Wine, Women, and Song

The females who frequented the Old West saloons…

Old West saloons were pretty much a man’s world. There were saloon girls and prostitutes. Establishments like the Bird Cage in Tombstone hired women to hustle drinks, dance or sing on stage and earn extra money as prostitutes. In other places, a saloon girl might just hustle drinks and sit with the lonely miners and cowboys. A woman owning a saloon was unusual. An exception was Big Minnie, co-owner (with her husband) of the Bird Cage in the late 1890s. Standing six feet tall and weighing 230 pounds, she was also the bouncer.