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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 19:04:41 :
In Reply to: Re: 35 this morning posted by Jerry in Idaho [64.139.238.43] on Saturday, August 21, 2010 at 19:57:04 :
I had neighbors in Everett named Hollingshead, who had moved from Minnesota, so maybe it's not such a rare name somewhere else. The "drinking the town dry" story only applied to one of the railroad camps, maybe Taft or Adair. The Milwaukee Road was just finishing construction around the time of the fires (locomotive sparks contributed to a lot of the small fires that later blew up) and there were still a lot of "tent city" towns along the line. In the more substantial cities like Wallace, Mullan, and Avery, sober heads prevailed and the people managed to save most of the town and all of the lives of the townspeople.
And yes, they were tough back then. There's an old recruiting poster for forest rangers that starts out "Invalids Need Not Apply", and goes on to say that they're recruiting for "the toughest kind of work", and that it's not a job for those "seeking their health".