This photo is an example of small town bars in the Canadian West in the years 1890s and the early 1900s. They were not all very elaborately decorated. Normally, there were no tables and chairs. Men stood at the bar, ordered a shot (small glass) of liquor and stayed there to drink. The evolution of the early liquor laws is interesting: In 1873, the first formal legislation by the government of the North west Territories prohibited the sale of liquor within its boundaries. In 1891, the Assembly could control the liquor trade within the Provisional Districts of Assiniboia - in which Yorkton was located; and the Districts of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Athabaska; all founded in 1882. In 1892, the Legislative Assembly passed Liquor License Ordinances, giving hotels the right to sell liquor by the glass over the bar, and to sell liquor in bottles to remove from the premises. It was good business for hotels, and curbed bootlegging and smuggling. It also initiated the temperance movements. A new culture emerged, with women being very much involved in wanting to shut down the bars. (A history of Prohibition to be continued.)
Contact Terri Lefebvre Prince, Heritage Researcher,
City of Yorkton Archives,
Box 400, 37 Third Avenue North
Yorkton, Sask. S3N 2W3 306-786-1722 [email protected]
