The jury is forever out on Wyatt Earp. Some believe he was the most fearless lawman of the Wild West. Others hold that he was a creator of his own mythology and a thug hiding behind a badge. In between his birth in 1848 and his death in 1929, he was a real estate speculator, an Alaskan gold rusher, an actor, a film consultant, and referee of a hugely scandalous boxing match. His legend is eternally connected with the most famous 30 seconds in wild west lore – the gunfight at the OK Corral. And he is undeniably linked to the wild west saloon.
The American West’s relationship with alcohol starts in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Fur trappers traded alcohol with Native Americans and met for once-a-year shindigs that must have resembled Burning Man, but with fewer edibles and more rifle-centered activities. But as Americans moved west throughout the mid-19th century, they sought the solace of the eastern taverns and the booze they served. A hundred years later, the western saloon became the eastern tavern’s wanderlust cousin. Early saloons were usually nothing more than crude tents, shacks, or lean-tos, where people provided liquid liberally be described as alcohol. In these proto-saloons people wet their whistles with raw-alcohol concoctions mixed with burnt sugar and chewing tobacco with names like tarantula juice and then they almost certainly vomited.
As things like available land and better transportation made westward expansion blow up, so too did towns and saloons. Those saloons were soon filled with white men in hats. No Native Americans, Asians, or (for the most part) black men were allowed. The only women allowed were saloon girls. Soldiers as well were often persona non grata. Many who went west, cowboys, criminals, or fur trappers, did so because of the ideal of wide open spaces, independence, and being left the hell alone. Soldiers were seen by them as policers of the West and nobody liked them. Saloon goer drank hard. And though it was a cut above the tarantula juice of the old I-wish-the-CAT-scan-existed days, alcohol in late 19th century saloons was 100 proof rye or bourbon whiskey. Less respectable places often cut their whiskey with turpentine, arsenic, or even gunpowder. Beer was less frequent, warm, and spoiled easily as pasteurization and refrigeration wouldn’t be implemented until later. Pretty soon saloons were filled with rough men drinking bad alcohol in great quantities.
There was camaraderie. Men in saloons were cut from the same sweaty cloth – tough, solitary, hard. They were there for the same reasons – to blow off steam after a lot of very hard work or to shake off a long ride on a horse. Like the taverns before them, saloons served as a place for stories, tall tales, and entertainment and no doubt the camaraderie grew out of these things. But it was also built into the etiquette of the saloon. While drinkers often didn’t know much about the man next to him at the bar, the saloon’s social contract obligated him to buy that man a drink. This led to many booze-built friendships. Until, of course, it didn’t. Surely it comes as a great surprise that violence might break out among rough solitary men drinking 100 proof whiskey mixed with gunpowder. As is common in barrooms even today, the smallest perceived slight might sour a new friendship recently baptized in bourbon. Breaching social etiquette was a common instigator. Refusing to buy the man next to you a drink was seen as an awful breach, worse was refusing an offered drink, the worst was ordering a drink for which you could not pay. Another common spark was intrusion on one’s privacy. The independent feathers of these men were easily ruffled by questions about one’s past or the size of one’s herd. Asking for a last name was seen as prying and aggressive. Curiosity often resulted in violence.
A man takes umbrage to a comment and movies have taught us what happens next. The two men square off as a hush falls over the saloon, the tack piano abruptly stops as its player scoots behind it to watch the ensuing drama. One man, usually the bad guy, is edgy and draws first, the other coolly follows suit. The winner is whoever happens to be the more famous actor. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a high blood tarantula juice level must be in want of a reason to use his six shooter. In reality, saloons didn’t have the nightly shoot-ups portrayed in movies. The violence between men in saloons could occasionally come to the use of six shooters or knives, but more likely it was fists. The West as an uber-violent place of constant gun battles was proliferated by writers like Mark Twain and Bret Harte in the 1870s. They wrote western tales to thrill eastern readers. This thrill was far better achieved by the exciting, albeit fictional lives of gunslingers than a true tale of a tired cowboy who sulks in his beer after being asked his last name. Hollywood’s Golden Age of Westerns from the 1930s to the 1950s did its part too, with movies such as The Lawless Frontier and High Noon.
It was during that Golden Age, in 1931, that the biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal was published and became a bestseller. The book created his reputation as the West’s most fearless lawman as he is still known today. Wyatt Earp and the saloon, perhaps misrepresented, live on in America’s lore of the Wild shoot-em-up West. A thing we rue when we see an idiot in a Wyoming Walmart buying baby diapers with a grenade launcher strapped to his back. Nevertheless, today we celebrate the Wild West, Wyatt Earp, and saloons with a shot of rye or bourbon whiskey, the closest at hand. If it makes you feel tougher, have it after a long day’s work, buy one for the person next to you, and call it tarantula juice.