In February, 1900, the Evening Gazette in Reno, Nevada, explained the origin of the term “honkytonk:” “Every child of the range can tell what honkatonk means and where it came from. Away, away back in the very early days, so the story goes, a party of cow punchers rode out from camp at sundown in search of recreation after a day of toil. They headed for a place of amusement, but lost the trail. From far out in the distance there finally came to their ears a ‘honk-a-tonk-a-tonk-a-tonk-a,’ which they mistook for the bass viol. They turned toward the sound, to find alas! a flock of wild geese. So honkatonk was named.”
This is almost certainly not true. For one thing, I’m not at all sure that wild geese would be doing all that honking after sundown, whether they were flying (do geese even fly at night?) or on the ground. Luckily, there’s another explanation for where “honkytonk” came from.
Starting sometime in the 1880s, there was a company in New York that made and sold Ernest A. Tonk Pianos. That was about the same time that Tin Pan Alley was forming, also in New York, as a place where lots of musicians, composers, and music publishers were located. According to this story, the “tonk” in “honkytonk” comes from Ernest A. Tonk Pianos, which at least some of the music studios might have used.
This is probably not true either. The Tonk company started in 1880 or so, but didn’t begin labeling their pianos with “Ernest A. Tonk” until 1889. And in that same year, the Daily Gazette in Fort Worth, Texas published this: “A petition to the council is being circulated for signatures, asking that the Honky Tonk theater on Main Street be reopened.” It doesn’t seem very likely that “honkytonk” could have been coined so quickly after Tonk pianos came on the market. And even if they did, how could the term have caught on so quickly among people in Texas? Not to mention that the Daily Gazette printed that bit on January 24th of 1889, so by then the pianos (probably) didn’t even carry the Tonk name yet.
Luckily, there’s still another explanation for where “honkytonk” came from. Or, well, no there isn’t. “Honkytonk” refers to a kind of bar or entertainment hall, and also to a style of music. Most people, at least in the US, seem to know what it means, but nobody really has the slightest (reasonable) idea where it came from.
