Changing times in the Old West

[Delmonico]

A bit different, but times were changing, 1905, Merna in Custer County Nebraska:

















(Picture 12918 of the Butcher Collection)

The Overland Automobile company was founded in 1903 in Terre Haute, Indiana and in 1905 was moved to Indianapolis Indiana.  John Willys purchased the company in 1908 and the car was renamed the Willys Overland.  In 1926 the Overland name was dropped.  Willys went on to produce the famous Jeep.

[Fox Creek Kid]

Speaking of time in the Old West:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/nov18.html

[WaddWatsonEllis]

I just watched two films that were about people who were born and lived in the Old West, and for good or bad, lived to see the day when the New West evolved to the point that they were unneeded ... and unwanted ...

To see what happened to the people of the old West when the New West marched in, I think 'Monte Walsch' and 'The Shootist' are pretty representative ....

[Delmonico]

Speaking of time in the Old West:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/nov18.html

With the standard time, air brakes and the automatic coupler the trains became almost safe to ride.

[JimBob]

I just watched two films that were about people who were born and lived in the Old West, and for good or bad, lived to see the day when the New West evolved to the point that they were unneeded ... and unwanted ...

To see what happened to the people of the old West when the New West marched in, I think 'Monte Walsch' and 'The Shootist' are pretty representative ....

The village smith's shop with it's smell of coal,hot iron,and horses was replaced by the garage with it's stench of gasoline,oil,and exhaust gas.As one old smiths account said,"everytime one of those gas buggies went by it seemed I laid another man off till there was just me left".Some adapted to the new technology some didn't and faded way.

Another good movie about changing times and the westerner is Ride the High Country.

One of my oldest friends father ran the last shop in town.He shod horses at the area county fair horse races until he was in his late 70s.His son and I helped him finish his last job for some stair railings before he quit altogether.He started out working in the coal mines shoeing the mine mules before WW1.He could tell some good stories,he was County Sheriff two times in the 1940s.

[Forty Rod]

Janny couplers are still in wide use today and the Westinghouse air brakes are only slightly improved.

[JimBob]

From what I've read on early railroading history the passengers were no more at risk than the brakemen and engineer,which ain't saying a whole lot.Very hazardous  back then for the railroaders as well as passengers unless you were the station wonk.

[Rafe Covington]

I don't think things have changed for the better, just my two cents worth.

Rafe Covington

[JimBob]

I don't think things have changed for the better, just my two cents worth.

Rafe Covington

In some ways they haven't in other ways they have.Medicine for all the problems you read about is infinitely better now than then.As much as people love horses,in town they caused massive amounts of flies due to the quantities of manure laying around,polluted public wells causing typhoid fever etc.(now replaced by green house gas emissions,can't win)The early farmers faced a life of unrelenting labor 24/7 365 days a year(I don't know how they had time to make those big families).Filling Kerosene lamps,cutting wood all the time.Todays era isn't as I'd like it either but I don't think I'd want to live that way 365 days a year for 60 or 70 years.