The Boston Saloon was one of the most popular African American–owned establishments in nineteenth-century Nevada. ________ by businessman William A.G....

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• The Boston Saloon was one of the most popular African American-owned establishments in nineteenth-century Nevada.
• [Created/?] by businessman William A.G. Brown, the saloon was known to offer elegant accommodations and an inclusive environment.

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start from the beginning:

• 'The Boston Saloon was one of the most popular African American-owned establishments in nineteenth-century Nevada.'
  • This gives us context - we're learning about a famous establishment from the 1800s.

Now the second sentence begins:

• '______ by businessman William A.G. Brown,'

This is where we have the blank. Let's look at the choices:

• Created
• Creates
• Creating
• Create

So we're deciding on the form of the verb "create."

To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence:

• 'the saloon was known to offer elegant accommodations and an inclusive environment.'

Now let's understand what the complete sentence is telling us:

• The phrase at the beginning - '[blank] by businessman William A.G. Brown' -
  • is describing the saloon
  • is telling us who created or established it
• The main part of the sentence - 'the saloon was known to offer elegant accommodations and an inclusive environment' -
  • is telling us what the saloon was famous for
  • 'was known' is the main verb doing the primary action here

What do we notice about the structure here?

• The word 'by' after the blank is a key signal
  • When we see 'by [person]' in a phrase like this, it indicates a passive construction
  • The person after 'by' is the one doing the action
• We need a verb form that works with this passive construction:
  • 'Created by William A.G. Brown' works perfectly
  • This is a past participle that creates a descriptive phrase about the saloon

So the answer is Created (Choice A). The sentence means: The saloon, which was created by William A.G. Brown, was known for its elegant accommodations and inclusive environment.

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Past Participles in Introductory Descriptive Phrases

When you begin a sentence with a phrase that describes the subject using a passive construction (indicated by "by" + the person or thing doing the action), you need to use the past participle form of the verb:

Pattern:

• [Past Participle] by [who did it], [subject] [main verb]...

Examples:

Example 1:

• ✓ Founded by Alexander Hamilton, the bank became a financial powerhouse.
• "Founded by Alexander Hamilton" = introductory descriptive phrase (past participle)
• "the bank became" = main subject and verb

Example 2:

• ✓ Written by an anonymous author, the pamphlet sparked widespread debate.
• "Written by an anonymous author" = introductory descriptive phrase (past participle)
• "the pamphlet sparked" = main subject and verb

In this question:

• ✓ Created by businessman William A.G. Brown, the saloon was known to offer elegant accommodations.
• "Created by businessman William A.G. Brown" = introductory descriptive phrase (past participle)
• "the saloon was known" = main subject and verb

The past participle is needed because this is essentially a shortened version of a passive voice construction. The full version would be "The saloon was created by businessman William A.G. Brown, and the saloon was known..." but we efficiently combine these ideas by starting with the past participle form.