By Old Hoppy Dec 31, 2009 in Prospecting and Mining, Women of the West | 0 Comments
Women who traveled to the gold fields often found creative ways to profit in the mining camps of the Old West. In many cases, these were practical, hardworking wives and mothers who brought order to the chaos of the camps and turned hardship into gold of their own.
One such woman, written of in Lillian Schlissel’s wonderful book “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey,” was Luzena Stanley Wilson. She and her husband and three children arrived in Nevada City, California, in 1849, finding two rows of tents lining two steep gulches, the gulches “alive with moving men.”
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By Old Hoppy Dec 31, 2009 in Prospecting and Mining | 0 Comments
Mining claims lay at the heart of the prospectors’ dreams and schemes in the days of Old West gold rushes. Fundamentals of organizing the gold fields (and regions rich in other precious metals) were pretty much the same. Prospectors wisely knew that mining claims were fundamental, but organizing into recognized districts run by elected officials and even lawmen chosen and empowered by voters (usually) were crucial to everyone’s well-being and success.
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By Old Hoppy Dec 31, 2009 in Pony Express, Wagons and Trails | 0 Comments
Our Pony Express “adventure” anniversary trip began at the Patee House Hotel-Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri, after a morning’s travel in trusty Old Blue (our ‘89 Ford station wagon) from Springfield, Missouri.
The Patee House Hotel (and the museum hosted there) is one of only a handful of original structures still standing and occupied within the Pony Express’ St. Joseph-Fort Kearny Division. Opened in 1858 (two years before the Pony Express started), the Patee House was St. Joseph’s finest hotel in its day. It was turned into a museum of Western History in 1965. In addition to the story of the Pony Express, the museum offers an authentic glimpse of 1850s and 1860s life in this Missouri River town.
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By Old Hoppy Dec 30, 2009 in Old West History, Personal, Pony Express | 0 Comments
Our adventures on the Pony Express trail, done a number of years ago for our 25th wedding anniversary, were great fun and very enlightening.
What else would you do to celebrate 25 years of marriage but try to trace some of the history and historic sites of the Old West? In our case, the year was 1992, we had just bought a new-to-us station wagon, and we had some vacation time to combine with a long weekend. At the time, I had been reading about Buffalo Bill Cody (William F. Cody, that is) and happened to read about his early years as one of the original Pony Express riders. Mrs. Hoppy and I immediately knew we had a fun trip to organize for our anniversary celebration.
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By Old Hoppy Dec 25, 2009 in Personal, Television Westerns | 0 Comments
Nothing much to say here, except a very, very Merry Christmas wish to all of you who choose to spend any of your time hanging out here. If you take a good look around and read our “About” page, you’ll understand that life in the Old West, both all the fables and true tales about real people, are a lifelong interest of mine. (You’ll also find a brief explanation of why I use the name “Old Hoppy” here.)
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By Old Hoppy Dec 24, 2009 in Expansion, Indians-Native Americans, Old West History | 0 Comments
Widespread use of horses by Native American tribal groups and the rampant rush of people hungry for gold in the Rockies ultimately altered the nature of the Great Plains region as much as railroads and farmers may have during America’s westward expansion.
That’s the premise of historian Elliott West’s fascinating look at Old West history titled “The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado.” Originally published by the University Press of Kansas in 1998, this fascinating look at life in the Plains, Colorado Territory, and the Rockies during the 1850s and 1860s is well worth getting, if you’re at all interested in the economic and cultural forces that shaped the American West.
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By Old Hoppy Dec 18, 2009 in Cowboys, Horses, Westernisms | 0 Comments
As a writer, I enjoy words, their meanings and their origin. As someone who enjoys reading and writing about life in the Old West, I really enjoy the various Westernisms or “cowboy talk” that enriched the language of the Old West.
Take the word “paint,” for example. I ran onto several colorful (pardon the pun) uses of the word. (My source for most things regarding Western lingo is the wonderful book I’ve mentioned in several articles at this site: “Dictionary of the American West” by Winfred Blevins.)
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By Old Hoppy Dec 18, 2009 in Expansion, Old West History, Pioneers and Settlers, Wagons and Trails | 0 Comments
The first wagon trains headed westward along the overland trails — the most famous was the Oregon Trail — from Missouri in 1841, and a major motivation for those making the long, often tortuous journey was economic: Following the Panic of 1837 (a fearsome Depression by even today’s standards), wages throughout America had fallen by 30-50 percent. There were no unemployment figures kept at the time, of course, but had there been, they would have been horrific. Major public demonstrations by out of work residents of Philadelphia and New York City brought out hundreds of thousands of people in 1839 and 1840.
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By Old Hoppy Dec 16, 2009 in Expansion, Old West History | 0 Comments
I ran onto a wonderful little book in my library which I had forgotten, and wonderful it truly is: It looks at America’s Westward settlement through women’s eyes, by giving excerpts from their diaries of their westward emigration.
The book is “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey,”
by Lillian Schlissel. Historian Schlissel is professor emerita of Brooklyn College-CUNY, where she was director of American studies. Her book was published in 1982 and reissued in, I believe, 2004. The copy I have is a tattered paperback of the 1982 original. You can still find the book from time to time on eBay and Amazon, and I urge you to get a copy. (If you click on the title of the book above it will take you to any copies currently for sale on Amazon.) It is a real eye-opener that abolishes many of the stereotypes of the rugged, “manly” settlers who tamed the West.
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By Old Hoppy Dec 15, 2009 in Clothing and Fashion, Cowboys | 0 Comments
Today’s horse riding boots differ greatly from footwear in the Old West. Boot making and shoe making technology and materials are radically different today than they were on the Plains or prairies of the 1800s. Today’s boots offer comfort and fit unknown back then.
In the Old West, horse riding boots came in about one general selection — leather. Sure, depending on the skills and interests of an individual boot maker, they might be shaped a bit differently from pair to pair, and some boot craftsmen might vary the length of the boot on the leg and the height of the heel. But the one thing you could count on in a good pair of horse riding boots was that they would be made of leather.
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