# Toilets in the old west **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 26, 2022, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824 "2022-10-26T15:02:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/21 "2022-11-11T16:05:42Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > Would a bar near other businesses really build their own outhouse? I think in most cases, the bar owner would build an outhouse out back unless there happened to be a public one close by. They’d also build a hitching rail for horses out front. In a town with a saloon on almost every corner, you would do everything you could to keep someone drinking at your joint. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/22 "2022-11-12T16:01:36Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > For number one, many men would probably just go around the corner and find a wall to piss on; heck, many still do that. Or a rock; at one scout camp we were told that if the need arises while hiking on the trail, piss on a rock, not a fence post or a tree. The salt would attract animals who would gnaw at the wood… Why must one piss _ **on** _ something? You speak as if the poor bastard who has no target must hold it until he finds one. mmm ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/23 "2022-11-12T16:14:42Z")
I think some men do need a target. Haven’t you ever seen those appliques stuck at the bottom of urinals? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/24 "2022-11-12T16:23:39Z")
Or cigarette butts, back in the day? ‘Sink the battleship!’ ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/25 "2022-11-12T16:27:30Z")
My MIL grew up in eastern North Dakota. She said her uncle would shovel a path to the outhouse when the snow started. Once the snow got deep enough, he would place boards over the now snow canyon and they would have a tunnel to the outhouse. During the winter he would remove the frozen poop bricks and stack them behind the outhouse. When things started thawing in the spring, he would haul the bricks to a hole he dug the previous fall and bury them. This would extend the life of an outhouse hole a couple years. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2022, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/26 "2022-11-12T16:29:46Z")
“I sure miss not having indoor plumbing,” said nobody ever. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2022, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/27 "2022-11-13T06:23:32Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Why must one piss _ **on** _ something? You _don’t_ have to. But if you piss on the floor/ground, it splashes on your feet. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2022, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/28 "2022-11-13T13:03:56Z")
I grew up in a tiny town in southern Iowa. Our property had a well and outhouse but had been connected to town water sometime before we moved there in 1972. The neighbours across the road didn’t get town water until 1976. Our outhouse was pretty well built so we cut it in half horizontally and made a doghouse out of the top half. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2022, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/29 "2022-11-13T13:04:32Z")
I dunno. It seems to me that if you’re concerned about splashing, directing your stream against a wall is more problematic than watering the daisies. You don’t have to aim it at your feet, ya know. mmm ---
**Author:** ![dirtball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dirtball/32/18772_2.png) [@dirtball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dirtball)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2022, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/30 "2022-11-13T14:25:39Z")
Well, if you’re peeing on a wall, or on anything higher than your waist, you can have sort of a feeling of semiprivacy, if that matters to you. Anyone who casually happens along can only see you from behind (I mean, if they start maneuvering around trying to get a look at your junk, it’s no longer “casually happening along”). I think there’s a certain vulnerable feeling if you’re just out in the open, even though you might not be thinking about it consciously. And on top of that, when we guys first get potty trained as wee little fellas, we realize we have this nifty little thing in the middle of us that we can use to AIM the stream, and that’s FUN. I don’t think that little recently-potty-trained toddler ever goes completely away in most of us, no matter how old we get. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2022, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/31 "2022-11-18T05:39:29Z")
You don’t have to aim directly at the wall, either. You can angle it so it’s closer to parallel to the wall. But it’s not a matter of aiming. If you piss on the ground, the stream gains speed due to gravity and splashes more. ---
**Author:** ![its\_the\_daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bb73d2/32.png) [@its\_the\_daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/its_the_daddy)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2022, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/32 "2022-11-18T11:01:19Z")
When I was a nipper (about 7 yrs old) in 1958, I was at a Primary School in Chapel-en-le-Frith in Derbyshire. The boys had an outdoor urinal (with a brick shack at one end for no. 2’s). The back of the urinal was a six-foot wall; I was tallish at about 5’2". It was our delight to pee **over** the wall into the vicar’s garden. I couldn’t do this now. In fact I don’t think I could lift the jet above horizontal. Incidentally, we were living in a remote farm cottage at the time. We had an iindoor water tap, but the loo was an outhouse 30 yards from the door, with a bucket that my Dad dosed with Elsan fluid, and weekly emptied in a pit he dug in the field nearby. I think this was pretty unusual by 1958, In about 1998 my wife was teaching in a Primary School in Wiltshire which still had a similar outdoor loo for the young’uns. Just after she joined, they moved to a high-tech fully-fitted new school building across the road. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2022, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/33 "2022-11-18T11:13:33Z")
> [@JohnGalt](#): > > The [Belle Plaine Hooper House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooper%E2%80%93Bowler%E2%80%93Hillstrom_House?wprov=sfla1) in Minnesota has a two-story outhouse. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/rMekckJqIwQ/hqdefault.jpg "Oh, God, stop! The Simpsons") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMekckJqIwQ) ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2022, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824/34 "2022-11-18T11:24:33Z")
My next door neighbour STILL has the original brick outhouse out the back. I mean, I think she uses it to store her gardening equipment now, but it still has a loo in it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toilets-in-the-old-west/973824.md?page=1)