Christmas in the West in the 1850s
The famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted was visiting far from home, in Texas during the Christmas season in the early 1850 s. Evidently his preconceived impressions of the wild West bore out. In his diary he noted that from his hotel window he could see the Christmas Eve celebration in San Augustine was noisy and boisterous. The town only had about 50 houses and 12 shops, but its citizens gathered into a band of serenaders who went about the small village beating on tin pans and being very boisterous. This was in sharp contrast to Olmsted's New England upbringing. Throughout Texas and the West, Christmas Day was often spent in wild turkey shoots, followed by a tremendous feast with the bird as featured fare.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TAUTIM19701217.2.57.7
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Taupo Times, Volume 19, Issue 98, 17 December 1970, Page 3 (Supplement)
Word count
Tapeke kupu
132Christmas in the West in the 1850s Taupo Times, Volume 19, Issue 98, 17 December 1970, Page 3 (Supplement)
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Taupo Times. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in