Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Dog in the manger

In the late 1990s, when I was doing research for my first book SILVER LIES, I ran across the phrase dog in the manger in an 1879 letter.*** It appeared in a passage regarding the (in)famous Colorado railroad war, in which  two railroad companies "battled it out" to see who would be first to reach the silver-mining boomtown of Leadville.

Here's the phrase, in context:

The AT & St Fe RR [Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad] would have reached Leadville by the Middle of September if it had not been for the interference of the D & R G RR [Denver & Rio Grande Railroad], the latter road has been playing the part of the 'Dog in the Manger'. There is a strong feeling growing against the D & R G RR and its whole course has been a matter of condemnation for months back....

I had absolutely no idea what dog in the manger might mean, and this was long before I could just turn to the internet or a bookshelf of "slang dictionaries" to look it up. Ah, but that was then, and this is now...

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According to The Idioms, dog in the manger has several meanings:

• one who prevents others from enjoying something despite having no use for it
• spiteful and mean-spirited someone who keeps something that they do not want in order to prevent someone else from getting it
• a person who selfishly keeps something that he or she does not really need or want so that others may not use or enjoy it

World Wide Words also has an entry for this phrase and describes its origins harken waaaay back:

... The allusion is to one of Aesop’s fables, written about 600BC, in which a dog was taking a nap in a manger. When an ox came and tried to eat the hay in the manger, the dog barked furiously, snapped at him and wouldn’t let him get at his food, food that, of course, was useless to the dog. At last the ox gave up and went away muttering, “Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves”.

But wait a minute! The Phrase Finder digs deeper into the origins of dog in the manger and ascertains that this particular story was not one of Aesop's originals, but was added in a 1460 collection. Even so, the entry continues, it's an old tale:

... While not being included by Aesop, the story itself is ancient, having been cited in several early Greek texts and in English in John Gower's Confessio Amantis, circa 1390:
Though it be not the hound's habit
To eat chaff, yet will he warn off
An ox that commeth to the barn
Thereof to take up any food. 

I'm still not clear on why the D&RG would have been considered as the dog in the manger in this particular disagreement, but at least I am now well-schooled in what the phrase means, thanks to all the wonderful resources at my (keyboard) fingertips!

And so ends this Slang-o-rama dog tale/tail... 😉
Public Domain, Link

*** You can read more about this letter and the inspiration I draw from the past in a Blood Red Pencil post titled: I Can Use This: Inspiration from the past.

https://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2023/02/i-can-use-this-inspiration-from-past.html

Wednesday's Random Not-Quite-Slang O-rama: 1800s telephone etiquette

Taking a little different tack on today's posting with a peek into recent research and my findings and frustrations.

What do you say when you greet someone over the phone? It's probably some version of "Hello." I'm betting it's not "Ahoy!" However, if Alexander Graham Bell had had his way, that might indeed be what you'd holler down the (wireless) line....

Ring-a-ding-ding, 19th century-style.
Image by Momentmal from Pixabay

One recent night as the midnight hour struck, I became a little over-obsessed over how phone calls were handled in the 19th century. (Late at night is never a good time for me to get obsessed.) I stumbled upon an NPR article explaining that whereas Bell preferred the term Ahoy! as a telephonic greeting, Thomas Edison preferred Hello! (We know who won that tug-of-war.) This passage also caught my late-night attention:

... [T]he first phone book ever published, by the District Telephone Company of New Haven, Connecticut, in 1878 (with 50 subscribers listed) told users to begin their conversations with "a firm and cheery 'hulloa.'"

I knew there was a telephone exchange in Leadville, Colorado, in 1879, thanks to Leadville silver baron Horace Tabor. (In fact, there's a wonderful article in Colorado Magazine, dated 1928, talking about the early years of telephone, right here.) And San Francisco apparently had its first telephone directory in 1878. 

Wouldn't it be wonderful, thinks I, if I could find a digital copy of that early San Francisco phone book and read their instructions on telephone etiquette and how to use a telephone??

The minutes ticked by as I buzzed around the internet, looking for such a directory. Alas, all I could dig up was a version that had been typed up from the original in 1952. This transcribed version only included names and addresses and the cryptic note: 

Names preceded by stars are connected with the CENTRAL OFFICE SYSTEM and can be switched into private connection with each other.

