Old West Myth vs. Reality -by Devon Matthews

Today I’m revisiting one of my favorite topics—the myth versus the reality of the Old West.

 

As writers of western romance, we try to keep our facts straight and base our stories in reality, to give our readers a real taste of what it was like back in the Old West. But, as hard as we try, our efforts often fall short because we’ve been influenced all our lives by what we’ve seen on the big screen and tv—the romanticized west.

 

In the movies and even most of the books we read, we see our hero shove through the batwings (swinging doors) of some saloon—usually a nice, clean saloon. He bellies up to the bar and orders a drink. In the corner, a piano player is pounding out a lively tune while gaily dressed saloon girls engage the patrons. The bartender serves our hero a shot in a clean glass from a nicely labeled bottle of whiskey. After quickly tossing back the drink, our hero then flips the bartender a gold coin and carries his bottle to one of the poker tables, where a game is already in progress. After some interesting conversation back and forth, the game usually turns into a shootout and the result is several dead bodies lying on the floor. Sound familiar?

 

In reality, until the late 1800’s, when the railroads, mining camps, and cattle drives brought prosperity to the west, a typical saloon was neither large, nicely decorated, nor was it anything even approaching clean. More often, sawdust covered the floors, which absorbed everything from tobacco juice, blood, beer, and spilled liquor. The sawdust also disguised and soaked up the more unpleasant odors of urine and vomit. Nice, huh? Rather than a piano in the corner, you were just as likely to find a barber chair. In providing barber services, the saloons gave the more pious and wife-fearing patrons a respectable reason to walk through the doors.

 

Let’s go back to the image of our hero flipping the bartender a gold coin. In reality, drinks and other goods and services were often purchased with gold dust, especially in the numerous mining camps. Where gold dust was the coin of the realm, there followed some very inventive practices of stealing it. An unscrupulous bartender, intent on taking more than his fair share, would rub grease or thick liniment into his hair. Pinching into a sack of gold dust always left some clinging to fingers, especially if they were sticky with grease. The bartender had only to swipe his fingers through his hair to capture the extra grains. Later, the bartender washed his hair and all those precious grains of gold settled right to the bottom of the pan. There was another, easier method and here’s my heroine from the second book of my gold camp series (still in progress) to explain.

 

    She tossed her leather pouch on the counter. “Dry your hands before you go pinching inside my poke, Smitty.”

    The bartender glared at her long and hard, then snatched the filthy towel draped over his shoulder and swiped it over his hands.

    Susannah was aware of the bowl of water Smitty kept under the bar. A common practice among unscrupulous barkeeps and shop owners in gold country. Gold dust clung to wet fingers. After “pinching” someone’s dust for payment, it was an easy trick to slip one’s hand down to the bowl and release the extra grains with a quick dip in the water.

 

A slick trick, indeed. Which brings us back to the sawdust on the floors. Wherever there were drunken miners, there was a lot of gold dust spilled. Sawdust disguised the gold dropped on the floor. After a big night, the saloon workers simply swept up the sawdust and extracted the gold.

 

Now, about that poker game our hero joined. Most saloons were small, with only enough room for a couple of tables. Contrary to what we’ve been led to believe, prior to the 1870’s, poker was not the most popular game and was rarely played. More likely, you'd find our early cowhands and gamblers playing Faro, also known as Bucking the Tiger. Players, or punters, as they were called, played against the dealer, much like our modern day Blackjack. Some of the more famous names who were Faro dealers at one time or another included Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson. Ben Thompson owned several gaming operations in and around Austin, and these included Faro.

 

Okay. We have our hero in the saloon; he’s paid for his drink and taken a seat at one of the gaming tables. So let’s take a closer look at that drink in his hand. While it’s true that good bourbon whiskey was available throughout the west in certain establishments, more than likely our hero was served something entirely different. Tarantula Juice, Coffin Varnish, and Stagger Soup were common concoctions sold as whiskey. These were often made with cheap watered-down alcohol, colored to look like whiskey with whatever was on hand, including old shoes, tobacco, molasses, or burnt sugar. Wait a minute. Old shoes? Really? To give the whiskey an extra kick, hot peppers and even rattlesnake heads (which tainted the mixture in pretty short order) were tossed in. Anyone thirsty? Ugh. So, next time you have your hero walk into a saloon for a drink, have him ask for the good stuff from a real distillery in Kentucky or Pennsylvania. One brand of rye whiskey that was top shelf and, as the stories go, favored by even the discerning Doc Holliday, was Old Overholt, which is still around today.

 

Now, what about that shootout at the poker table, where our hero is the last man standing? In reality, shootouts were much rarer than the movies would have us believe. While many men, including Wild Bill Hickok, Morgan Earp, Warren Earp, and Wes Hardin, died from gunshots inside a saloon, gun ordinances helped curtail much of the violence. Many of the towns in the Old West had gun ordinances that required you to leave your weapon with the sheriff, your hotel clerk, or even the bartender of the local saloon. Some saloons required you to check your gun at the door. As always, there were those who sidestepped the rules by carrying their guns concealed.

 

So there you have it, a few more tidbits to tuck away in your arsenal of Old West realities. And now a question. Which do you prefer for your entertainment (books and movies), the romanticized version of the Old West, or would you rather have the reality?

Happy reading and writing!
Devon

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*Photos courtesy of the Public Domain via Wikipedia.