Contact Admin. A Western saloon is a kind of bar particular to the Old West. Saloons served customers such as fur trappers , cowboys , soldiers , lumberjacks , businessmen, lawmen , miners and gamblers. A saloon might also be known as a "watering trough, bughouse, shebang, cantina, grogshop, and gin mill". The first saloon was established at Brown's Hole, Wyoming , in , to serve fur trappers.
By , the growth of saloons was in full swing. In Leavenworth, Kansas , there were "about saloons and four wholesale liquor houses". The word saloon originated as an alternative form of salon , meaning "Meaning 'large hall in a public place for entertainment, etc.
Saloons in the U. With a growing overcapacity, breweries began to adopt the British "tied-house" system of control where they owned saloons outright. Schlitz Brewing Company and a few others built elaborate saloons to attract customers and advertise their beers. Politicians also frequented local saloons because of the adaptable social nature of their business.
Beginning in , the Anti-Saloon League began protesting against American saloons. In it became a national organization and quickly rose to become the most powerful prohibition lobby in America, pushing aside its older competitors the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party.
The League lobbied at all levels of government for legislation to prohibit the manufacture or import of spirits, beer and wine.