I finally uncovered a text version of the 1893 San Francisco Telephone Directory, which although much later in time than my 1882 setting, includes this fascinating information on page 2:
---------

REMARKS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE SERVICE. 

"HERE'S 64."  

At least half the time consumed in every telephone connection, is used in ascertaining who is talking at each end. If subscribers will adopt the following style, they will be surprised at the saving of time and annoyance to themselves 

Suppose Smith's Telephone number is 741 and he desires to converse with Jones, whose telephone number is 64. 

FIRST: Smith calls Central Office and says: "741 wants 64" and waits, with telephone at his ear. SECOND: Central Office rings Jones' Bell.
THIRD: Jones rings his bell once in reply and without waiting further, says, "here's 64, Mr. Jones;"
FOURTH: Smith then says, "this is Mr. Smith," and proceeds with his conversation. 

"SUNSET" 

The lines connecting San Francisco with the interior towns are owned by the SUNSET TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH CO. If subscribers will kindly observe the following Instructions, they will receive quicker and more satisfying service:
1.--When you wish to connect with any interior town, call the local Exchange as usual.
2.--Operator: "What is it, please?"
2.--Subscriber: "Sunset room."(Central office then connects the Sunset room and--)
3.--Operator: "Here's the Sunset;"
3.--Subscriber: "Give me No. 42 Oakland;"
4.--Operator: "Who is talking, please?"
4.--Subscriber: "Mr. Jones."
5.--Operator: "Whom shall we ask for, please?'
5.--Subscriber: (The subscriber will now name the person with whom he particularly desires to converse, or tell the operator to call up "Anybody".)
Then hang up your telephone: your order is now fully understood and when we ring your bell again, we will have Mr. Brown at Oakland, he will know it is Mr. Jones at telephone No. 46, San Francisco wants him, and both will be saved a lot of preliminary "hello,"  "Is that Mr. Jones," "Who are you," etc., etc.

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There it is, in the very last paragraph: the word "hello."

Of course, this is from 1893, and since my current work-in-progress has a bit of a nautical flavor, you can bet your bottom dollar I'm going to find a way to slip in an "Ahoy!" here and there.

I also have a little more direction as to what might be said and heard as my protagonist Inez  Stannert attempts to eavesdrop on a telephone conversation in the next room in 1882 San Francisco....

"Ahoy there, sailor...."
Les bienfaits du téléphone Abeillé, Jack , Dessinateur Entre 1904 et 1912 20e siècle Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris PPD4790 CC0

Reviews come in and an ARC giveaway!

Well, I'm not being nearly as consistent as I had hoped, but I shall keep working on getting better at posting here, on my Silver Rush blog...

First, if you would like to get in the drawing for one of three ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies, otherwise known as "uncorrected proofs") of What Gold Buys... you have a week to enter the giveaway I'm hosting on Goodreads, and I encourage you to go for it! The odds are much better than striking silver in the Leadville mining district in 1879! :-) (Now don't ask me what those odds were, because I'm assuming here...)

So just click on the "Enter Giveaway" link below and good luck! But before you go... (keep reading below the widget)...

Goodreads Book Giveaway

What Gold Buys

by Ann Parker

Giveaway ends August 15, 2016.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

.... Reviews are popping up, ahead of publication. Since I consider them all valid data points (each reviewer approaches a book with different expectations, preferences, and so on, as do readers), I'm providing links to the three I've rounded up so far, along with a short pull-quote from each.

• Publishers Weekly starred review! (yes, that rates an exclamation point) "Emotionally and historically convincing."
•  Kirkus Reviews. "Better history than mystery, drawing the reader into the stunning beauty and harsh realities of life in 1880s Colorado."
• Historical Novel Society. "I haven’t read the first four but was so taken by Parker’s protagonist, Inez Stannert, that I’ll rectify that asap... I can’t wait for the sixth in the series." 

So please enter the Goodreads giveaway, if you are so inclined... and if you want to increase your chances of winning an uncorrected proof (which has hilarious goofs, such as Inez drawing her "Smooth revolver"... yes, a smooth move, but that should be *Smoot* ), sign up for my very occasional newsletter right here. I will be giving away ARCs to a couple lucky folks on this list, once the Goodreads giveaway is over on August 15.

And here, just for fun, is a couple of photos I took last year in the House with the Eye Museum in Leadville, the City in the Clouds...

The original stained glass "eye" from 1879. 

Guns, cards, and chips... note the "woman's purse gun" on the far right.

