The Bradford oil boom of the late 1800s brought many people to the city in search of wealth and prosperity. With a population of more than 18,000, Bradford was bursting with new businesses and industries — some that locals of today may find immoral.

Minnie Stoddard is a name that be unfamiliar today, but it is a name that lived in infamy in Bradford during the late 19th century.

Her story was outlined in the Tyler County death records of 1906 and compiled by Naomi Keller Beagle in 2004.

She was a woman who followed the prosperity of oil booms around the country, which led to her finding herself in Bradford around 1883, near the oil boom’s peak. She understood there was a lot of money to be spent in Bradford in those times, so she decided to run what some call the oldest profession in the world — a brothel.

“The Headlight,” as it was known, was located close to downtown Bradford, and it garnered Stoddard quite a bit of notoriety.

The details remain unclear, but it is said that her daughter was sent to be schooled away from the retribution that she would face from her mother’s profession. The daughter’s name was Lillie LeBaron, and she eventually returned to Bradford with news that she was engaged to a man of higher class.

It has been said the mother of the high-class man found out about Stoddard’s profession and forced the wedding between LeBaron and the man to be called off. Lebaron died almost immediately after, and it is not known if it was suicide or simply of a broken heart. She was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery next to her grandmother, Betsy Caldwell.

Stoddard moved on from Bradford in 1895, following the oil boom to West Virginia, but there are those who say she left to escape the insurmountable guilt she felt from her daughter’s death.

While there, she changed her name to Blanche Wendall, hoping to remove herself from her past, but it seemed she could never forget about what had transpired in Bradford.

Stoddard died in 1906, while in West Virginia. In her will, she requested to be brought back to Bradford to be buried with her mother and daughter. On top of the grave sits a life-sized statue of a somber looking woman holding her head, peering down at the gravesite. It is simply marked “Caldwell.”

Legend has it that the overwhelming pain and sorrow Stoddard felt carried on with her to the afterlife, and on the right night, when the moon is brightest in the dark of night, the statue weeps for the broken-hearted daughter.