Pam finished watching 1883 Wednesday night, but I opted out for the O’s/Guardians’ game and got to witness Gunner’s first hit/homerun as an Oriole. (Who names their kid Gunner?)
However, before leaving 1883, I did catch Episode 6 where Margaret Dutton (Faith Hill) after an argument with her teenage daughter Elsa, wanders into Doan’s Store and proceeds to get drunk with the store keeper Carolyn (Rita Wilson.)
Margaret and Carolyn end up passed out behind the store where husband James Dutton (Tim McGraw) eventually finds and retrieves Margaret. Ah, yes those good old country stores that had everything you needed and wanted and where your spouse always knew where to find you.
This 1883 drunk scene was one of the few, and maybe only funny scene in 1883 at least through Episode 6. I was able to track down a couple of videos of the drunk scene including this little snippet (click here) and the following clips:
Overall though, at least thru Episode 6, I found 1883 to be a little too much Elsa and too little everything else. The fact that Episode 6 was titled Boring the Devil wasn’t lost on me as I headed upstairs to flip on the game.
However, I am not here today as your 1883 media critic. Instead I ‘d rather talk about the famous store that Carolyn is shown minding – Doan’s Store. I found this excellent article from Frontier Times Magazine. Couple excerpts for you on Doans Store and its origins:
Mr. Doan describes the store as follows:
As noted, the store was located on the Red River at a crossing between Texas and Oklahoma:
Ultimately however, the railroad came along and cattle were then transported by rail versus driving them cowboy-style. Thus, Doans Crossing and Doans Store became part of history (click here.)
With Tim and Faith in the mix one would have expected some music from them, but it was not meant to be (click here.) I’m betting it had something to do with do-re-give-it-to-me. Check out this video featuring Elsa who wasn’t too bad when she wasn’t talking so much:
I agree – too much Elsa and too little everything else.
In Episode 6 of “1883,” more geographic errors appear in a show that already has too many geographic errors. Near the start of the episode, a banner reads, “Doan’s Crossing on the Red River, the boundary between Texas and the Oklahoma Territories,” or words pretty close to that.
First, there was nothing called the “Oklahoma Territories” in the year 1883. It was the Indian Territory, and everyone called it that.
Second, in 1883, the Red River at Doan’s Crossing was not the “boundary” between Texas and anything. North of the river at Doan’s Crossing was the 1.5 million acre Greer County, Texas, organized in 1860. It remained Greer County, Texas, until 1896, when the Federal Government took it from Texas, and it became part of their newly created Oklahoma Territory.