Welcome to the new decade: 1880!

As we roll from the twenty-aughts to the twenty-teens (or whatever we call this new decade), I've decided to continue my focus back through time in Leadville.

So, here we go.

1879 is over. 1880 (and a new decade!) begins. What was Leadville up to in the early part of January? Well, just as we throw out our old calendars and spruce up the place (and our files) to take on new projects, Leadville decided "out with the old and in with the new," by passing Ordinance 88.

Ordinance 88 changed the name of some of the main streets and instituted a new numbering system for all the city's buildings.

A sample of some of the name changes:
Infamous State Street became Second Street (although the 100 block of West Second Street, where the fictional Inez Stannert has her fictional Silver Queen saloon, continued to be referred to as "State Street" despite the name change).
Main Street became Third Street.
Lafayette and Park Streets (the same street but called by different names, depending which side of Harrison Avenue they landed on) became Fourth Street.
Carbonate and Fifth became simply Fifth Street.
... and so on.

A January 21, 1880, article in Leadville's Evening Chronicle ran a long retrospective piece on real estate (observe here that they used the old street names, not the new):

Real estate operations in Leadville since January 1st, 1879,
have furnished something for the world to wonder at. At that
time there was nothing in the way of business on any street
save Chestnut, between Harrison avenue and Spruce, State
between Pine and Harrison, and Harrison between Chestnut
and State. The brick building of the Star clothing house,
at the southeast corner of State and Harrison, was the outpost
of the business field. North of it the avenue was a
mudsill alley, full of low hovels, stumps, trees and debris. In
fact it was a sort of dumping place for rubbish and filth. Lots
were slow of sale at $100 to $200, between State and Park
streets. In November, 1878, the entire half block facing on
Harrison, bounded by State and Main streets, and running
back to the alley between the avenue and Pine street, was
offered to the proprietors of THE CHRONICLE for four hundred
dollars....

By 1880, all that had changed:

South of the postoffice [at 320 Harrison] . . . to Elm street, lots
of twenty-five feet frontage are held at $5,000 to $8,000 each.
One man asks $10,000 for his lot, but this is an exception.
North of the postoffice, or between Lafayette avenue and the
base of Capitol Hill, prices range from $3,000 down to $1,200.

Easy to see why lot-jumpers proliferated in late 1879!

Early 1880, to be continued. Until then, wishing you:

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Leadville, 1879

As we all wallow under a surfeit of HD TVs, iPods, iPhones, MP3 players, Play Stations, XBoxes, Nintendo DSs, BlueRay videos, and an abundance of electronic games and geegaws, let's take a pause and reflect on what was available for the discerning shopper in Leadville for the 1879 Christmas season, in some tidbits gathered from the newspapers of the time by Griswold and Griswold in their magnificent historical tome: The History of Leadville and Lake County, Colorado. And remember as you read this list: There were no trains to Leadville yet. Everything had to be hauled in ... and there was lots and lots of snow to contend with. There were, apparently, some folks with lots and lots of money as well.

Holiday Goods.

B.F. Allen & Co. Invite the special attention of Ladies and Miners, who are in search of Goods suitable for Presents to their Friends both in Leadville and the East and South, to their recent importation of NOVELTIES. Our Stock comprises: English Silk Handkerchiefs, Silk Suspenders, French Jewelry, English Neckwear, Fine Buck Glove, Lined, Fine Lap Robes, French Clocks, Ladies Neckwear, Lined Mitts, Pocketbooks, Etc.

The Griswolds noted that none of the advertisements included prices (most which read rather like the one above, so B.F. Allen didn't have a lock on the imported stuff). However, Daniels, Fisher & Company did included some prices for their wares:

... All wool suits sell from $15 to $25; wool and silk combination suits from $25 to $50; combination street costumes from $35 to $65; silk dresses from $35 to $75, and a general variety of black silk velvet and ratine suits, ranging in price from $40 to $175 each, and some elegant parlor dress suits from $175 to $200 each.

Sounds like a good deal, right? Well, consider that $15 in 1879 had the same "purchase power" as $333.98 today. So, that "cheap" wool suit is really more like $340. And, the "elegant parlor dress suit" at $200 would cost you $4453.01 today. That's how many Dell laptops?

