ice floe. People drifted into town by day and just as easily faded away at night, never to be seen until the snow melted in the spring. During one thaw, eight bodies were found. A reporter visiting from Chicago described Taft as "the wickedest city in America."
The townsfolk took their amusement wherever they could find it, and so they didn't miss a beat when the churchgoing, well-fed secretary of war, William H. Taft, came for a visit in 1907. At the time, the town was namelessâjust a sheltered place in the woods to get a bunk and a boff or to sleep off a hard night. Secretary Taft, who was on the shortlist to succeed Roosevelt as president, lectured the whores and saloonkeepers, the fugitives, timber thieves, claim jumpers, and cardsharps about morality and their wretched ways. This town was a blight on the idea of national forests. This sewer of sin was a defiance of how American settlements had been founded, dating to the Puritans' "city upon a hill." From atop their tree stumps, people cheered, whistled in approval, and hoisted their jugs.
Here, here!
And then, just after the future president left, they decided to name their town for the big man. That spring, there were eighteen murders in Taft.
The town of Taft was part of the public land domain of Elers Koch, the twenty-five-year-old supervisor of three national forests and a fresh-minted Little G.P. Pinchot never told him his empire would include some of the most openly lawless places in the country. Pinchot always looked past the gambling dens or the mining claims to the trees. "The forest is as beautiful as it is useful," he wrote in his
Primer of Forestry.
"The old fairy tales which spoke of it as a terrible place are wrong."
He had not visited the open sore of Taft, Montana. When Koch and his crew of young rangers first showed up in town to have a look, the saloons, card dens, dance halls, and whores' cribs were going full throttle. "The bars were lined with hard-faced dance hall girls," Koch wrote, "and every kind of gambling game going wide open." The rangers spent the night, but were unable to sleep because of the din. Koch got out of bed, dressed, and went down to one of the saloons. He dropped a coin in a slot machineâand it hit! As his winnings flowed out, painted women were instantly drawn to the forest supervisor. "One big blonde in a very low-cut dress had her arm tightly around my neck," he said. Koch ordered up drinks for the house, on him, and then gathered his coins, ducked under the arm of the blonde with the free-flowing cleavage, and made a retreat for his bunk. Welcome to Lolo National Forest.
Koch hired crews of seasonal rangers to go with his full-time assistants. They strung telephone wire, built trails, rescued hunters and hikers. In the winter, they snowshoed deep into the forest,
traveling for days at a time on little but tea, sugar, raisins, and hardtack. They felled dead, standing trees for firewood and tried to stay warm wrapped in wool blanketsâyears before anyone had sleeping bags. Koch learned to read the sky and the human heart. He made some mistakes. One hire of his set up shop in the remote forest with his wife and daughter. Not long into this arrangement, the ranger's wife showed up at Koch's office in tears. Her husband had been sleeping with their little girl, the wife saidâincest. Koch called the ranger in and told him he knew what he'd been doing. The man twitched, and Koch grew nervous looking at the gun in his pocket. Koch slid a resignation letter across the desk.
"Sign that," he ordered. He kicked the man out, then reported him to the authorities.
His colleague just over the ridge in Idaho, Bill Weigle, had a bigger problem: inside his national forest, the Coeur d'Alene, were three towns animated by debauchery and lusts of all kinds. The worst was Grand Forks, where muddy streets thick with filth and feces were lined with burned-out stumps of big cedars, like nubs on a half-shaven face. Saloons
The townsfolk took their amusement wherever they could find it, and so they didn't miss a beat when the churchgoing, well-fed secretary of war, William H. Taft, came for a visit in 1907. At the time, the town was namelessâjust a sheltered place in the woods to get a bunk and a boff or to sleep off a hard night. Secretary Taft, who was on the shortlist to succeed Roosevelt as president, lectured the whores and saloonkeepers, the fugitives, timber thieves, claim jumpers, and cardsharps about morality and their wretched ways. This town was a blight on the idea of national forests. This sewer of sin was a defiance of how American settlements had been founded, dating to the Puritans' "city upon a hill." From atop their tree stumps, people cheered, whistled in approval, and hoisted their jugs.
Here, here!
And then, just after the future president left, they decided to name their town for the big man. That spring, there were eighteen murders in Taft.
The town of Taft was part of the public land domain of Elers Koch, the twenty-five-year-old supervisor of three national forests and a fresh-minted Little G.P. Pinchot never told him his empire would include some of the most openly lawless places in the country. Pinchot always looked past the gambling dens or the mining claims to the trees. "The forest is as beautiful as it is useful," he wrote in his
Primer of Forestry.
"The old fairy tales which spoke of it as a terrible place are wrong."
He had not visited the open sore of Taft, Montana. When Koch and his crew of young rangers first showed up in town to have a look, the saloons, card dens, dance halls, and whores' cribs were going full throttle. "The bars were lined with hard-faced dance hall girls," Koch wrote, "and every kind of gambling game going wide open." The rangers spent the night, but were unable to sleep because of the din. Koch got out of bed, dressed, and went down to one of the saloons. He dropped a coin in a slot machineâand it hit! As his winnings flowed out, painted women were instantly drawn to the forest supervisor. "One big blonde in a very low-cut dress had her arm tightly around my neck," he said. Koch ordered up drinks for the house, on him, and then gathered his coins, ducked under the arm of the blonde with the free-flowing cleavage, and made a retreat for his bunk. Welcome to Lolo National Forest.
Koch hired crews of seasonal rangers to go with his full-time assistants. They strung telephone wire, built trails, rescued hunters and hikers. In the winter, they snowshoed deep into the forest,
traveling for days at a time on little but tea, sugar, raisins, and hardtack. They felled dead, standing trees for firewood and tried to stay warm wrapped in wool blanketsâyears before anyone had sleeping bags. Koch learned to read the sky and the human heart. He made some mistakes. One hire of his set up shop in the remote forest with his wife and daughter. Not long into this arrangement, the ranger's wife showed up at Koch's office in tears. Her husband had been sleeping with their little girl, the wife saidâincest. Koch called the ranger in and told him he knew what he'd been doing. The man twitched, and Koch grew nervous looking at the gun in his pocket. Koch slid a resignation letter across the desk.
"Sign that," he ordered. He kicked the man out, then reported him to the authorities.
His colleague just over the ridge in Idaho, Bill Weigle, had a bigger problem: inside his national forest, the Coeur d'Alene, were three towns animated by debauchery and lusts of all kinds. The worst was Grand Forks, where muddy streets thick with filth and feces were lined with burned-out stumps of big cedars, like nubs on a half-shaven face. Saloons
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