Being born and raised in Texas, there’s just so much I take for granted, so I thought I’d share with you all a few Texisums and some laws that you might be interested to know about when you do come to the bigger than life state of Texas.

 “You all” is both singular and plural.

 “Y’all come back, you hear.” A Texan isn’t particularly expecting an answer and we’re inviting you or you and all of your friends back. Thus it can be singular or plural.

“All you all” is definitely plural. It means each and every one of you, while “you all’s” can be singular possessive or plural possessive. But “all you all’s” is definitely plural possessive.

Mosey:  Means both “to move quickly” and “to move slowly”.  A 2,000 pound Brahma bull moseys pretty dern slow, while a cowboy moseying toward a honky tonk for a cold beer would mosey rather quickly.

Fixin’ is an interesting word, not unlike “you all”.  It can be a verb, adverb or a noun, depending on how it’s being used.  Here’s a quote from the dictionary.  “Regional Note: “Fixin’ to” ranks with y’all as one of the best known markers of Southern dialect, although it seems to be making its way into the informal speech and writing of non-Southerners.”  Here in Texas you’ll hear us say  something like, “I’m fixin’ to leave for the grocery store to get the fixin’s to fix dinner with.”

A couple of things only a true Texan would know. The difference between a hissie fit and a conniption fit and the general direction of cattywumpus.

Here are a few Texas laws that are still on the books.

Temple: Cattle thieves may be hanged on the spot. No one may ride a horse and buggy through the town square, but they can ride their horse in the saloon.

Austin: Wire cutters cannot be carried in your pocket. 

San Antonio: It is illegal for both sexes to flirt or respond to flirtation using the eyes and/or hands. It is also illegal to urinate on the Alamo.

Texarkana: Owners of horses may not ride them at night without tail lights.

It is illegal to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel.

It’s illegal to milk another’s cow.

In Kingsville, there is a law against two pigs having sex on the city’s airport property. Why just the city’s airport property? Don’t ask me!

Up here in the Panhandle it’s against the law to throw confetti, rubber balls, feather dusters, whips or quirts and explosive firecrackers of any kind.  Also, it’s illegal to dust any public building with a feather duster.

Lubbock:  It is illegal to drive within an arm’s length of alcohol, including alcohol in someone else’s blood stream.  This is where “Don’t Mess With Texas” comes in loud and clear!  

In El Paso, churches, hotels, halls of assembly, stores, markets, banking rooms, railroad depots, and saloons are required to provide spittoons “of a kind and number to efficiently contain expectorations into them.” 

In other parts of Texas you can’t land an airplane on the beach, throw trash from an airplane, or inhale fumes from model glue, not to mention you must obtain permission from the director of parks and recreation before getting drunk in any city park.

Texas is a common law state, so you can be legally married by publicly introducing a person as your husband or wife three times. So my advice to you, be careful what you say when you have your snoot full in a Texas honky tonk.

Port Arthur:  Obnoxious odors may not be emitted while in an elevator.

Some of these laws have been changed or strengthened, especially involving drinking and driving, while some like having wire cutters in your pocket or shooting buffalo from a second floor window of a hotel remains in full force and effect. So every time I look at the new Marriott being built, I wonder if they’ll add that law to the notice they put on the inside of your hotel room?  I might just have to call them and find out.

But the best law of all: A cowman cannot tuck his pants into one boot unless he owns ten or more head of cattle.  I have no idea what the purpose of this law might have been. Do you?

Are there any old laws that are unique to your part of the country that you’d like to share with us today?

Since I’m on a mission to complete a manuscript this month, before I head out on an actual vacation, my writing time is stretched a little thin. So I’m going to open my blog up to you today.

If you could go anywhere on a research vacation–or on any vacation–where would you go? No limits, no budget. Anywhere.

I have a bucket list of sorts, place I really want to go, and, while Australia, New Zealand and Fiji are all on there, it isn’t a list of exotic locales. I’ve been to Russia, back when it was still the Soviet Union; and to England, France, Austria, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Grand Cayman, St. Thomas, The British Virgin Islands… Can you tell my dh and I love to travel?

