Encampment, Wyoming

5th October 2009

This is the first time I have ever seen these large metal driers and I suspect that they work in the same way as tobacco leaf drying houses. This one was in a timber yard in Encampment WY and I *think* was used to dry logs for use in the construction of log cabins. Encampment used to be a service area for a number of mining towns in the Medicine Bow Mountain area as well as the site of a large smelter so that would make sense.

The two storey privy (photographed in the local museum) was an all-weather version. The lower level was used in the summer months but the snowfall levels in the winters in this region can literally be measured in many feet per snowfall, this would literally block the doors at ground level hence the invention of the two-storey privy. Note that both levels were not used at the same time!

An old wood drier 768x1024	An old wood drier 768x1024	The top of an old wood drier 1024x768	The two storey privy! 768x1024