1) Back in the 1800s, pioneer towns really did stink. Rubbish was left out to rot along with the corpses of animals and offal from the butcher shops.
 
2) The western myth of brave cattle ranchers defending their territory in the far west is only…a myth. The real fight was between big powerful ranchers who formed stock growers associations and used violence and terror to drive out small farmers.”
 
3) Western men thought their role was to dominate women, and domestic violence was widespread. Most wives stuck it out, believing their married status and a promised place in God’s heaven were worth beatings.
 
4) Divorce was easily available. Women could get one on grounds of alcoholism, abandonment, or extreme violence; men could divorce women who refused to wash clothes, cook, or have children.
 
5) Saloon dance ladies weren’t prostitutes, even though they were often dubbed soiled doves, nymphs of the prairie, scarlet ladies, or fallen angels. They earned money by selling dances, encouraging men to drink and gamble.
 

If only the walls could speak…

In one hundred and fifty years, Blake's Folly, a silver boomtown notorious for its brothels,
scarlet ladies, silver barons, speakeasies, and divorce ranches, has become a semi-ghost town.
Although the old Mizpah Saloon is still in business, its upper floor is sheathed in dust. But in a
room at a long corridor's end, an adventurer, a beautiful dance girl, and a rejected wife were once caught in a love triangle, and their secret has touched three generations.

A Room in Blake's Folly

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