Alcohol-free Western settlements were nearly crime-free and left doors unlocked.

Evidence

Some of the districts, such as Greeley, in which liquor is prohibited, are without crime, and in several of the stock-raising and agricultural regions through which I have traveled where it is practically excluded the doors are never locked, and the miners leave their silver bricks in their wagons unprotected at night. People say that on coming from the Eastern States they hardly realize at first the security in which they live. There is no danger and no fear. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 201

Categorization

• SHARE: A niche, counterintuitive detail about unlocked doors and unguarded silver bricks in the frontier West.