipsing out the Western states of the Union in search of lucrative work.

Boom town and villages that struck gold became magnets for prospectors.

The women flocked to the boom towns to earn a living by keeping the men company (News Dog Media)

The women wore white dresses and were known as the 'white doves' (News Dog Media)

They struck gold in Colorado's Cripple Creek in October 1890 and the population of the town exploded from just 500 to more than 10,000 in the space of three years. 

And where men went, women would follow.

A girl of ‘easy virtue’ could make good money by keeping the workers company.

One photograph taken in Cripple Creek shows a bordello called The Club.

It’s a quintessential Old West sin palace with musicians, the madam, housemaids and the ladies that wore white brothel gowns hanging out of the upstairs windows.

A group of men stand outside one of the brothels in Colorado (News Dog Media)

The women may have been called the 'soiled doves' and looked angelic but they were really very tough (News Dog Media)

The white gown was the uniform for a prostitutes in the Old West.

But despite their angelic dresses, these girls were tough and many of them would rob their clients by poisoning their beer. 

All of the dance halls and brothels were located on just one street and even though prostitution was far from legal, the police and the working girls developed a system that would benefit both of them.

The 'white doves' paid a yearly 'fine', which went straight into police funds.

And keeping the girls healthy was paramount.

One madam, known as Pearl, made her employees have monthly check-ups to make sure they were free from diseases.

She also insisted the girls had good hygiene and fed them two good meals a day.

Use of drugs, such as morphine, was common in these palaces of sin

But by 1917 the mines had dried out and many of the brothels closed as demand for the working girls fell.