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Advertisement 1This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The south side of the Unit Block of Dupont (Pender) Street, circa 1907. Photograph shows the Gim Lee Yuen store at 32 Dupont Street and other businesses including the Sam Kee building in the background at 433 Carrall Street. Vancouver Archives PNGArticle contentThe headline is short and to the point: “A Bad Old Woman.”Sign In or Create an Accountor View more offersArticle contentFlora McKenzie operated brothels from Winnipeg to Vancouver in the 1880s and 1890s, including an infamous one upstairs at 45 Dupont Street, in the heart of Vancouver’s first red light district.Article contentArticle contentShe was always cropping up in police court stories in newspapers for her misdeeds, usually as “the notorious” Mrs. McKenzie or Mother McKenzie.Article contentArticle contentHer son Tosh was just as infamous: his forte was getting into drunken brawls and being sentenced to jail or being told to leave town.Article contentSunriseStart your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.Thanks for signing up!A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againInterested in more newsletters? Browse here.Article contentTosh’s reign of terror ended on July 21, 1896, when he was shot dead during a scuffle in Steveston.Article contentHis mother got her “just desserts” on Sept. 26, 1899, when the Vancouver Daily Province reported the “bad old woman” had been sentenced to two years in jail.Article content Mug shot and description of the crimes of Flora McKenzie, from an 1899 Vancouver Police Department book of mug shots in the Vancouver Archives. Hand written notes read: “Florence McKenzie or Mother McKenzie prostitute. Age 65, White headed. Arrested Aug. 24, 1899 by Det. Butler and J.W. McIntosh on a charge of procuring for immoral purposes two young girls named Sadie McDonald and Gertie Angus. Also keeping a house of prostitution at 37 Dupont street for which she was sentenced to six months on charge of procuring. Prisoner was committed for trial and sentenced to two years in the pen. This woman has been a prostitute in nearly every city on the continent and is one of the worst of her kind.”Article contentThe charge was “procuring for immoral purposes” a teenage girl. A second charge of doing the same to another teenager was still pending.Article content“That (Mrs. McKenzie) was a thoroughly abandoned woman has long been known to the police department of every town between Winnipeg and the coast,” said the Province.Article content“She went to Winnipeg in the boom days and ran an establishment there that was notorious for brawls, robberies and other descriptions of crime. She was finally run out of the city and has been moving westward ever since.Article contentArticle content“She brought up two daughters in lives of shame…in the house managed by their mother.”Article contentRead More Vancouver was quite rough in 1890. Almost every day, the city’s newspapers carried stories about somebody getting drunk, causing a kerfuffle and being arrested. In 1912-13, the Vancouver Police Department kept a mug shot book with photos of all the people it arrested, and a handwritten description of their alleged crimes. Many are petty, such as stealing a banana. Others are heinous, like the murder of a policeman. But taken together, they offer a unique glimpse into the city a century ago. Advertisement 1Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Article contentThe first newspaper story on Mother McKenzie was in the March 5, 1885 Manitoba Free Press, when she “cruelly caused a 13-year-old girl to be dragged from the path of virtue” in Winnipeg.Article contentOn Dec. 22, 1887, the Manitoba Free Press reported she had moved to Donald, a Canadian Pacific Railway town between Golden and Revelstoke.Article contentThe headline for the story was “A Hot Bed of Vice.”Article content“Donald has long had the unenviable notoriety of being the most immoral and disorderly town on the C.P.R. west of the Rockies,” said the story, noting the western side of town “was inhabited by saloon keepers and prostitutes of the lowest class.Article content“Two of the saloons are kept by women of ill-fame — ‘Mother McKenzie’ and ‘French Nell.’”Article content The railroad town of Donald, B.C. in the 1890s, shortly after Mother McKenzie ran a brothel and saloon in the “hot bed of vice.” Bailey Brothers Vancouver ArchivesArticle contentOn Oct. 23, 1893 Mrs. McKenzie cropped up in a Vancouver World story as “the proprietress of a sporting house on Dupont street” who had been charged with stealing a pair of shoes from the Mills and Bethune store on Cordova.Advertisement 1This advertisement has not loaded yet.Trending Here's a list of Starbucks locations set to close in B.C. so far News Opinion: B.C. has a revenue problem, not a spending problem Op-Ed Advertisement 2Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. One person injured and several homes in Chilliwack sprayed with gunfire in gang shooting News B.C. gang killer Rabih Alkhalil tried to escape from Qatar police twice Crime Truth and Reconciliation Day 2025: What's happening around Metro Vancouver News Advertisement 2AdvertisementThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article contentA week later her son Tosh didn’t show up in court to face a charge of vagrancy. On July 5, 1894 the World reported “Tosh McKenzie, the notorious, was fined $5 for being on a drunken row.”Article contentTwo weeks later Tosh was back in police court after he had another drunken row with Peter Dubois, who ran a saloon in the Columbia block, “part of which is occupied by Mrs. Mckenzie and her sporting girls.”Article contentMrs. McKenzie had used “grossly abusive language” toward Dubois, which led to “bad blood between them.” A couple of days later Tosh got “very drunk” and “got into a row with Dubois.”Article content“Tosh initiated the fighting, but Dubois took him into the backyard and gave him an awful hammering,” the World reported. Tosh was fined $20, Dubois got a suspended sentence.Article contentTosh was remanded on an unnamed charge Sept. 6, 1894, “his mother having promised to provide the money tomorrow to get him out of town.” The World’s “local gossip” column Sept. 9, 1895 stated “the notorious Tosh McKenzie is in Hong Kong. It is a blessing for the province.”Article contentArticle contentBut he was back by July, 1896, when he had a dispute with Ed Sheehan, who had rented a house in Steveston that McKenzie had put a deposit on. They struggled and Sheehan killed Tosh with a shot in the head.Article contentWhen it came to court Nov. 12, 1896 a woman testified Tosh had rented the house for his mother “to be used as a place of prostitution.” Another testified to Tosh’s reputation “as a bad man.”Article contentA jury deliberated for only half an hour before finding Sheehan not guilty of Tosh’s murder because he had shot the gun in self-defence.Article contentTosh was 27 when he died. Stories on his mother stopped after she went to prison in 1899 at 65 years of age.Article contentArticle content The block of Dupont Street in Chinatown, circa 1906. Dupont is now East Pender. The view is looking west from the middle of the block and the 1889 Wing Sang building is the brick building on the right side of the photo. Carrall Street is in the distance. Photo by Philip Timms, City of Vancouver Archives Vancouver SunArticle content Mug shot and description of the crimes of Flora McKenzie, from an 1899 Vancouver Police Department book of mug shots in the Vancouver Archives. Hand written note reads: “Florence McKenzie or Mother McKenzie prostitute. Age 65, White headed. Arrested Aug. 24, 1899 by Det. Butler and J.W. McIntosh on a charge of procuring for immoral purposes two young girls named Sadie McDonald and Gertie Angus. Also keeping a house of prostitution at 37 Dupont street for which she was sentenced to six months on charge of procuring. Prisoner was committed for trial and sentenced to two years in the pen. This woman has been a prostitute in nearly every city on the continent and is one of the worst of her kind.”Article content Featured Local Savings
