Tough cowhands and rough miners, cattle and ranch sales, fortunes won and lost on the turn of a card, fights and fatal shootings. Images of western history were reflected in old back bar mirrors that witnessed business deals in days when a handshake was a contract for honorable men and the saloon a male-dominated business and social center of frontier towns.

Framing those massive mirrors are superb examples of artistry in wood, ornate hand-carved trim set against beautifully-grained walnut, mahogany and cherry wood.

            Saloons were always the first enterprises in early day cattle towns and mining camps; liquor sales a profitable sideline at dance halls, brothels, hotels and restaurants. The first saloons were housed in crude structures, sometimes even in tents, then, as primitive towns became more permanent, moved into frame buildings. An 1880 newspaper declared, “It cannot be denied that a first class, well kept saloon is an attractive feature of a growing town, and one which no frontier city can expect to flourish without.”

Hollywood depicts the cowboy entering the saloon through swinging doors. That’s Hollywood. Flimsy batwing doors would not have been practical in a harsh Black Hills winter. If a saloon had swinging doors they were inside, separating vestibule or tobacco shop from the barroom.

            As early false-front wood buildings were destroyed by fire and flood, and replaced with multistory stone and brick structures, saloons competed to offer customers more refined surroundings.

Brunswick-Balke-Collender, a Chicago cabinetmaking company, added bar fixtures and furniture to their billiard table line in the early 1880s, as the proliferation of new frontier settlements established a profitable market. One saloon for every 100 people was a common ratio in western towns.

 The company set up a special manufacturing plant in Dubuque, Iowa, where German craftsmen created bars that were works of art, manufactured in standard 16 to 30-foot lengths with larger sizes made to order. Beveled glass mirrors reflected thirsty patrons bellied up to the bar, boot propped on brass foot rail. Bar stools were considered improper -- real men took their liquor standing up. Matching cigar and wine cabinets were accessories to luxury saloon outfits.

            Brunswick made 95% of all bar furniture manufactured between 1885 and 1900. An 1891 Brunswick catalog illustrates back bars that sold for less than $500 back then and now bring up to $50,000 on the antique market.

            Brunswick saloon fixtures were exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Oral legends say some Black Hills bars were World’s Fair gold medal winners. More likely prototypes displayed at the fair were ordered from Brunswick showrooms in Chicago, New York, St. Louis and San Francisco.

Because each was painstakingly handcrafted, every bar is slightly different, but carved embellishments are similar. Gargoyles, lion heads, shields, wreaths and dentil molding on cornices identify bars as Brunswick designs, although few original logo plates are still in place. Brunswick artisans apparently were union members; an “Amalgamated Woodworkers International Union of America” logo is legible on some old Black Hills bars.

            Before the railroad arrived in 1890, bar furnishings were shipped up the Missouri on riverboats, then freighted across the prairie on heavy wagons pulled by a long string of oxen, slowly plodding their way into booming Black Hills mining camps. Up to their hubs in mud,  freight trains behind six to 10 yoke of long-horned oxen can be seen in photographs of early day Deadwood. In Pioneer Days in the Black Hills, John McClintock said Main Street was sometimes completely blocked for hours by lines of these bull trains, “the leaders of which would have a spread of horns from three to four feet.”

            Back bars were freighted into Deadwood with barrels of beer and whiskey (a town that counted 75 saloons in 1877 was a prime market). Over the years some were sold to saloons in other Black Hills towns.

In 1877 and 1878 articles in the Black Hills Daily Times reported on a new Deadwood business -- a wholesale liquor dealership and agent for the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company of St. Louis:

Hermann and Treber, the enterprising young liquor dealers, have 94 barrels of St. Louis beer shipped from Fort Pierre by the Fred Evans Line, but they have double that amount on the trains between here and there.

The wholesale liquor house of Hermann and Treber is being put into shape.

The large fireproof is chock full of whiskies, wines, St. Louis beer and cigars …piled to the very ceiling. … they are now ready for a big rush of business. Budweiser beer is a new article in Deadwood and is getting to be a favorite drink. Hermann and Treber have just received a carload and have a winter supply on the road.

Saloon outfits freighted into the Black Hills would seem too ponderous to be easily transported by bull train, but they were ingeniously constructed in as many as eight separate pieces to be reassembled on site. What appear to be solid wood supporting pillars are actually wood-veneered hollow columns. A common Brunswick design had a center mirror flanked by two smaller ones, packed separately for ease of shipping.

            In a telephone interview, Bryan Johnson, Waco, Texas, author of the Wild West Bartenders Bible, said there may be less than 150 Brunswick saloon outfits still in use. The Black Hills seems to have a disproportionate share of those elegant bars where patrons marvel at Old World craftsmanship.

