Wild West Sayings We Use Today, Part 10

What do cowboys, an English author, and macaroni have in common? They all relate in some way to the latest installment in the Wild West Sayings We Use Today blog series. Jump in where we are today or start at the beginning. 

Wild West Sayings We Use Today, Part 10 

Diggings

This colloquial expression for a residence, office, or other habitual abode has its roots in the 1500’s. It evolved from the description of a mine as a place of ‘diggings.’ Some sources link the origin of this meaning to the California and Australian goldrushes, although it predated both.

‘Digs,’ common in British slang, derived as an abbreviation of the older term. It describes living in shared facilities, typically as a student or single person.

Historical Reference: Diggings first referred to an entire locality as opposed to a single lodging. The first known use of the expression to describe an individual dwelling occurred in the 1838 book, Charcoal Sketches by Joseph Clay Neal: “Look here, Ned, I reckon it’s about time we should go to our diggings; I am dead beat.”

Example: She went home to her diggings.

Dillydally

People have longed enjoyed playing with words, apparently. In 1741, a process now known as reduplication (insertion of similar-sounds) most likely created dillydally from dally, which itself evolved from the Middle-English dalien, which derived from the Old French dalier. Got it? Which form of the word do you prefer? I vote for the fun one. 

Historical Reference: As a verb meaning ‘to delay,’ the earliest known use of dillydally is from 1741. It crops up in Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, a novel by English author Samuel Richardson: 'What you do, sir, do: don't stand dilly-dallying!' The term is found as a noun even earlier, in a 1610 quotation from Gervase Babington in his "Comfortable notes vpon the bookes of Exodus and Leuiticus": “Such dilly dally is fitter for heathens that know not God, than for sober Christians.1610 'Such dilly-dally is fitter for heathens that know not God.’”

Example: Don’t dillydally. There’s work to be done.

Dude

A truly American slang term, cowboys first used dude to describe a man as a city-slicker—a dandy who dressed in fashionable clothing but lacked practical skills. This use came from the song, “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” where a fine fellow went to town, stuck a feather in his cap, and called it ‘macaroni.’ (Here, we must pause to explain that a ‘macaroni’ was a dandified young British man fond of the Italian dish by the same name he encountered during his travels. You're welcome.) 

By 1960, dude took on the meaning it retains today, as a general term for a man.

Historical Reference: In early 1883, the popular press began to call foppish young men ‘doods,’ a spelling that transitioned into ‘dudes.’”

Example: That dude really should learn to ride. 


Thanks for riding with me through time to discover the history of words that passed through the Wild West to us today.  

About Janalyn Voigt

Janalyn Voigt fell in love with literature at an early age when her father read chapters from classics as bedtime stories. When Janalyn grew older, she put herself to sleep with tales "written" in her head. Today Janalyn is a storyteller who writes in several genres. Romance, mystery, adventure, history, and whimsy appear in all her novels in proportions dictated by their genre. Janalyn Voigt is represented by Wordserve Literary.


Learn more about Janalyn, read the first chapters of her books, subscribe to her e-letter, and join her reader clubs at http://janalynvoigt.com.

Montana Gold Series

Based on actual historical events during a time of unrest in America, the Montana gold series explores faith, love, and courage in the wild west.

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The History of Wells Fargo

A couple of years ago, a new bank came to our town. Wells Fargo. I say “new,” because it was new to our area, perhaps to our state. But Wells Fargo is hardly a “new” bank. It was first started in 1852, a product of the California Gold Rush. The founders, Henry Wells and William Fargo, started Wells, Fargo, & Co., in order to provide excellent banking services to the people of the West. Their first location was in San Francisco but they quickly developed an excellent reputation, which allowed them to spread to the other towns and mining camps in California and beyond.

Wells Fargo & Co. wasn’t just about the banking services, though. In addition to handling their customers’ money needs in a quick and reliable way, Wells Fargo also got into the express business—transporting anything of value via horse and rider, steamships, railroad, or, the most well known, the stagecoach.

Advertisement for Overland Mail Stagecoach travel.

In 1858, Wells, Fargo & Co. lent their backing to the new Overland Stage Line, which traveled 2,812 miles along the “Butterfield Route.” In 1861, the company took over the operation of the short-lived Pony Express, which lasted only until the start of the Civil War. By 1866, Wells Fargo had expanded to dominate all major Western stage routes from Nebraska to California.

As the Transcontinental Railroad was completed, Wells Fargo’s express business switched to a rail-based one, rather than stagecoaches, allowing it to reach more than just the western states and territories. By 1888, the company’s new motto became “Ocean-to-Ocean” to depict the fact it served customers from the East coast all the way to the West in 25 states. Their services included money orders, traveler’s checks, and money transfers via telegraph. And for the many mining communities, they provided guards to keep the gold, silver and other valuables safe. By the early 1900’s, the bank boasted over 6,000 locations nation-wide.

