Taken from the The Denver Public Library’s Digital Image Collection.
From the description:
Men pose at a Faro table in Montezuma, Summit County, Colorado. The interior saloon scene includes slot machines, spittoons, a sign over the cash register: “The Senate T. J. Looney,” a burro, a dog, and kerosene lamps.
I pulled this one up by searching for the word “Faro”, which was the gambler’s game of choice in Denver in the nineteenth century. This is the only image that came up. One of the problems with the photographic record of Denver is that pictures of the good stuff don’t exist in nearly the numbers one would like. Sadly, that includes the inside of saloons. This is one of the rarities.
And that’s a shame, because Denver’s got some hellish saloons in its history. My favorite two of the nineteenth century were known fondly as “The Bucket of Blood” and “The Slaughterhouse”, and I’ve yet to chase down a photograph of either one.
