My oldest son is getting married!!!!  Yes, we’re excited.  Before I get into bridal showers, can I brag a bit? He pulled off one of the best proposals ever.  He went to grad school in Egypt, and he’s done a lot of travel in the Middle East. He and his soon-to-be fiance were backpacking in Syria where he took her to the highest tower of the Crac des Chevaliers, a castle from the Crusader era.  At the top, he asked a British tourist to take a picture.  Clever to the core, he faked having a rock in his shoe. When his girlfriend turned around, he was on bended knee with a ring on display, asking her to marry him.

She said yes and we’re so glad she did.  She came to Lexington this past weekend for a family bridal shower and we had great time.  We shopped for my “Mother of the Groom” dress together, ate Chinese food for lunch and came home to presents, games, food and Skype.  My son is still overseas, but we got things set up so he could watch the festivities via webcam. 

Imagine Skyping to a bridal shower. The world has sure changed . . . or has it? We had a kitchen themed shower much like mom had in in 1954.  As a kid I remember looking in the hope chest she’d filled with sheets and towels and an assortment of what-not for her new home. As long as I can remember, she had special things in that chest.  The history of hope chests would be an interesting blog. Since I have weddings on my mind, maybe I’ll do that next.  Today, though, I’ve been thinking about bridal showers.

My husband and I got married in 1980.  We practically eloped so we skipped the bridal shower tradition, though we made up for it with baby showers a few years later.  We started out with a set of everyday dishes, pots and pans, bedding and a lot of hand-me-downs. What we didn’t have, we bought at Pick n’ Save.  It’s been 30 years and would you believe I’m using the same red-handled can opener?

Bridal showers are a special time for the bride and family alike.  The custom as we know it in America originated in the 1890s.  It’s a gift-giving party for the purpose of getting the bride and groom set up in their new home.  In some cases, where the bride’s family was poor or perhaps opposed to the marriage, the bridal shower made sure the wedding could take place. It provided the bride and groom with what they needed to set up house and sustain their marriage.  Bridal showers also have ties to old dowry practices.  If a woman’s family refused to support her decision to marry, friends would come together and bring gifts to fill in the lack of a dowry.

Did you ever wonder why we call these events “showers” and not just parties”?    I figured it referred to showering the bride with gifts, but the word has more literal roots.  In the 1890s, it was the custom for the bride’s family and friends to put small presents in a parasol and open the parasol over her head.  Small should be the key word.  We gave my future d-i-l a set of pots and pans.  If they’d hit her in the head, she’d have been knocked unconscious . . . Same with the flatware! 

Bridal showers started as an urban tradition among wealthy families, but the custom quickly moved to rural America. Over the years, showers have evolved into a celebration that can be anything from a couples party to a bachelorette party to the traditional kind of party my mom enjoyed.

What about you? Have you given a bridal shower?  Been the bride at a shower in your honor?  What did you like best?  My favorite moment was watching my son on Skype as he joked with his bride-to-be.  It was just so sweet . . . I’ll never forget it.

Hi everyone!  I have kind of an odd  topic today about “strange things happening for a reason.”   Okay, maybe I should have saved this for closer to Halloween, but it’s a story that happened in the summer, and summer is coming to an end, so I wanted to tell you all about it now.

Because everything I write takes place in Oklahoma or Texas, and because I was born and raised in Oklahoma, most of my research tools are right at my fingertips.  Talking to older people in the area, going to the actual places where my stories are set, and visiting museums and landmarks are all part of my research practices for just about all my novels. 

Louis L’Amour said that if he wrote about a creek or a particular landmark, it was authentic; that it was actually where he said it was, and looked the way he described it.  I don’t quite go that far, but I try to keep the setting and every other component of my writing as true to life as possible.  In order to do that, sometimes you just have to “be there.”
 
Tamaha, Oklahoma, was an unlikely candidate to be included in my story, FIRE EYES, until I visited there.  But how its inclusion came about is a story in itself—and proves that sometimes our research, as that other saying goes, “happens.”
 
Though there’s very little to say about the actual town of Tamaha as it exists today, I couldn’t help but use it in my story, FIRE EYES, released last year.  In those long ago days of more than a century past when my story takes place, it was a thriving community.
 
There’s an odd thing that happened that made me include Tamaha in my book.  I’d been working on it, and had come to the part where the villain and his gang needed to reference a landmark.  But which one? And what was the significance? As I said, I try to stay as historically accurate in my writing as possible, and this story takes place in the eastern part of the state, toward the Arkansas/Oklahoma border.  I must admit, I’m not as familiar with that part of the state as I am with the central part, since that’s where I was born and raised.  A lot of these smaller towns don’t even dot the map, and I had never heard of Tamaha, until one day in May, 2005.
 
I’d just spoken with a lifelong friend, DaNel Jennings, who now lives in a town in that eastern area of the state.  In the course of the conversation, she mentioned that she and her husband, Jeff, were doing some genealogical research and she had learned she had some relatives buried in a small cemetery in Tamaha.  Now, the intriguing part of this was that her relatives bore the same last name as my maiden name, “Moss.” 
 
