I just finished reading "All Roads Lead To Deadwood".* It is a book which details the many trails, and their travelers, on stage coaches and on oxen/mule freight wagons, heading to the gold camps of Deadwood, Black Hills, Dakota Territory, in 1876-90.
Passengers and freight originated from such towns as Cheyenne, Fort Pierre, Medora, Bismarck and Sidney. Gold discoveries were a magnet in the frontier West, and no magnet was stronger at the time than the gold deposits in Deadwood, particularly after Custer's 1874 expedition into the Black Hills.
Travel on these "roads" was hazardous. In Winter, there were blizzards and 40 degree below zero temperatures. In Spring, there were flash floods, rains that turned soil into mush, and swollen rivers to be crossed without benefit of bridges. And, at all times, there was the threat, and reality, of ambush by Indians and road agents.
Nevertheless, stage and freight outfits had concern for the "comforts" of travelers.
Each trail had stations about every 10 to 20 miles, where passengers and freighters would stop for a meal or rest, and horses, oxen and mules would be fed or changed.
While many of these stations offered alcoholic and entertainment opportunities, the book makes it clear that drinking water was a key feature of a successful rest stop operation. It describes many of the stations as "here was a fine well with good water." Stations generally had "good water" except for a few that had water termed "alkaline"-which tended to make travelers sick. One trail had an area of many springs, often simply called "holes". At some locations, a barn or shed would be built over a spring-the cold flowing water had the effect of creating refrigeration within the building.
At one relay station, on Oak Creek, there "was a watering stop with the well built into the bank of the stream. It had excellent water."(P.202) A trail from Sidney, Nebraska, had a stage stop where "the water from Beaver Creek was clear but cathartic caused by the high lithium content. Good water was available at five cents a bucket and three dollars for a wagon load-but the water was only for drinking as the women still made coffee from creek water." (P.80) No doubt, that morning coffee gave quite a wake-up!
For the most part, therefore, drinking water available to these travelers appeared to be simply "good", unless something obvious such as alkalinity made it "not good." There were, of course, no EPA, no Maximum Contaminant Levels, no primary or secondary drinking water standards and no regulations requiring treatment of water.
Interestingly, while the book details many situations when stage drivers and passengers and freighters were killed by Indians, bandits, weather or in fighting, it gives no indication that anyone died from drinking "good water." So, it seems, all who endured the hazards of travel then made it to Deadwood to seek their fortune. In 1890, the railroad reached Deadwood, and overland stages to the Hills road into history.
One may speculate that what made drinking water "good" at these stations was the fact that it came from wells, springs and streams untainted by "civilization." Perhaps it is a sad commentary on "modern" times that drinking water must be subjected to extensive governmental regulation and treatment because of the reality or simply perception that civilization has contaminated sources of supply. On the other hand, maybe I am still back in the 1880s, as I still get all my drinking water from an untreated well, and it is good.
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*(Klock, 1979)
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