No question about it, Minnie Wolf was one of Cincinnati’s legendary bad girls. Oh, she didn’t murder anyone but her rap sheet ran for pages. She was in court often as the victim, more often as the perpetrator.

By most accounts, Minnie was born around 1830 near Chillicothe and arrived in Cincinnati around 1865 married to David S. Wolf, a bricklayer. As 1870 dawned, she was a regular in the crime reports of the daily newspapers.

In the early days of her career in the commerce of negotiable affection, Minnie was in partnership with her husband, but he died of tuberculosis. The newspapers regularly commented on Minnie’s weight, most agreeing that she topped the scales at something like 300 pounds. Here is the Cincinnati Commercial of 18 July 1875:

“Minnie is a ponderous specimen of humanity and appeared at the station in a stunning green silk, perspiring profusely and in a very bad frame of mind. The ‘boys’ commenced making their bets that she would not be locked up, for the reason that she could not pass through the cell doors. She beat all their calculations however by 'squeezing’ sideways through the door.”

Despite her heft, Minnie was regularly associated with a variety of men, both paramours and paying customers.

Although known as a madam, Minnie usually listed herself in the city directory as a saloon keeper, and she undoubtedly served drinks at her establishments. At one time, she ran two saloons, one on East Eighth and another on West Sixth. Minnie’s most famous saloon, however, was the notorious “Noodle Factory” on the Canal at Walnut Street. Probably because editors liked putting “Noodle Factory” into their newspapers, raids on this bar made headlines for much of the decade.

In the 1870s, prostitution was an uncommon charge. Instead Minnie would be cited for “keeping a house of prostitution” or “keeping a disorderly house” or “harboring lewd women” and her “inmates” would be fined for vagrancy. On several occasions, Minnie was sued for adultery - a civil remedy used by wives whose husbands frequented Cincinnati’s “resorts.” In such cases, Minnie always walked. Adultery only applied to those with marital obligations, and the widowed Minnie had none.

Fairly frequently, Minnie and her girls ended up in court on larceny warrants. It appears that some clients, after paying for services rendered, went to the police and claimed to have been robbed. An example concerning a “rural rooster” appears in the Cincinnati Enquirer of 24 September 1875 under the headline “They Took Him In; Noodle Factory Seized:”

“He went in among the charmers with his pocketbook stuffed out with eight dollars of good money and when he got ready to say good evening, he discovered that he was a moneyless man. Then he blowed on the charmers and had them arrested.”

There were times, as noted, when Minnie herself was the victim. Four men were arrested on 10 Aug 1873 and charged with robbing MInnie of $612.50. Business must have been good - that’s nearly $12,000 in today’s money.

Sometimes, Minnie’s enemies didn’t bother to take her to court. In 1870, a man named Philip Weaver was convicted of stabbing Minnie during an altercation. He pleaded innocent, admitting to the court that he beat Minnie and knocked her down but denied that he cut her.

In 1876, Emma Howell accused Minnie of “too much familiarity” with Mr. Howell and had an accomplice hold Minnie in a chair while Emma cut her with a knife. The newspapers reported that Minnie suffered a “very ugly slash on the right arm near the shoulder.” Emma Howell again went hunting her husband, a ne'er-do-well saloon keeper named Jack, in 1880 and found him at Minnie’s, whereupon Emma broke nearly all the windows until she was herself arrested on charges of malicious destruction.

In 1874, Minnie was at the heart of a case involving police corruption. It started when a “country greenhorn” by the name of Travis Inskeep charged Minnie and one of her girls, Mollie Brannon, with stealing $65 while he was enjoying the delights of the “Noodle Factory.” Inskeep’s charges were dismissed and Minnie was cleared, though fined for harboring lewd women.

A week later, Minnie had Cincinnati Police Lieutenant Thomas Moran in court on charges that he offered to have her case dismissed, for a price. She paid, got fined anyway and sued Lt. Moran to get her money back. Moran claimed he had passed the money along to Police Supervisor Colonel Jeremiah “Jerry” Kiersted, who denied everything. Minnie won her case. Kiersted’s shady career as police supervisor ended months later under another cloud.

Minnie’s colorful saga ended on 24 April 1885 when she died in her latest brothel at 256 Central Avenue. The newspapers reported that she died of “dropsy,” or what we today would call edema caused by congestive heart failure. The coroner disagreed, and recorded that Jane “Minnie” Wolf died of an overdose of morphia. She is buried in Wesleyan Cemetery in Northside.