Front Street, Dodge City, Boot Hill Museum, Kansas-Part 3
After visiting Boot Hill Cemetery, the Hubster and I explored the replica of Front Street. During the ‘tourist season’, there are gunfight and other reenactments and entertainments. On this day, Front Street was quiet.
*Clicking on a photo will give you a closer look!
The Hubster and I began our exploration with the Long Branch Saloon, one of 16 saloons in Dodge City in 1868, and the fanciest of the saloon establishments, popular with cattlemen and gamblers.
The front room housed a bar, a billiard table, and a stove. The middle room was used for private gambling, and the back room held storage as well as a room where drunks were locked up until they sobered up.
Not all girls in saloons and dance halls made their living by having paid relations with men. Saloon girls were paid to cheer up the men since men outnumbered women by at least three to one. Saloon girls would sing for the men, dance with them, talk to them thus inducing them to remain in the bar, buying drinks, and patronizing the games.
Saloon girls earned as much as $10 a week and a commission for every drink they sold. Whiskey was marked up 30 – 40% over its wholesale price. Customers were charged ten to seventy-five cents a shot. Drinks bought for the girls would be cold tea or colored sugar water served in a shot glass.
Saloon girls were regulated to the saloons and dance halls south of the railroad tracks while the saloons on North Front Street banned saloon girls and provided music and billiards as entertainment.
Chalkley Beeson ran the Saratoga Saloon with William Harris from 1876-1878. In 1878, they bought the Long Branch Saloon. Beeson sold his interest in the Long Branch Saloon in February 1883.
While Beeson oversaw the entertainment, William Harris managed the gambling and liquor sales.
Luke Short, a small and dandified Texan with a background in gambling and gunplay arrived in Dodge City in August 1882. He bought Chalkley Beeson’s share in the Long Branch Saloon in February 1883. He hired female “entertainers” and city officials ran him out of town which resulted in the Dodge City Saloon War. Harris and Short sold the Long Branch in November 1883.
The Seth Thomas clock was purchased by Chalkley Beeson and William Harris in 1878. During the 1885 fire it was out for repairs and saved.
Likewise, the safe is original and survived the 1885 fire.
It was warm out, so the Hubster and I bought ourselves a treat from the Long Branch Saloon. We each enjoyed a sarsaparilla.
There is a difference between the saloon and dance hall girls and the soiled doves and prostitutes. I enjoyed learning about them!
*Remember, clicking on a photo will give you a closer look and you will be able to read about these interesting women!
There is more to see, so we continued walking on Front Street.
See the world around you!
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