"Wet" Enterprise: Selected Saloons of the Old West

“Con” Oram Punched His Way to Montana Fame A saloon owner known widely as “Con” Oram gained national fame for his 185-round, semi-bare knuckles prize fight in Virginia City, Montana, against a man who outweighed him by 52 pounds.    Proving he was more than a pugilist, Oram, shown here, also has been credited by historians with advancing Montana toward statehood. John Condle Oram was born in 1835 and reared in Ft. Finley (now just Findlay), Ohio.   Originally from Maryland, his father was a blacksmith and a noted wrestler.  He taught his son both skills.  When he was about 20 years old and working in his father’s shop, Con decided to tour the West as a wrestler, challenging the locals for money.  Along the line he also picked up boxing skills. By 1861, he had accrued sufficient winnings to open a blacksmith’s shop in Denver, Colorado.  Business proved to be brisk and soon he was able to hire several assistants allowing him, he...

“Mose” Littleton: A Life in Full Measure                     Working from the premise that every bottle “has a story,” the whiskey jug at left provides a pathway into the story of Moses Luna “Mose” Littleton, a man who began life without formal education in Tennessee, struggled in the whiskey trade in Texas, learned the law in New York City, and eventually became Assistant District Attorney of Dallas. Mose was born in 1864 in one room log cabin in hardscabble mountainous Roane County, Tennessee, below.  At the time his father was serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, a lieutenant in the First Tennessee Voluntary Infantry.  Although much of the state was secessionist, Thomas Jefferson Littleton originally was from Indiana and did not own slaves.  Shown here, he served for four years and survived hot combat from the Battle of Mill Springs to the Siege of Atlanta and Sherman’s March to the Sea...

Charles Serasio Found Gold and Early Death in Lead In September,1919, when Charles Serasio died at only 49 years of age from tuberculosis, the Lead (South Dakota) Daily Call newspaper cited him as a respected and popular resident of the the city.    The obituary did not mention the odyssey that brought Serasio to Lead and a premature death — nor addressed his success as a local saloonkeeper. Serasio was born in 1870 in San Giorgio, Italy, shown above.  For years the climate and natural beauty on the Mediterranean made the town a strong magnet for tourists and it flourished.  Two eruptions from nearby Mount Vesuvius in 1855, however, severely damaged the economy and triggered a gradual emigration of the populace overseas in search of employment.  Among them were members of the extensive Serasio family (Charles himself was one of ten children) many of whom came to the United States. After a period in his youth living with relatives in France, Sera...

Dan Breen and the Wild Side of Life in Texas      Born in a small Ohio town into a family of modest resources, Daniel “Dan” Breen, shown here, figuratively “followed the telegraph lines” west to San Antonio, Texas, where he prospered as a saloonkeeper in particularly violent times. Breen’s 1866 birthplace was Ada, Ohio, a quiet community about 70 miles south of Toledo, a town whose claim to fame is having the shortest name in Ohio.  Dan’s parents were Daniel Breen and Johanna Buckley.   Their 1864 marriage license was unusual since it was applied for by Johanna’s father, Jeremiah, and initially his name was inked in as the groom.   The couple would go on to produce eleven children of whom Daniel Jr. was the second.  The 1880 census listed his father as a railroad worker and “crippled.” One asset Ada boasted was the presence of a post-elementary educational institution called the Northwestern Ohio Normal School, now Ohio Northern Un...