Deadwood Magazine’s editor and publisher accompanied photographer John Bing as he focused his camera on some of those artistic examples of nineteenth century bar furniture.

Callahan’s Sports Bar Deadwood

             Proprietor Bill Walsh borrowed the name of an uncle by marriage for his corner saloon in Deadwood’s historic old Franklin Hotel.

Tom Callahan, who drove the Deadwood to Rapid City stage in 1875-76, later told a newspaper reporter it was the hardest job he ever had. A Sharps rifle Callahan carried while driving stage is displayed on the antique Brunswick back bar, also a family heirloom from a saloon owned by Walsh’s Uncle Jack Dwyer.

“After gaming started everyone who had an old bar stored in a garage or barn tried to sell it in Deadwood,” Walsh said. “I brought this one in from Chamberlain in a grain truck in 1990 because of the family connection.”

After moving the bar to Deadwood, Walsh found another treasure behind one of the drawers -- an oilskin pouch containing 15 Indian head pennies dated from 1861 to 1865.

Walsh boasts he comes from a long line of Irish saloonkeepers. “Two of my uncles owned saloons; my grandfather had a saloon in Yankton before prohibition forced him to use the building for a car dealership.”

            Saloonkeeping was one of five honorable professions for Irish immigrants, according to Walsh. “An Irish lad coming to this country could become a policeman, politician, bartender, priest or attorney. I’ve got three down and two to go.”

An East River native, Walsh served Catholic parishes in Sioux Falls and Salem before leaving the active ministry in the 1970s. He has long been active in Democratic political arenas, where he met and became friends of the Kennedy clan. Kennedy family members visiting Walsh at the Franklin Hotel have propped elbows on Callahan’s bar.

            Period light fixtures and ceiling fans on pulleys add to Callahan's 1800s ambiance. The replica wine rack is a faithful reproduction of an original, right down to the lion head that duplicates the center bar carving.

            Built at a cost of $100,000, the Franklin was named for a principal investor, Harris Finklestein, Jewish immigrant and Deadwood millionaire who changed his name to Franklin. The four-story brick and stone hotel opened on June 4, 1903, offering guests luxurious amenities like electric lights, steam heat, brass beds, in-room baths and telephones, cigar store and newsstand, barber shop and private parlors for ladies. The original Otis elevator is still in use today.

            Before the hotel was constructed, the then-vacant lot on the corner of Main and Shine streets was the site of the Mineral Palace, built to display rich mineral wealth of Black Hills mining districts during the Quarto-Centennial Carnival and Celebration. Remains of a Mineral Palace rock wall can be seen in the ladies restroom and in the coffee shop.

Walsh and his wife, Jo Roebuck Pearson, have supervised extensive restoration of what was once considered the finest hotel between Chicago and San Francisco. Pearson shopped dozens of antique stores to find truckloads of period furnishings brought back to Deadwood.

A small wet bar in a fourth floor room was once in one of Deadwood’s infamous brothels. President William Howard Taft, who stayed in the room in 1921, undoubtedly would have appreciated that unique piece of Deadwood history.  

           Cowboy Back Bar Belle Fourche

            Belle Fourche, built on the SB ranch of former Deadwood sheriff Seth Bullock, was a brawling, wide-open cattle town in the late 1800s. A record 8,000 head of range cattle were shipped out of Belle Fourche over a three-month period in 1885.

If there was one thing a cowboy wanted at the end of a long hot day on the trail, it was a shot of whiskey to wash trail dust from his tonsils.

Open 24 hours a day, saloons lined Fifth Avenue, the main street running north and south that is still referred to as Saloon Street by old-timers. A brothel owned by notorious Deadwood madam Dora DuFran was located on the north end of the street.

One early resident said saloons were a necessity in Belle Fourche:

                The ranchers would come in town to ship and if we didn’t have any entertainment, they would take all that money to Deadwood.  The cowboys wanted to gamble, to drink and dance, and they wanted girls. The merchants of Belle Fourche saw that the cowboys had what they wanted.

             One cowboy went into the saloon business more by happenstance than plan. Dan Roberts, employed at the VVV ranch on the Belle Fourche River, was heading for Deadwood during the 1886 Christmas holidays when he stopped at the DeMores Station, a stage stop that preceded the town of Belle Fourche.

A dance was in progress in the saloon and the owner, who had been drinking all day, was ready for bed. He asked Roberts, who didn’t drink, to look after the business.

            The rowdy crowd began breaking up furniture and knocking out windows. Roberts didn’t interfere, but as the men sobered up, made them pay for damages. The next morning the dismayed saloon owner sold out to Roberts for $125.

Roberts ran the DeMores saloon for a few months, then leased the Cliff House in Deadwood. He returned to the new town of Belle Fourche in the late 1800s and opened the Stand Up Bar on Saloon Street in 1905.