The places on my list right now are mostly research trips I’d like to take in order to give life to some of the story ideas that are floating around in the gray matter of my mind. For instance:

> The Buffalo Bill Historical Center & Cody Firearms Museum, Cody, Wyoming

> The National Rifle Association’s National Firearms Museum, Fairfax, Virginia

> The eastern-most spot in Newfoundland, Canada [that's it, in the picture on the left]

> Maine – the whole state

> Bainbridge Island, Washington – or maybe Neah Bay, since it’s the westernmost point in Washington State

> Alaska

> Idaho

I could keep going, but you get the idea. How about you?

I’ll give away one copy each of Touch of Texas and Touched by Love–all you have to do is leave a comment.

Happy Dreaming!

Every time I send an email to friends, or a manuscript via internet  to my editor, I realize how very lucky I am to live in today’s world rather than in period we write about. I still can’t even imagine how so many words fly between so many people in so many countries today.

So I decided to look back on how they communicated before the railroads brought the country together. It was with a great deal of difficulty.

Mail didn’t just mean letters from home for forty niners marooned in the gold country or emigrants in the Oregon wilderness. Telegraph lines hadn’t reached them in the early 1850′s, and newspapers was the only form of communication for the westerners.

The delivery of mail was the government’s obligation but in practice much of it was contracted to private carriers. Congress would decide on a route, and the Postmaster General would choose a contractor. If the contractor failed to deliver, the contract could be annulled and the contractor’s costs never recouped. They usually went to great lengths not to let that happen, often being killed in doing so.

For instance, the first contractors for a trek of 900 miles between St, Lake City and Sacramento was a two man outfit. They decided that one would start from Sacramento and the other from Salt Lake City. But within six months one was killed by the Indians on his trek, and the other barely survived when on one trip, all the firm’s stock – 13 mules and a horse – froze to death in a single night in northern Nevada. The survivor partner and his helpers loaded the mail on their backs and slogged 200 miles through deep snow to Salt Lake City.

These conditions produced some other stalwart characters. One was Snowshoe Thompson. An express service had been inaugurated in the mining town of Placerville, California. In 1856, a severe blizzard closed the road to the hamlet of Genoa some 90 miles away. John Thompson, a Norwegian despite the name, told the Placerville postmaster he could get the mail through. No one believed him. Then he produced a pair of long skies, an item no miner had ever seen before. The postmaster was dubious but had little to lose. He agreed, and our Mr. Thompson skied 90 miles across the Sierra Mountains, navigating by the sun during the day and stars at night. He had a 75-pound sack of mail on his back and made the run in three day. He made the return trip – mostly down hill – in two days, again carrying this time a pack back.

The skiing mailman, according to Time Life’s “The Expressmen,” was mobbed by grateful miners on his return and he was given a regular run through the winter months. It was said he could outpace and out howl wolves.

And then there was an ambitious Californian named Fenton Whiting who decided to use dogs to pull sledges to transport up to 600 pounds of packages and mail to miners on each trip over the mountains during winter time. It was successful for nearly seven years until a snowshoe for horses was introduced. Then he used horses.

So there we had what was probably the first mountain skier in the west and the first working dog sled. Western ingenuity was, it seemed, was limitless.

So today, when you turn on the computer or your cell or Ipad, you might give a thought to how wondrous they truly are. I would love for Mr. Thompson or Mr. Whiting to time travel to today. Can you imagine their expressions?

Winchester (U.S.) Model 1866 Lever Action Rifle (repeater/ breech-loading/ black powder/ cartridge ammunition)

Last time we discussed the Winchester 1873 Repeating Rifle. Today, I want to introduce the precursor to that rifle – the Winchester 1866 Repeating Rifle, aka The Yellow Boy.

The Yellow Boy got its name because of the shiny brass frame. The design improvements over the original Henry repeating rifle ensured the Yellow Boy’s success. In 1866, Nelson King, an engineer with Winchester Repeating Arms, patented a spring load gate for ease of loading cartridges into the side of a spring-fed, closed-end tube attached under the barrel. The tube held fifteen bullets. Add the one in the chamber and you could pull the trigger sixteen times before reloading.

The 1866 Yellowboy lever-action rifle was a marked improvement over the Henry rifle. It was the first true cowboy lever-action rifle, and the first rifle widely carried in a cowboy-style saddle scabbard.

