Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 10).djvu/165

Rh place could be found before which to lay blankets on a winter's night. The most successful wagonhouses were situated at the outskirts of the larger towns, where, at more reasonable prices and in more congenial surroundings than in a crowded city inn, the rough sturdy men upon whom the whole West depended for over a generation for its merchandise, found hospitable entertainment for themselves and their rugged horses. These houses were usually unpretentious frame buildings surrounded by a commodious yard, and generous watering-troughs and barns. A hundred tired horses have been heard munching their corn in a single wagonhouse yard at the end of a long day's work.

In both tavern and wagonhouse the fireplace and the bar were always present, whatever else might be missing. The fireplaces in the first western taverns were notably generous, as the rigorous winters of the Alleghenies required. Many of these fireplaces were seven feet in length and nearly as high, capable of holding, had it been necessary, a wagonload of wood. With a great fireplace at the end of the