Sacramento Adult Entertainment: Elegant Stockton men’s club recalls another era
… The charter members had in common the desire for a companionable place to dine with friends or business associates,” Shellenberger writes. “In the British style … “
Translation: elegant appointments, privacy, servants, a bar, gourmet food, easy chairs, library, pool tables, game tables, and no women, children or dogs.
The club moved to its present location in the city’s first skyscraper, the eight-story Bank of Stockton building, in 1909, taking the upper three floors.
The top floor offered private rooms for Yosemite Club men. Some even summered there, shipping families off to the coast. If those walls could talk.
Of course, the club’s charter required members be of “good moral character and respectable standing.” But that was open to interpretation.
Member James A. Morrissey, for instance, was landlord of Stockton’s largest Chinese brothel, according to Shellenberger.