What Were Wild West Saloons ACTUALLY Like?

No matter your knowledge of the Wild West or your experiences traveling the Western frontier, exploring ghost towns and abandoned settlements, one thing is certain. When someone says the word “saloon,” you can close your eyes and imagine exactly what it means. Saloons play a vital role in our understanding of life in the Old West, as they were truly the meeting point for many of the era’s famous people, lifestyles, legacies, and exciting events.
Although ideas and imagery of saloons have been reinforced by romantic notions of the Wild West era and Hollywood films exaggerating their grandeur, they are historically misunderstood. Certainly, like much of the traditions we associate with the frontier, saloons were not necessarily the hives of scum and villains that they are depicted.
Although there were certainly card game shootouts, fights drunkards and scandals that shook the cities within the walls of the ducks of the West, bloodshed was rare. They presented themselves as occasional disturbances rather than the nightly routine, going against the grain of modern interpretations of community centers, commercial structures and social pivots that they really represented.
To better understand saloons and the people who could be found sipping whiskey or playing pharo after sunset, here’s what visiting a saloon looked like and the iconography of saloons seen in modern films and stories of the era, particularly during the early Westward expansion. There were actually two versions of the saloon experience.
two versions of the saloon experience. The first two decades on the frontier and the last decades on the frontier offered distinct opportunities that all deserve both to be explored in detail. In the early days of saloons, there were no false facades, decorative panels and personalized decorations, nor wooden walks that stretched out into the streets to guide customers through swinging doors, nor brand-new bar counters with leather seats and the best alcohols you want. No. The first interpretations of what we
would later be called saloons were primarily areas of a mining camp or of a bare colony, marked by four wooden posts which formed a square with a coarse canvas or a homemade tarpaulin stretched over the top to form a roof. Other early forms of saloon were hastily erected tents and rickety three-walled structures called lean-to.
Lean-tos of them usually involved rafters leaning against another building or a post as well as a single-slope roof like the one you see on a shed. or a post as well as a single slope roof like the one you see on a shed. In the center of the room there was sometimes a wood stove. It was not used for cooking or preparing hot meals, but rather to keep visitors warm during the cold winter evenings at the border.

Around the stove were a few unfinished tables or sometimes just a flat wooden sheath attached to the top of a half-sanded stump or pedestal. When it comes to the characters who occupied these slum saloons of the early Wild West, you’d be hard-pressed to find a gang of outlaws playing poker or drunken lawmen enjoying their day of job of rounding up the bad guys.
Saloons were more of a place for socializing at the heart of a booming city, where cooperation and compassion were the watchwords between customers. They also served as a place of relaxation for hard workers, because of many young men employed in the mining camp or trading post did not have families or returned in the evening.
When you walked into one of those marquee saloons, if there was a room or entrance, you found a few people sitting at makeshift tables arranged a almost everywhere, with someone providing homemade alcohol behind a counter or a basic service cart. It is more than likely that you will greet the person who was sharing the space at that time. Among the regulars, we found cowboys and ranchers looking to make deals with other cowboys, travelers in seeking companionship or conversation, as well as soldiers or workers seeking to relaxand escape boredom away from the construction site. After a few greetings, we headed towards the
drinks stand where someone was already preparing their house specialty. These drinks ranged from houndstooth juice to tarantula juice to coffin varnish. If the drink names don’t sound appealing, that’s because they were. The nicknames corresponded to the composition of each drink, usually concocted with cheap, inedible ingredients to compensate for the lack of quality alcohol.
In the days of the first saloons, drinks were often made with raw alcohol as a base, combined with chewed tobacco, ammonia, gunpowder, tarantine and burnt sugar. The alcohol was strong and the flavors were borderline dangerous. But we consumed them without hesitation. One of the most popular drinks found in the saloons of Leanto II was called firewater.
A name who worked his way into the public consciousness thanks to Native American traders. Brandy was not a cocktail or a maligned combination of ingredients no edible. It was just alcohol and very similar to the whiskey popular at the time modern.
However, the name arose during the first commercial negotiations between the settlers and indigenous tribes, when traders tried to convince the Native Americans that their alcohol had the highest alcohol content. To demonstrate with brilliance needed to sell their home brews, settlers poured the raw whiskey over a campfire or other open flame. Alcohol then made the fire grow and thinned it out, signifying some of the powerful drinks of the pioneers.
And brandy has always been part of the traditions of the early saloons. Whether your drink of choice was whiskey, rye, or a stomach-churning cocktail, there was almost always a guarantee that it would be served at room temperature, or even hot. On average, the drinks reached around 55 to 65 degrees Celsius after re-brewing.
