If you’d like to know what cowboys – some cowboys, anyway – did for fun when they weren’t drinking, gambling, and consorting with nymphs du pave, catch my
article “Hell on Wheels: When Roller Skating Took Western Towns by Storm” in the current (October) issue of Wild West Magazine. Meanwhile, here’s an article from the March 10, 1884 Omaha Daily Bee that shows how the mid-1880s roller skating craze was taking hold in the wild and woolly West.
JR Sanders
Western Author
The rollerskating sequence from HEAVEN’S GATE surely captures the spirit of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiNlthlz1d8
Indeed it does, Ron. Heaven’s Gate is mentioned in the article. That sequence is, in my opinion, some of the best footage from a flawed, but badly underrated movie. Thanks for posting the clip!
John,
Thanks very much – glad you enjoyed it!
J.R.
Hey, JR, really nice article on the roller skate craze. I read it in Wild West before I realized that you were the author! 🙂