There Really Was a Long Branch Saloon

 

There Really Was a Long Branch Saloon

 

Remember Miss Kitty and the Long Branch Saloon? Well, I don’t know about Miss Kitty but there really was a Long Branch Saloon.  It came about because of a bet placed between soldiers and cowboys. The cowboys and soldiers were playing ball. If the soldiers lost to the cowboys, they agreed to provide materials to build a saloon. They lost. Hence the building of the Long Branch in 1874.

 

Unlike the rowdy, free-wheeling establishments that most saloons are portrayed as, the Long Branch was a tasteful institution with a five-piece orchestra that played every night. Besides beer (Anheuser Busch) and whiskey, it also served champagne, milk, sarsaparilla and lemonade.  

     Though a classy establishment, the Long Branch saw its share of fights. The most famous: the gunfight between Levi Richardson and Frank Loving (both gamblers and gunmen), over Loving’s wife, resulting in Richardson’s death. 

There were fifteen other saloons in Dodge during the cattle drive era’s hay-day, but none nearly so well known or popular.

Today you can find a replica of the Long Branch in the historical Boot Hill Museum located at the site of the original Boot Hill Cemetery in Dodge City, KS. 

 

 

Live entertainment includes: gunfights, Miss Kitty singing and Can-Can girls dancing. Besides the Long Branch, there’s a gift shop and general store in the museum.

Sounds like a fun place to visit, doesn’t it? Maybe I’ll see you there.

 

For more cowboy trivia: cowboytrivia.blogspot.com.

 

Coop Malloy receives a telegram that his sister and brother-in-law have died and his ten-year-old niece is on her way to Texas to live with him. 

Still reeling from the loss of his sister, he receives another shock when his childhood friend Randa Lockhart steps off the stage with his niece Kallie. He's stunned to see that the little pigtailed nuisance that tagged after him and his best friend years ago has turned into a beautiful young woman. 

Randa and Kallie have barely settled in when Coop finds buffalo hunter Marvin Doolin beating the local blacksmith within an inch of his life for laming is horse. Coop steps in and when the buffalo hunter tries to kill him, shoots him. Now Doolin's four brothers are out to even the score.

When they go after Randa, they cross the line. They're about to find out that there's nothing Coop won't do, and no one he won't track down to protect the two females that have burrowed hard and fast into his heart.

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