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40 Historical Markers on the Road to Prohibition

Khalid Elhassan December 2, 2019 31 min

Black and white - Monochrome — 19th century Brewery. Pintrest

29. A Saloon For Every 100 People?

In some parts of the country, saloons were especially thick on the ground. In Leadville, North Dakota, the 20,000 inhabitants could take their pick of so many drinking establishments, that there was one saloon for every 100 townspeople – women and children included. It was even worse in San Francisco, where there was a saloon for every 96 inhabitants.

San Francisco’s figure is derived from counting only the city’s 3000 licensed saloons: the city had another 2000 unlicensed drinking establishments. Across the country, men, women, and children, were often seen exiting the saloons with buckets of beer to take home. As one New Yorker put it: “I doubt if one child in a thousand, who brings his [bucket] to be filled at the average New York bar, is sent away empty-handed“.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.