The Jan. 16 front-page article about Williston, N.D., where a preponderance of men makes life difficult for women ("An Oil Town Where Men Are Many, and Women Are Hounded"), was fascinating — and sad — for the parallels it offers to the Gold Rush of the 19th century.
Then, as today, large numbers of men headed west looking to strike it rich. Then, as today, a smaller number of entrepreneurial women, some of whom made their livelihood as sex workers, lived in the boom towns.