The Brunswick saloon outfit Roberts purchased from W. H. Carter’s Derby Saloon in Deadwood is in the same location 95 years later, the only thing saved when the building burned in the 1960s. (Perhaps the firemen were Irish?)

Beautifully refinished, the elegant cherry back bar and matching front counter were replaced in the saloon rebuilt on the same lot in 1963. Since the new building wasn’t large enough for matching Brunswick wine racks, they’re now in the home of Bruce Carlson, grandson of builder Max Shuft.

Roberts operated the Stand Up until Prohibition went into effect. Municipally operated from 1935 to 1967, the saloon has seen several changes of ownership. Cheryl and Brian Miller, current proprietors of the re-named Cowboy Back Bar, lovingly care for the ornate bar, an outstanding model of Brunswick craftsmanship.

            Brunswick’s trademark shield and leaf designs flank the 12-foot center mirror. A hand-carved gargoyle centered above the large mirror is replicated in smaller gargoyle carvings curved around mirror frames. Although side mirrors are original beveled glass, the center mirror has been replaced twice, both times shattered by a whiskey glass hurled by an overly exuberant patron.

Saloon Street in Belle Fourche is occasionally wild and rowdy yet today.

 Gas Light Rockerville

Two years and lots of elbow grease later the partners had totally restored and refurbished the old building that now houses their multiple businesses --- restaurant and saloon, soda fountain, antique shop and general store.

Although other buildings are still standing in Rockerville, the Gas Light is one of the few business places operating in the little town off Highway 16 that twice became a ghost town.

When gold was discovered in the area in December 1876, Rockerville quickly turned into  a roaring Black Hills mining camp. By 1880 the town boasted a hundred buildings and a population of nearly 1,000. But by the 1930s placers were played out, the Rockerville flume was in ruins and miners moved away. Rebuilt in the 1950s, Rockerville flourished as a tourist attraction for another 20 years. Bypassed by the new highway, it was once again a ghost town when it was sold at auction.

             Stepping through the Gas Light’s heavy wood and etched glass doors is to step back into a previous century. From the reception area diners turn left into the 1890s saloon and restaurant. A right turn takes antique lovers to an old-fashioned candy shop, soda fountain, general store and antique shop at the other end of the building.

            Dominating the saloon is a late 1800s 20-foot backbar and matching counter with full- length brass foot rail. It was originally in the grand old Hotel Harney, a three-story brick edifice built in 1886 by John Brennen, one of Rapid City’s founding fathers, and was the showplace of the downtown business district. Multiple coats of black and red paint were laboriously removed to restore the old bar to its original oak finish when it was moved to Rockerville before the Harney fell victim to the wrecking ball in February 1976.

            A second Brunswick-Balke-Collender backbar, brought in from Miles City, Montana, is in the ice cream parlor, where sundaes and malts are served in antique glass dishes. Decorated with Coca Cola memorabilia, the soda fountain area is lighted by old lamps once in the Alex Johnson Hotel in Rapid City. “Penny” candy is the attraction at an antique candy counter where the old marble-topped back bar displays an original label of “The Liquid” Carbonic Company. 

Décor throughout the building is basically 19^th Century, from beautifully refinished hardwood floors to wood parlor stoves, Victorian prints, antique signs and posters.

Hanging on a dining room wall is a color lithograph of the Cassily Adams painting, Custer’s Last Fight. After presenting the original painting to the Seventh Cavalry, Anheuser-Busch distributed 150,000 copies of the F. Otto Becker lithograph to 1880s saloons.

Colorful posters advertising a movie of the same name cover adjacent walls. Filmed in the Black Hills in 1913, Custer’s Last Fight was the first Hollywood production to use actual Native American actors, some of them survivors of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

             Kling and Parker opened their first antique shop together in California in 1973 and came to the Black Hills in 1981. Kling, who had been buying and selling antiques since he was a teenager, was a buyer for the Emporium in Keystone and Parker operated a Keystone sign shop.

Mangy Moose Hill City

Today’s visitor to the little town on Highway 16 -- home of the 1880 Train, fine art galleries, gift and souvenir shops -- might never guess Hill City once had the reputation of being the toughest town in the west. In the 1800s as many as 23 saloons, running full blast night and day, prompted an old timer to describe the town as “a church on each end and a mile of hell in between.”

A description of  unrestrained activities along the “mile of hell” was recorded in the Tin Miner on November 6, 1891:

 Last Saturday a couple of fallen angels from the bad lands having saturated their corporeal machinery with rot gut whiskey, made a holy show of themselves by promenading the street, and tumbling heels over head, pell mell over every obstacle in their path, and filling the air with language that put to blush a veteran bull whacker.

 The second major settlement in the Black Hills, Hill City was started by miners moving north from Custer in January 1876, when gold was discovered at the confluence of Newton Fork and Spring Creek. By late February there were 250 cabins existing or under construction, but Hill Town (or Hillyo) was in turn abandoned, like Custer, when miners headed out to rich diggings in Deadwood Gulch. Before summer arrived, the population was reduced to “one man and a dog.”

Finding claims on Deadwood and Whitewood Creeks already staked, prospectors drifted back to Hill City the next year. A few years later the discovery of a promising tin claim, not over 500 yardsfrom Main Street, set off another mining boom when English investors bought up some 1500 claims. The Harney Peak Mining Company built the Harney Peak Hotel (now the Alpine Inn) and brought new prosperity to Hill City. The tin boom went bust by 1910, after English capitalists lost about $5 million dollars in their Black Hills venture.

Several of Hill City’s downtown buildings were destroyed in 1891 and 1902 fires. After the second fire, the Silver Dollar saloon opened in a new brick building. The cherry wood Brunswick saloon outfit with matching cigar case, purportedly shipped into the Black Hills by bull train, may have been located in a Deadwood saloon before it was moved to Hill City.

The Silver Dollar changed hands and names several times. Now owned by Steve and Tana Nimtz, it has become the Mangy Moose, a saloon that’s also a gallery of taxidermist skills. Stuffed birds, coyote, bobcat and beaver; mounted heads of deer, elk and buffalo (and the namesake “mangy moose”) hang on the walls.

Reflected in the back bar mirror is a 5 by 7-foot oil on canvas Civil War scene by J. O. Love, magnificently framed in ornate gilt edge. Hill City old-timers claim the painting was brought back from Chicago by a cattleman who went on a spree in the big city and returned with nothing to show for his cattle sales but three oil paintings.

For 98 years the historic Hill City saloon has been as a favorite hangout, where locals swap tales of logging and hunting exploits and entertain tourists with tales (tall and true) of the town’s raucous past. Steve and Tana have added Karaoke and rock and roll bands to the Mangy Moose entertainment venue.  

A third-generation Meade County rancher, owner of a Piedmont grocery store with on-sale beer and off-sale liquor licenses, founded the Slash J, naming it for his livestock brand.

In 1974, realizing a beer hall atmosphere might be offending female food shoppers, Tom Costello decided to move his liquor business into an adjacent vacant building. He sent his son to bid on fixtures from Swede’s Bar at a Sturgis auction. Young Tom returned to confess, “Dad, you’re going to kill me. I bought an old back bar.” 

The young man had walked away with an unbelievable bargain. He paid $2,700 for the antique Brunswick back bar, a beer cooler and other miscellaneous bar equipment.

“The old back bar was much too nice to put into a beer hall,” Costello recalled, “so I applied for an on-sale liquor license.”

Costello remembers reassembling the Brunswick bar that arrived in Piedmont in eight separate sections, plus three mirrors. Low ceilings in the Slash J necessitated storing the crown sections in the attic. “Beveled glass side mirrors were apparently original, but the large center mirror had been replaced,” Costello said.

Curious about the origins of the old bar, Costello talked to the previous owner. Swede Anderson told him the bar had been moved down from Deadwood in the 1920s by a man who bought it for $15. (Bar fixtures weren’t in great demand after the passage of the Prohibition Amendment.) According to Anderson, Costello’s acquisition was one of four similar bars brought to the Black Hills in the late 1800s via bull train, by a beer distributor who placed them in saloons selling the company’s beer.

No written proof of that oral history has been found. However, John Treber, an 1800s wholesale liquor dealer, was an agent for Anheuser-Busch of St. Louis. Treber freighted in furnishings for his Deadwood home with beer and liquor shipments and may have also brought in bar furniture.

Anheuser-Busch generally provided bar equipment only in saloons they owned or leased, according to corporate historian Dr. William J. Vollmar. But he agreed the brewing company could have facilitated a deal between Treber and Brunswick-Balke-Collender’s St. Louis showroom, since Treber was a major Black Hills distributor and personal friend of Adolphus Busch.

Costello sold his saloon and Brunswick bar more than 20 years ago and now owns Costello Appraisal and Land Company in Belle Fourche. Current Slash J owner Nancy Speaks moved to the Black Hills from Minneapolis to carry on the western hospitality established by Costello in the Piedmont saloon.

Undoubtedly Seventh Cavalry soldiers with Custer’s 1874 expedition did a little drinking at their camp just a few miles from the present town of Piedmont.  Platted in 1890, on the site of a stop on the 1878 Sidney-Deadwood stagecoach road, Piedmont is still a stop for hungry and thirsty travelers. A juicy, meal-in-itself Slash J hamburger pays tribute to beef country origins of the popular little tavern.