Over in the continental US, in Groveland, California, a small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Yosemite National Park, the memory of violence lingers at the Iron Door Saloon, with its granite walls, swinging cast-iron doors, walls adorned with taxidermy, and ceiling of hanging dollar bills.
Saloons were “rough and tumble”, says Iron Door owner Chris Loh. “Those people were built differently, the mentality was different.” Hollywood portrayals in TV shows and movies like Westworld, Tombstone and Deadwood aren’t that far off.
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For example, when the Iron Door first opened as the Granite Store in the 1850s, there was a hanging tree across the street—that is, a tree on which to hang people—to mete out vigilante justice. “Even 18 years ago when I first got here,” recalls Loh, “this place was extremely rough. I only have one story of somebody pulling a gun in the bar but the ‘80s and the ‘70s were nuts.”
For all of the unsavoriness of the Gold Rush-era saloon, perhaps the most intriguing quality of those still around today is their resiliency. It’s not just that a handful of these drinking parlors survived after boomtowns went bust and deflated overnight, the same way they popped up; it’s that they made it through 13 tee-totaling years of Prohibition.
