The Facts of Sin
Rendezvous:
At the annual Rocky Mountain Rendezvous, the trapper’s first order of business was to exchange beaver pelts for supplies and equipment for the coming year. Next was trading for tobacco, whiskey, and other goods used to negotiate with Indian families for a wife to share their life in the wilderness.
Music was essential to Rendezvous. Lively fiddle tunes, the twang of a jaw harp, and even bagpipes echoed across the rowdy encampments.
Rendezvous revelry could turn deadly. In 1837 a French Canadian trapper made insulting remarks to the Americans. Young Kit Carson, a tough but slightly built American trapper, settled the insult with a pistol duel on horseback to the cheers of the wagering crowd.
Whiskey:
Mountain whiskey ranged from the real thing produced by St. Louis distilleries to a variety of products produced from raw alcohol, creek water, molasses and pepper, and according to legend, even a few snake heads at the bottom of the barrel.
The going rate for a pint cup of “whiskey” in the mid 1820s was $2, at a time when a beaver pelt traded for $2 to $4.
Saloons:
Payment might be in cash or gold dust weighed out on scales. “Greenbacks,” the first paper money to appear in the West, were disdained and often discounted.
The presence of so much wealth, either in gold or company payrolls, with no established law and order, led to an array of weapons being carried into saloons for defense.
Beer came from local breweries until the late 19th century. Improved rail and river routes allowed breweries such as Henry Weinhard of Portland, Oregon, to ship beer east of the Cascades throughout the High Desert. Like all breweries, Weinhard provided saloons with extensive advertising and a variety of steins, watch fobs, cork screw, etched glasses and other promotional items to build loyalty to their brand.
Dance Halls
Dance hall girls plied their trade in a variety of fashions, from the “Germanic” look of the early hurdy- gurdy girls in the 1870s, to long black skirts and shirtwaists in the early 20th century.
The music in frontier dancehalls ranged from a lone piano or accordion to a small orchestra. The dance music included popular tunes that spanned the second half of the 19th and early 20th century, from Stephen Foster to Ragtime.
Depending on the era and location of hurdy-gurdy houses and dancehalls, a dance cost 25 cents to $1 in gold, and last from five to ten minutes. The customer typically was required to purchase up to four drinks while visiting with his prospective dance partner, paying full price for her drinks, which were often only cold tea.
Parlor Houses and Bordellos
The women whose youth and beauty enabled them to work in parlor houses and bordellos were the prostitutes at the top of their profession. A parlor house girl might see only one customer in an evening that began with conversation, wine, and a private dinner before progressing to intimacy.
Bordellos strove to create an aura of a civility in the hard and harsh world of prostitution, but girls in this establishment received multiple visitors in the course of an evening.
Parlor house furnishings and accessories, from a girl’s silver plated dressing table set to lighting and wallpaper, were important in creating a sense of refinement, and escape from the realities of frontier life for men who could afford the experience.
Quality wines, liquor and delicacies such as oysters once viewed as enhancing “manly performance” were served in the finer establishments. Exotic smoking experiences using tobacco and opium added to the attraction of a visit to a parlor house.
Beneath the thin veneer of civility in parlor houses and bordellos, prostitutes faced the same occupational hazards of violence, disease and pregnancy as their less fortunate sisters in working class cribs or on the street. However, they could afford finer weapons for personal protection, more sophisticated birth control options and marginally effective remedies for venereal disease.
Gambling Halls
Professional gamblers cultivated an air of prosperity through their attire, a wise bit of frontier psychology calculated to attract players to their games of chance. In a gambling hall filled with miners in dirty flannel shirts and the trail-worn outfits of buckaroos, they stood out above the crowd.
Gold shirt studs, cufflinks and watch chains with distinctive timepieces enhanced the allure of wealth at a gamblers table. These were cautious men in a dangerous profession. Hidden out of site beneath their finery was an array of deadly weapons from derringers and bowie knives to push daggers, in the event of a dispute over a bad deal or similar accusations of not running a “square game.” Therefore, a copy of Hoyle, the definitive rule book of card games of chance, was essential to all professional gamblers.
Chuck-a-luck and keno were two of the most popular casino games. In chuck-a-luck, winners and losers were determined by the fall of the dice in a nickel plated wire cage. Players bet on the numbers that would come up on the dice before the gambler tipped the cage.
Keno utilized a wooden “goose,” crafted from mahogany or walnut which dropped a numbered ball when spun by the “roller” or gambler running the game. He called out the number then placed the ball on the master board. Players purchased keno cards from the gambling hall. Five numbers in a row was a winning card.
Fashion
The attire of the women found in high class parlor houses to brothels and cribs reflected the caliber of their working environment and the fashions of the day. Garments ranged from simple shifts to elegant Victorian “wrappers” of the 1870s. By the early 1900s, kimonos signified the era’s view of things Asian being exotic and alluring.
Brothels and Cribs
Brothels were houses of prostitution with a high volume of visitors and sparse amenities. Cribs were simply rows of cubicles opening on to the street furnished with little more than a bed and a wash stand, usually with a piece of oilcloth across the foot of the bed to keep the men’s boots from muddying the bedclothes.
For most frontier prostitutes, their hard life, accompanied by disease, alcohol and drugs, led to a tragic and inevitable descent from the parlor house to brothels, cribs and working the street.
The furnishings and accessories found in austere working class establishments on the frontier were inexpensive and utilitarian, from the women’s articles of hygiene and grooming, to the décor of their rooms or cribs.
The smell of cheap whiskey, tobacco and perfume, and the disinfectant carbolic, characterized the rooms in low-grade houses of prostitution. Frequently, spittoons were present for both men and women. Most women relied on drugs and drink to either get through life or to escape the hopelessness of their situation through suicide.
Blood Sports and Betting
Cockfighting had a long history in both Europe and Mexico and was popular throughout the Far West. It was a sophisticated sport with rulebooks and a training regime for potential champions. The fighting spurs were finely made and sized for specific cocks. Noted fighting cocks were memorialized in song and even fine oil paintings by their followers.
Prizefights could be staged anywhere, from saloon interiors with the furniture cleared away, to desert sheep camps with homemade gloves fashioned from tent canvas. Due to the “undesirable element” they attracted, public prizefights were outlawed in almost every state except Nevada. One fight staged in Goldfield, Nevada, in 1906 offered a prize of $30,000 and brought in more than $60,000 in gate receipts.