The first and most obvious thing you’d notice would be the false front. This was a two-story façade that was nailed onto the front of a one-story building. Nobody knows why saloons were built like this. It didn’t fool anyone. It physically couldn’t have, unless you approached it in a straight line perpendicular to the front door, which was impossible if there were buildings on both sides of the street. The façade had work put into it. There were fake windows on the upper story, and sometimes there was even guttering for a nonexistent roof. The false front was a universal, transparent lie that everybody in America for some reason went along with.
Source:
Forsyth, Mark. “The Wild West Saloon.” A Short History of Drunkenness. Three Rivers Press, 2017. 190-91. Print.
Advertising. If you want to get drunk you look for the fake second story.
If you want to get laid you make sure there are two stories.