Anyway, to get an idea of how prices of "long ago" compare to prices today, I suggest checking out the "Measuring Worth" website and the page Purchasing Power of Money in the United States from 1774 to 2008. Rather mind-boggling.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Leadville 1879 - Part 3

A skating rink opened between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 1879, and this little article describing a "night at the rink" ran in Leadville's Evening Chronicle on December 23:

It was a gala night time at the skating rink last night, and the bravery and beauty of the city paired off on runners and told their loves in innumerable hieroglyphics on frozen water. Occasionally a “brave” would sit down on the ice in contemplation of love’s melancholy, while his fair inamorata slid on into the affections or arms of another. We had no idea that we had so many expert skatorical champions and championnesses among us, and could but wonder at the many seemingly impossible feats performed.

Speaking of pedal extremities, “the biggest thing on ice” was the great feet of a certain newspaper reporter, who executed some of the most startling movements yet seen at the rink—such as throwing both heels over his head and sliding half round the rink on his left ear, picking up a section of snow and gas light with the small of his back, skating on one foot and the tip of his nose, and many other little novelties. . . . We understand that the skating rink is shortly to be supplied with a new appliance in the way of a third skate for new beginners. It is supplied with a rubber cushion, and is fastened to the small of the back.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Leadville 1879 - Part 2

... Well, I promised more about the opening of the Grand Central variety theatre in Leadville in my last post, so here it is. These bits and pieces are taken from a follow-up article that appeared a while later, and provide a more detailed description of the place as a whole:

THE PLEASURE PALACE OF THE FRONTIER
———
The Largest and Most Magnificent Variety
Theatre in the United States.
———
A Temple of Wine, Women and Song
———

....The building is of brick and lumber combined, well keyed and stayed with iron rods, and is pronounced by the architects of the city as the most substantial structure in the place. It has a frontage of seventy-three feet on State street, is one hundred and thirty-five feet front to rear, forty-six feet from floor to roof, and three stories high—being very much the largest building in the city. The total cost is $38,000. Half of the lower floor is devoted to orchestra chairs, and the remainder furnished with raised seats, thus giving a full view of the stage from every part of the house.... The seating capacity of the boxes, gallery and auditorium is two thousand five hundred. ...Three saloons and bars—two upstairs and one on the first floor—with polite and attentive barkeepers, and PRETTY WAITING MAIDS by the score, supply the wants of guests, whether the order be for the finest wines, or the more practical drinks of the West. Down stairs, running parallel with the theatre room, but entirely separate, is a club room, or sportsman hall, 20 feet wide by 100 feet in length, where the devotees of the green cloth may find the chances combined in all games known to the sporting fraternity....

Sounds like quite the place, perfect for extracting coin from the pockets of any who are looking for entertainment of one type or another. My protagonist, Inez Stannert, might well look upon the three saloons and bars and the "club room" with some envy (even while she would no doubt eschew the pretty waiter maids).

Thanksgiving, Leadville (Soda Springs) 1879

... And apparently a "good time was had by all" for Thanksgiving at nearby Soda Springs that year. According to this Evening Chronicle tidbit (dated November 28, 1879), dancing lasted 'til dawn... a good method of working off the turkey, duck, etc., consumed earlier, I have no doubt. (Note: Soda Springs features in a key scene in the second Silver Rush mystery, Iron Ties):

THANKS AT SODASPRINGS
It was ten minutes past four o’clock this morning before Thanksgiving festivities ceased at Soda Springs. They commenced with a dinner to the school teachers of Leadville at twelve o’clock yesterday noon. This was followed by a dinner to everybody who came down to six o’clock last evening. The everybody was three of Colonel Bair’s hack loads, besides a number who came by private carriage. They kept coming till past ten o’clock in the evening. At eight o’clock the large dining hall was cleared and the dance which continued till the light of day was commenced. All together the Thanksgiving at Mount Massive Hotel for the blessings of 1879 was one that will be pleasantly remembered as the weary road down through the journey of life is traveled.

Question that pops to mind: How many people fill up a "hack?" Ten? Twenty? ... Just one of those little mysteries of the past...

Thanksgiving, Leadville 1879

A surfeit of turkey and company delayed me a couple of days from posting this tidbit from the Leadville Evening Chronicle, November 16, 1879:

THANKS
To-morrow is Thanksgiving.