“Wouldn’t it be funny if we really were related?” she asked.  We’d always secretly hoped we were, and pretended that we were, when we were kids.
 
“Yes,” I responded with a laugh, “but where in the heck is Tamaha?” (As if I would know.)  She began trying to tell me where it was, and I said, “Never mind.  It’s a good thing Jeff knows where he’s going.  Let me know what you find.”
 
I hung up, wistfully wishing that I could go with her—but that was a three-hour drive and they were leaving the next day.  No way I could take off and drive down there on the spur of the moment, with family obligations.
 
A couple of hours later, my sister Karen called.  “Cheryl, I need you to come down this weekend,” she said.  I was really intrigued, because she is my “much older” sister—10 years older—and never much “needed” me for anything before.
 
“What’s going on?”
 
“I promised Mr. Borin I would take him to visit the graves of his parents and siblings for Memorial Day, and two of his brothers are buried in a cemetery in Tamaha—”
 
I never heard the rest of her sentence.  I was sure I had misunderstood.  “Where?”
 
“Tamaha.  And the others—”
 
Stunned, I interrupted her. “Wait, I have to tell you something.”  I couldn’t believe it.  I’d never heard of this place before, and now, within the space of 2 hours, two people who were very close to me had told me they were going to be going to the cemetery there! 
  
This was no mere “coincidence.” 

I promised her I would be there—no matter what—Friday afternoon.  We would be going on Saturday morning.
 
I would never have found the place on my own.  I doubt that Mapquest even has it on their site.  But Mr. Borin, an older gentleman my sister had befriended in years past, knew exactly where to go.  Once we got there, I stepped out and found the headstones for the “Moss” family.  It was amazing to think that my best friend, DaNel, whom I had not seen in over a year, had been standing where I was just a few days earlier—a place neither of us had been before. Again, I wondered what our research through family ancestry would yield. Were we related, as we’d always hoped?  There was an incredible sense of connection, for me, not only for what we were doing that day for Mr. Borin and his long dead relatives, but for what DaNel and I might discover about our own. (BTW, cemeteries are also one of my passions–great for research, just by reading the headstones and figuring out what happened.)
 
As the three of us, Karen, Mr. Borin, and I stood in the quiet peacefulness of the old cemetery, a man made his way toward us.  “Can I help you?” he asked, introducing himself.  We explained why we were there. “Let me show you the historical side of Tamaha while you’re here,” he said cheerfully.  He had lived there all his life, and there was no detail about the once-thriving community and surrounding area that he didn’t know.  He was glad to share his knowledge, and believe me, I was writing in my little notebook as fast as I could while he talked.
 
The cemetery is on a bluff overlooking the Arkansas River.  “Right down there is where the J.R. Williams was sunk.  She was a Confederate ship, but the Union seized her and changed the name to the J.R. Williams.  But Stand Watie and his men seized her back.”(June 15, 1864)  Our guide chuckled at the thought. 
 
NOTE:  (Stand Watie was one of only two Native American brigadier generals in the War Between the States.  He was the last Confederate officer to lay down his arms, and was also Chief of the Cherokee Nation at the time.) 
 
“Come on, I’ll show you the largest black oak tree in Oklahoma—and the oldest.”  Sure enough, it stood towering over one of the first buildings of the settlement of Tamaha, dating back to the 1800’s. 
 
Next, we visited the town jail, the oldest jail in Oklahoma, built in 1886.  We were able to walk right into it and take pictures.  “We’re trying to get money up to preserve it,” he said.  It stood in the middle of an overgrown field.  “Watch out for snakes, hon,” he told me. Yep, he didn’t have to tell me twice.  My eyes were peeled.
 
When we left, I knew I had my landmarks that I needed for my book.  I had seen it, and my imagination took over.  It was the “jog” I needed to get on with the writing, but I will never believe for one minute that it was coincidence. 
 
I use many research resources, but because of the nature of what I love to write—western romance—and because I have been so blessed to actually grow up in the area that I’m writing about, I feel like the most invaluable resource available to me are the people and places I meet and visit.  It’s all around me.
 
One of the best “hands on” research places I’ve ever been is The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.  I worked there for two years, and I loved every minute of it. The best advantage of working there was the fact that every morning when the doors opened, there was a whole new crowd of people to visit with, and yes, I carried a piece of paper and a pen in my pocket at all times. As for research books, I swallowed very hard and bought the complete set of Time/Life books about the West.  I use it constantly.  Another set of books that I have that really have been a great research tool have been Shelby Foote’s three-book series on the War Between the States.  Very easy to read and full of rich detail that you wouldn’t find in a “regular history book.”
 
But my day of research at Tamaha is one that I will never forget, and that I’m so glad to have been able to take part in.  Have any of you ever experienced anything like this?  Some kind of remarkable occurrence that has affected your writing  in some way?  Do you classify that as “research”?  Share it, if you have—I know I can’t be the only one!
 
Below is an excerpt from FIRE EYES. I hope you enjoy it! 
  
