Page 84 - All About History - Issue 54-17

Last Orders at the Bar

SWINGING DOOR
Many saloons featured swinging
doors for quick entry and exit.
UPSTAIRS Just inside the doors, ‘privacy’
This was where you partitions were sometimes
could often find the installed to keep meddlesome
soiled doves both living wives and innocent children
and working. from seeing what was going on.

GAS LAMPS
Before electricity, hanging gas
lanterns lit the saloon at night.
Lighting them at sundown was
often performed by beautiful
waitresses or the soiled doves
who worked upstairs.

COMMUNITY TOWELS
Towels hung from the bar so that
patrons could wipe beer foam off
their lips. These so-called ‘community
towels’ were an easy way to share
colds, the flu and even tuberculosis
among drinking buddies.

BILLIARDS
Beginning in the
1840s, billiards, also
known as pool, was
a favourite game in
saloons. Once the
game caught on,
numerous saloons
across the West had
at least one table and
readily advertised it.

GAMBLING
There was sometimes a roulette
table in the fancier saloons.
These beautiful round wheels
with numbers spun in a circle,
with customers betting on
which number would win.

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