The first house built on Vancouver’s Main Street was a saloon. On July 4, 1854, Pete Fergusson opened it as a tenpins bowling alley with liquor sales. Vancouver wasn’t incorporated until 1857, so getting a liquor license wasn’t a problem for him. From the start, Clark County residents split into groups — pro-salooners and anti-salooners.
Those supporting saloons saw them as places to visit, talk, escape the stress of daily life and relax with a drink. Others viewed such establishments as hotbeds for vice, corruption and immorality. Each side battled it out at the ballot box for years. Voters shifted back and forth, with some towns going wet for a few years, then returning to dry.
To keep anyone like Fergusson from opening a saloon without community consent, town councils created laws requiring licenses to run saloons and to serve liquor. Applicants renewed their licenses yearly and needed to apply and wait for the city council’s decision. Licenses, like taxes, filled municipal coffers for use by the developing towns in Clark County.
In 1866, a Vancouver public meeting burst into a spirited dispute on how to disburse liquor license proceeds. The blistering debate involved townsfolk and liquor representatives. The questions argued were: Is it appropriate to fund schools with whiskey money? Should the whiskey money collected fill Clark County’s coffers or stay with the towns issuing the licenses?
Brick-maker Lowell Hidden stood firmly against whiskey money for schools, as did N.H. Bloomfield, who declared the school tax adequate. G.H. Daniels agreed vehemently with both. W.H. Brewster argued liquor money should go to the cities. Mayor J.R. Smith shifted the debate to Vancouver’s indebtedness and the need for more police to protect citizens, adding that the city would collapse should the money fund schools. Pat O’Keane claimed that either choice increased the burden on city taxpayers. Ultimately, the group resolved that the money would go to the license-issuing towns.
While the Anti-Saloon League, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Salvation Army openly railed against liquor during the 1870s, later citizens sometimes responded hotly. For reasons unclear, on April 12, 1905, James Short withdrew his application for a saloon in Washougal, but a license was issued to John Carlson, while J.H. Stoops’ application was denied. In Yacolt, citizens signed petitions for and against C.A. Dellinger’s retail liquor license. Fifty-one voters signed the petition for, and 24 voters and 11 women against issuing Dellinger a permit. Both were presented to the Board of Clark County Commissioners.
Citizens against Dellinger claimed denying his application served Yacolt’s welfare better. Its reasoning — Dellinger was immoral, sold liquor to minors and kept women about his place for prostitution. His saloon had rooms above and liquor was taken there. At all hours, naked women roamed about. Still, the commissioners approved Dellinger’s license, claiming his saloon wasn’t any worse than others. They codified a resolution requiring that before renewing a liquor license, authorities must consider whether the applicant had broken any state laws. Then they informed every saloon owner to sign the mandate at renewal time or face their permit’s denial.
Martin Middlewood is editor of the Clark County Historical Society Annual. Reach him at ClarkCoHist@gmail.com.