    
 
THE SET UP:  A stranger has shown up at Jessica’s door in the evening.  She is reluctant to let him inside, even though good manners would dictate that she find him a meal and a place to bed down.  There is something about him she doesn’t like—and with good reason, as we find out.
 
 
“Evenin’, ma’am.”

The stranger looked down the business end of Jessica’s Henry repeater. It was cocked and ready for action.

She drew a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. She stood just inside the cabin door, the muzzle of the rifle gleaming in the lamplight that spilled around her from the interior.

He raised his hands and gave her a sheepish grin. “Don’t mean to startle you. Just hopin’ for a meal. Settlers are few and far between in these here parts.”

“Where’s your horse?” She didn’t lower the gun.

“Well, funny thing. I kinda hate to admit it.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. “I, uh, lost him. Playin’ poker.”

“Where?”

“Over to Tamaha.”

“You’re quite a ways from Tamaha,” she said. “Even farther from where I expect you call home.”

He gave a slow, white grin. “More recently, I hail from the Republic of Texas.”

Jessica raised her chin a notch. It was almost as if this man invited dissension. She disliked the cool, unperturbed way he said it. The Republic of Texas. “Texas is a state, Mister. Has been for over twenty years.”

“Well, now,” he said, placing his booted foot on the bottom porch step. “I guess that all depends on who you’re talkin’ to.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she stepped back to shut the door. “I think you better—”

“Ma’am, I’m awful hungry. I’d be glad for any crumb you could spare.”

“What did you say your name was?” Her voice shook, and she cleared her throat to cover her nervousness. Most people had better manners than to show up right at dark.

“I didn’t. But, it’s Freeman. Andy Freeman.”

“Are you related to Dave Freeman?”

“He’s my brother.” He gave her a sincere look. “Look, ma’am, I’d sure feel a heap better talkin’ to you if I wasn’t lookin’ at you through that repeater. I been lookin’ for Dave.” There was an excited hopefulness in his tone. “You seen him? Ma, she sent me up here after him. She’s just a-hankerin’ for news of him. He ain’t real good about letter-writin’.”

Jessica sighed and lowered the rifle. “Come on in, Mr. Freeman. I’ll see what I can find for you to eat, and give you what news I have of your brother.”

“Thank you, Ma’am. I sure do appreciate your hospitality.”

FIRE EYES  is available at www.thewildrosepress.com

I thought it’d be fun to look back at some of the occupations of the 1800’s and even earlier. Some sound very weird to us but I’m sure back then they weren’t any different from computer technician, an astronaut, a day trader, or a stock broker.

And while everything had a name, settlers on the frontier tended to call things normal terms everyone could understand. Like simply a stage coach driver instead of a whip. People started moving away from the stiff technical terms, opting for less flowery language. Most folks back in the early days didn’t have time to waste on words that bent the tongue. They were too busy trying to survive.

Some jobs carried simple names that you know right off what the person did. Like:

Tanner - one who tans and cures animal hides (still around today but not real common)
Spurrer – one who made spurs
Saddler - one who made, repaired, or sold saddles and other furnishings for horses
Sawyer – one who sawed trees or wood by hand at a lumber mill or lumbering operation
Teamster – one who drove a horse, mule or ox-drawn freight wagon; a modern day truck driver  

Matchgirl – a girl who sold matches

A lot of these others you probably already know but maybe you’ll find a few surprises.

Lormer – a maker of horsegear
Boardwright – carpenter; one who made tables and chairs and the like
Bone Picker – someone who traveled around collecting rags and bones
Pettifogger – shyster lawyer
Peripatetic Artist – one who went from town to town painting portraits or panoramas on walls of homes and taverns
Cordwainer – one who made shoes – different from a cobbler who just repairs them
Farrier - a blacksmith who specializes in shoeing horses – called same today as back then
Cooper – someone who made or repaired wooden barrels, tubs or the like
Chandler – a candlemaker – had a steady business before gas and electric lights
Lamplighter – someone appointed to light streetlamps at dusk and extinguish them at dawn
Runner - someone who solicited business for a hotel, boardinghouse, steamship and the like

Whitesmith – tinsmith or worker of iron who finished or polished an item
Tinker – someone who made tinware
Wheelwright – one who made or repaired wheels for wagons, carriages or coaches
Snow Warden – someone appointed in one of the northern states to keep snow flattened and evenly distributed over roads for sleds and sleighs
Drummer – traveling salesman

In the old West, some of these jobs tended to overlap at times. For instance, a blacksmith often made spurs and/or tinware and the like in addition to forging horseshoes, plows, farm implements, tools, etc. He might also shoe horses and be the owner of the livery or stables.

All of this makes me wonder which of today’s occupations will vanish in the next 50 or 100 years. And what new occupations will take their place? It’ll be interesting to see. They’ll most likely have increased space travel; maybe take passengers back and forth to the moon, mars, or another of the planets. Wonder what those passengers will be called? Simply space travelers or something trendier?

What is the strangest profession (modern or otherwise) that you’ve heard?

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 The Philadelphia Deringer is a small percussion handgun designed by Henry Deringer and produced from 1852 through 1868. The term derringer is actually a misspelling of the maker’s last name. Kind of like kleenex (with a small k), the term derringer is now used to describe any pocket-sized pistol.