Both the “Henry and Winchester Model 1866 “Yellow Boy” rifles found a ready market on the western frontier. The Indians referred to these arms as “many shots,” and “spirit gun,” which showed a measure of awe and respect for the products of the New Haven-based company. Many warriors were able to obtain these arms for themselves, and more than twenty of them were used against George A. Custer’s 7th Cavalry and their single-shot Springfield carbines at the Little Bighorn in June, 1876. Winchester repeaters also found favor with miners, homesteaders, ranchers, lawmen, and highwaymen.” http://www.nramuseum.com/the-museum/the-galleries/the-american-west/case-42-the-guns-that-won-the-west-colt-winchester/winchester-model-1866-lever-action-rifle.aspx

Winchester produced the Yellow Boy as a musket, a carbine (shorter barrel, often around 19”) and a rifle with a barrel up to 24 ¼”.

Some 150,000 Yellow Boys were produced from 1867 to 1892-93. The carbine version of the 1866 Yellowboy was a hit worldwide. Chief Sitting Bull had one; the forces of Benito Juarez used the rifles in Mexico; the Turkish Army used the new Winchester Yellowboy against the Russians; and settlers in the U.S. bought thousands for frontier use. Based on its popularity and performance, the “Yellow Boy” earned the title of “the gun that won the west.”

The Yellow Boy’s popularity with Native Americans as well as the general shooting public continued its production well after the introduction of the more powerful Model 1873 Winchester began.

The Yellow Boy is still popular in Hollywood. The Yellow Boy appeared in many of the Spaghetti Westerns, and, more recently, TomChaney (Josh Brolin) carried one in the new release of True Grit.

Winchester chambered it for the .44 Henry Flat round, or a flat nosed bullet. Though it didn’t have a lot of power for a rifle, the Henry Flat had already been proven in combat.  The Flat was a rimfire cartridge, which means the hammer strikes the rim of the cartridge, not the center. It wasn’t until near the end of production–when the 1876 Centennial Rifle was being produced–that Winchester developed a .44 center-fire cartridge for the 1866 rifle.

Here’s a tidbit that might come in useful in your plot – No dust covers were used on the 1866.  This did permit dust and other debris to enter the action, which meant misfiring or not firing at all–which can put the shooter in a real tight spot.

Next time — the gun that started it all: The Henry Repeating Rifle.

My next book, releasing May 1…which isn’t THAT far away, is called Deep Trouble.

Deep Trouble begins at a cliff dwelling site which is a somewhat fictionalized Mesa Verde and travels into the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Researching this book was really interesting. I’ll talk more about The Grand Canyon next month, today I’ll tell you a few things I learned about Mesa Verde. Mesa Verde is located near the Four Corners region of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. The Anasazi inhabited Mesa Verde anywhere between 550 to 1300 AD.

The first record of Mesa Verde came around 1760 when Spanish explorers from California traveled through the region. Mesa Verde means Green Table and the area had a lot of lush grass for such a dry region. The explorers saw the green and named it Mesa Verde but they didn’t get close enough to see the cliff dwellings. No one would notice the cliff dwellings for another hundred years.

The existence of the cave dwellings was recorded in 1873 by John Moss, a prospector. Others had seen the cliff dwellings but Moss is the one who got the word out. He acted as guide to a photographer in 1875 and the world suddenly knew about Mesa Verde.

Two cowboys also reported the existance of the ruins in 1888. Tracking wandering cattle through a snowstorm on top of the mesa, they stopped on the edge of a steep canyon. Through the snow they could see the faint outline of the walls and towers of what looked like a huge palace of stone on the far side of the canyon. 

Excited about their discovery, they made a makeshift ladder and climbed down to the deserted cliff city, exploring its ghostly network of deserted rooms, where they found such artifacts as tools and pottery. Their condition was so good that some of the items were still usable. They named the dwelling Cliff Palace, and archaeologists later determined that no one had stood in the rooms explored by the cowboys for nearly six centuries

In 1891 Gustaf Nordenskiöld, a trained mineralogist, introduced scientific methods to artifact collection, recorded locations, photographed extensively, diagrammed sites, and correlated what he observed with existing archaeological literature.

His did great work documenting the site, but then he tried to pack up as many artifacts as he could from the cliff dwellings with plans to take them back to Norway. When his plans were found out he was nearly hanged and had to abandon the area, but he wrote a book about Mesa Verde called The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde. This book put Mesa Verde on the map and unleashed a tremendous interest in the odd place. But, because there was no one protecting the cliff dwellings treasure hunters began systematically stripping the place for souvenirs. They even knocked down some of the walls to let light into the cave dwellings so they could see better to work. The site was finally named a national park in 1906.

