saloon

According to the February 8, 1885, edition of the Colorado Transcript, when Charley Hatfield was born in 1837, her mother gave her the name of Charlotte.  Her friends and family called her Charley. The circumstances surrounding the infant’s birth were just as controversial as the life she would later lead. Charlotte was the product of...

The barroom at the Hotel Carey in Wichita, Kansas, was extremely busy most nights.  Cowhands and trail riders arrived by following the smell of whiskey and the sound of an inexperienced musician playing an out of tune piano inside the saloon.  Beyond the swinging doors awaited a host of well-used, female companions and an assortment...

With the end of the Mexican War in 1846 and the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in California two years later, the West was opened with a rush.  Thousands upon thousands of Easterners – adventurous, avaricious, or discontented – left their homes to try their skill and luck in the wild West. It was...

A grim-faced bartender led a pair of sheriff’s deputies up the stairs of Deadwood’s Lone Star Saloon to the two lifeless bodies sprawled on the floor.  One of the deceased individuals was a gambler named Kitty LeRoy, and the other was her estranged husband, Sam Curley. The quiet expression on Kitty’s face gave no indication...