"Old west town buildings" Topic

What would I need to compleat an old west town? Hotel,bank,sheriffs office,livery,general store, saloon or two. What eles? Thanks for your insights

Whitewash City if you enjoy building your own -- ust do one of each.

Railroad station. Gunsmith. Land office. Surveyor. Courthouse. Lawyer's ofice.

Smith, weaponsmith, railroad & trainstation, corall, church, cemetary, land assayers office, Wells&Fargo station, chinese laundry, barber.

Just of the top of my head, im sure there's more but its a start.

Robert

Outhouses. Lots. And they're cheap and quick to paint.

Gunsmith and Land Office are good.
Also a doctor is a good building to have.
Maybe a Wells Fargo building as well.
And a jail if you'd like. They weren't always a part of the sheriffs office.

A Town Marshall's Office would be good too. Sheriffs were responsible for the whole county, Marshalls just for the town. Both can exist in the same town.

If you're building a young boomtown, you might want to get a few tents. They were often preliminary structures, or ramshackle homes. Excellent for the outskirts.

My town has lots of small stores, (buildings) around those stores place, crates, barrels, and boxes. Piles of cut wood or boards, and most importantly Civilians, lots of townspeople in the streets everywhere, now you will need horses near hitching posts, wagons, buggies, and maybe a stagecoach.

My town has most of these except, that I need more wagons, buggies, and more horses.

Make the streets crowed with people and wagons this makes great cover and adds an air of authenticity to your city instead of an empty ghost town your gunfighters are fighting in.

Just my …………… .02 shekels………Doug™

Also it would be good to have some wagons and a stagecoach about.

And a couple of corrals.

What no houses? Where does everybody live?

Don't forget the undertaker's. I usually end up doing most of my post-battle business there…

At the ranch.

A schoolhouse that also hosts town meetings and doubles as the Methodist/Baptist meetinghouse on Sunday.

Definitely more than one saloon – if for no better reason than to have separate places for rival groups to hang out. And a boarding house or two. In the Southwest, add a cantina (or two), a store catering to the Mexican population, and a Catholic church.

Gold or silver mine, Little Red School House, Cantina, Mission, Train and Train depot. I modeled a Riverboat once, docks, etc.

Tents. You also want tents for those booming little towns that are growing faster than construction can keep up.

I always though the town in "High Plains Drifter" was a good model for a tiny little, living on the edge frontier town.

The High Plains Drifter model sure simplifies painting!

Some had genuine theaters with passable accoustics.

The West has the fewest churches per capita than other parts of the USA. So you probably shouldn't go overboard there.

There could have been a seamstress as part of the dry goods store or perhaps the millinery shop.

General Store, Feed and Grain Store, Saloon, Doctors and Lawyers, Real Estate (land speculators), Assayers Office, and etc.

Saddle/tack shop – not necessarily part of the livery stable, nor part of the general store or dry goods store.

Freight offices, could be part of the stage line office or railroad, or both.

Railroads were limited and not as common as they would eventually become in the early 20th century.

If you do have a railroad, you could also have a stockyard nearby, a water tower, and plenty of chopped wood for engine fuel, coal came later. Some railroads also had "barracks" for RR personnel, possibly a later development than your gaming.

Public well/watering trough and hitching rails would be nice.

Food scraps/garbage were often fed to the hogs while unusable pottery/china/clothing/leather were most often tossed into the privy pit. So don't worry about a public landfill.

Lots of out buildings, not just outhouses. Chicken shed, hog pens, tool shed, wood shed (where my Father spent a lot of time with my Grandfather), and et cetera.

When you boil it all down, I guess you can put in whatever you want, just be careful about the time sensitive things (RR engines burned wood not coal during the era of the Wild West) and you should be OK.

"The West has the fewest churches per capita than other parts of the USA. So you probably shouldn't go overboard there."

Not in all cases. In its first year, even sinful Deadwood had built Congregationalist, Methodist, and Catholic churches.

link

Allen

Such a situation, of course, is good from tha gamer's perspective, offering scenarios with sectarian differences being settled in the street.

"Fill yore hand, Reverend!"

Allen

aecurtis 07 Mar 2007 1:01 p.m. PST
Such a situation, of course, is good from tha gamer's perspective, offering scenarios with sectarian differences being settled in the street.

"Fill yore hand, Reverend!"

*NJH: Supersoakers filled with Holy Water at fifteen feet. Has the makings of an "Amish Rake Fight" scenario.

Thanks for all the ideas. TMP rules!

bandit86-

I know I'm wadin in late with this; but what buildings you have in your town really depends on what kind of town you want. A boom town ain't gonna have the same building mix that the territorial capital, or the sleepy little town has. If your really interested in this aspect, I'd recommend Knuckleduster's "Cowtown Creator".

Seems to be some good stuff here:

arnicarealestate.com

Interesting that you brought up Deadwood. It had one of the largest Chinese populations outside of San Francisco. They had their own distinct portion of the town and it even went so far as to effect the way they built. They even had a Chinese fire department.

Howard Johnson's ("one Flavor"), and as someone suggested, a funeral home or easier, that "Coffin Builder" who worked outside in "Fistful of Dollars" "You better Get Three coffins ready…….(Bang, crack, etc.) "my mistake, make that four!" I loved that guy, jumping up and hammering the wood whenever a stranger got into town!"

"it even went so far as to effect the way they (Chinese) built."

What about German/Scandinavian settlers? These countries had a long tradition of distinctive wooden architecture, was that ever reflected in their frontier buildings?

Interesting idea about the Chinese… i could enjoy making a clapboard/shingle pagoda type structure!

What happened to Whitewash City models?. Seems they are no longer in production.

erichotz.com/whitewash.html

Thank you!. :^)

"What no houses? Where does everybody live?"

The town of Barkerville, in Canada, was a gold rush town that was founded in 1862. It didn't get its first house until 1890! People lived in the backs of their shops, in hotels, sheds, etc. It seems that if you were going to build a structure, it had to pay for itself -- houses are dead space.