It is said in both Up the Swiftwater by Sandra A. Crowell and David O. Asleson, and in The Big Burn by Timothy Egan, that the unnamed work camp got its name after Taft, then Secretary of War, traveling on a Northern Pacific train, berated the town as a blight on the American landscape which must clean up its act, to a cheering drunken crowd. The town was then enthusiastically named in his honor.[2]
In its earliest years, the town consisted mostly of men working for the railroad, mining, or forest industries. It was notorious for drinking, gambling, a murder rate higher than Chicago, and a reputed "five prostitutes for every man." One reporter described it as "the wickedest city in America."[5]
Taft burned to the ground 114 years ago on 21 August 1910,[6][7] during "The Big Burn" - a giant forest wildfire fed by Palouser winds, and was not rebuilt.[5] (see The Big Burn by Timothy Egan. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 2009.)