Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage: 1880-1898 - Hardcover

Strahorn, Carrie Adell

9780803241602: Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage: 1880-1898

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803241607 ISBN 13: 9780803241602

Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr, 1988

Late in 1880 Carrie Adell Strahorn reckoned that she and her husband had traveled six thousand miles by stagecoach in three years, and they were "only well started." Robert Strahorn's position as a publicist for the Union Pacific Railroad was taking them down every axle-breaking road in the West. Volume 2, which begins soon after they reach the West Coast at the end of 1880, finds them still on the move but stopping long enough to raise towns for settlers lured by the railroad. In this volume, the Strahorns head out to investigate the country between Pocatello and Portland, which is being invaded by a subsidiary line of the UP. In the 1880s they are instrumental in founding such towns as Ontario, Oregon, and Caldwell, Hailey, Shoshone, Mountain Home, Weiser and Payette in present-day Idaho. At Caldwell the Strahorns become pioneer settlers for the first time. Here, as in other places, Adell welcomes newcomers with "chicken in the pot, cakes in the oven, bread in the pan." She becomes, in effect, hostess to the West, experiencing "the marrow of joy that always accompanies a life of useful work." The book contains many black and white photographs and drawings.

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