One Big Party: The Wild West in the 1880’s

This is background for the way Denver was prior to AA

People drank and used opium all the time.  This was commonplace in every household. Though most considered opiate use to be deviant, drinking was an acceptable form of relaxation.  This attitude stems from our country’s roots and spread with westward expansion.

Alcohol has always been a familiar form of celebration, entertainment, and medication. In the South, men were expected to drink like a gentleman. As people moved west, so they carried with them the fond attitude toward drinking. Once on a new frontier, the party began.

 Their attitude coupled with the freedom and recklessness of the west was like setting a match to a stick of dynamite. Miners, prostitutes and early settlers abandoned strict rules and the “anything goes” philosophy took the lead.  An ongoing problem throughout the west involved “drive-by shootings,” whereby young men would gallop through town and fire their guns at random buildings.

Men far outnumbered women, who took to dancing in parlors in their high-laced boots for men and swigged drinks along with ‘em.   The w****s were supposed to drink lemonade or tea, but any alcoholic will tell you what probably happened.

Brothels, Saloons, Boarding Houses and Bordellos sprung up wherever groups of men worked.  Savvy business owners strategically positioned bars and saloons near workplaces to entice men. Colorado had hundreds of brothels, also known as bordellos, parlor houses or cribs, depending on price and quality. Alcohol flowed generously in these places and had a hefty markup, sometimes thirty times the wholesale value.

Some w****s, or soiled doves as people called them, worked only for enough money for alcohol or drugs. Many died of overdose or chronic alcoholism. There are stories that glorify the w***e’s life. Mattie Silks and Jennie Rogers were prominent Denver Madams and earned a good living. They provided well for their girls. Admittedly, it was tough for a woman to support herself in any capacity back then, let alone be successful.  Their business was sex trafficking, no righteous endeavor, but women had few options. This was a precursor to women’s rights.

Mattie and Jennie often had verbal and physical fights. They were fierce competitors. Some accounts refer to them as no more than pimps; others are more understanding of the world they lived in. 

Mattie died in her sixties with few mourners at her funeral.  The Mattie Silks House is a museum now in LoDo, a hip area of Downtown Denver.

Mattie Silks (Photo courtesy of the Denver Post Archive)

But for common w****s who were alcoholics, their destiny was similar. They were lonely, cut off from family and ignored by polite society, with only a pet for company.  A nightly ritual of drinking into the wee hours was certainly probable. As her habit grew, she would isolate even more, perhaps devising ways to end her life.  Many tried and succeeded.

Few saved enough money to get out of the business, and alcoholism drains a lot of one’s finances. When a prostitute passed forty, she was less popular and had nothing else to fall back on.

Actual Saloon girls at a Denver Saloon (1)

 A female alcoholic’s decline is worse than for men.  Her health decays more rapidly from chronic alcohol abuse. While intoxicated, they also make themselves vulnerable to violence.  Some successful women had plenty of spare coins to spend on alcohol or drugs to help them sleep. Often, this led to overdose. Some sources claim that the alcoholic woman was easier to find than her male counterpoint. However, it’s possible that heavy drinking for men seemed just fine and so was overlooked.

Because a prostitute was a fallen woman, getting sympathy from the church was not usually realistic.  At least, not without trying to change her ways. With no real hope of changing her life, there was nowhere to go but down.

Social acceptance didn’t save men of course. XXX says that the incidence of alcoholism was “high” in the old west, and not just for miners and ranchers. (19)

Enlisted army men and officers were commonly drunk on the job, despite the possible consequences: reduction in rank or even physical punishment. In the 1880’s, approximately 4% of army soldiers were hospitalized for alcoholism, even when heavy drinking was common for all soldiers.  A guy’s problem would have to be pretty bad to warrant going to the hospital. Adding to the situation was that medicines usually contained alcohol as a primary ingredient.

Drunkenness in bars caused problems then, just like today. Warren Earp (Wyatt’s brother) got drunk, argued with Johnny Boyet over a woman, and challenged him to a gunfight.  He was so intoxicated that he’d forgotten that he didn’t have his gun on him.  Boyet calmly aimed his gun at Earp and shot him in the chest.

Whiskey, though often associated with cowboys and the old west, didn’t come in name-brand bottles.  Historians theorize that whiskey probably tasted terrible at the time. This likely would not have deterred an alcoholic, however, as alcoholics today will admit to swigging mouthwash or rubbing alcohol in a pinch.

To stretch profits, saloon owners would cut whiskey with turpentine, ammonia, gunpowder or cayenne. Westerners gave whiskey nicknames like mountain howitzer, coffin varnish, and strychnine.  Some of the whiskey brought west might have started out as bourbon. Somewhere along the journey to the saloon, sellers mixed it with additional water, grain neutral spirits, and other ingredients to expand the supply and increase profits. Some products labeled as bourbon were actually distilled from a low-grade variety of molasses, and additives could include burnt sugar, glycerin, prune juice, and sulfuric acid (2).

In the eastern half of the country, there were naysayers when it came to boozing. Women protested saloons and believed they encouraged drunkenness, spread venereal disease and encouraged spousal and child abuse.  This was often true.

But in the western frontier, you would rarely see a woman at all unless she was a prostitute and she made commissions from drinks sales.

Times were tough and life was a grueling chore.  Working conditions were poor. There were no such things as minimum wages, safety standards, sick days, health insurance, holidays, and vacations. They didn’t even have restrooms. Most people worked ten to twelve hours day, six days a week. Accidents involving the loss of life or limb were common.

For most who came seeking fortune, the hope of finding gold proved disappointing. The escape of alcohol had strong appeal.

In frontier society, the problem drinker would have been ill much of the time, puking daily and enduring a splitting headache until he could snatch up some castor oil (or whiskey) to treat his hangover. He secretly wished that he could quit, when he really wanted to.  He tried many times, only to fail. He might have been dry for periods, due to willpower or lack of supply, but would have been a miserable person and you wouldn’t have wanted to play poker with him.

Alcoholics died from falls, drowning, burns, alcohol poisoning and suicide.  Long term risks would have plagued them, especially without much medical care.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, excessive drinking can shorten a person’s life by thirty years.

 

Photo courtesy of the Denver Public Library

A drunkard in Denver, where most people spent their spare time in saloons, was not hard to find. Alcoholism was ripe to fester.

People who lacked control were destined for exclusion. They were weak. Evil.  As described in the Big Book for Alcoholics Anonymous, the fate of a hopeless alcoholic was usually institutionalization or death.

With no treatment in Colorado prior to the 1880’s, the prognosis was grim.  

Lack of control was assumed a moral failure.  Admittedly, today there is still some of this lingering attitude. As the late comedian, Mitch Hedberg said, “Alcoholism is the only disease people get mad at you for having.”

But the drinker had no clue why they lacked control. When a person reaches the point when they can’t live with it or without it, dismal decisions are made.

Dr. Silkworth describes the true alcoholic in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: there were people who, once they passed a certain point, could no longer moderate their drinking and certainly could not abstain. Beyond reason, these unfortunates continued to poison their bodies even after ruined careers, families and health.

As more people migrated to Denver, the city’s population tripled between 1880 and 1890. Fresh customers flooded Denver’s saloons, brothels and gambling halls. Denver developed a rather nasty reputation.

 

Author's Note

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