Two years later, Taft was a rough-and-tumble place where written accounts say many disputes were settled by fistfights, knives and gunfire. One of the town’s reported 500 prostitutes was said to have a parrot trained to proposition men. Other than a handful of magazine articles, a book and hundreds of old photos, there is little documentation of the town’s history. Carole Johnson, now a Forest Service supervisor whose ranger district encompasses the site of the rediscovered cemetery, remembers a woman who spoke to her high school history class in Superior, Mont., in about 1969. In the years after the legendary fire, the mountainous landscape was redesigned by nature — taken over by towering coniferous trees and thick vegetation.

Source: New York Times December 14, 2019 17:26 UTC