Frozen drinks were a thing of the future, as refrigeration was not readily available in most frontier regions for traveling parties, mining camps, and new settlements. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1880s that artificial refrigeration had an impact on brewers in general, when Edulus Bush started this practice with the national launch of Budweiser.
After receiving the drink of your choice, national launch of Budweiser. After receiving your drink of choice, it was time to pay. The price of a drink in a saloon, regardless of when you entered, always varied from one colony to another.
Smaller saloons like Tent and Leanto always offered cheap beer and whiskey because they knew their customers would come from equally difficult places. Cowboys, miners and travelers did not have flexible incomes or much cash to begin with, so you had to expect to pay a few cents for a glass of liqueur or a pint of beer. Prices increased the further you strayed from the beaten track. If you were to travel to the Yukon Territory, for example, you’d probably spend 50 cents on a single glass of whiskey, probably the cheap types.
In contrast, it only took a quarter of a dollar to buy the same drink in the more populous colonies of the Western territories, such as Colorado and Kansas. For the same price, you could order two beers served hot. These are the prices customers probably paid at the very first saloon in history, called Bronze Hall.
It sat right on the edge of today’s Wyoming-Colorado-Utah border, and served raw alcohol to trappers and fur traders in 1822. to trappers and fur traders in 1822. So, after entering the poorly set up tent, buying a glass of coffin varnish for 25 cents, greeting the scouts of the convoy, having exchanged drinks with the cowboys and having offered a drink to the poor miners of 19 years old.
So you’ve had most of the first saloon experiences in one night. You are probably asked where the card games were held, where the female artists are, and where are the well-mixed cocktails that keep people relaxed but animated? Fear not, for those days are upon us. As more and more people settled west of the Mississippi River and more industries flourished in the territories,saloons have evolved into what we imagine them to be today, although they are still far from the usual Hollywood cinema.
After a few years of pitching tents and selling raw alcohol, businessmen and would-be saloon owners wanted to take it to the next level and give people, whether near or far, a much more exciting experience. They knew that their only ticket to fortune would depend on the work they put into their establishment.
So, with the expansion of boomtowns and the transformation of settlements into cities, the ground was set. Over time, additional resources were allocated to shape saloons throughout the West. As the railway industry continued to expand in the western territories, saloons became permanent fixtures in towns with a railroad line.
This differed greatly from the trend of saloons opening and closing their gates in just a few years, as most mining camps struggled to remain populated for more than a year or two. With the trains came excess workers, families and travelers. They all needed the same things. Food, shelter, and a place to relax and do business so that life in the West does not stagnate and the dreams associated with Manifest Destiny can come true.

A saloon met all three needs. And although it wasn’t permanent, the more people who came to town, the more saloons were needed. With more saloons, the greater the diversity of entertainment, the more drinks were served and the more game possibilities there were. One of the largest sets of saloons was located in Denver, Colorado, where 478 official saloons opened their doors in 1890.
This represents a slight difference from just three decades earlier, when Denver only had about 30 saloons. Saloons were essential at the time, as their prevalence was synonymous with growth and satisfaction among their customers. Once the cities have sufficiently developed to justify the construction of strong and sturdy saloons, they planned almost always their construction for the center of their newly founded colony.
It was not only a commercial decision to aim for on the part of the owners, but also a means of promoting the community in brand new places that didn’t have one. These cities rarely housed churches or other community buildings, and saloon operators mobilized so that their buildings can be installed there.
As a result, many saloons were closed for their usual Sunday morning activities out of respect for the visiting clergy who held their sermons and services there. If a government center had not yet been built, these boom towns also held elections and council meetings in saloon headquarters. This also included job fairs where the unemployed could turn things around.
This also included job fairs where the unemployed could turn things around. Some colonies even housed a few beds and a trading post in their saloons, which really gave these hot spots their notoriety as a jack of all trades. To push the growth of saloons even further, some colonies saw several saloons appear, but all had a different clientele.
If most saloons welcomed customers from diverse social backgrounds, social and racial divisions still existed. This did not necessarily mean that some saloons were welcoming to everyone, because some states along the southern border, which had mixed allegiances during the Civil War, opened segregated saloons.
They were much more common in Texas, but the farther west you went, the less prejudice we saw in these businesses. Thus, after the growth of the city in boom brought more saloons and you found your option favorite among downtown businesses, you could walk in and find that there was more to see than these old establishments belonging to yesteryear.
The time of trampled grass and earth packed beneath your feet was long gone. And the time of floors arrived in wood and attempts at decoration. The decor always depended on the location, because thesaloons of the Great Plains hung cowboy outfits and horse saddles on the wall, while those of the rockies hung deer antlers and bear skins.
