I notice a lot of them had spittoons on the floor. This is not the Old West, but a good example. Ripon, Wisconsin, 1894 There are outer doors beyond the swinging doors in the picture above, but I don't remember any outside doors in the saloons in the movies. Must have been cold in the winter. Ha!
Meeker, Colorado - 1899 I've never noticed bar towels hanging on the patron's side of the bar before. Tombstone, Arizona - 1885
@Nancy Hart 1894 in Wisconsin: If dated correctly, note there is an electric lightbulb visible at top. When my Dad and his family moved to Wisconsin from Chicago, he was 10, 1911, they gaped at the electric lights in Necedah (WI); Chicago had not yet yielded to electric lighting in 1911. Lighting was by coal-gas, derived from the production of Coke from Coal, and the "system" did not want to change easily. Necedah had abundant electric power generated by a river, I would presume the Wisconsin River........ Frank
A bit of beer/gas light trivia. The square hole in these old pre-prohibition beer bottle openers was used to turn on/off the gas jets on old light fixtures.
"Bars in the Old West sometimes offered music and dancing but almost never had stages for entertainers to perform on. Dance halls were very similar, only with more floor space for the dancing, and often occupied tents." The Varieties dance hall in Dodge City, Kansas Squirrel Tooth Alice "...A famous dance hall girl in Dodge City during the cow town years, in a formal portrait probably used for advertising purposes. She had a gap between her two front teeth and liked to keep prairie dogs as pets — thus her moniker. The Alice I can’t explain — her real name was Mary Elizabeth Thompson." I think she's pretty. Source