These pictures are of several different cliff dwelling sites, including one in Africa. I used them just to show you the different ways ancient people found to make their homes in difficult areas. The one on the lower left is particularly cool and it was a site like this that ultimately was my inspiration for the beginning of the book, because we start off with my heroine being abandoned in one of the high caves when her traveling companions, whom she hired to help her search for the Seven Cities of Gold, were NOT impressed with this first city. No gold here. So they stole her map to the next city, which will lead them to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, left her in the high up cave to die and ran off. Along comes our hero who finds a woman stuck up high where he can’t reach. No ladder because the outlaws shot the one they used to get up there to smithereens.

A scene from the hero and heroine’s first meeting. Gabe Lasley, who first appeared in Cowboy Christmas, hears screaming and shots and rides to the rescue. When he gets to the place all the shooting was coming from he finds….a spooky, long abandoned city carved into stone.

Deep Trouble

Gabe got to the top of the narrow arroyo and pulled his horse to a dead stop.

He was looking at something he couldn’t believe.

A mountain carved up into— homes?

Shaking his head he looked closer, trying to make the structure in front of his eyes something created by nature. But it wasn’t. These were man made. The lowest levels had structure to them. Rock work that formed walls. There were depressions in the rocks above the structures. Cave openings, multiple levels of them. He counted four layers, one above the other, of what had to be dwellings of some kind.

And now abandoned.

Gabe had never heard of this. He was just passing through the area now, but he’d ridden with the cavalry in Texas and the Southwest for years. How could this have gone undiscovered? And who had found it now and died?

Fascinated, Gabe walked his horse into this lost valley, then swung down and tied the gelding to one of a thousand mesquite bushes. The wind whistled through the hills and canyons. It was the only sound and that moaning wind told him no one else was here. Those tracks cut in the dust were the only sign that humans had passed through here in ages. Seven horses in, seven out. Judging by the tracks, he’d say two pack horses, maybe three. So five people had come in here. How many had ridden out?

He tried to remember exactly where that sound had come from and it wasn’t hard to figure it out. He could see where people had stood, horses, supplies. A camp had been set up here and had only been torn down a few minutes ago. A chill sliced up his spine in the Arizona heat as he realized he’d barely missed whoever left this place. The folks doing all the shooting.

But who had done the screaming?

He stared at the wonder before him and studied the sign and terrain with no idea what to do next. There was nothing. No one.

The place was eerie, as if who ever had lived here before still watched, testing those who came. He heard wind whistling like a specter calling to him from those unnatural caves high overhead.

Where had the people gone who had done such work, created such a home? Who would work this hard then leave? Had they died? Had they abandoned all their labor? Had they been killed? And if so where were those that had done the killing?

His eyes went up four levels of stone homes. Gabe felt a quick chill of fear. No human hand created this. And yet what were the other possibilities? He was left with the sense that it was ancient and utterly empty of life.

“Help me.”

He jumped, drew his gun and whirled around toward where the riders had left. Heart slamming, he looked left and right. Blinked and gasped for air and saw. . .

. . .no one.

There was no one anywhere. Could the place be haunted? He didn’t believe in such things but—

That cry echoed and bounced until Gabe was surrounded.

“Help me, please.”

This time it was stronger and even with the echo, Gabe whirled back and looked up and up and up. A woman.

Gabe almost screamed.

Her face was soaked in blood, one arm flung over the edge of the cliff as she lay on her belly, looked down.

He probably would have screamed if he hadn’t choked on spit when he drew in an involuntary breath. While he coughed he fought to get a grip on his nerves.

Spooks and haints were something he’d heard of plenty growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee. Lots of superstition in those mountains. But his ma raised them Christian and wasn’t given to such nonsense.

Still—

“I’m trapped. They left me.” Her voice was weak but it carried on the quiet of the canyon. This was no ghost. Except could ghosts fly? Because that’s the only way Gabe could see that she got up there.

The coughing ended and, with a whoosh of relief, his head cleared and he knew there was a woman up there. A real woman. A living, human being, definitely in terrible distress.

She was so high overhead, her face streaked in bright red blood. Dark hair spilling down over the edge of the cliff. He had no notion of what she looked like, only her voice and long hair told him she was female.

“Ma’am?” Gabe had no idea what to say or do.

“Help me, please.” Each word shook as if she gathered every ounce of her energy to keep talking. “Help me get down.”