All banks will be closed.
The Postoffice will be closed.
The hospitals will be remembered.
All the newspaper offices will be closed.
The poor of the city—no; there are none.
Extra turkey exercises will be held at the Grand, at the
Clarendon, and at the Windsor.
The Ancient Order of Hibernians are to hold their first
annual ball at the old Chestnut street Opera House [Shoenberg’s]
in the evening.
Thanksgiving dinners in imitation of New England family
reunions will be given at Stansell’s, at Londoner’s, at
Phelps’, at Thompson’s and at one hundred and some odd
other neat mansions.
At the Soda Springs Mount Massive Hotel, turkey, goose
and duck services will commence at two o’clock P.M. and continue
till five P.M. This will be followed with dancing. All
school teachers are to be there. All the editors are going. The
entire postoffice force, with the ladies who admire them
most, these and more still will ride to Mount Massive Hotel
to-morrow. Colonel Bair will run extra hacks to accommodate
those who may choose to go by his conveyances.

Here's hoping everyone had a good Thanksgiving, taking some time to give thanks along with tucking into the turkey, duck, tofurkey, what have you.

The Leadville craze, circa 1879

Here is the wonderful thing about browsing old newspapers and such: You go in search of one thing and, along the way, discover even more than you bargained for! I love it!

While looking for the article regarding proper winter wear for traveling to Leadville in 1879, I found several other references to the "Leadville craze" as reported in other Colorado newspapers and picked up in the Denver Daily Tribune, February 4, 1879, edition.

First, from the same article in the Colorado Miner that detailed travel fashion:

The journey to Leadville at this season of the year is not what may properly be denominated a "pleasure trip." Few men would undertake it except with the view of bettering their financial prospects, or because because they have been attacked with what is known as the "Leadville craze," a variety of that feverish excitement which carried thousands into White Pine and made it the liveliest camp in the world for a short time; which filled the Black Hills with thousands who came to their senses and walked out or got out the best they could. But the fact remains that the excitement "catches" hundreds...

And, from the Boulder News and Courier:

The tendency of the average American is, like that of sheep, to go in herds. It is only necessary for some bell-wether to strike off at a lively gait in a given direction, to have an immense following who have taken him as their guiding star. How many disappointed and disgusted ones will come away from Leadville, no one is paid to tell or undertakes to chronicle. The number who go and are going is constantly dinned into our ears, but the sequel of their going is never told. Those who "strike it rich" are noisy and jubilant; those who miserably fail and lose what money they took with them, are silent and despairing; so that the record is made up from the former class...

True, there's a slight whiff of "sour grapes" about these comments (particularly in the Boulder piece, which goes on to say: "...It is no exaggeration to say that Boulder county contains as much rich ore as any county in the State..."). Still, these are observations of human nature that are true not only for 19th century mineral rushes such as those in aforementioned White Pine and the Black Hills, but for recent booms (i.e., high-tech, business, and real-estate). Remember the stories of the "golden boys and girls" during the dot.com boom or the Wall Street high-flying financiers, for instance? Not much was reported about those who didn't "make it"... at least, when things were going gangbusters.

Next up: A little preview on what I discovered during the writing of Leaden Skies about "the law" in 1880 Leadville and the state of politics during that time...

The well-dressed winter traveler (1879)

... Continuing the theme of "traveling to Leadville" (in a way, that's what we're doing here, as I count down the days to the release of Leaden Skies) , we'll turn now to the subject of "oh, what shall I wear" on that journey by stagecoach up to 10,500 feet in the Rocky Mountains in winter, 1879.

I promise you this: no Goretex is involved.

Here it is, survival fashion for that trip to Leadville, straight from a seasoned traveler (quoted from the Colorado Miner and appearing in the Denver Daily Tribune, February 4, 1879):

Wear a fur cap; carry a scarf that will fold around your head and neck with about six thicknesses; put on a thick flannel shirt and two more over that; one pair of drawers, and two more other that; let your vest, pants and coat be heavy, loose boots and a pair of overshoes may keep your feet warm; put a bottle of the best spirits in your pocket, for arctic emergencies, and then envelop yourself in a pair of California blankets as soon as you get on the coach.

Zounds! Sounds like the properly dressed fellow wears nearly all he owns, just to make the trip. And not a word said about the properly dressed lady. One can only imagine.

