Wednesday Western - Western Trivia

The ninety-eight meridian is usually considered the line where the Old West began and the East ended. This meridian is east of San Antonio, Texas and heads north through the middle of Oklahoma and Kansas, eastern Nebraska and the Dakotas. It's where the forests of the East end and the western grasslands began. Most western books use the Mississippi River as the line between the East and the West.

Silver City was a popular name for a town. You can find one in Idaho, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Utah.

Tombstone, Arizona was founded in 1879 on Goose Flats by Edward Lawrence "Ed" Schieffelin a U.S. Army scout. He was prospecting for gold and was told the only rock he'd find on Goose Flats was his tombstone. After he found silver, he called the claim, Tombstone.  The community was dubbed "The town too tough to die." In 1881 it became the seat of Cochise County, Arizona.

Two major West coast towns had major losses to fires. San Francisco had six fires from 1849 to 1851 due to randomly placed wooden structures that helped fires spread quickly. And June of 1889 Seattle had fifty blocks of wooden structures destroyed by fire.


Source: Old West Trivia Book by Don Bullis