Artist depiction of Center St. circa 1879 by Larry Callahan, September 1997

16. Holliday Saloon

S side of E. Lincoln 3rd E of corner Grand

1879-ca. l895

"Doc" Holliday entered Las Vegas in the spring of 1879, setting up a saloon on what was then known as Center St. Holliday, a dentist from Georgia, is described by Howard Bryan as, "gambling, coughing, and acheiving the reputation deserved or not of a deadly gunfighter."* On July 26 Doc shot Mike Gordon, who was on a drunken rampage and was shooting up the town, outside his saloon. In late summer, his friend Wyatt Earp visited him for about a month, and convinced him to move to Tombstone with him. Doc and Wyatt had come from Dodge City, as did the "lawmen" who ruled East Las Vegas for nearly a year, a year of severe drought. The Dodge City Gang was lead by H.G. Neill, or "Hoodoo Brown", who was Justice of the Peace. There was "Dutchy" Schunderberger, Carson, Mather, Dave Rudabaugh, Bill Goodlet, and J.J. Webb et al. Upon prodding from Hoodoo Brown, J.J. Webb entered a scheme on March 2, 1880 to steal Michael Kelliher's money, which ended in Kelliher's death. Brown skipped town with Dutchy and Mrs. Carson, while Webb a deputy just a couple days before, found himself in the Old Town Jail. This building suffered some damage in the fire of September, 1880, but Huberty and Angell's bakery lived on. By 1898 all the buildings depicted, from the Holliday Saloon and to the right and beyond, were nonexistent. *Bryan, Wildest of the Wild West, pg.I05

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