I love historical fiction and nonfiction, so as part of the blog tour for the book,
Idaho Madams by Milana Marsenich, I'm sharing an interesting post on a dog as part of that history.
About the Book:
Fur, silver, and gold first lured men to Idaho Territory.
Women soon followed. And what women they were! Molly B'Damn, Peg Leg Annie,
Spanish Belle, Lou Beevers, Diamond Tooth Lil—the names alone promised
excitement and intrigue.
In fact, these madams led complex, turbulent lives. Meet
Maggie Hall, a devout Catholic whose husband used her to pay off his gambling
debts. Working as a prostitute, Maggie made her way west and, as Molly B'Damn,
became the guardian angel of an Idaho mining camp. Or Annie McIntyre, a young
girl among the prospectors and ne'er do wells of Rocky Bar who amassed a small
fortune as the local madam only to lose it all—along with both her legs.
Idaho Madams uncovers the enigmatic and salacious lives of
30 women who ran brothels in the Gem State from the 1850s to the 1980s. Here
are the hedonistic and sometimes heroic exploits of Effie Rogan, Jennie Girard,
Nettie Bowen, Ginger Murphy, Dixie Colton, and Dot Allen, but also the unsung
sagas of Carrie Young, Grace Freeman, Willow Herman, Hattie Carlton, and many
more.
The Auditor: Dog of a Mining City
By Milana Marsenich
My first novel, Copper Sky, takes place in the mining
city of Butte, Montana in 1917, the year of the Speculator/Granite Mountain
mine disaster. 168 men died in the disaster. Mining accidents were rampant in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After each
accident, despite a fierce independence, the Butte citizens generously took
care of each other. Those left behind picked themselves up, helped each other
out, and carried on.
(Image: Butte Montana, Washington State Library, public domain/Wikipedia)
In writing Copper Sky, I wanted to write something
that demonstrated the good heart of the people of Butte, Montana. I wondered
how a town with so many tragedies could produce so many good-hearted people.
To demonstrate the nature of Butte, I told four small parts
of the novel through the eyes of The White Dog, a dog that belongs to the town,
and travels through time, both real and ghostly. (Dog image: free content license, pixabay)
When I wrote that novel, I
didn’t know about The Auditor, Butte’s flesh and blood dog. I had to wonder
what ethereal being had been pawing at my leg when I wrote The White Dog in Copper
Sky. Had The Auditor somehow reached out to me and magically placed himself
in my awareness? I don’t know.
I learned about The Auditor in a copy of the Montana
Standard splayed out on my dad’s kitchen table. The article reported that
The Auditor had died a few years before. The town’s people dedicated a memorial
to him. Holly Peterson, an environmental engineer at Montana Tech, organized
the installation of bronze statues of him placed at three locations around
Butte. The replicas show him as having long matted hair, maybe tan at one time,
but rough and dirty.
The Auditor would show up unexpectedly and disappear for
weeks at a time. The miners put out food and water for him. When he got older
and arthritic, they added aspirin to his food. He was skittish and wouldn’t let
people near him. Yet, he seemed to appreciate the food, returning for a good
meal. He’d occasionally sleep in the shabby doghouse with ragged bedding the
miners built for him. Come morning, he’d wander off into the barren landscape
surrounding the Berkeley Pit, a once productive open pit copper mine that
turned into one of the nation’s largest superfund sites.
Near the end of his life, Peterson analyzed samples of his
hair and found “nearly every element imaginable,” 128 times more arsenic than
in normal pet hair. Even though he was standoffish and didn’t let people close,
they cared for him. They might have understood his slow to trust nature, and
his reluctance to become dependent. The Auditor lived for 17 years, a feral,
mangy dog, avoiding human contact, and despite his wildness, becoming a
well-loved part of the mining community.
About the Author:Milana Marsenich lives in Northwest
Montana near Flathead Lake at the base of the beautiful Mission Mountains. She
enjoys quick access to the mountains and has spent many hours hiking the
wilderness trails with friends and dogs. Her first novel,
Copper Sky, was cho
sen as as
a Spur Award finalist for Best Western Historical Novel in 2018. Her second novel, The Swan Keeper, was a
Willa Award finalist in 2019. Her short story, Wild Dogs, won the Laura Award
for short fiction in 2020. Find her online at: Website: https://milanamarsenich.com;
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MilanaMarsenichAuthor.
* Follow the blog tour and read an interview at The Muffin/WOW-Women on Writing.
