Now as crazy as New Orleans is these days, back in the 19th century it was downright brutal. Red light districts all over town, and while the trade was not officially accepted, it was always tolerated. Josie knew where the real money was to be made, and became a teenage prostitute under the control of an older lover.

But Josie knew she couldn’t work as a prostitute forever, and to make a life for herself, she would have to take advantage of the very men who were taking advantage of her. She would have to become a Madam.

So Josie opened a bordello in one of the largest red light districts in New Orleans. The district was located along the Basin Street rail line, just a few blocks from the French Quarter. Despite her rowdy reputation, Josie wanted to clean up her image and open a refined establishment where true gentlemen could pay for the services of, as she put it, “amiable, foreign girls.”

The area was named Storyville, and it soon became an amusement park of sin. The densely packed neighborhood was filled with saloons and brothels. High class gentlemen and rogues alike staggered through the streets, fueled by exotic drugs and overpriced booze, listening to the sounds of jazz in between trysts with the endless collection of prostitutes.

And of all the bordellos in Storyville, the Arlington was among the largest and most lavish. Beautiful women in exotic European lingerie waited in the grand parlor for the most powerful men in New Orleans to walk through the door.

Even when she bought a mansion in one of New Orleans’ most affluent neighborhoods, she was still an outcast to the high society women of New Orleans. She could hear them whispering and giggling behind her back when she came home at night. “I wonder how many of these ladies know that their husbands visit me on weekends,” she thought to herself. But she kept silent, her bitterness festering inside her.

Josie eventually passed away at age 50. A few years later, Storyville itself was shut down by the U.S. Navy due to concern about the effect it was having on its young sailors stationed in New Orleans. The brothels and bars were leveled to build a housing project. There is hardly a sign today that Storyville ever existed.

But some believe that Josie Arlington stuck around long after the death of Storyville for one last bid for attention. In the years after Josie was buried, rumors began to spread about strange goings-on at her grave. Curiosity-seekers who visited the grave ran back to town claiming they saw the urns on top of the tomb burst into flames before their eyes! Others saw an eerie red glow coming from the tomb at night, as if the granite walls were burning like hot coals. Josie’s grave was soon nicknamed the “Flaming Tomb.”