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
Devon's web site
Devon's blog
*Photos courtesy of the Public Domain via Wikipedia.
One final bit of information: August 1st was the
release day for the Stetsons and Scandals
miniseries from the Harlequin UNDONE line. Both Dance
with the Rancher and Rescued by the
Ranger are now available. 
