Writing the Wicked West
Sherry Monahan on saloons, recipes and Tombstone.
By: Candy Moulton 07/01/2007
A gambling spirit is what inspired many people to head West in the first place. After working hard on a cattle drive or digging in a mine, men needed a way to relax and have fun. In keeping with that risk-taking spirit, many chose to wager their hard-earned money in the saloon,” Sherry Monahan writes in The Wicked West: Boozers, Cruisers, Gamblers, and more.
Monahan may live in North Carolina, but her heart and soul are in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, a place she said she felt she belonged to from the moment she stepped out of her car and put her boots on the ground.
The work she does—writing books and magazine articles (she wrote “Historical Rail Celebrations & Party Trains” for the March issue of True West), appearing in documentary films and working as a historical consultant for the film industry—all connects her to the American West.
“I like to think that I lived there in another lifetime,” she says. “My great-great grandfather, William Turner, was a newspaper man and traveled all over the West. I guess it’s in my blood.”
TW: Much of your writing in some way ties to Tombstone. Why?
SM: Destiny, I guess. I went there on vacation in the early 1990s and felt like I had lived there before. I was really mesmerized by Tombstone. On the plane ride home, I decided that I wanted to be connected to Tombstone. My love of cooking and writing got me interested in what they ate in Tombstone during the 1800s. Voila—enter my first book, Taste of Tombstone.
But writing about the region wasn’t enough, so Sherry and her husband bought land near Tombstone, giving her greater opportunity to soak in the ambiance of Arizona and to research an era that has become her passion: the wicked West of the 19th century. She’s written for Tombstone Times, Tombstone Tumbleweed, Tombstone Epitaph, Arizona Highways and was a contributor to The Best of the Best of Arizona and Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work.
Besides Tombstone, Monahan heads to the saloons of the Old West for her inspiration. She writes of “boozers, cruisers, gamblers” in her book The Wicked West, and shares recipes for Old West drinks such as a gin sling, mint julep or beef tea, as well as bartender tales and insight into the lives of the men and women of those bygone days. In her newest book, Tombstone’s Treasures, recently published by the University of New Mexico Press, she goes beyond the saloons to the silver mines that gave birth to the community.
Why have you concentrated so much of your writing on saloons?
I just think the saloons are so fascinating and not at all like the movies portray them. Every time I watch a Western movie, I cringe. The shot glasses of whiskey, the tables and chairs, and the saloon girls and their clothing. I thought it would be nice if people really knew what the old Western saloons were like. The drinks were very fancy too—not just cheap whiskey. The characters who frequented the saloons were a real trip. Some of their antics and stories are hilarious!
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