29 July 2019

It's good to have a tailholt


It's good to have a tailholt
by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune
Monday, July 29th 2019

Time again to tell the story of the little town of Tailholt, still hiding at the same location, right on the banks of the Rogue River.

Long before ferries and bridges kept traveling boots dry, crossing a fast-moving river meant grabbing on and holding tight. When a pioneer or prospector didn’t have a wagon to cling to, the next best thing was a horse; not all of the horse, of course — just the horse’s tail.

The technique apparently was so popular that our beloved ancestors, with typical Yankee ingenuity, created a word for it — tailholt.


To the settlers who had struggled in the 1800s to build a sod home on the great American prairies, tailholt also became a metaphor for life.

It might be unsafe to cling to something too tightly, a pioneer would say, but it’s a thousand times more unsafe to just let go.

That tough attitude probably influenced the name given to Tailholt, Oklahoma, the only town in the country that still exists with that name.

Prospectors always seemed to like the name best. There were Tailholt mines throughout the West and even Tailholt mining camps in California.

But the biggest influence had to come from poet James Whitcomb Riley. He built a poem around an imaginary Indiana town, “The Little Town O’ Tailholt.”

“You kin boast about yer cities, and their stiddy growth and size,
And brag about yer County-seats, and business enterprise,
And railroads, and factories, and all sich foolery,
But the little Town o’ Tailholt is big enough fer me!”

Southern Oregon legend says that an early miner nearly drowned crossing the turbulent Rogue River about a quarter of a mile upriver from today’s town of Rogue River. Apparently he avoided catastrophe by grabbing hold of — you guessed it — his horse’s tail.
 
Rogue River Rapids
Tailholt, as Rogue River was called in those mining years of the 1850s and ‘60s, wasn’t really much of a town, but because of the nearby river crossing, the name just seemed to fit.

As the population grew and a post office was established in 1876, the town took on its first legal name, Woodville, honoring a popular local resident and the town’s new postmaster, John Wood.
In 1912, not long after Jackson County spent $15,000 to build a bridge across the river, residents decided it would be better to advertise the town under a new name, and the city of Rogue River was born.

When a new bridge replaced the old in October 1950, a Mail Tribune editorial agreed with local residents who wanted to name the bridge Tailholt. “The name will certainly bring the bridge color and pique the interest of tourists.”

It didn’t happen.

In 1961, when the state was building a new park in the area, the Mail Tribune suggested it be named Tailholt. “It has color, an element of humor, a fine flavor, and it’s a name that can be remembered. Tailholt State Park. What a wonderful name!”

Not so wonderful for state officials. Tailholt was out and Valley of the Rogue State Park was in.
Ah, well. As we search for humor in these sometimes troubled days, maybe all we really need is a tailholt attitude. As the old pioneers preached: “A tailholt is better than a no holt at all.”
Rogue River, Oregon Public Library

This coming Saturday, at noon, I’ll be talking Modoc War at the Rogue River library. If nothing’s holding you up, we’d like to see ya there. Bring your tailholt attitude
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Writer Bill Miller is the author of “History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com or WilliamMMiller.com.


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