Viewed through the sanguine eyes of nostalgia, Port Elizabeth in its formative years is naively seen as idyllic. This is not altogether true. Port Elizabeth not only exemplified a “frontier town” with all its attendant travails but it also bore the undesirable hallmarks of a busy, under-policed port. 

This blog exposes the seamy, sleazy underbelly of that era. 

Main picture: The sea wall from the north jetty in 1885. Beyond it was the Strand Street, the den of iniquity

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