Okay, stables, obvious question. But how (In the mid/late 1800s, to be specific,) would people deal with horse care when traveling? Say, you ride into town on a cloud of dust, you are going to be around for a few days, you need a place for your horse to sleep. What do you do?
In the Wild West, there would typically be a livery stable in every town. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livery_yard
@Mikmaxs - Actually there were livery stables in most towns in the USA, where you could rent horses and carriages, not just the wild west. There were also communal stables, where people 'kept' their horses and carriages, when they couldn't house them on their own property. Lots of people (mostly men and boys) made their living (not a particularly lucrative one, but it was a job) taking care of other people's horses. If you're setting your story in a particular location, see what you can do to discover where horses were kept in that place. There were many many problems connected to urban horses, including importing feed for them and, of course, disposing of the waste. I have an excellent book I bought a couple of years ago on Amazon, called : The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century, by Clay McShane and Joel A Tarr, published by The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2007. This book should answer all of your questions. Another very useful book is: Horses At Work : Harnessing Power in Industrial America, by Ann Norton Greene, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 2008. There is a lot of content regarding livery stables in this book as well.
Store? You don't store horses. They aren't sacks of potatoes. You house them. But yeah. What Jan said.
LOL "store" horses. I don't have anything constructive to add, but I had to mention that the phrasing gave me the strangest image of horses, neatly folded, on the shelf, in a closet.
If the "ride into town" part might include riding into a more rural area - most horses are more than happy to spend as much time outside as possible. Stables are a pretty artificial way for them to live. If there's a fenced area for them, that'd be excellent. If the area is big enough for them to get most of their nutrition from grazing, it's even better.
I would just like to say, I know this is the improper wording, I was just going for the comic phrasing. Really. I swear. I'm not stupid. On a more serious note, that answers my question. Thanks, everyone!
well there's a guy down the road from me who has converted his garage into a stable On point the other thing to consider is that in England in the 1800s there were things called 'post houses' where a traveller could change horses meaning on an urgent journey a tired mount could be exchanged for a fresh one. This system was originally set up for millitary messengers but rapidly became available to anyone who could pay. There were also coaching inns - that is inns where stage coaches stopped which would also enable someone travelling on horse back to stable his horse overnight - for a fee naturally
Same as every gamer with a large inventory in their ruck sack. Put 'em between the bandages and the canteen. Leave your horse in a bar, he'll get a drink. (Fun Fact: In Arizona if your horse walks into a bar it can not be refused a drink. We have strange laws.) Though I am sure the right answer isn't renting them a room next to yours, but you could. Pretty sure they had stables and the like. In a pinch you could pay somebody a daily fee to house them for you. Well they go in the bin labeled horse, of course. Check it in like a coat, just don't forget your ticket. (Working on my 5th noble steed. Really gotta stop losing those darn tickets.)
