The Dancing Women of the Black Diamond Saloon
County commissioners hear a temperance minister’s complaint against A. Greene & Co., where women danced in the barroom and the owners pleaded ignorance.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Black Diamond saloon row was aired before the county commissioners yesterday, when A. Greene, A. Duncalf and Jack Evans appeared to show cause why the liquor license under which A. Greene & Co. carry on business should not be revoked. Rev. H. T. Shepard testified to the character of the place as being a disorderly house. He also gave particulars of the trouble between himself and Stephen Lyta, arising from witness objecting to Lyta carrying beer into Timothy Morgan’s house. Duncalf and Evans are partners in the business and with Greene, George Hartlett, A. McCartey, George Fuller and Frank Smith testified in favor of the saloon. They admitted that women danced in the bar room, but claimed ignorance of the coming, going and housing of the dancing women. The case was continued till today when more witnesses will be examined. Rev. H. T. Shepard and I. P. Callahan represent the petitioners in the case.
“They admitted that women danced in the bar room, but claimed ignorance of the coming, going and housing of the dancing women.”
Liquor licensing was one of the era’s most persistent civic fights, with temperance reformers using disorderly-house complaints to police saloons and the women who worked or danced in them. The Black Diamond case shows how moral regulation and business licensing overlapped—an argument that still surfaces in modern nightlife permitting and public-safety debates.
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