“I’ll help you.” His voice didn’t exactly work. He tried again, loud enough she could hear him. “I’ll help you.”

“Promise you won’t leave me.” She sounded on the verge of pure panic.

Gabe couldn’t say he blamed her. “I’m not going to leave you. I promise.”

“Thank you.” Her voice broke, and he heard a muffled sob. “I need you to get me down.”

“How?”

It wasn’t fair to ask a trapped bleeding woman how to save herself.

“I don’t know.”

Not fair at all.

http://www.maryconnealy.com

Several different weapons, both rifles and handguns, have been dubbed “the gun that won the west.” Like the Colt 1873 Peacemaker, a .45 caliber six-shot revolver; the Winchester Model 1866 “Yellowboy” lever-action repeating rifle, so named for its shiny brass frame; or today’s focus, the Winchester Model 1873 lever-action repeating rifle.

Some believe the Winchester Model 1873 is widely known as ‘the gun that won the west’ purely because there were so many made. With a production run of more than 720,000 in 50+ years, anyone who wanted one could buy one. And that meant a lot of these rifles went west with those brave enough to pack up and head off into parts unknown.

The steel-framed Model 1873 was made as a musket = a 30” round barrel (smooth bore, not rifled). According to Winchester, there were only around 500 of these produced.

…as a carbine = a 20” barrel, loaded with 14 cartridges; often had a saddle ring attached for easy accessibility and to keep it on the horse.

…and as a rifle = 24” octagonal barrel, with the insides “rifled” or grooved in a way that spun the bullet as it exited the barrel, giving it greater distance and much improved accuracy; loaded with self-contained black powder cartridges that were pushed into the receiver on the right side of the rifle and stored in a magazine that paralleled the barrel.

THANKS TO WWW.RAREWINCHESTERS.COM FOR THE PICS!

Though the 1873 couldn’t handle the more powerful cartridges used by the single-shot rifles of the time, I’m thinking 14 shots before reloading versus one made it worth the trade-off.

Originally chambered for the .44-40 cartridge (a .44 caliber bullet, propelled by 40 grains of black powder), the Model 1873 was later produced in .38-40 and .32-20, all of which were popular handgun cartridges of the day. This was important–if your handgun and your rifle used different size ammunition, you had to carry two sizes and you ran the risk of not having enough of what you needed; but if your belt guns and your saddle gun all used the same cartridge, you just dug into the saddle bag and started stuffing in bullets. That could help get your hero out of a really tight spot.

However, if you’re going to have your hero–or heroine or villain–carry two weapons that share ammunition, remember that the original Model 1873 was not made to use the.45 caliber Colt cartridge used in the very popular Colt “Peacemaker.”

But that doesn’t mean a Colt and a Winchester never shared ammunition. The popularity of the Winchester in .44-40 caliber had Colt manufacturing a version of the Single Action Army “Peacemaker” revolver that could use the Winchester’s ammunition. This insured the success of the Winchester rifle.

“Most Texas Rangers and every old West cowboy worth his salt carried 1873 rifles. Chappo, the son of Apache war chief Geronimo, packed an 1873. And Buffalo Bill carried an 1873 lever-action rifle along with a pair of .44-40 Colts in 1876 when he worked as an Army scout.” http://www.uberti.com/firearms/1873_rifle_and_carbine.php

If you’d like to see a reproduction in action, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RUsZ5U9xYw  

Pay close attention to the difference in the amount of smoke produced between the first cartridges, which use modern smokeless powder, and the second set, which are loaded with a black powder substitute that is more like the black powder used in the 1800s. The smoke was always a factor with the weapons of the period. Every shot left a cloud that gave away the position of the shooter.

Finally, I have to share this really excellent list, the FIREAMS GLOSSARY from the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum in Cody, WY.  http://www.bbhc.org/firearms/research/

In 1847, Colonel Samuel Walker, Army commander and a Texas Ranger in John C. Hays’ company, approached Sam Colt to make a new, stronger, more powerful revolver. Colt took the order–but had no factory. He turned to Eli Whitney, Jr., son of the famous inventor of the cotton gin, who had a factory in Connecticut where the order was completed and shipped by mid-1847.

Named the “Walker” for the Colonel, this single action, six shot, black powder revolver was 15 ½” long and weighed–are you ready–4 pounds, 8 ounces! Unloaded! Add the lead balls, wadding, etc. and you’re close to 5 pounds. That’s as much as one of those big bottles of wine. Try gripping that and holding it steady at arms length.