The original Deringer pistol was a single-shot muzzle-loading pistol. That means you had one ball of lead backed by the power of a measure of black powder. No multi-shot shootouts with this little beauty. Subsequent models were made to use the new cartridge type ammunition–aka a bullet–but a derringer never held more than two shots.

Derringer often refers to the smallest usable handgun of a given caliber. They were frequently used by women, because the size made the pistol easy to conceal in a reticule on slipped into a stocking garter. Derringers are not repeating firearms. The original cartridge derringers held only a single round, usually a .40 caliber cartridge. [.40 refers to the diameter of the bullet, in this case .40” or 10.16mm.] The barrel pivoted sideways on the frame for reloading.

The famous Remington derringer, sold from 1866 to 1935, was designed with a second barrel on top of the first. This meant two shots instead of one, without much more weight to carry around. On this two-shot pistol, the barrels pivoted upward for reloading.

If you plan to use this pretty little thing, keep in mind that the bullet moved very slowly–about half the speed of a modern bullet. It could actually be seen in flight. Still, at close range, such as at card table or in a stage coach, it would be deadly.

Another thing to consider, should you want a character to carry a derringer: it took a lot to load and prepare the pistol. I’ll let you read for yourself.

“For loading a Philadelphia Deringer, one would typically fire a couple of percussion caps on the handgun, to dry out any residual moisture contained in the tube or at the base of the barrel, to prevent a subsequent misfire. One would then remove the remains of the last fired percussion cap and place the handgun on its half-cock notch, pour 15 to 25 grains of blackpowder down the barrel, followed by ramming a patched lead ball down onto the powder, being very careful to leave no air gap between the patched ball and the powder, to prevent the handgun from exploding when used. (The purpose of the patch on the ball was to keep the ball firmly lodged against the powder, to avoid creating what was called a “short start” when the ball was dislodged from being firmly against the powder.) A new percussion cap would then be placed on the tube (what today would be called a nipple), and the gun was then loaded and ready to fire. (The half-cock notch prevented the hammer from falling if the trigger were bumped accidentally while carrying the handgun in one’s coat pocket.) Then, to fire the handgun, a user would fully cock the hammer, aim, and squeeze the trigger. Upon a misfire, the user could fully re-cock the hammer, and attempt to fire the handgun once more, or, equally common, switch to a second Deringer. Accuracy was highly variable; although front sights were common, rear sights were less common, and some Philadelphia Deringers had no sights at all, being intended for point and shoot use instead of aim and shoot, across Poker-table distances. Professional gamblers, and others who carried regularly, often would fire and reload daily, to decrease the chance of a misfire upon needing to use a Philadelphia Deringer.” http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Derringer&action=edit&section=3

And how did this little pistol change history? It was the weapon used by John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln in the Ford Theater on April 14, 1865.

You never know where a story idea will come from . . . This one came from my husband when he powered up his new Lawn Boy power lawn mower. Who’d have guessed that our modern method of cutting grass originated with a romance?  Not me, though I love my husband dearly for taking care of this particular chore.

The Lawn Boy love story began in 1904 with the pursuit of a woman who liked ice cream.  Ole Evinrude, the eventual founder of Lawn-Boy, had eyes for Bess Cary. Bess liked ice cream and Ole wanted to bring her an ice cream cone.  Two things stood in his way. He had to row across Wisconsin’s Okauchee Lake, and the sun was blazing hot. Determined to impress Bess, Ole made the trip, purchased the cone and rowed back across the lake as fast as he could.  Predictably he arrived with a soupy mess.

Never again, he promised her. That promise led to the invention of the outboard motor.  Ole perfected the design in 1907 and Bess presumably had all the ice cream cones she could eat.  Evinrude Motors was born with Ole’s invention, a basic design that’s still in use today. Outboard motors eventually led to power lawn mowers.  Through different mergers and partnerships, Evinrude Motors became Lawn-Boy, a multi-million dollar business that’s appreciated by millions of men and women who have the task of mowing the lawn.

My husband  is glad for the power mower, but on a day like today–it’s 90 degrees outside and humid–he wouldn’t mind a little help from Mother Nature. Some American Presidents had the same idea. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson  used sheep to control the grass on their estates.  When Woodrow Wilson was president, sheep grazed on the White House lawn. This was more than just lawn control. It served as a reminder of the wool shortage during World War I.  The wool from the sheep was auctioned for $100,000 with the proceeds going to the American Red Cross.

Having grown up in a suburban part of Los Angeles, I’ve always taken lawns for granted.  Until I was about six, my dad waged war with dandelions and crabgrass in an effort to have a perfect dichondra lawn. He lost . . . but not without a fight that included weed killer and steer manure. (I can still smell it–phfew!)  The weeds won and eventually he planted winter rye, the greenest grass I’d seen before coming to Bluegrass country here in Kentucky.

