Before Salida became a picturesque Colorado mountain town, it was a raw, violent railroad boomtown built almost overnight.

Blood, Booze & Whores takes you back to the beginning—May 1880 through 1881—when saloons flourished, whiskey flowed freely, outlaws and fortune-seekers poured into town, and violence, vice and ambition were part of everyday life.

Told through the rough-hewn journal of fictional observer Salida Sam, every event is drawn from the historical record, allowing you to experience Salida’s earliest days as if you were there.

Watch an empty stretch of dusty ground become a booming railroad and commercial center, and meet the real people who gambled their fortunes—and sometimes their lives—on the new town.

This is Salida before the galleries, restaurants and tourists: messy, dangerous, colorful and completely true.