Now, here's an interesting thing: I wondered about these California blankets. Just previous to this quote, there's the line "... we advise everybody to go warmly clad, and to carry a pair of heavy blankets along..." Hence, "California blankets" must be very warm. But look up the term in a slang dictionary (I used the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang), and "California blankets" is hobo slang for "sheets of newspaper used for bedding or warmth" circa 1926. Apparently the term went from one extreme (really really toasty warm) to the other (barely adequate covering on a warm California night) in the almost 50 years between 1879 and 1926.

Next up ... more about the 1879 "Leadville craze."

Letters: Windows to the past (Part 4)

For this weekend post, I'm thinking of food. Not a head-to-the-supermarket-grab-something-from-the-freezer type food. But food you could obtain in 1879 in Leadville, before the advent of trains.

Toward the end of February, young George Elder was taking his meals at the Tontine, a very fashionable restaurant in Leadville. In his letter of February 26, 1879, he wrote to his parents in Philadelphia:

. . . As to the material of my meals I live very well though I doubt if any one at the Tontine where I board lives as cheaply. Liver, ham, eggs, mutton and beefsteak are my standards. I drink no coffee or tea and thus the extra 10 cents I can put in something else. Milk cannot be had for love or money. Eggs are up so high that two fried eggs come at 25 cents . . .

Using the Measuring Worth site, that 10-cent cuppa equates to a $2.14 cup of java today. And, trust me, we're not talking lattes in 1879. Those two fried eggs at a quarter? You'd be paying $5.36 for them in 2007. Given that the daily wage in the mines were about $3.50 (that's $75.05 in today's money), you can see that only the wealthy were ordering fried eggs for breakfast on a regular basis.

Letters: Windows to the past (Part 3)

As I will be out of town for a few days, I'm going to try to set up posts to roll out automatically while I'm gone. We'll see if it works, or if they suddenly appear all at once!

Since some folks expressed interest in further excerpts of letters from Leadville, circa 1879, I thought I'd continue along that path for now. Here's a great bit that pretty much sums up the ambience of Leadville during these times, written by George Elder, a young man of about 22 and a recent arrival to town. The letter was written to his mother and is dated September 24, 1879:

. . . We had several dare devil murders the last few days so that some of the inhabitants are bound to keep the excitement up. Murders occur in such a terribly reckless manner that it is uncertain who will be the next victim. Pistols are drawn so quickly and most of them are these self-cockers that are almost as dangerous to the owners as to his enemies. I have lost all fear and it seems to me that a man cannot help becoming like the country out here. I carry my revolver about me in the night time and I do not think the small amount of Quaker blood in me would be any hindrance to my swift and immediate use. No man dare flourish a revolver and threaten to shoot as it is the invariable rule to fire at once and count the cost afterwards. A murderer is safer in Leadville than a Horsethief. . . .

I love to quote this passage in response to the general question of "What was Leadville really like?" Reading this section aloud has its own pleasures as well, in the cadence, the easy way the words roll along, and that wonderfully short, energetic concluding statement (which is oh so "Wild West"):

A murderer is safer in Leadville than a Horsethief.

Now that's something to ponder. As in the passage I quoted in Letters: Part 2, it seems pretty clear that, if young George has the pulse of the town aright, one could easily "get away with murder." Or, to put it another way, the turmoil and upheaval of Leadville during its boom days give an amateur sleuth, such as my protagonist, Inez Stannert, some leeway for exploring crimes that the law—and others of the town—would simply ignore or consider no big deal, i.e., "Who was murdered? No horses were stolen? Well, then, who cares?"

Of course, Leadville wasn't all murderers, con artists, foot-pads, and disreputable women. It had its high society, its opera house, its high-profile visitors, its schools, hospitals, and so on. And that's part of what makes this such a fascinating place and time: people from all walks of life, from all over the world, came to Leadville thinking to strike it rich. And, as we know from the dot-com, real-estate, and stock-market boom-bust cycles, not all get rich. And even those who do, may not hang onto it for long.

Too, when the haves, with money burning holes in their pockets, are rubbing shoulders daily with the have-nots, in a country where simply "getting by" is expensive, where weather is extreme, and everyone is consumed with silver-fever . . . As George noted, "a man cannot help becoming like the country out here." It's no wonder there was occasional casual murder in the streets and numbing desperation and despair in some minds.

Letters: Windows to the past (Part 2)

In my last post, I quoted a bit from the letters of George Elder, a young man who ventured to the silver boomtown of Leadville in 1879 to make a future as a lawyer.

Regarding money and crime (two topics of endless fascination to me in the pursuit of veracity in fiction), George had some interesting comments in his November 16, 1879, letter to his mother:

. . . Last night two-foot-pads held up the hands of a man who had a long Navy self-cocker in one of them and they were both killed. Every-body says "serves them right" and I do not think the man who killed them will be hung as foot-pads are the most dangerous enemies of our people here. I am glad some of them are meeting with their desserts. Most men here carry sums about them varying from $50 up to the hundreds of dollars so that the field is a very lucrative one for the highwaymen. . . .

Okay, what treasures we can glean from this little gem? First things first: Money. Today, $50 hardly buys you groceries. First thing I wondered in reading this passage: How much was $50 back in 1879?

Thanks to the very neat-o little website Measuring Worth, which includes a little calculator that computes the relative value of U.S. dollars from 1774 to 2007, I was able to figure this out. So, hold on to your seat for this:
$50 in 1879 had the same "purchase power" as $1072.09 in 2007.

Now, think of those "several hundred dollars." Let's pick, oh say, $300 and see what we get. Back in 1879, that $300 stuffed into pockets or satchels equates to $6432.53.

Yes, I can see where robbery would be a lucrative business in old-time Leadville.

What else can I harvest from this letter? How about terms and slang? "foot-pad," "highwaymen," "serves them right," "just desserts." I can, without qualms, now use these words and terms in my fictional exploits with the knowledge that they are current to the times.

What else? How about the fact that "Navy self-cockers" were being carried and employed, the fact that the criminals were stupid enough to shout "raise your hands high" to someone who was actually carrying a gun in one of them, and that the person shot them and will probably receive no punishment?

And, I could go on.

Not the least question that occurred to me: He wrote this to his mother?? If I were young George's mother and had received this letter, I'd be sending him a ticket on the first stage home! But, back then, a 22-year-old son was considered a man, ready to take up the challenges and rewards, fully capable of making his own way, far from home. An attitude not quite as common today, where many 22-year-olds are viewed and treated as just slightly older teenagers. Authors of historical fiction, myself included, have to be conscious of our own suppositions, expectations, and beliefs, and do a little "mind-travel" when creating our worlds of the past.

So, perhaps this will give you some insight into my thinking and why I value these letters and the folks who so generously shared them with me, so very highly.

What about you? Do you see some other things in this passage that shed light on the past?

Letters: Windows to the past

When it comes to researching the past, I can't leave the topic without mentioning letters as a treasure trove of material, shedding light onto life in the past.

I am particularly indebted to a long-ago fellow named George Elder, who, as a very young man, ventured to Leadville in January 1879, hoping to make his fortune as a lawyer. Young George—who possessed a perceptive eye and a well-versed pen—wrote home regularly. Thanks to George's grandson and his wife, who I acknowledge in every single Leadville book I write, I have typed transcriptions of those letters.

I could probably spend the rest of the month January quoting bits of George's letters here on my blog (hmmm, not a bad idea, that) and discussing where I went from there. For now, I'll start with a couple quotes.


This is from George's January 29, 1879 letter:

My dear Parents,
I wrote you a day or so ago but I am now in possession of more facts concerning the place. I find things are even higher in price than I thoughts . . . I shall be compelled to pay $25 for a office per month. The one I have selected is 13 ft by 10 ft and the floor very roughly made as also the walk. . . . The Tontine where I now stop charges $4 per day for all parties though my meals have cost me on the average 45 cents. I guess I pay about $2 per day. . . . A man without money here might as well give up at once if he is a professional man. Laborers are well paid $3.50 to $4.50 being the wages in the mines and at the smelters. The streets are very much crowded and rival some of the busy streets of the Eastern cities. . . .

A couple of things strike me about this passage: Note the costs. A miner, making $3.50 a day, could no way no how afford staying at the Tontine. And three meals would cost more than a third of his daily wages. Think about that. Second, the streets were crowded—think New York, Philadelphia—but this is 10,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains. And more were coming in daily. In this letter, George continues,

The excitement about the mines is booming along and people are coming in at the rate of 60 to 100 per day.

These people came by stage, by foot, by horse, in the dead of winter. No trains to Leadville, yet. Can you imagine the shock of some folks when they finally got to town only to discover that rooms were scarce and prices high? What would they do? Try to leave? Turn to crime?

More tomorrow from George's letters. And then, we'll see where my random blog-walks take me from there.