Estate Sale: I need to make room for items from my mother’s estate. This a great bargain at $10.95, you save $8 off the regular price. What a deal!

This is Don Garate’s epic account about the history of the west side of the Madeline Plains, that covers the period from 1868 to 1935. This 436 page book covers a lot of territory from the earliest settlers, the arrival of the NCO Railroad, and the Basques, too. Interspersed are amusing anecdotal stories like the “Characters of the Madeline Plains.” Garate starts that introduction with:  “Generally speaking  to be a certified and accredited Madeline Plains Character, a person had to meet three qualifications, all of which were easy to pass if one worked at it just a little.  First off, a bachelor status was required. This was not too difficult because the fairer sex (or should be said “wiser’) was still not plentiful enough to go around. Secondly, he who aspired to be one of the infamous characters of the Plains had to be a stranger to water. Again, this was easy during the drouth, water was seldom seen on the Madeline Plains.  But a true character had never heard the word “bathtub.”  At least, if he had he could not know what it meant.  And lastly a real character had to get involved in alcohol–whether in the drinking or the manufacturing.  Generally, a top notch character did a little–a lot–or both.”