Sheriff fought prostitution in Madera

For The Madera Tribune

Sheriff John Barnett, shown here, had his hands full trying to rid Madera of prostitution.

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Being sheriff of Madera County has never been easy. Those holding the office have always had to walk that fine line between both protecting and pleasing the public, and at times the effort has been complicated by outside interests.

Take, for instance, one notorious attempt to eliminate Madera’s Red Light District.

Prostitution was a fact of life in this town from its early beginnings. Madera had barely been founded when entrepreneurs of the world’s oldest profession descended upon the little village and by the turn of the century, the illicit traffic in human flesh was an embarrassment to most of the “law-abiding” folks.