What does a good Old West town need?

A Western shoot out game needs a locale, perhaps not a full town but at least a main street, but what businesses would be on that street and the ones branching off it.  In fact, what would a town look like back in the period 1870 to 1890(ish).    So, it was off to Google to check a couple of forums for some information.  The answer I found is that town layouts vary by location, type of settlement (that's the main industry the town supports) and how long the town had been in existence.

Location would have been partially linked to the type of settlement, for example a mining town isn't going to be founded where there are no minerals to exploit.  In cattle country the movie style grid layout would be standard, but in areas originally settled by the Spanish there was a formal layout that was followed, based on royal law.  In mining areas towns tended to be in valleys below the mines and followed the line of the valley sides.  Railroad towns tend to develop with main street at right angles to the track with stock pens and related businesses over on the 'wrong side of the tracks'.  Most main streets were much wider than we might expect at around 100 feet to allow a wagon and its team to turn 180 degrees.  Side streets were slightly narrower at around 60-80 feet and residential areas had far narrower streets.

For most towns the first buildings would be a store and a saloon.  These would start with tented establishments and if the town prospered these would be converted to more permanent structures.  Brick or stone buildings would be rare outside the centre of older, more important settlements with two exceptions the jail and the bank.  These might not be made entirely of brick or stone, but the secure areas would aim to be made from one of the other (depending on local material availability).   In the Southwest adobe buildings would be found in the older settlements and those built to the royal law would have a plaza and a church from almost the very start.

In terms of businesses, as noted above, the average town starts with the general store and saloon but there would be more drinking establishments than you might expect (more akin to UK market town numbers in the period up to the mid 1970s) with roughly one saloon/bar for each 100 inhabitants.  A cattle town would also have stock yards from very early on in its history.  After that a livery stable and blacksmith and additional stores would be added with the owners often living in the back or above the shop.  As those businesses prospered or if the town was attracting families, then housing would appear at the edge of town.  With time a cemetery, County Sheriff or Town Marshall's office/jail would appear.  In farming areas, a seed store would appear fairly early on.  Other businesses might include:

- A hotel 

- Restaurants (Man's gotta eat)

- Billiard Hall (more common than I expected)

- Undertaker (Can't leave 'em on top)

- Saw mill/lumber yard (the lumber for buildings has to come from somewhere)

- House of ill repute (or three)

- Barbers/dentist

- Doctors office

- Gunsmith (for passing bandits to steal weapons from)

- Butcher

- Baker

- Dry Goods Store

- Clothing Store

- Rooming house

- Land Office (for burning down to get rid of land grant records)

Eventually if the town attracted families a schoolhouse and a church would be built.  There was some basic urban planning with building lots marked out but no strict rules on what buildings went where but the main street tended to be where the less salubrious bars and businesses were sited the older areas being dodgier than the newer ones.  Spanish founded towns had to conform to Royal building laws so would generally have a more structured layout to the centre of town.  One reason for starting in 1869 is that I can legitimately have a limited number of buildings in De Lancy and add to them over time.

Basic construction front view

and rear view

Front with just the window frames to complete and roof to build.

I'm aiming to start with a couple of stores, a saloon and some stock pens.  I will also need a county Sherrif's office for story line purposes. Work has started on an initial scratch build store but longer term I'm eying up MDF kits.  The De Lancy Construction Co has started operations!