Page 107 - The Lost Ways

reserves you’re probably reluctant to waste, but good communication played a big part
in keeping the Old West law abiding, and they’re just as important for you.

Organization

That brings us on to the next key point: how to organize. That’s something a lot of
preppers seem to overlook. A big part of being ready for when the SHTF is self-reliance,

and that doesn’t seem to sit well with committee meetings and organizing communities
to work together, but it needs to be talked about.

The people who set out to build the West were also self-reliant; they had to be. But they
also knew they could accomplish more by working together than they could as individuals.

One family can secure and defend their own property, but they have no control over the
surrounding area, and if a large enough group of marauders attacks them, they’re
eventually going to be overrun. A loose community of hundreds of well-prepared, self-
reliant people could be taken down by a dozen bandits if they only have to deal with them
one or two or five at a time. Now imagine the same dozen robbers approaching a typical
th
19 century town out on the frontier.
The town probably only had a couple of hundred people, and they lacked most of the

advantages we have today. They had no radios and no motor vehicles, and the most
common firearms were double-barrel shotguns and single-shot rifle muskets. But the
robbers had almost no chance, because the townspeople had an informal but effective
organization to keep the peace.

The Sheriff

Frontier towns couldn’t support a full-time police department; everyone was too busy
taming the surrounding land and building the town itself. Even the sheriff often wasn’t a
full-time law enforcer. Elected from among the people, he probably had a farm or
business of his own to run.

There were upsides to this though. Usually there wasn’t a divide between law
enforcement and civilians as there often is now. The townspeople knew that the sheriff
was one of their own. Most of them had voted for him; the ones who hadn’t still knew
who he was. There was an essential link between sheriff and people; they’d chosen him
to protect them from lawbreakers, and that meant he could count on their support when
he needed it.

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