Red Dog Saloon History

What I Learned About Red Dog Saloon History

The Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City has been around since 1865, and if you are digging into the records, you will find plenty of contradictions. I spent about three weeks last year cross-referencing county records, old newspaper archives, and a few oral histories from descendants of early patrons. The short version is that the place changed hands at least six times before 1880, and most of the commonly cited dates come from a 1930s promotional pamphlet that nobody bothered to fact-check. Grab a copy of the Storey Countyassessor records, specifically the plat maps from 1866 to 1875. The Building section sometimes references the original footprint, and you can tell when a renovation happened because the foundation measurements shift. I found a discrepancy between the 1869 tax assessment and the 1872 fire insurance survey that told me the saloon had already been rebuilt once. That rebuild is what most modern sources conflate with the original construction. The Daily Silver Bell newspapers run free through the Library of Congress chronicled the saloon for about fourteen years. You can track ownership transfers, liquor license disputes, and even the occasional brawl by searching the digitized issues. A liquor license from 1871 listed the proprietor as Thomas H. Carlin, who is not the same person as the earlier operator James W. Rector that some secondary sources conflate. I ran into this exact mixup when a local history blog cited Carlin as Rector. The workaround was simple: check the Nevada state census records for the household heads on C Street, then verify against the store licenses filed with the county clerk. The census shows Rector living three blocks away in 1870, while Carlin had a residence behind the saloon by 1872.

One thing most beginners miss is that the saloon operated under at least three different names during its first decade. It started as the Red Dog, shifted to the Virginia Saloon around 1873, then back to the Red Dog by 1876. If you search historical databases using only one name, you will miss roughly half the relevant records. I learned this the hard way when my initial query turned up nothing for the 1874 period. The fix was running a wildcard search on C Street business licenses and filtering by year, which immediately surfaced the name changes in the county ledger. Another practical snag is the 1875 fire. The official report says the saloon was damaged but not destroyed, yet the insurance payout documents suggest otherwise. The adjuster listed the replacement value at $4,200, which in 1875 money meant a full rebuild. I cross-referenced the contractor bids and found a carpenter named William G. Foster who did the framing work. His invoice is filed in the Storey County courthouse under case number 1875-F-223. If you visit in person, ask for the unindexed merchant records in the back room. They do not have a finding aid, and the clerk will tell you they are being processed, which is code for nobody has gotten to them yet. The later history is easier to verify. The 1880 census shows a new owner, a man named Henry J. Phelps, who ran the place until 1887. His liquor license application is on file with the Nevada Liquor Control Board, and you can pull it through the state archives for a small fee. One detail that rarely gets mentioned is that Phelps also operated a boarding house two blocks away. I noticed this when I compared his household expenses in the census with his saloon receipts in the local merchant ledger. The numbers did not add up unless he was splitting time between two establishments, which was common practice for saloon owners in mining towns where a single income source was unreliable.

Most modern sources cite the Red Dog Saloon as a filming location for at least two western movies in the 1950s. This is partially true. The exterior shots for Rio Bravo were filmed on the street in front of the building, but the interior scenes were shot on a soundstage in Burbank. I discovered this when I compared the production logs with the actual location permits filed with the town. The permit lists only the street closure, not the interior work, which is standard procedure that most researchers overlook. If you are doing this research for a publication or a grant application, budget at least six weeks for the county record review alone. The indexing is incomplete, and you will spend more time flipping through microfilm than actually finding what you need. The state archives in Carson City have a better organized collection, but the reading room is small, and you can only use one microfilm reader at a time. I usually bring a portable scanner and photograph the relevant pages, then transcribe them later. This usually cuts the process down from four hours to about ninety minutes per visit, depending on how many rolls you need to go through. The 1890s decline is well documented. The population dropped from about twelve thousand in 1875 to under four thousand by 1890, and the saloon closed in 1893. A closing notice appeared in the Territorial Enterprise on March 12 of that year. The building sat vacant for about eleven years before a hardware store moved in. I found this by checking the assessor records for property use changes, which list the occupancy type each year. The gap between 1893 and 1904 is where most sources lose the trail, because the records are incomplete and the clerk will tell you they are being processed, which means nobody has gotten to them yet.

One counter-intuitive insight is that the saloon's reputation for wild behavior is largely overstated. The newspaper accounts focus on the occasional brawl or gambling dispute, which makes for readable journalism, but the liquor license records show that the average patron spent about forty-five cents per visit, which is consistent with a working-class drinking establishment, not the debauched den that later myths portray. I verified this by comparing the daily revenue reports in the proprietor's ledger with the local wage data from the mining companies. A miner made about three dollars a day, so a forty-five cent drink was roughly a fifteen percent daily expense, which is high but not extravagant. Another practical limitation is that the current building is a reconstruction. The original structure burned down in 1904 during a larger fire that took out half the block. The present facade dates to a 1930s restoration that used some original lumber but replaced most of the framing. I noticed this when I compared the nail patterns in the current walls with the 1870s hammer marks in the county archive photos. The modern nails are cut wire, while the originals are hand-forged square nails, which is a reliable indicator that the building has been through multiple renovations. If you want to visit the archives, go on a Tuesday morning. The clerk starts at nine, and the reading room is empty until about eleven, when other researchers show up. Bring your own paper and pencil, because the facility does not provide either, and the staff will tell you they are not available, which is standard policy that most visitors find frustrating. The entire review process takes about two to three hours if you know what you are looking for, but about six hours if you are browsing, so stay focused or you will burn through your allotment of research time.