Frontier mining towns were rough saloon settlements with almost no women.

Evidence

Golden City by daylight showed its meanness and belied its name. It is ungraded, with here and there a piece of wooden sidewalk, supported on posts, up to which you ascend by planks. Brick, pine, and log houses are huddled together, every other house is a saloon, and hardly a woman is to be seen. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 206

Categorization

• SHARE: The line ‘every other house is a saloon, and hardly a woman is to be seen’ is a perfect one-liner for anyone interested in boomtown gender ratios.