Lawns weren’t always common. In the 19th century they were considered a luxury and a sign of wealth.  The upkeep required groundskeepers who cut the blades with scythes. It was a massive job that required surprising skill.  Watering was a chore, too.  Hoses and sprinklers came into use much later.

It’s not surprising that the game of golf had a role in getting grass to grow so commonly in America.  In 1915, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture collaborated with the U.S. Golf Association to find a grass–or combination of grasses–that would grow in U.S. climates. Fifteen years later grass was common and a new industry had been born. To protect their beloved lawns, Americans needed fertilizer and pesticides.  Throw in garden hoses, sprinklers and lawn mowers like the one invented by Ole Evinrude, and you have a brief history of lawns in America.

Just for fun . . . Do you have a lawn?  What kind of mower do you use?  Push or power? Does anyone have a ride-on?  Check out this video for the coolest idea of all…

With the national health-care debate on most everybody’s minds these days, I thought it would be enlightening to explore the options for health care in the Old West of the 1800s.

Technology exploded during the Gilded Age—the steam engine, electricity, the telegraph—marvels to behold! One would think medicine and health care would be right on track. Unfortunately, this was not the case. “Knife and pain” were two words always associated in the surgery-bound patient’s mind. Blood-letting (as much as a pint a day!) was still the “sure” technique to cure most illnesses—even into the late 1870s.

The brave folks who headed West discovered a new ailment: malaria, also know as the ague, which struck its victims with fever and chills. Very few escaped this disease. It was so common to Western life that it was considered normal: “He ain’t sick. He’s only got the ague” was an oft-heard remark.

Doctors were few and far between, if you could call them doctors at all (more about that later). Doctors could make two – three times as much money in the cities than in the country, so why would they hang around out West? The only treatment folks usually received was “He purged me, he bled me, he poked me. He never cured me.” So whiskey often served as a quick and effective pain-killer—it made the patient dead drunk.

Maybe you’ve complained about the high insurance and medical costs these days. Who hasn’t? Let’s take a look at what people paid for their health care in the late 1800s. Perhaps you’ll wish you were living back in the Old West.

Then again . . . anything you paid back then for services was too much, considering the actual, legitimate care you received in return:

Office call: 50 cents

House call (per mile): 50 cents (this could get expensive if you lived on a remote ranch 20 miles out of town). Some doctors would charge less if you fed his horse.

Labor and Delivery: $4.00

Fractures: $2.00 – $10.00

When you think that the average working-class family earned about $10.00 a week, it’s plain to see that most folks could hardly afford private medical attention. However, all things considered (the blood-letting, purging, sweating, etc.), this may not have been a disadvantage, and they probably lived longer.

Because guess what? The average patient had no clue if the new doctor (who had just hung up his shingle on the main street of Dodge City) was legitimate or not. The lack of education and proper licensing exposed the sick to all kinds of quacks posing as physicians. The medical field in those days did not attract the sons of the elite (they’d rather be lawyers), but instead attracted folks who saw a chance to get rich quickly. Most medical schools (and I use the term generously) were really diploma mills that required students to take only two, 4 – 6 month courses (the second course being a repeat of the first course). Even Harvard Medical School, which did have higher standards, rejected the idea of requiring a written examination for their graduates in 1869!

The diagnosis of the patient was based on guesswork (whether the doctor was educated or not), and the cure was totally unreliable. Sometimes the patient recovered; more often he did not. Especially if any kind of surgery was involved. During this “kitchen-table surgery,” the rural doctor was generally indifferent to any kind of cleanliness. Some of his instruments were not even rust-free (are you shuddering yet?). The doctor kept the sutures strung through his lapels or between his teeth for a handy reach. I guess the phrase, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger” took on an all-too-serious meaning in the Old West.

The next time you visit a friend in the hospital, take a look around and send a prayer upwards that this place actually helps people get well rather than sends them quicker to the afterlife. Truly, the hospitals of the 19^th century were the last resort for the poor. No person with any money at all would enter the doors of such a place, preferring rather to stay in their own, relatively clean and safe beds at home. I will mention that the Mayo Clinic was an exception to the general rule, but a private room in 1880 was $3.00 – $5.00 a day. Besides, the Mayo Clinic was a far cry from the Old West. Even so, most people knew that a hospital was a place to avoid, especially if one valued his or her health!

When you look at the news and wonder what our American health-care system is coming to, take a little trip down memory lane and try to imagine your health-care options of the late 1800s. Hollywood has glamorized most aspects of the Old West, but the truth is: The Good Old Days . . . They Were Terrible!

*************

In honor of the release of my new Circle C Adventure Book 6, Andrea Carter and the Price of Truth, I’m offering an autographed copy. You can read the first chapter at www.circlecadventures.com

To enter the contest, just leave a comment about some aspect of health care—modern or old-time. Perhaps you have a health-care story from grandparents or great-grandparents.       Share and win!

