
What Was the Purpose of Saloon Doors? - nickdrozd
https://www.core77.com/posts/77047/What-Was-the-Purpose-of-Saloon-Doors
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docPangloss
I thought they were more for semi-privacy. They block the main line of sight
of passers-by, but allow light, air, and sound to easily flow -- and
entering/exiting is simple.

Some people still use these in house bathrooms by the toilet area --
especially if the bathroom is shared with others. Same thing with public
restrooms.

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yesenadam
Also good for throwing people out through?

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doug1001
exactly! or break a chair over someone's head so that they fall backwards
through the doors and out of the saloon. Every epiosode of Gunsmoke, Bonanza,
Wild Wild West, et al that i've ever seen.

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yesenadam
Maybe not far from reality. From Oscar Wilde's _Impressions of America_ (he
toured the US in 1882) :

From Salt Lake City one travels over the great plains of Colorado and up the
Rocky Mountains, on the top of which is Leadville, the richest city in the
world. It has also got the reputation of being the roughest, and every man
carries a revolver. I was told that if I went there they would be sure to
shoot me or my travelling manager. I wrote and told them that nothing that
they could do to my travelling manager would intimidate me.

They are miners — men working in metals, so I lectured to them on the Ethics
of Art. I read them passages from the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini and
they seemed much delighted. I was reproved by my hearers for not having
brought him with me. I explained that he had been dead for some little time
which elicited the enquiry "Who shot him?" They afterwards took me to a
dancing saloon where I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have
ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice : —

PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT THE PIANIST.

HE IS DOING HIS BEST.

The mortality among pianists in that place is marvellous. Then they asked me
to supper, and having accepted, I had to descend a mine in a rickety bucket in
which it was impossible to be graceful. Having got into the heart of the
mountain I had supper, the first course being whisky, the second whisky and
the third whisky.

I went to the Theatre to lecture and I was informed that just before I went
there two men had been seized for committing a murder, and in that theatre
they had been brought on to the stage at eight o'clock in the evening, and
then and there tried and executed before a crowded audience. But I found these
miners very charming and not at all rough.

... So infinitesimal did I find the knowledge of Art, west of the Rocky
Mountains, that an art patron — one who in his day had been a miner — actually
sued the railroad company for damages because the plaster cast of Venus of
Milo, which he had imported from Paris, had been delivered minus the arms.
And, what is more surprising still, he gained his case and the damages.

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solstice
Thanks for posting this. That is hilarious

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yesenadam
:-) He just about always is. I forgot to put a link

[https://archive.org/details/impressionsofame00wildrich/page/...](https://archive.org/details/impressionsofame00wildrich/page/30/mode/2up)

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rman666
I think they were invented to make cowboys in Westerns look cool when they
walk in the door.

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seedless-sensat
I expected the article to mention airflow & sun shade.

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fqrley
Maybe to keep horses from wandering in.

