Friday Factoid is a weekly blog feature where I’ll be sharing a little bit of background behind something from one of my books: ideas, characters, environments, pieces of research, you name it, it’s all fair game for the Friday Factoids! If you have a specific question, feel free to ask away in the comments! What will be featured this week? Read on to find out…
About drinking turpentine, eating cold cuts that weren’t remotely cold, and who supposedly brought about the downfall of saloons…
Well I was going to do another character inspiration post, but when I polled readers, the “crazy historical fact” won out by a hair. And I mean a hair. Like, by one vote. (I tend to poll people a lot about a lot of things, so if you want to take part in the voting and haven’t done so yet, you can follow me over on Facebook!) So here we are, about to dive into a few of the crazy things I learned recently about real saloons in the real Old West! (And don’t worry, the character inspiration post will happen next week!)
If it’s not apparent by the fact we’re talking about saloons in the Old West, this bizarre fact was discovered whilst doing research for the weird western novel Bargain at Bravebank.
You see, the main character in the novel, Van Delano, has a meeting with a fella in a saloon. I mean, you can’t have a western without a scene in a saloon at some point, I feel like, ya know?
And we all know about saloons from our popular media: old western movies, new western movies, old tv westerns, new tv westerns, and western novels, too. But you can’t always rely on that kind of stuff to be historically accurate, because a lot of times, they aren’t all that historically accurate. And I’m not writing a history text book, no, but I’ve found fiction books greatly benefit story-wise if the author educates themselves on the reality of something before incorporating elements of that reality into their books.
So yes, I spent a decent chunk of time researching what saloons were really like, all for one scene of the whole book. And of all that research, how much of it actually appears in the book? Like two sentences that vaguely refer to my discoveries. And that’s what it’s like to be a fiction author. 🙂
So what were saloons really like, then?
Well… mostly like how they are depicted in all our popular media. Hah! But with a few key details that don’t seem to get mentioned in most movies or shows or novels.
Firstly and most interestingly (IMO), saloons often served food free of charge! … as long as you purchased an alcoholic drink or two first. This surprised me, though I guess it makes sense. As the articles I read stated, the saloons made their money on alcohol, not food.
Some saloons served very basic fare: hard-boiled eggs, cold cuts, pickles, nuts, etc. (Also, these things were laid out on a table apparently all day and all night long, with no effort made to keep them cool. So. I suppose it was eat at your own risk. Probably didn’t bother those folks much though, considering their alcohol sometimes contained turpentine… but more on that later!)
Some saloons got real fancy, serving up whole hot meals with multiple courses for free or super cheap as long as you had some drinks first. And if you’re fascinated by Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday like I am, you’ll be interested to learn the Occidental Saloon in Tombstone designed a Sunday dinner catered specifically to Doc’s tastes!
And boy, it was fancy schmancy all right! (And served up for 50 cents.)
And why does this matter to the book?
Glad you asked! So Van wonders into the saloon. And he was thirsty. But he didn’t have any money. So he couldn’t buy a drink. And therefore, later in the evening when he started getting hungry, he couldn’t help himself to the offerings of food, either. Well, he could have, as obviously it all worked on the honor system, and not everyone was honorable. But he didn’t.
He might have, except the bartender kept watching him. (Probably because he looked suspicious.) And after awhile, the bartender started giving him a mean side-eye, because he wasn’t drinking and he wasn’t eating. So basically, as far as the saloon keeper was concerned, Van was just a waste of space.
Eventually, of course, Van finds a way to rectify this situation, but if I hadn’t of learned this little snippet of information, my saloon scene would have lacked this tiny little detail that probably most readers won’t even remember, yet none the less it adds a little more depth to the whole thing.
My research also enabled me to make the selection of food on offer reasonable for the time and place, and realistic. It also influenced the layout of the saloon, and the population attending. (Men overwhelmingly outnumbered women in the Old West, and women did not go to the saloons unless they were prostitutes. Now, this is a weird western and fiction, so this is a detail I could play with if I wanted. For this particular scene though in this particular town in this particular book, I choose to keep it in line with actual history. That will not always be the case though.)
Um… you said something about turpentine?
Oh, right!
Yeah, so that was another crazy thing I learned from my research!
Apparently the ingredients in some of the alcohols available at the time were less than ideal. They included things like turpentine, strychnine, and tobacco oil! If you’re like me, your first reaction to such news is: WTF?!?
Second reaction is most likely: GROSS!!!!
I know! No wonder people at the time didn’t live so long. With those kinds of things in their drink, their food sitting out for days, and all the other exciting diseases of the time… yipes!
And the coffee in some places wasn’t any better: “…often a brew made of brown bread, acorns, dandelion roots, barley, and snuff.” (From “The Restaurants of San Francisco,” Charles S. Greene, Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, December 1892 (p. 8+)) Okay, wow. Now that’s just wrong. (*eyes my delicious cup of actual coffee with appreciation*)
The effects of the low dose of strychnine in some alcohol was apparently similar to meth… and so that also contributed to a lot of the outbursts of violence at these establishments. Always a good time in the Wild West, eh?
These particular little nuggets of goodness (or grossness) did not make it into the actual book (yet). Though there are definitely alcohols in the book that are better than others… and behind-the-scenes, unbeknownst to the characters, some of the alcohols do have some of these ingredients and aren’t so great for their health. Will it ever directly impact anything in the book? Who knows! That’s to be determined at a later time… (Though it could explain the behavior of some other side characters, for sure.)
Where did all the saloons go?
So why don’t we have these wonderful hives of scum and villainy all over the place anymore? (At one point they were so popular there were almost as many saloons in a town as residences.)
Well, according to some, it’s not a question of what, but a question of whom.
Several sources say Prohibition killed saloons. Which makes sense to a point. If their primary income came from alcohol, not being able to sell alcohol should put them out of business.
However… Prohibition didn’t stop many places from selling alcohol, really, did it? They just got more creative in how they went about it.
One article had an interesting perspective on this. They posited that saloons closed up because women started demanding that they also be allowed to frequent saloons and drink up! And apparently the men didn’t want no women in their saloons, demanding that they act all civilized and such.
Is this true? Ehhhh. I’m not sure I completely buy this.
Women did the same thing in other places, after all, including regular ol’ pubs over in England… and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you all that pubs in England are still very much alive and well.
So, who knows. Maybe it was a bit of both. Or maybe something else entirely. But after all my research on saloons, personally I have to say I think we’re just fine without them…
Want to know more about Van’s meeting in the Stag Saloon?
It gets wild!
Bargain at Bravebank is slotted for a summer 2019 release! Click the cover below to download a free sample of the book and sign up to be notified when it officially goes live! And in the meantime, stay tuned in this space for more of the crazy things I’ve learned while writing this particular book… ! (Because there will be more!)
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