Saloons in small towns or poor colonies were still quite minimalist, with maybe a bar counter and a few benches to sit on. Saloons in big cities, especially on the Pacific coast, were built with large mirrors and sparkling chandeliers. However, these were much rarer.
After admiring the decoration and finding your way to the bar, you were looking for the bartender, who was also most likely the owner and the operator. Bartenders played an important role in the development of saloons of the Wild West. Between two drinks, they also played the role of security guards, sometimes armed with a rifle or double-barreled shotgun behind the counter.
Bartenders were also their establishment’s entertainment coordinators, managing the largest game rooms and organized singing or dancing acts by hired workers. Bartenders were also forced to be their own cooks and cleaners, if they couldn’t find part-time help in town. Bartenders took their jobs very seriously, sometimes having to travel across the country to get their service in places where there was no competent mixologist.
Another name for bartender was professor, given to famous cowboys who set out as saloon masters at some point in their careers. In 1900, there were 50,000 bartenders or saloon owners in the United States, leading to strong competition between mixologists who were all seeking to perfect life saloon. Of course, this also meant a considerable improvement in the quality of drinks, as customers no longer had to endure gunpowder and raw alcohol, but could now enjoy fine spirits, real cocktails and everyone’s favorite pasteurized cold beer.
Once you’ve received your drink of choice from the professor, you might be tempted to pull the bar stool in front of you and sit at the counter. The only problem was that bar stools didn’t exist in classic saloons. As a chair, saloons were equipped with a long metal bar attached a few centimeters from the ground, at the foot of the bar counter.
This allowed visitors to place one foot on the bar and lean forward in a relaxed position. If someone really wanted to sit down, they had to find an empty seat at a table. After finishing one’s drink, one could grab the rough cloth or loose napkin hanging under the bar counter to wipe away any leftover alcohol or foam.
beer on his bushy mustache. You see, towels didn’t exist in the Wild West. And although the towels harbored bacteria and disease, It’s not like most saloons are squeaky clean. If your glass was empty and your bill paid, The next activity in line at the saloon was to check out the entertainment options.

Some businesses offered a theater or dance every evening. If a performance troupe was in town, everyone came to the saloon to catch her in the act. But most of the entertainment was reserved for the women who worked there. The women sold one of two things, alcohol or action.
Many dancers also worked as sex workers, just like the barmeds who were lucky enough to find work. You could tip your dancers if you only wanted a show, but you could also pay a higher price for a private show, if you wish. If you weren’t interested in women of the saloon, there were five times as many men involved in commercial transactions, political disputes and, best of all, countless games of cards and chances.
By far the most popular game was faro. Faro was a game of chance using a deck of cards in which 13 cards of the same suit were placed vertically on the table. In each round, the men placed bets on a single value, and the dealer, called banker, turned over two cards.
The first card was the banker’s card, and all bets made on this value were losers. The second card was the card of player, and all bets made on this value were winning. Players could organizetheir bet in every round and always attract crowds due to its simple rules and unlimited number of players. Other famous games of chance of the time included poker, such as the five card draw, the three card game and, later, the roulette tables.
They were only found in the fanciest saloons, for men could play all night with only a few cards and a little money. If you were lucky enough to leave with more money than when you entered, your final action of the evening was to attempt to leave the saloon without angering the social reformers protesting outside.
While the reform leagues and Christian fanatics became essential elements of social movements throughout As the West expanded, saloons became prime targets. This was particularly true for saloons known to be the scene of violent brawls and drunken fights between competitive and angry men, where lives were ridiculed to death. In the 19th century, the temperance movement boomed, with more and more people expressing concerns about the effects of saloons on civilization.
Gambling, prostitution and alcohol were more feared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries than in any other period in American history. This is where groups such as the Anti-Saloon League were born, whose supporters screamed outside saloons to warn passersby of illicit dangers. Other saloons were completely destroyed by group of Ax-wielding women who did their best to establish prohibition before before alcohol becomes a federal concern.
However, there were strong chances are that social reformers outside the saloons had a harder time barking than bite. So you’re probably heading to your hotel room or guest room, or camp outside of town in a buzzing stupee, hoping to forget the financial losses of the night at sunrise on the way to the next town. Overall, saloons are centerpieces of American history and western frontier tradition.
Although they can be misinterpreted and distorted due to Hollywood hyperbole, the Wild West itself is actually just a huge exaggeration. So why not make all entertainment centers of the era the same? If anything, it allows for good storytelling, which was the whole idea of ​​the Saloon in the first place, creating a place to sit with strangers and share a story, whether it’s true or not.