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Article: Boomtown Saloons: Archaeology and History in Virginia City
- Article from:
- Southeastern Archaeology
- Article date:
- July 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Southeastern Archaeological Conference Summer 2007. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Boomtown Saloons: Archaeology and History in Virginia City. KELLY J. DIXON. University of Nevada Press, Reno, 2005. xiii + 219 pp., illus., map. $34.95 (hardcover), ISBN: 0-87417-608-5.
Reviewed by Frederick H. Smith
Hollywood films, television shows, and popular writers have depicted nineteenth-century western saloons as brutal, violent, and debauched places. In Boomtown Saloons: Archaeology and History in Virginia City, Kelly J. Dixon skillfully uses archaeological evidence to dismantle these somewhat false images of western mining town saloons conjured up in popular media. While rough-and-tumble saloons were certainly part of the urban landscape of western mining towns, Dixon shows they ...