Anybody been to Medicine Bow, Wy.? My husband and I took a trip in June just to see if the area depicted on TV was actually the same. Medicine Bow is a tiny town but they do have the Virginian Hotel. I did take a tour of the hotel and took some pictures. Really fun.
shareI didn't know there was such a place, I wonder how it got its name.
shareI don't know but here is a link to their town. You might want to contact them and get a history of the town. Let me know what you find out!
http://www.medicinebow.org/
I just watched an episode that showed the Medicine Bow sign at the train station that read the elevation was over 6500. Is it really that high? Isn't that higher than Denver (the Mile High City)?
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”
You know I did not even pay attention to that! I was just so excited to actually be there in the area that just slipped by me. But the elevation if I remember for some of the area is in the 6500 ft. area..
sharefrom the site of the town of Medicine Bow, Wyoming:
The name "Medicine Bow" is legendary and reputedly derives its origin from the Native American tribes that frequented the area, mainly the Arapaho and Cheyenne. Along the banks of the river, the Native Americans found excellent material for making their bows. To them, anything they found good for a purpose was called "good medicine." Thus, the Native Americans named the river flowing through the area the Medicine Bow River, and since the headwaters of the river originated in the mountains to the South, they were called the "Medicine Bow Mountains".
We are located at an elevation of 6563 ft. More than a mile above sea level. Here is what that means:
Baked goods need a little less liquid, or a little more flour. Yeast REALLY rises!
Boiled foods take a tad longer to cook.
Produce ripens differently.
You get out of breath a little sooner when under exertion.
You exhale twice as much moisture as at sea level, which means you need to drink more water, or you may suffer heat exhaustion.
You sunburn a little more easily, the atmosphere is thinner, and more sun rays come through.
This is higher than the "mile high city". Just in case you didn't do the math!
Higher and more persistent winds linger here almost year 'round.
Temperatures are generally lower, but when it does heat up it seems to do it very suddenly.
Shorter growing season. Gardening can be done, but requires some adaptation and persistence.
Plentiful wildlife. Not just for hunting. Some small critter seems to live behind every rock or under every bush!
Our town covers an area about 8 blocks long, by about 6-7 blocks wide. If you run up one street, and down the other, the long way, you can put in just about a mile, round trip.
Thank you for sharing that with us. Am sorry have not read up on the history behind the town but just started reading the book by Owen Wister. I did take a few pictures of the Virginian Hotel. Yes you are right the town is not very big but it's the smallness that gives it it's charm.
shareHey Sally,
I'm trying to find an episode, where the water was being poisened in the mining project by the young and inexperienced son that killed his fathers old pal, and eventually leads to his regretful ways and forgiveness for the grief he caused.
Who is Lee J.Cobbs daughter/neice? in the series? Her name? and is she still with us? Sorry for the long way round?
Terry.
The episode you're looking for is "Return a Stranger", Season 3, Episode 18, originally aired 18 November 1964. I hope you watched The Virginian on Friday, because it was the episode you wanted.
As for Betsy Garth, the niece, she was played by Roberta Shore. She was a promising Disney actor, but nothing much came along after The Virginian.
Roberta was a guest a Western Film Fair in 1996 and 2003, the second with many of her Virginian co-players.
Roberta has been married since 1987 to Ron Frederickson who has a Doctorate in Performance Studies & is teaching at the University of Utah.
Hope this helps.
Sally
Thanks Sally, sorry for the delay in answering, but a burst water heater kept me busy for a while. So Roberta has been married since 1987 hey? my wife and I married in 1963. How time passes us by? Nice to hear from you.
Pard, I punched cows on the Navajo Nation, north of Gallup, NM and we were over 7,000 feet. Some places in the Chuskas are at right around 8,000.
Denver is nice, but it's flatlands to some folks :-) And yes, there are places west of the Divide (Medicine Bow, WY being one of them) that are considerably higher than Denver.
"It's a hard country, kid."
"Next time I'll be aimin fer your guts."
The thing that puzzles me about Medicine Bow as it is used in the series is that it seems to be portrayed as being about 10 miles from the ranch. In the book, which I have read several times, it appears to be described as being almost two weeks ride away. The ranch is many miles north and west, almost in what would later be Yellowstone National Park.
shareThey needed to ride to and from town for the plots of the tv show. They were forever meeting the train or having dealings with the sheriff or enjoying a day off.
It interests me that the writers never mention the altitude. I'm a lowlander and feel sick at that height. In one episode it was April and young love was blossoming along with the plants and I had to think what the weather where I am is like in April, at a MUCH lower elevation, and it wasn't like that! I was reminded of the commercial making fun of the song April in Paris, that showed the holiday tables under the trees being blown over in a storm and everyone bundled up against the cold. I'm not saying there are no warm days in April in that part of the world, but it isn't the norm. (Of course the point was the cruel juxtaposition of the new life all around the woman who was dying.)
Thanks -- glad to know I wasn't hallucinating. Of course, those aren't the only things wrong with the series. The main thing -- the reason I could never bring myself to watch it regularly, is the character of Trampas. In the book, he is someone that you would not want to meet anywhere on a dark night without a weapon to hand. When I have to suffer through an episode (say, because I wanted to see a particular guest star) with "Trampas" in a major role, I just call him "Doug" to myself and have done with it.
shareI read the book also and although Trampas is a bad guy in the book, they featured an early episode of the Virginian where they basically accounted for Trampas being rehabilitated by The Virginian.
shareI don't think that's possible. Rehabilitating Trampas. Glad to hear that the series took SOME notice of the problem, anyway.
share