There’s gold in them thar hills…somewhere!  Throughout the history of the West, stories are told of lost, forgotten and misplaced mines.  Many have been sitting undisturbed for years, shrouding their boundless wealth, just waiting to be re-discovered.  Gold and silver-bearing regions are awash with stories of miners losing their way; Indians killing off the miners and then hiding the markings; flash floods destroying the lay of the land; earthquakes changing the rock formations that helped a miner find his way.  
Some of these accounts, of course, are surely yarns, just like the “fish-stories” told by sailors.  But many are the true tale of mines “gone missing” to the poor fools that lost them.  In Arizona alone, there are thought to be at least twenty such sites.  Can you imagine how many the vast American West could be hiding?  

The naysayers can scoff, but in 1959 the Burro Mountains gave up their treasure of the long-lost Spanish mines, twenty-five miles northwest of Lordsburg, New Mexico. And in 1965, Arizona’s “Lost Coconimo” mine was found in the state’s Sycamore Canyon.  

If you’re feeling lucky and have been bitten by wanderlust, you might want to check out a few of the accountings I’ve listed of some of the most famous or colorful lost mines:

—Lost Blue Bucket at the Malheur River in eastern Oregon.  The date was 1846 when a wagon train pulled into camp on the middle fork of the Malheur.  Some pioneers, finding some stones in a creek bed, filled a hand-made blue papier-mâché bucket. Later they learned their finding was gold. Status: still lost.

—Lost Rhoades in the Uintah Mountains, northeastern Utah.  This mine was said to be owned and strictly guarded by the Mormons.  Only Brigham Young and a handful of elders and two other members of the Rhoades family knew of its location.  In 1877 the Indians placed a ban on visits to the ledge where the mine was located, because it was on the Uintah Reservation.  In 1905, Caleb Rhoads, the last living person to know its whereabouts, took the secret to his grave and the “bank” of the Mormon Church was lost, so to speak.  He left a crude map with only Rock Creek and Moon Lake as landmarks, but others have been unable to find its location. Status: still lost.

—Lost Padre, somewhere in the 113,809 square miles of Arizona.   This mine, originally owned by Indians, was taken over by Spanish missionaries.  After the California gold strike of 1849, the Southwest had a surge of hopeful miners looking for their Eureka.  To keep their mine secret, the padres sealed it off. It’s been re-discovered several times, but with all the lucky finders ending in a violent death. Status: still lost.

—Lost Gunsight in California’s Death Valley.  No date is given for the first discovery of a reef that was said to be heavily laden with silver.   It was discovered by a single man who was part of a Mormon migrant party.  He fashioned a gun sight for his rifle with the silver from the reef.  Stories of this silver reef in Death Valley have circulated for years, and it’s been found and lost several times.  It’s believed that the cause of its elusiveness is the shifting sands.  Status: still lost.

—Lost Adams, south of the Little Colorado River in northeast-central Arizona.  In 1864, this gold-bearing dry wash was discovered by a man known only as Adams, along with a party of prospectors.  They were led by an Apache half-breed.  Soon after the colorful discovery, a war party descended and killed many of the men and ran the others off.  For ten frustrating years, Adams tried to get back to the findings, but was always held off by the Indians.  Finally, after the Apache Indians had been moved, Adams went back in search but was never able to find the correct spot.            This discovery is also known as the “Lost Adams Diggins” and has been made into a movie called Mackenna’s Gold. Status: still lost.
As you now see, there is still gold in them thar hills! You just have to be lucky enough to find and keep it.  Have you ever been gold panning?

Have you visited a haunted mine or discovered something special?  We’d love to hear about it…
 
Today, in celebration of the release of MONTANA DAWN, I’m offering a signed copy to a commenter.  Also, if you go to my website (www.carolinefyffe.com) and sign up for my News Letter on the contact page, you will be entered in the drawing for a basket filled with candies, chocolates, muffin mix,  a handsome coffee mug (filled with even more chocolate!) and a jar of scrumptious jam, all made from the Big Sky State’s coveted huckleberry.  

Also included is an autographed copy of both MONTANA DAWN and WHERE THE WIND BLOWS.  It’s as easy as pie. The winner will be drawn on December 10th, 2010–just in time for Christmas.
 It’s wonderful to be here again at Petticoats & Pistols.  

Thank you to all the Fillies for having me.  It seems like only yesterday when we were talking about Pioneer Teachers and how they helped shape the West.  Don’t know about the rest of you, but time seems to have jumped its bank…and there’s no holding it back.

<— CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON

I’ve been in jail just once n my life . . . It was in San Francisco in 1976.  Before anyone gets too excited, I should tell you that I was taking a tour of Alcatraz Island, and my time in solitary confinement wasn’t very solitary. A tour guide locked ten of us in a cell that went pitch black. He opened the door in a minute later, but that experience is burned into my brain.

With a new proposal in the works, I’ve been digging for new ideas. Those few hours on Alcatraz came back with amazing vividness. I won’t be using “The Rock” as part of the story–it was a military prison until the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906–but I’ve been reading about the Wyoming Territorial Prison.  It’s an interesting place . . . but I wouldn’t want to live there. 

