Some History
During our Westward Migration in this country..Wagon Trains.. 1850-1880. The trains went west every summer and it soon became routine that they would travel ..15-20 miles a day. It wasn't long before they found the "best" places along the river to camp for the night, and successive trains ALL stopped at those same places. It was like a campground, where every few nights another train would camp there.
After awhile, the secret places away from each camp where you could privately...Satisfy the Call of Nature....came into common use. If those places were near the river, ...eventually the river..where they got their drinking water, became poluted.....ECOLI. The river in question was usually the very slow moving Platte River. Never more than a few inches deep.
There were stories where a perfectly healthy person would wake up in the morning in perfect health. Then..at sunset the same day...they were underground. The train would depart the next morning..passing over the grave of the deceased..to prevent the Indians from detecting what had transpired. Cholera. Invented by humans..Transmitted in polluted water. NB
LRS: I understand your quest and I wish you well.
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