This post will be cleaned up and better organized later today. I just wanted to post the basics now before I go into work.
"Blood and Guns" (A Vampire Tale from the Wild Wild West)
The year is 1880.
The town will be called Willow Springs. It will be in south central Arizona. It sits atop a generous underground aquifer into which ranchers and the town have sunk enough wells to ensure they never lack for fresh water. Prior to the railroad, ranching was the primary industry, and herds were annually driven north to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad line for transport to markets to the east and west.
Copper had been discovered years earlier in the mountains two miles to the north, but the cost of transporting it was prohibitive so the mine was only worked by a half dozen members of the Rogers Family who struggled to sell it to local manufacturers across Arizona. (If you want your character to have any sort of connection to them, that's perfectly fine.)
The Southern Pacific Railroad was under construction and -- passing east and west just a quarter mile north of the town -- was due to be completed in 1876.
Even before the railroad got close to Willow Springs, a mining consortium from back east (that knew all about the impending railroad construction years earlier) had secretly bought the mine and all of the land located on either side of the future track's route.
Even before the first train passed over its tracks, the land was selling for 20 times what the consortium had paid for it. Structures were being planned or already built on both sides of the track.
A spur line from the mine to the SPR was built, and by 1877 -- what with the railroad shipping ore and locally raised cattle to markets to the east and west both -- Willow Springs had jumped in population from 66 to 1,066.
So, that's the background. There will be saloons and hotels and a photographer and a mortician and more saloons and whore houses and opium dens and tent cities, one near town and one near the mine, and anything else that you can imagine from a booming old west town.
"Blood and Guns" (A Vampire Tale from the Wild Wild West)
The year is 1880.
The town will be called Willow Springs. It will be in south central Arizona. It sits atop a generous underground aquifer into which ranchers and the town have sunk enough wells to ensure they never lack for fresh water. Prior to the railroad, ranching was the primary industry, and herds were annually driven north to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad line for transport to markets to the east and west.
Copper had been discovered years earlier in the mountains two miles to the north, but the cost of transporting it was prohibitive so the mine was only worked by a half dozen members of the Rogers Family who struggled to sell it to local manufacturers across Arizona. (If you want your character to have any sort of connection to them, that's perfectly fine.)
The Southern Pacific Railroad was under construction and -- passing east and west just a quarter mile north of the town -- was due to be completed in 1876.
Even before the railroad got close to Willow Springs, a mining consortium from back east (that knew all about the impending railroad construction years earlier) had secretly bought the mine and all of the land located on either side of the future track's route.
Even before the first train passed over its tracks, the land was selling for 20 times what the consortium had paid for it. Structures were being planned or already built on both sides of the track.
A spur line from the mine to the SPR was built, and by 1877 -- what with the railroad shipping ore and locally raised cattle to markets to the east and west both -- Willow Springs had jumped in population from 66 to 1,066.
So, that's the background. There will be saloons and hotels and a photographer and a mortician and more saloons and whore houses and opium dens and tent cities, one near town and one near the mine, and anything else that you can imagine from a booming old west town.