Back in 1869 things were a bit wild in the Wyoming Territory, and the area needed a facility to house convicted criminals. The Wyoming Territorial Prison was built in 1872 near the town of Laramie. Paid for with federal money, the prison had 42 cells when it opened under the direction of Deputy United States Marshall Nathaniel K. Boswell.  Talk about a challenging job!  Over the course of 30 years, the prison had some interesting guests. The most well known was Butch Cassidy (I can’t help but see Paul Newman and his blue eyes from the  movie). Joining him were over 1,000 men and 12 women convicted of crimes that ranged from thievery, illegal liquor sales and manslaughter.

Are you curious about the 12 women? I was. They were housed on the second floor of the south wing of the jail in two cells with a third cell serving as the bathroom.  They were also locked up 24/7 probably for their safety.  Let’s meet some of them…

Nettie Stewart Wright was the first female inmate.  She was suspected of stealing arms and ammunition from Fort McKinney. She was detained for two weeks before the charges were dropped.

Mollie Wrinsinger and Belle Jones were Prisoners No. 10 and 11. They had a lot in common. Both were abandoned by their husbands. To survive they turned to petty theft and prostitution. Belle had six kids, so you can imagine the need.  She and Mollie got caught doing something that today would get them on a “dumbest criminals” TV show. Belle wore a jacket she’d stolen to a large social gathering. The original owner recognized it, and Belle and Mollie ended up behind bars. They served 18 months for their capering.

Nineteen-year-old Florence Gains was Prisoner No. 80.  A prostitute, she got in a fight with a competitor and stabbed the woman six times. 

Stella F. Gatlin was Prisoner No. 150. She was convicted of stealing mail and was the first person to use kleptomania as a defense.

The woman to spend the most time in the Wyoming Territorial Prison was Minnie Snyder (No. 270). She was convicted of manslaughter for being with her husband when he killed a man. While incarcerated, she got in a terrible fight with inmate Lillie Todd. The two of them earned the dubious distinction of being the only two women to spend time in solitary confinement. The punishment must done something, because afterwards Minnie earned a shorter sentence for good behavior. She still spent 1,511 days behind bars, far longer than any other female prisoner.

Eliza Stewart, a known narcotics addict, went to prison for shooting her boyfriend in the neck at a Saturday night dance.  Why they were fighting has been lost to history, but her nickname was “Big Jack.” You’ve got wonder how that came to be.

Another addict was a nurse named Lillie Todd. She was discovered in the halls of the Vendome Hotel, well dressed with her namesake flower in her hat. She was scavenging for things she could steal to support her morphine habit. She stole diamond jewelry and spent eleven months in the Laramie prison before returning to her family.

The stories of women who spent time in the Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie are both fascinating and sad.  Some were able to change their ways and went on to live long and typical lives. Others weren’t so fortunate. It’s an interesting mix of humanity, history and headlines that could be read even today.

The Missouri River divides Nebraska and Iowa. Just across the Missouri River from where I live is the city we now know as Council Bluffs. Lewis and Clark first came through in 1804, but fur traders had already visited the outposts. During the 1830s, a path appeared where Indian Creek flowed out of the Loess Hills at Caldwell’s Potawatomi village and led west across the Eight-Mile Prairie. The Mormons arrived in 1846, and two years later named the settlement Kanesville in honor of Colonel Thomas Kane who befriended them when they were driven from Navoo, Illinois because of their religious beliefs. Brigham Young was inaugurated president of the Mormons along the path that had become known as Broadway.

When the Mormons deserted Kanesville in 1849, they left behind 80 – 100 log cabins and a post office. The cabins were sold cheap as the gold-seekers moved through. Tens of thousands of pioneers outfitted for the gold rush. It was reported that every available building was converted into a gambling and drinking hall. The resulting conditions were described as a very dirty, unhealthy place. One female settler passing through wrote that she got a taste of such profanity she’d had no idea was practiced in the world, while another claimed she had witnessed a drunken orgy. In 1853 a mayor was elected to deal with lawlessness and a land office opened. A city jail was established  and a vigilance committee sanctioned to enforce order by any means necessary, including limiting sales of gunpowder. MARY CONNEALY HAS BLOGGED ON THE SQUIRREL CAGE JAIL

The city couldn’t tax squatter titles, so instead of property taxes, the city budget came from licensing all the saloons and gambling halls. (I find it interesting that Council Bluffs is once again relying on casinos for city profit. There are no casinos allowed in neighboring Nebraska.) So booze and gambling padded the city coffers.

In 1853 those remaining after the miners moved west renamed the town to Council Bluffs, commemorating the 1804 council between the Otoe Indians and Meriweather Lewis and Colonel William Clark. IN 1855 the Kansas-Nebraska act opened the territory west of the Missouri to settlement and fueled the sectional conflict between the North and South that would erupt into the Civil War less than a decade later.

The first immigrants lived in tents or dugouts in the hills and hollows between the bluffs while they built homes. The following year William Brown, who’d come west with the gold miners and stayed to prosper, sold shares in his Council Bluffs and Nebraska ferry company, The Lone Tree ferry, to former Virginian Samuel Bayless and others and together those men staked out a claim of 322 city blocks on the west bank of the river, laying the plans for the city of Omaha. A hotel was built and a Methodist church held service. Next came a sawmill.