Can you even imagine shooting that thing, let alone hauling a couple of them around all the time? Though Hollywood shows the Colt Walker as a belt gun, the Texas Rangers and the mounted troops under Walker’s command during the Mexican-American War, and on the Texas frontier, carried the Colt Walker in saddle holsters.

Just to give you a visual, in the pic on the right, Josey Wales holds a Colt Walker in his left hand and a Colt 1860 Army in his right.

In the picture on the left, character Augustus McCrae of Lonesome Dove, is holstering his Colt Walker. See how long it is compared to Robert Duvall’s torso?

[Both of these pictures are from The Internet Movie Firearms Database, www.imfdb.org. It's a great site!]

With an effective range of 100 yards, the 1867 Walker could be loaded with as much powder as some muskets, making it the most powerful revolver of its day. In fact, it was more powerful than most modern pistols. The black powder Walker Colt is regarded by some experts as the most powerful commercially manufactured repeating handgun from 1847 until the introduction of the .357 Magnum in 1935.

“It proved to be a revolver of such size, weight, and heft that Colt was reputed to have said, “It would take a Texan to shoot it.” Walker wrote in 1847 that the gun was “as effective as a common rifle at 100 yards and superior to a musket even at 200.” Far more powerful than the earlier Patersons, this gun quickly became legendary. For those who could afford it, the Walker Colt was a symbol of strength, authority and great financial means.

“Total production of the original Walker was about 1,100, a thousand of which were ordered by the U.S. Ordnance Department. The Walker was the first revolver ever purchased by the Army, and soldiers’ inexperience with a revolver resulted in a lot of “burst cylinders,” meaning all six chambers fired at the same time.”  [http://americanhistory.si.edu/militaryhistory/collection/object.asp?ID=820]

The Colt Walker was quickly followed by the Colt Dragoon series of revolvers, which only improved on a very good thing.

Oliver Winchester bought the remains of the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, started the New Haven Arms Company, reorganized it as the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1866, and manufactured some of the most famous firearms ever created. Today we’re going to look at one of their most revered rifles: The 1876 Winchester Centennial Repeating Rifle.

Introduced at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 and named to commemorate our nation’s one hundredth anniversary of independence, Winchester’s lever-action rifle was the largest and among the most powerful repeaters on the frontier. 

The Centennial was one of the first lever-action weapons to use larger caliber, center-fire ammunition. In the same way that “rim-fire” meant the hammer struck the rim of the projectile, center-fire means the hammer strikes the center of the bullet when the trigger is pulled. In this case, larger means .45-75 to .50-90 caliber bullets.

The Centennial Repeater was 48½” long with a 28” barrel, and weighed in at 9 to 9½ pounds! And loading it with shells adds at least another pound. A gallon of milk weighs only 8.6 pounds–try holding that out in front of you and keeping it steady enough to hit what you’re aiming at!

The bullets go into the magazine through a spring-loaded feeder on the right side of the rifle. Fully loaded, the 1876 Repeater held 12 total cartridges–11 in the magazine and one in the chamber. All you had to do was stuff the bullets into the feeder, rack the lever and pull the trigger.

Confederate soldiers who faced a Repeater in battle referred to it as that “rifle you load on Sunday and fire all week.”

This sturdy, reliable rifle was favored by good guys and bad guys alike. There were many of them at the Battle of Little Big Horn (most in the hands of the Native Americans), and they were common among those who traveled and settled out west. The Model 1876 was carried by ranchers and cowboys, Texas Rangers and the Canadian North West Mounted Police. President Theodore Roosevelt (right) owned and used one; even notorious outlaws such as Johnny Ringo (left) and Tom Horn relied on this rifle during the late 1800s.

Hollywood loved the 1876 Centennial Repeater, too. Tom Selleck carried one as Rafe Covington in Crossfire Trail (TNT, 2001) and as Monte Walsh in Monte Walsh (2002). Virginia Madsen used the 1876 Centennial when she saved the day–and her man– also in Crossfire Trail. It made an appearance Steve McQueen’s hands when he played Tom Horn in the 1980 movie of the same name. And characters Johnny Ringo and Sherm McMasters used it in Tombstone (1993).

Just for comparison, the pic at the right, from the final gunbattle in TNT’s Crossfire Trail, shows an 1876 Centennial in the back, an 1866 “Yellow Boy” or “Golden Boy” (because of the polished brass receiver) in the middle and a Winchester 1873 in the front.

