Tap into History at Helldorado’s “El Gato de Cristal”

If Tombstone is the “Town to Tough to Die” than the Crystal Palace Saloon should also be also known as “El Gato De Cristal.”

Like a cat with nine lives, the Crystal Palace at the corner of Fifth and Allen Streets has been reborn over and over since it first opened as the Golden Eagle Brewery in 1879. Rising from the ashes of the 1881 fire as the Crystal Palace, the saloon was known as one of the town’s finest dining and gambling establishments. Prohibition led the famed watering hole to survive as a movie theater, curio shop and bus stop. When famed photographer Dorothea Lange photographed the Crystal Palace for the WPA in June 1938, the bar was stocked and open for business, but the ambience was anything but Old West, except for the display of White Albert cigars, first sold in 1887.

Today, if you are thirsty for history, the Crystal Palace Saloon, aka “El Gato de Cristal,” is a great place to step back in time and enjoy a meal and a drink as if it was 1882!