The Bird Cage Theatre (originally named the Elite Theatre) opened on Christmas Day 1881 and stayed open all day, every day for 8 years! Miners, cowboys, cosmospolitans, and sophisticates of every description could drink, play cards, and even find a lady for (of) the evening. This place, more than any other, offered a level of primal satisfaction and social debauchery that rivalled the Roman Empire in its quest for excess. The New York Times called it, "the wildest, roughest, wickedest honky tonk between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast." The more than 140 bullets that remain in the ceiling and walls testify to the truth of the Times description.
