Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m 47 I N 1890, A MAN IN THE YUKON TERRITORY WON A BET THANKS TO A PILE OF DEAD HORSES. As Jeremy Agnew details in Medicine in the Old West: A History, 1850-1900, one Arthur Walden bet his friends that he could cross the unpaved main street in the gold rush town of Dawson with- out muddying his shoes. Much to the chagrin of those who bet against him, Walden hopped from one horse carcass to the next all the way across, winning his unlikely wager with ease and grace. Walden would probably have won his bet in any number of Western towns. Dawson's refuse-strewn thoroughfares were the rule rather than the exception in the Old West. Basic sanitation infrastructure like running water and closed sewer systems were becoming more commonplace in many East Coast metropolises by the middle of the nineteenth century, but such lavish advancements were still years off for the rough-and-tumble specimens who made their home in the rugged Rockies, the vast plains, and any number of grimy, godforsaken corners on the American frontier. Add to this the lack of hygiene products that we take for granted today, and the texture of the situation really starts to come into focus. Colgate wouldn't invent toothpaste until 1873. People instead used tooth powder, baking soda, salt, or campfire ash. Deodorant wasn't mass produced until 1888, and soap consisted of a musky mix of ash and animal fat. Toilet paper didn't make an appearance until 1880; at best, people used leaves, dry corn cobs, or pages torn from The Farmer's Almanac. If Manifest Destiny had a smell, it would surely stink of rotting garbage, excrement, and a heady whiff of BO. Literature and film have cultivated in the American imagination a highly romanticized take on the Old West, but they've necessarily left out some of the crustier details of day-to-day hygiene. MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD The biggest obstacle to personal hygiene in the Old West was limited access to clean water. Arid climates exacerbated the problem. Once dependable water sources could go dry or stagnant, and even if run- ning water were nearby, it was likely that an upstream outhouse would pollute it. Potable water was a precious resource, and people conserved what little they had by not washing dishes, clothes, or their own bodies. Much in the way that a good cast iron must be seasoned to last, citizens self-sea- soned in the name of convenience and sur- vival. Take for example the parents who sewed their children into their clothes for the winter. Family physician Arthur Hertzler notes in his memoir The Horse and Buggy Doctor, "All the boys were sewed into their clothes in the fall when cold weather approached... They woke in the morning all dressed... In the spring, the clothes were ripped off and the child saw himself for the first time in a number of months." Bathing in the home was a family event. Water had to be carried from the source bucket by bucket, heated on the stovetop, and poured into a small tub. Father would wash first, followed by mother, followed by each child in order of age, all in the same water. The general unpleasantness and inconvenience of the chore goes a long way to explain why people didn't do it often. Sponge baths were more the norm for both men and wom- en. While men could strip wherever they pleased and bathe in a creek if it were available, women did not have the tacit permission to do the same in a society governed by rather prudish quasi-Victorian mores. Women took their sponge baths indoors, usually wearing their long, heavy under- garments because of the lack of privacy. This turned their sponge bath into more of a token gesture at cleanliness than anything else. Conveniently for them, it was believed that bathing too often would open the pores and invite in even more disease. That being said, people were not dirty and smelly for lack of trying—their workarounds were quite inventive, though usually not very effective. If anything, their personal hy- giene hacks often made things a whole lot worse. article by LINDSAY DICK • illustrations by ROBERT RATH PARENTS self-seasoned IN THE NAME OF CONVENIENCE AND sewed their children into their clothes.

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