Sally Stanford (1903–1982)

Sally Stanford was born Mabel Janice Busby in Baker City, Oregon. Her father died when she was young and she had to help her mother support the family with jobs such as caddying on a golf course. At age 16, she eloped to Denver with a man who claimed he was the grandson of a former governor of Colorado. She helped him cash some stolen checks and was sent to the Oregon State Prison at Salem for two years. She moved to San Francisco, California in 1924. According to her autobiography, Lady of the House (written with reporter Bob Patterson and published in 1966), she took the surname Stanford as a pseudonym after reading a newspaper story about Stanford University's football team. In the 1940s, she ran one of San Francisco's most famous brothels. It was said by Herb Caen, writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, that "the United Nations was founded at Sally Stanford's whorehouse," because at the founding conference of the UN in San Francisco in 1945, many of the delegates were customers of Sally Stanford and a large part of the actual negotiations took place in the living room of her establishment. Sally retired in 1950 to run the Valhalla, a fancy restaurant on the waterfront in Sausalito. In her new town, she became active in local civic affairs and won a seat on the City Council on her sixth attempt in 1972. A few years later, she was elected mayor of Sausalito. She was married five times and adopted two children.