Original Wells Fargo location,
San Francisco, California

In 1905, Wells, Fargo, & Co. separated their banking and express businesses into two separate entities. The bank was rocked in 1906 when the San Francisco earthquake and fire struck. Thankfully, the bank president sent word that the read: “Building Destroyed, Vault Intact, Credit Unaffected.” From there, Wells Fargo rebuilt and became a powerhouse in the business all across the West.

As World War I began in 1918, Wells Fargo’s locations shrunk drastically—from about 10,000 locations (both bank and express offices) of back to a single branch in San Francisco. This was due to the U.S. Government taking over the nation’s express network as part of the War effort. The company survived—even thrived—the downsizing, and with a series of good choices, continued to be the innovative company it always had been. Wells Fargo threw its support behind the burgeoning auto, aviation, and film industries of the 1910’s and 20’s. The long unused stagecoaches began to make appearances in Western films, thus keeping the Wells Fargo name before the people. Sound management helped the company survive the Great Depression, saw it through World War II, and on into the modern era.

It wasn’t until the 1990’s when Wells Fargo expanded outside of California, and in the 2000’s, once again reached the point of being in service from “Ocean-to-Ocean.”

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen, when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has won five writing competitions and finaled in two other competitions. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, teenaged son, and four fur children.

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Ride into adventures alongside nine determined women of yesteryear whose acts of compassion and bravery attract male attention. Marcy helps displaced Indians. Emmy tends wounds at Fort Snelling. Ronnie stows away on a cattle drive. Daisy disguises herself as a Pony Express rider. Elinor becomes an abolitionist. Mae tames wild horses. Hannah gets help for accident victims. Lucy’s curiosity unnerves criminals. Kate nurses soldiers on the battlefield. Will real dangers douse the sparks of love?

Adolph Sutro--King of the Comstock

Forty-Niner panning
for gold

Most of us know about the discovery of gold in California in 1849, which led to the California Gold Rush. But not as many know that gold and silver discoveries happened in other places as well. One such discovery of both gold and silver was in Virginia City, Nevada (or as it was know in those days, Utah Territory) in 1859.

Within a handful of years after the California Gold Rush started, it peaked and waned. Many who had staked everything to find their fortunes in California’s gold fields lost everything instead. In order to get back on better footing, they wandered farther afield, hoping to find a new vein of ore. A few of the lucky ones did—in Virginia City, Nevada.

At first, the prospectors were focused on gold. However, as they dug deeper into the ground, they found a layer of rich black sand, black manganese mixed with a blue-gray quartz. Upon testing the strange sand, they found it was three parts silver to one part gold. One of the original people to lay claim to this strange sand was Henry T.P. Comstock. And so began silver mining in America. The discovery became known as the Comstock Lode.

This picture shows the
Square Set Timbering method

The silver was buried in the ground or in the mountainsides, so it had to be dug out. Thankfully, the consistency was such that it could be easily dug out with a shovel at first. But as these miners had to dig deeper and deeper, several problems arose. Cave-ins were one such problem. The soil was too soft, and many lost their lives as the surrounding ground gave way. To combat that problem, a German mining engineer created a special timber support system called Square Set Timbering to strengthen the mine shafts.

Another problem was that the mine would fill with water, making it difficult and costly to continue the mining process. At first, large pumps were employed to pump the water up to the shaft openings and out of the mine. But this was very cost prohibitive and time consuming.

Adolph Sutro

A Prussian-born engineer by the name of Adolph Sutro proposed an answer to this issue. Build a horizontal tunnel through which the water could flow out of the mine on its own. Said tunnel would also provide other benefits, in that it would help to vent the poisonous gasses that often built up in underground mines, and it would provide a lower-cost method to remove the ore and transport miners in and out of the mine. Construction of the tunnel began on October 19, 1869.

While the tunnel presented many positive reasons to proceed, some of the mine bigwigs feared that Sutro would use the tunnel to his own benefit in order to take control of the entire Comstock Lode. Sutro struggled to find the monetary backing to proceed with the project until he was finally able to secure a loan from a London bank.

During the construction phase, Sutro was known to work right alongside those he hired as tunnel diggers. He faced the same avalanches, mudslides, and poisonous gasses that his diggers faced, and he often was the first one in and last one out of the tunnel they were constructing. The tunnel was completed in 1878, nearly nine years after it began, and it cost a whopping $5 million to complete. (To put that in some context, that would be $119,047,619.05 in today’s dollars).

The Sutro Tunnel emptied nearly 4 million gallons of water a day from the mine. Sutro rented use of

Entrance to the Sutro Tunnel

the tunnel to the mine owners to the tune of about $10,000 a day. But by 1879, he realized that the richer parts of the mine were petering out, and they had to dig even deeper than his newly-completed tunnel. His profitability began to decline, so rather than hang on to the tunnel, he sold it at a great profit and moved to San Francisco as a very rich man. There, he became one of the city’s largest landowners, and he also served a few years as the city’s mayor.

Because of his work on the tunnel, as well as his great profit from it, Sutro became known as the King of the Comstock.

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen, when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has won five writing competitions and finaled in two other competitions. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, teenaged son, and four fur children.

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