WINE, WOMEN AND… WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT?
The Western saloon—like the European coffeehouse or colonial tavern—was an institution, an all-male preserve where a man could go for a few drinks with buddies and indulge in games of chance and fighting as side dishes. Forget the Gunsmoke portrayal of Dodge City’s Long Branch Saloon as the domain of Miss Kitty. Women were generally not permitted in saloons. A man could always find a willing partner in a dance hall, of which there were a few in every saloon district, but if he would rather just share a drink with a woman in private, he’d find his way to a wine room attached to a saloon. Each saloon boasted its special amenities—well-ventilated rooms, meals at all hours, choice whiskies, Havana cigars—but by the 1870s few had set aside a space for women such as the nook in the Palace Beer Hall in Denison, Texas, which advertised in the May 18, 1877, Daily News that its “wine room, which has recently been fitted up, is nicely furnished.” Proprietor Louis Libbie was reportedly the first in north Texas to cater to women.
Westerners did not invent the term “wine room.” A traditional feature of exclusive private clubs back East, wine rooms were tony parlors where gentlemen could enjoy fine liquors and cigars while discussing the day’s topics. The wine room of the New York Democratic Club, as described in 1902 by the New-York Tribune, was “the only place where democracy ever seems to reign supreme in the club,” where Supreme Court justices rubbed elbows with policemen, horse trainers and lawyers of “shady reputation,” and where high-rollers would periodically treat everyone in the room, announcing, “Well, boys, what’ll you have on me?”
Western wine rooms sought a more gender-inclusive mix of clientele. The name itself was a way of circumventing Victorian strictures against women reporter:
