Hot Weather - The Rendezvous & Sitting in the Shade

What About this Heat?

It has ben hot the last couple of weeks. So hot that grass is turning brown fast, tough for ranchers and for city people who like a beautiful green lawn. Wyoming’s all-time record high was 115 degrees set in Basin in August of 1983. We have been over 100 but thankfully quite a few degrees from 115. Reminds me of the old Wyoming joke about the heat – “I watched a Coyote chasing a Jack Rabbit and it was so hot they were both walking.”

Rendezvous

During these hot days of July, nothing beat sitting around in the shade, swapping stories, and in the case of many trappers, drinking, and overeating. Rendezvous took place this time of the year, July, a time when trappers really had nothing to do. Must have been quite a site, these Rendezvous, with boisterous talking, games, races, music, and dancing.  Trappers from big companies were joined by free trappers and Native Indians and salesmen with trade goods. The trade goods often include not only trapping supplies, but women for hire, and large quantities of bad whiskey. A few trappers brought in their wives and sometimes children. Some of the later rendezvous included tourists, newsmen, and artists, leaving behind a rich history. A history that is often fiction, as much as fact, interesting and colorful times they were indeed.

Meanwhile

Enjoy the heat and remember it brings on, great gardens, baseball, barbecues and many other great summer activities.

Now I think I will go outside sit in the shade and read a good book.

Speaking of good books if you would like a bit of Wyoming fiction, you can see all my books here. Thanks for looking, all available in softcover or eBook.

The Strange Fate of Hiram Scott

The Tale of Hiram Scott

Living in east-central Wyoming, we often travel the 60, or so, miles to Scottsbluff Nebraska. The city was named after Hiram Scott (1805-1828) a Captain under Colonel Leavenworth, a trusted leader in the western fur trade working for William Henry Ashley and the famous Rocky Mountain Fur Company.

While in a canoe traveling down the North Platte River Scott’s canoe overturned. The well know trapper saying, “Keep your powder dry,” was upturned along with the canoe. The powered was wet and useless. The small group of men walked on toward the area that would one day become Fort Laramie living on what they could forage along the way, mostly roots and berries.

North Platte River Upstream From Fort Laramie

Scott, who reportedly had been ill, was left behind as the rest of his group, fearful of Indians wanted to push on. The next year another group found what was left of his body near Scottsbluff. Although sick and with no way to hunt or protect himself, he had managed to travel fifty miles east following the river. It is believed he crawled most of the way, being too weak to walk. One odd thing about this tale is that somehow he managed to cross the river. His body was found on the opposite bank of where he was supposedly left behind.

Laramie River on the Grounds of Fort Laramie

All of this makes a great story but begs the question, why was a 23-year-old man in such poor health. Much has been speculated as to why, but most believe he had been wounded in a fight with the Blackfoot somewhere near and around the time of the 1828 Rendezvous. Like so many early tales of the west, lots, and lots of loopholes remain, but most interesting. Seems, if nothing else, he lived quite a bit in his 23 years, traveling west from Missouri, attending three Rendezvous, battling with Indians, fighting for his life, and having a west Nebraska town named in his honor.

Chatting at the Rendezvous - This one a re-creation at Fort Laramie - summer 2015

From My Writing Site - Christmas is over, and now we are counting down to the New Year. Each year I make a few resolutions, and each year they seem to go quickly by the wayside. Last year I decided, for the first time, to keep track of how many words I wrote and published. I did it, but am not sure I will keep track this year, seemed to put too much pressure on me, and I started worrying about the days I didn’t write. Sometimes that causes a bit, or a whole bunch of bad writing, not worth saving. 

Oh, for the record, I wrote a tad less than a quarter of a million words this year. Quite a bit for me but partly because I wrote quite a lot recently, trying to finish up last year's goals.

Want to take a look at my books? You can do it here, just click this sentence.

Wyoming And The Railroad

The month of May is important for railroad historians in Wyoming. Tomorrow, marks the anniversary, May 9, 1868,  of the tracks for the Union Pacific reaching Laramie. One year, and one day, later, May 10, 1869, the Golden Spike was driven at Promontory Point Utah as the transcontinental railroad is completed.

Wyoming Train - Circa 1890s

How Important Was The Transcontinental Railroad?

It replaced the long slow and expensive travel by wagon train. It also did away with the pony express, many stage coach lines, and long distance freighters who moved goods east and west. The railroad also eliminated most of the dangers of going west. The old trip, by wagon, would have taken six months by train one week.

Looks Like This Old Wagon Tired Out

Was it Really Transcontinental?

It could be, depends on how one looks at it,  but the tracks in the east were already quite extensive all the way through Iowa. The building of the new rails started at Omaha and ended on the west coast.  Nearly 1800 miles of tracks were laid between 1863 and 1869 by three different builders. Although the railroad is often attributed to President Lincoln, who was in office when it was started. It’s building went on through the administration of President Andrew Johnson and finished with U. S. Grant in office.

Railroads Are Still Going Stong In Wyoming Today

But Wasn’t it Expensive to Travel This Way?

No. As a matter of fact, the cost to travel west by wagon would have run from several hundred to more than a thousand dollars. By the new rail system, the cost, third class, sleeping car, was around $150, and if one started in Omaha, the cost to go to the Pacific Coast was $65.00.

For many years, I asked students, for a project, to pick two events they wish they could have been part of in the old west. After they had finished, I gave them my own list of three. I would have gone to the first rendezvous, rode in a wagon train west and taken a trip on the 1869 Transcontinental Railroad. Fun times and great adventure. 

Here I Am Hanging Out At A Rendezvous - Looks To Me Like I Fit Right In

Things I Saw Today

All too often we forget how lucky we are to live in Wyoming. Sometimes we don’t take the time to look around enough. With the economy in a temporary tank now is the perfect time to see the good things.

Seagulls in the North Platte River

For me it doesn’t take much, just a short drive, about an hour, is all it takes. Today with the snow falling that is what we did, took a short drive. As usual, the sites were terrific. What a great place to live.

Trickle Falls in Guernsey State Park

I did, as I always do, took along my camera.

Turkey in the Snow

So today’s post is – stuff I saw in the park today.

Spring, even if it is Snowing

-Once again it is time for monthly Wyoming Trivia-

         1.  What was the dividing line for Wyoming’s first two counties?

          2.  How many counties did Wyoming have when it became a state?

       3. The time of the mountain men was an interesting and colorful part of Wyoming history and the great event of the year for any mountain man was the annual rendezvous. How many Rendezvous were held?

See Answers below photo – don’t peek.

 

Family Outing

1.     The Continental Divide

2.     13

3.     16

A Wyoming Picture - Horses in the Snow

The 1835 Rendezvous - Times are Changing

Twelve of the famous Mountain Man Rendezvous were held in what today is Wyoming’s south pass country. The 1835 Rendezvous may very well be the one that opened up the west for settlers. A doctor, Dr. Marcus Whitman and a minister, Reverend Samuel Parker were present, representing occupations not before seen in the mountains. Whitman handed out various medicines, did some surgeries and generally helped trappers and Indians alike. Parker made friends with the tribes and preached from his, white man’s book of God.

Five years later the fur trade was ending, and less than a decade after that 49ers were racing across Wyoming on their way to the gold fields of California

Skinning Mules and Whacking Bulls

So easy for us today to go to the store and buy just about anything we want. A drive on any interstate will allow you to quickly see how all those goods get there every day. Trucks and trains and in some cases planes move our goods today, making sure I can grab a fresh pineapple on a cold snowy November day in Wyoming. But how did they do it in the old days, the really old days?  Mule Skinners and Bull Whackers moved the goods.

From about 1825, freighters started moving goods to outlying settlements and forts. When the 1860s came, with the transcontinental railroad, the freighting business became one of the busiest in the west. Freighters moved goods from and too the railroad, supplying goods needed for expansion and settlement of the new west.

Freighters, for protection and because of the amount of goods needed, traveled in huge slow moving overland trains. These trains consisted of two dozen or more wagons, each carrying as much as three tons of goods. The wagons were pulled by huge teams of six pair of oxen or several pair of mules, depending on the weight of the freight.   Not fast but most efficient.

Train Stopped for the Day

Mule Drivers were known as mule-skinners and the oxen drivers as bull-whackers, all using their bull whips most efficiently to nip black flies away from the oxen and mules. This slow but efficient way to move goods allowed the new citizens of the west to buy the same coffee, canned peaches and yards of calico that were offered on the two coasts. It lasted into the 1900s until motor trucks and better roads allowed for the bull-whackers and mule-skinners to die off in favor of truck drivers.

Fun at the Rendezvous

 

 

The Rendezvous was a place for the trappers to let off a little steam, all right, in some cases a lot of steam. Because of the over abundance of whiskey, surprisingly, some trappers made poor decisions. People were shot, bones were broken, and fortunes (at least by mountain man standards) were made and lost. Only the first Rendezvous had no whiskey, it also had no fights and no duels; it was also the shortest of the 16 rendezvous.

The trade whiskey that became such a big part of the other Rendezvous was often a wild concoction of whiskey, creek water, tobacco and hot peppers, some traders used other, secret, ingredients but these were the basics.

Even Kit Carson was dragged into a wild, Knight like, duel on horseback by a drunk trapper who wouldn’t  leave Carson’s Indian girlfriend, Grass Singing, (who Carson married within a year) alone. Both combatants were wounded, neither seriously. Carson went on to fame and the French Canadian trapper he dueled with, Shunar, was never heard of again.

So what other supplies were surprisingly popular, and expensive, at the Rendezvous.

·        Coffee –maybe not surprising

·        Tobacco—sold in twists (chew, smoke or trade)

·        Tea—yep, mountain men drank tea, and liked it

·        Peppermint candy—sweet tooth mountain men, still my favorite

·        Ginger candy—not for me, but popular in its day

·        Sugar –often poured into coffee and tea

·        Books—even those who didn’t read often bought books and paid someone to read aloud

·        Wool shirts—and we thought they all wore only buckskins

NOTE- of the 16 Rocky Mountain Rendezvous, 12 were held within the boundaries of what is today Wyoming. The majority of the fur trade and with it the mountain man era lasted only twenty years, 1820-1840, the Rendezvous started in 1824 and ended in 1840.