The 1876 Centennial Rifle was the king of its day. Manufacturing was discontinued in 1898 after Winchester produced nearly 64,000 of this amazing lever-action rifle.

I’m not a sickly person. In fact, during my years teaching school, it was often more trouble to miss school than gut it out. And I get flu shots religiously every fall. 

Nonetheless, I came down with two nasty cold/viruses during the flu season of 2009-2010 and needed medical care for a horrific cough and ear infection that had me deaf in one ear. Scary! Some of the doctor’s advice was no-brainer: rest, liquids, and salt water nasal spray. Therefore, Dr. Quinn fanatic that I am, I wondered how folks fared during cold season in days of yore.

 Some remedies from our homesteadin’ ancestors still prevail: Breathing steam. Cooking up a pot of savory chicken soup, and mixing up Hot Toddies. (not necessarily together LOL). However, the old “feed a cold starve a fever” has definitely lost favor. Light exercise, fresh air, and good nourishment have proved to be essential to a quick return to health. 

Peeking through stuff for this post, I found a number of homemade cough remedies: 

        ** 2-3 drops of kerosene on a teaspoon of sugar.  

        ** Equal parts of oil of peppermint, friars balsam and tincture of red lavender. Also served drop by drop on a teaspoon of sugar.

       **  Syrup made from wild cherry bark, mullein leaf, slippery Elm powder, coltsfoot leaf, lobelia leaf, pleurisy root, elecampane root, and licorice root.

      **  Syrup made from honey, lemon and glycerin. 

For sore throats, homesteaders and city dwellers like usually dosed with teas made from sassafras or black currants, and the always popular and effective lemon and honey. A gargle of sage and alum mixed in a glass of water supposedly helped as well.

Elecampagne root

 Cold and canker sores could be eased with tea made from the berries of wild rose bushes, or a daub of potash. 

The concoction of one clove of garlic mixed in a cup of warm  milk was said to lessen the duration of the cold. Interestingly, today’s doctors know that an active compound in garlic, allicin, is an expectorant. 

Another everyday kitchen ingredient, the onion, served importantly as well. The housewife would slice an onion and put in the sickroom. Supposedly the contamination was drawn into the onion so no one else got sick. 

Furthermore, a few drops of onion juice into an infected ear was said to clear up the miserable condition in just two or three applications! (OK, not even on my worst ear day would I have tried this.)

In 1918, the following flu ointment was developed by druggist, J.D. Higgenbotham during the flu epidemic of 1918.

2 large jars white Vaseline
2 oz. turpentine
1/4 oz. menthol crystals
2 cakes of camphor gum
1/3 oz. oil of peppermint
1/4 oz. eucalyptus
1/4 oz. oil of wintergreen

The ingredients were melted and mixed well over low heat and store in covered jars.

 However, when all’s said and done, the most formidable routine therapy was the mustard plaster. I’d come across it once or twice in the books I read as a child, and the word “plaster” freaked me out.

This was apparently a very powerful treatment: To prepare, dry mustard, flour, and lukewarm water were made into a paste. The plaster was then spread on a piece of muslin big enough to cover the chest, then covered with another piece of muslin over the top, placed on the chest with tape. The chest needed to be checked in a few minutes for signs of allergic reaction or blistering. The plaster was removed after about a half hour.

One old wive’s tale suggests using the white of an egg instead of water to prevent the blistering of the skin, and that’s shown on the “recipe” above.

While I’m sure many of the above herbal treatments are still affective today, Sunday’s Parade magazine had a list of old-time cold remedies not recommended to try at home LOL. I think I’d rather cough, sneeze, and burn up than Eat snakeskin, Stuff garlic gloves up my nose, or Rub my feet with tallow and turpentine and Hold them against a wood stove.  Yikes!

Stay healthy out there!

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Okay, I admit it. I’m a sucker for brochures, booklets, diaries, etc. when I’m traveling. That’s why I like to drive. The trunk is always way, way lower on my return trip.

This, unfortunately, remained true even after I discovered the internet where so much information is at my fingertips. There’s still nothing like glancing through all my shelves when it’s time to blog. I always find such neat little tidbits that might well escape me when I’m searching a particular subject on the internet.

This time, my eyes rested on a booklet, “Central City, the Richest Square Mile on Earth and the History of Gilpin Count” by Darlene Leslie, Keller Rankin-Sunter and Deborah Wightman.

