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I found this great book on Saloons of the Old West (Richard Erdoes, Saloons of the Old West, Knopf, 1979). Good stuff. Here's some stuff that jumped out at me:

The men who bellied up to the bar and acquired calluses on their elbows by prolonged and heavy leaning on the counter did not patronize the saloon simply for its alcoholic refreshments. Many old habitues pointed out repeatedly that if a fellow wanted to hear the owl hoot, it would have been more effective and a lot cheaper to buy himself a gallon of barrelhouse whiskey and retire to his dugout or bunkhouse to work himself up for his case of jimjams. Men, however, did not drink alone, and they did not drink at home. Westerners were a gregarious lot. They needed each other's company, even if only to pick a fight... Even when a cowhand went on a high, lonesome drunk, he did so inside a saloon, within a crowd...
    Saloon customers were a varied lot, as were the bars themselves and the men who tended them. The customers, too, went through a series of metamorphoses, from prospector, desperado, and gambler, to cowhand, stockman, coal miner and railroader, clubman and mining baron, as well as drummer and honest workman "with lunch pail and mourning bands under his fingernails," until he finally turned tourist.. Travelers often commented on the gentleness and respect with which westerners treated women, but this endearing trait cannot be absolutely taken for granted. Western men slapped women around occasionally...
    In certain areas saloon customers were a fairly homogeneous, Anglo-Saxon lot... Though western saloons were overwhelmingly egalitarian for whites, as a rule drinking democracy did not extend to other races. Indians were excluded by law. And occasional black man might be grudgingly accepted, or at least ignored, if he happened to be a noted gambler or badman... The most offended against were the Chinese. Barely suffered as long as they did coolie work, they risked their lives if they ventured into a white man's drinking place...
    One seldom-mentioned but generally excluded minority was, of course, women. The saloon customer did not want them around unless they were pretty waiter girls or ladies of the night. The old tale, however, that respectable women never, never entered the western saloon has to be taken with more than a grain of salt. In larger cities women sooner or later, generally sooner, asserted their right to a public nip of the forbidden fruit and were sometimes provided with a discreet ladies' side entrance... In the smaller town of the cow country an unspoken taboo against women in saloons lasted until World War I and beyond. In retaliation the ladies managed to dry up large regions of the West. Thus the war of the sexes unfolded on the alcoholic battlefield.
    The vast majority drank only the straight stuff-- rye or bourbon. All else was considered giving oneself airs. Men who went in for fancy or mixed drinks were said to have an "educated thirst." Their tastes were respected as long as they were known as regular fellows who had proved themselves at work on horseback or with a pick below ground. A foreigner, however, who asked for a cocktail might find himself the object of derision. Sometimes such an unlucky dude was forced to swallow a fifth of white lightning at gunpoint-- "for his own good." Foreigners used to nursing their drinks were horrified at the speed with which westerners tossed off their nightly ration. It seemed that they were "more interested in results than pleasure."
    A man who did not treat found himself nudged by his neighbor with a "Say, stranger, ain't ye goin' to invite me to drink with yer?" To refuse a drink, even of the vilest rotgut barrelhouse whiskey, was a deadly insult not infrequently fatal to the offender. It invited the challenge: "Stranger, will you drink or fight?" A dude in Tucson who did refuse was kept in enforced hostpitality by a gang of cowhands who, at gunpoint, dragged him from bar to bar until he had learned some manners.
    Another custom prevailing at the bar was to address a man by his "front name" and not to inquire into his second, or where he came from. Too much curiosity was impolite, besides being unhealthy. The West cared little for a man's, or a woman's, past and solemnly accepted any name voluntarily offered... Many a quiet, flint-eyed stranger coyoted around in saloons trying, for reasons of his own, to catch a surname. If a stranger came drifting through the country "just to see the sights" that was his business. If he had a reason to be secretive about his comings and goings, his silence was respected. One also never asked a rancher the size of his herd; that would have been like asking to see a man's income tax return today. As cowpunchers put it: "Minding one's own business is the best life insurance."
    The men with their feet on the brass railing respected a fellow's privacy, but they hated deception. Should a gent call for a drink and turn out to be unable to pay for it, he might be in for a beating, or worse. But if he owned up that he was broke and had a five-dollar thirst, few men would refuse to treat him. They were compassionate in the face of human suffering and generous to a fault. Cardplayers and boozers would take up a collection for a circuit-riding preacher ranting against gambling and drinking. Untalented and elderly actresses and warblers, on their way out and no treat for eye or ear, were showered with silver dollars or gold nuggets to help them retire. Everybody chipped in toward the cost of a funeral for a dead hooker.
    There was one type of man not included in the general saloon bonhomie. The soldier from the nearby fort was not welcome. There were three reasons for this animosity. Rightly or wrongly, the cowpuncher suspected the soldier of infecting the local parlorhouse girls with the clap or worse. The cowboy suffering from venereal disease generally did not blame the girl but the soldier who had given it to her. The military were also resented because they policed the early West, and neither cowboy nor miner had any love for that sort of thing. Finally, the independent-minded westerner despised any man who had to obey and stand at attention.
 
    -From the chapter "Painting One's Nose"