After two fires, most Council Bluffs building were replaced with brick. Abraham Lincoln visited Council Bluffs to examine 160 acres of land he’d received as collateral on a defaulted loan, and he gave a speech at the concert hall. Three years later, Lincoln selected Council Bluffs as eastern terminus of the first transcontinental railroad, which was completed in 1869 with General Grenville M. Dodge as chief construction engineer. Railcars were transported across the river by ferry until the completion of a railway bridge in 1873. By 1940 Council Bluffs had become the fifth largest rail center in the United States.

The Woodward Candy Company once stood at the corner of Broadway and Glen Avenue and for a time was the city’s largest employer. Some of the recipes were sold to Russel Stover Candies in the 1930s.

There are six historical districts, with many of the homes and buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, Registry of Local Landmarks and the National Historical Landmarks Registry.

The Black Angel – Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial
Ruth Anne Dodge, wife of General Grenville Dodge, had a dream or vision shortly before she died in 1916. This vision had an angel at the prow of a boat carrying a small bowl and extending her other arm toward Mrs. Dodge. The daughters of the Dodges commissioned a sculptor, Daniel Chester French, to design a monument based on this vision. French is best known as the designer of the seated Lincoln in the Memorial in Washington D. C.

LEAVE A COMMENT TODAY AND I’LL PUT YOUR NAME IN THE COWBOY HAT FOR A DVD OF APALOOSA.

I was going to blog about vigilante justice (an oxymoron in most cases) in the west but then, well, the Fourth of July intruded on my thought processes.

I was traveling last week, really a necessity after the death of my mom two weeks earlier, and I returned yesterday, the Fourth of July, and became captivated by the History Channel and its hours on the founding of our nation.

This blog is not really about our west, but it is about the war that decided that future. I’ve always been unhappy that the publishing industry usually vetoed anything to do with early American history, particularly the American Revolution. No interest, they contended. Or too controversial. I sneaked several books through, mainly by starting them with a prologue in Scotland. (Yes, I can be very sneaky). But when I first started writing, I didn’t know about the “rules” and the “taboos.” Therefore, my first two books were the two “no no’s in publishing: the Civil War and the American Revolution.”

 The Civil War book escaped the taboo because it took place in the western theater of the war (New Mexico). The second, titled “Swampfire,” luckily fell into the hands of an editor who also loved early American history and was willing to take a risk.

One of my all-time personal heroes is Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox in South Carolina. Some of you out there might remember the Disney series called “The Swamp Fox.” Others might recall “the Patriot,” with Mel Gibson that was modeled after Francis Marion.

Francis Marion was a central character in “Swampfire,” and so I was delighted Sunday afternoon when the History Channel basically reported that he and other guerrilla leaders like him played a vital part in winning the war. 

After four years of  war, the British, stalemated in the north, turned their sights to the South and had they won we would be a far different nation today.

In the south, the British won battle after battle against inept American generals, and those victories encouraged the British loyalists and grew their number.   South Carolina became a caldron of divided loyalties. Father against son, brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor. When we talk about divided loyalties in this country, we think about the Civil War, but none can match the ferocity of the divisions in 1780. Homes were burned by neighbors. Those thought friendly to one side or another were tarred and feathered by previous friends.  When it was thought the British were winning in the south, many changed sides, and the war in the south seemed  lost, But then guerilla bands cropped up throughout South Carolina. They cut communication and supply routes, harried the British in hit-and- run attacks and gradually bled the British.

It was Francis Marion who, among three guerrilla commanders, fascinated me. His plantation was burned because of his patriot loyalties and he lost everything. He was fifty, old for the time, but tireless. He’d fought with the Patriots for years but when the British came to South Carolina, he took to the swamps with a small band of men.   He emerged at night to attack the British and was one of the few who didn’t succumb to illness.    He drank a glass of vinegar every day and urged his men to do the same. They didn’t, and he alone was one of the few among them who didn’t suffer from malaria. Now we know that vinegar repels mosquitoes, but he just knew it worked.

The swamps were not a welcoming place and he lived there for  a year, sleeping during the day and attacking at night. They moved constantly, never spending a night in the same place. He got the name Swamp Fox when a particularly brutal British officer named Tarleton was charged with catching him and finally gave up, saying it was impossible to catch the “swamp fox.” The tales and legends are many. The History Channel reported on Sunday that although he led men in battle he himself never shot a man. In all I’ve read about him, I’d notr heard that particular fact although I did know he decried vengeance and was known to be very fair. I read diaries of men who rode with him and their devotion to him was remarkable and never wavered. Francis Marion, a bachelor, finally married his cousin at fifty-four after the war.

I’ve always believed that fiction writers can never compete with the real life characters who paraded through our history and had such a great impact on it. Francis Marion was one of the people.

 I’m stretching a point and justifying this blog because the American victory in the south led to opening of the country, especially those lands  west of the original thirteen colonies. We owe so much to those who who founded, and fought for, this nation.    I hope we as a nation we never forget them.

Do you have a real life American hero?     I’ll select by random one of those who respond and send them a copy of  “Swampfire.”