Or course, the title caught my interest first. I knew immediately it had to do with gold mining, which is one of my favorite subjects. I think it’s the gambling blood in me but also because it was so responsible for the growth of the west. I’ve always been fascinated that the gold rush not only lured gold seekers from throughout the United Sates but also hopefuls from throughout Europe and Asia. A dozen languages were often spoken in mining camps. Talk about your melting pot.

The “Richest Square Mile on Earth” has details I’d not read before or didn’t recall.   I remember exactly when I bought it. I was to attend a RWA board meeting in Denver and had decided to go several days early and drive up to one of the old gold towns. I wasn’t deterred by what turned out to be a driving snow storm and had a marvelous time.  As for the book, it  must have been the few paragraphs that attracted my attention to this particular publication. “In May of 1859, the Little Kingdom of Gilpin (County)” was born as the cradle of Colorado history and the cultural and economic center of the west.” It covers Black Hawk, Central City, Navadaville, Rollinsville and Russell Gulch.

Annual production of precious metals grew rapidly after gold was found and in 1870 it was estimated at $1 million dollars. By 1880 it rose to more than $2 million annually, by 1890 to $3 million and by the early 1900s production topped out at more than $4 million dollars annually.

That doesn’t seem so much today. But look at the wages of that day. But first, this admonition from the time. “Coloradoans, as a class, are working people, always busy. It is no place for drones. There is always work of some kind for those who honestly seek it. Make a name for honesty, sobriety and reliability, and you can soon attain any position and salary that your abilities will warrant. If you are not such a person, stay away from Colorado, and let your friends, if you have any, support you in idleness.”

After that pithy warning from the past, the authors list the wages paid in 1881: Railroad laborers, $1.50 – 2.25 per day; blacksmiths and roofers, $2.00 – 3.00 per day; coal miners, $.75 to $1 per ton; clerks, $1 to 5 per day by ability; sawmill men, $1.50 – 3.50 per month with board; harness makers, $2.00- 2.25 a day; dining room girls, $20-30 per month & board (cooks and girls for private families are in great demand); Laundresses, $20 – 30 a month; farm boys, $10 to 15 per month.

Another admonition is at the end of the list: “Above all things, don’t come to Colorado unless you are determined to make a good honest record. Keep away from the gambling houses, bar-rooms and bagnios and you are all right. Visit them and you are lost, maybe, with your ‘boots on.’”

Prices for goods were in line in the salaries. Overalls were $.75 each while drawers went for $.50 and fine white shirts for $1.25. A “tonsorialist” (barber) charged $.75 for a shave and haircut. A lecture on Darwinian Theory was $1.00.

To protect the honest citizens of a mining community, a Miners’ Court was formed and developed a “criminal code.” The first section of the code declared that anyone convicted of willful murder, “shall be hung by the neck until he is dead.” The second section proclaimed that any person guilty of manslaughter, or homicide, shall be punished as a jury directed.

The third section said any person “shooting or threatening to shoot another, using or threatening to use any deadly weapons, except in self defense, shall be fined a sum not less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars, and receive, in addition, as many stripes on his bare back as a jury of six men may direct, and be banished from the district.”

There were more sections, but you get the idea. Justice was sure and harsh. The local newspapers often reported it as such. “Load up your shotguns. There have been three attempted robberies,” according to the Daily Register.

Also reported by the Register, “Tramps are becoming numerous. A little cold lead would do them good.”

And how could you have an old mining town without ghosts? Gilpin County has a number of them, including the spirit of a Buddhist monk who inhabits a house originally built as a Buddhist Temple. The current owners of the house say he resides in a corner behind a large mirror and, when he appears, has a pleasant smile. The same house is also inhabited by the ghost of a young girl who was killed by accident in the same house. Her mother and father were arguing in the front yard. Her mother was holding a cast iron frying hand and threw it at her husband. It went through the French windows are struck the child in the head. The theory is that the monk stays behind to look after her. Or it could be that, since the Buddhist temple was used for years as a parlour house, the monk is there to protect some lost souls.

These are the kind of details that a writer relishes, that puts authenticity in the story she, or he, tells. It’s why I keep returning to those wonderful little booklets, to the diaries you can only find only in the towns they celebrate. The internet is a wonderful tool, but nothing can really replace all those treasures that weighed down my trunk.