(Note: The following is written by one of the “Urban Legends” program presenters from the Bookmobile Department. Therefore the contents may, or may not, actually be true.)

The “Wild West Age”:

As we all know - April showers bring mayflowers. And what do mayflowers bring? Pilgrims, of course. And books - but not that many. And most of these were later used as fuel for the witch burnings that came along soon after. So, during the earlier colonial days of this country there weren’t that many books. But this soon changed when people like Ben Franklin established printing presses throughout the colonies. Eventually westward expansion brought books in a mobile fashion to the rest of the young nation. For example, if you were headed west on a steamboat it would cost you a set amount of books for each destination - this was known as “booking ” your ride or “booking passage”. But this only got books as far as the Missouri River. From there on west books were transported by blanketed trailers (better known as covered wagons).

Because Mr. Dewey hadn’t done his thing yet, books weren’t organized all that well and they would just stick them in any little cranny they could. Thus this particular mobile library was known as the “nookmobile”.

During the early stages of this expansion, when most of the west was unexplored, the most popular books were atlases. Later on, during the time of Indian attacks, the most popular book was “War and Peace”. This wasn’t so much for it’s contents, but rather because no matter how strong of an arm pulled the bow string or threw the tomahawk or thrust the knife, very few people ever made it all the way through “War and Peace”.

During the crazy “cow-town” era of the wild west, bored prostitutes would start a book in one bed and finish it many beds later. This is where the term “reading a book from cover to cover” originated.

Later on, when the west was more “settled”, the dime novel became increasingly popular. But because of the poor quality of writing (much like this article) found in these books, even a dime was considered a ripoff. So the term “dime novel” was soon changed to “crime novel”. Other changes were to come as well. For example, the poem “In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” became: “In eighteen fiftyfour Columbus was no more, not to grieve about the dead they founded Topeka instead”. And while the founding fathers of Topeka were busy doing what founding fathers do - like publishing Topeka’s first phone book - it was the founding mothers who started the library.

As to that first phone book, since the phone had yet to be invented, they decided to put the book where it would do the most good - in Topeka’s first outhouse. It was at this time, thanks to great usage of that facility by drunk citizens (celebrating the city’s founding) that the term “yellow pages” first came into use.

To be continued…