Monday, October 12, 2020

Whiskey Men in Dangerous Towns

Foreword:   Many saloonkeeper in towns in the “Old West” were accustomed to the sounds of gunfighting.  Often those shots were fired in drunken altercations that may have begun in other saloons and tumbled into theirs.  Most proprietors were able to keep safely out of the way, as with the three publicans briefly profiled here, living in Kansas, Colorado and Texas towns where lawlessness often made for exciting times. 

Known as among the wildest of Wild West communities, Dodge City, Kansas, had a reputation for frequent murders and casual justice.  Neither seemed to deter Henry Sturm, a immigrant saloon keeper and liquor dealer, who faced off in Dodge against formidable opponents —  a gun-toting gang led by Bat Masterson.


A Kansas newspaper in the 1870s reported: “Kansas has but one Dodge City, with broad expanse of territory sufficiently vast for an empire; we have only room for one Dodge City; Dodge, a synonym for all that is wild, reckless, and violent; Hell on the Plains.” 


Despite these challenges, Sturm prospered.  A year after his arrival he bought the Occidental Saloon, shown below as reconstructed as part of the “Old Dodge” exhibit.  Sturm advertised…”A pint, a keg, or barrel of the very best, old Irish, hot Scotch, six year old hand made sour mash Kentucky copper distilled bourbon or old Holland gin.” 


  

Accustomed to the usual level of Dodge City violence, Sturm’s sternest test came during what was known as “The Saloon War of 1883.”  The conflict began when authorities arrested three women singers at Luke Short’s Long Branch Saloon. When things escalated, Short was banished from Dodge.   Quick with a gun himself, Short was backed by gunslingers like Bat Masterson, shown here, described at the time as “one of the most dangerous men in the West.”  Repairing to Topeka, Kansas, Short and Masterson assembled a gang of gunslingers with the purpose of returning to Dodge and getting revenge.


Sturm put himself on the line, signing an anti-gang telegram on May 13, 1883, to a reluctant Kansas governor, George Washington Glick, asking for state troops.  The saloonkeeper also signed an anti-gang article sent to the Topeka Daily Capital newspaper.  When Masterson and Short threatened to bring their rowdies to Dodge by train, the local sheriff enlisted local guns, including Sturm’s.  High tension gripped the town for days.  In the end, the issues were negotiated and no shots fired. The stalwartness of Sturm and his companions had paid off.


If it is true that every bottle has a story behind it, then the details behind the liquor jug shown left suggests enough material for a novel.   It would document an epic struggle between miners and mine owners in Colorado that involved armed intimidation, “stalag” conditions, shootings, and even murder.  Saloonkeeper Charles Niccoli was in the thick of it all.


Niccoli was born in 1858 in Poings, Italy.  Christened “Pasquale,” he became Charles (or “Charley”) upon arrival about 1884 in the United States, moving eventually to the coal fields of Colorado where he ran a saloon at Hastings. Most Colorado miners lived in these company towns, renting company houses, buying food and supplies in company stories and drinking at saloons controlled by the company.  


 


Charles Niccoli’s ability to rent the saloon building shown left with sign was predicated on his playing along with Victor-American Fuel Company.  This included not objecting to paying the operator each month a per capita sum that might range from 25 to 40 cents for each person whose name appeared upon the company payroll.  By paying off, Niccoli was allowed to enjoy exclusive saloon business in the camps.


Repeated violence in the Colorado coal fields in which protesting miners were murdered, led to Congressional hearings.  One witness told of being privy to a killing by strikebreakers at a Victor-American mine.  When he tried to accompany the body of the dead miner, he was told to “go home and go to sleep.”  Thoroughly frightened, he went to Niccoli’s saloon.  Niccoli was there and the miner asked him who the victim was.  The saloonkeeper scolded him:  “Nobody got shot…You can work—you go out—and you believe nobody got shot.”  Niccoli clearly was in Victor-American’s pocket.


The violence later spilled over into Niccoli’s own family.  In October 1915, seven coal miners, armed with guns and knives, stormed into his Delagua saloon.  A pitched battle ensued in which one man was killed and Charles’ brother, Frank Niccoli was stabbed with a butcher knife.  According to a newspaper account:  “His assailant after inflicting three wounds left the weapon in Niccoli’s back.”  When Charles removed it, Frank fainted but lived.


After Colorado in 1917 adopted a ban on the sale of alcohol of any kind throughout the state Niccoli was forced exit the saloon trade and seek other employment.  By that time he had accumulated considerable wealth from selling whiskey to the miners and owned substantial real estate in Colorado.  In the 1920 census Charles Niccoli. was recorded as owner/operator of a stock ranch and by 1930 as retired.


Daniel “Dan” Breen, shown here, was born in 1866 in a small Ohio town into a family of modest resources, Trained as a railroad telegrapher, Breen “followed the telegraph lines” west to San Antonio, Texas, a town still experiencing violent times.  There he was befriended by a local saloon and gambling kingpin, learned the whiskey business and opened his own saloon on Houston Avenue, a major thoroughfare.  As seen here from a postcard, Breen’s saloon was an upscale place, boasting tile floors, overhead fans in the days before air conditioning, and an ornate bar.



Breen’s very simple business card advertised “wine, liquors, and cigars.” The flip side of the card held a verse with a stanza that would prove prophetic:


“Cutoff in the prime of a useful life,”

The headlines glibly say, —

Or “snatched by the grim reaper”

He has crossed the great highway,

They bury him deep, while a few friends weep,

And the world moves on with a sigh.


San Antonio had not yet seen the end of reckless violence. It would erupt in Dan Breen’s saloon on the night of August 18, 1910.  Dennis Chapin, a wealthy Texas politician and developer who had a town named after him, held a grudge against Oscar J. Roundtree, a former Texas Ranger with a good record. When Chapin invited Roundtree over for a drink, the two had a heated argument over what the newspapers called “old troubles.”  


 


Drawing his eight-shot 45-caliber Colt, Chapin fired at Roundtree five times.  One bullet hole was found in the ceiling of Breen’s saloon, two in the walls, one in a rear screen door, and one squarely in the center of Rountree’s forehead that tore through his brain and exited back of his right ear.  Roundtree died at the San Antonio hospital the following morning.  Later examination found that he had a pistol in his back pocket but had not had an opportunity to draw it. 


Chapin was arrested but released from jail on bond.  At his trial, without any proof, Chapin claimed Roundtree had come to San Antonio to murder him and that he had shot him in self defense. Perhaps awed by his wealth, the jury believed him and after deliberating only 20 minutes voted acquittal.  Chapin. however, did not go unpunished.  His political career was at an end and his reputation plummeted.  The residents of Chapin regretted naming their town for him and officially changed it to Edinburg.


The Ohio native’s reaction to the violence committed in his saloon has gone unrecorded.  Breen operated his saloon until about 1917 when it disappeared from San Antonio directories.  It might have been the result of the tightening noose of prohibition in Texas or an effect of declining health.


Note:  Longer posts on each of these men appear on this site:  Henry Sturm, June 15, 2017;  Charles Niccoli, February 2, 2018, and Dan Breen, May 18, 2019
















































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