I find when you try to look up John Olson's work, that some people in the model railroading community love him. His Jerome & Southwestern is a model of a great beginners railroad to many. Others find him terrible; unrealistic and "cartoony." I find that this latter group of people often offer that opinion unsolicited and uninvited (and unwanted.) Which goes even further towards demonstrating my point about a certain kind of spergy, joyless jerk who's turned the hobby into a parody of itself, because they reject the John Allen style of model railroading, and some of his most notable proteges, like John Olson, Malcolm Furlow and others. Furlow in particular seems to get the ire, for not being a slave to realism at all costs. Don't get me wrong; if you want to do something else with your "model railroading" that's fine, but there's no reason flagellate anyone who does it differently than you. John Allen wasn't the be-all and end-all of model railroading. But he was popular, and people who enjoy his style of model railroading aren't wrong because they don't enjoy your style. You self-righteous jerk.
(As an aside, I just browsed through a Tony Koester book, and found it hilarious that even he refers to the "fun"—his use of quotation marks, not mine—of operating his railroad being in the satisfaction of doing something realistic in your yard. Not in, having... y'know, actual fun that doesn't have to be annotated with scare quotes. And I also found it funny browsing a Model Railroader magazine article about a guy who tore up his "dream" complete HO scale layout, which was optimized for operations, to start all over again with a more laid-back On3 railroad where he didn't have to stress out about operating it, because he'd lost his sense of joy in the hobby. And yet, nobody seems to comment on the obvious. You can't make this stuff up.)
Curiously, I hear very few people complain about George Sellios for doing the same thing.
Anyway, a couple of little notes; little details that I've found trawling with a more detailed look at some books that I've had for some time. Decades in the case of the J&S book, but over a year now in the case of Furlow's SJC book. Both feature a Prairie Fire Inn. Both are based on completely different kits. Both are out of print, although that's just a coincidence, I think. I guess I hadn't recognized, or had forgotten, that they were using different kits. I wonder now if it was some kind of in-joke between them—I know that they were friends, and Furlow contributed a fair bit of time and effort to the J&S, building Furlow's Folly no. 1, the mine, and is credited in the Acknowledgements for having spent a lot of time adding vegetation to the mountain area. The SJC project railroad was also a project railroad done shortly after the J&S, and both were at the peak of their model railroading popularity at about the same time in the early 80s, when both of those project railroads were done. Both of them did work for Walt Disney Studios at the same time too, although probably not at the same place exactly; Furlow did set building, and Olson did scenery on the rides (and his wife did model building for Disney, I've also now found. Curious.) My early assumption was that the Prairie Fire Inn was an in-joke between them of some kind, so they both included one, although it's possible that it's a reference to some third party. If so, I can't find out what. It doesn't appear to be a real place, and I can't find any evidence that it existed on anyone else's famous railroad, like John Allen's, or anything like that.
Anyway, even if I have no idea what the idea was behind the Prairie Fire Inn, and why both the San Juan Central HOn3 Railroad and the Jerome & Southwestern had one, I think I'm going to blindly follow along and do it too. That's how memes are born, I suppose, although one guy making an ignorant reference to two other guys is a far cry from a meme. Because the structure kits that both Furlow and Olson used are out of print, I'll go with an even more modestly sized option than either, and use the Banta Modelworks B&O Hotel as a base.
Underneath the stairs, I will probably add some junk. Rusty Rails provides some great examples; I actually think the stacked firewood would even look like it belongs.
http://rustyrail.com/Products/HOScaleProducts/RRJP-H-39.html#_
Because the building is a little small, I might add just a bit more to it. I'm not 100% sure that this is the right move, but Rusty Rail's lean-to shack on the other side as the staircase might be interesting.
http://rustyrail.com/Products/HOScaleProducts/RRS-H-01.html
Some roof details, and maybe a scratchbuilt water tank on the roof would complete the scene. See this video (I've already forwarded it to the correct start point) to see how, although it's a bit on the large side for a structure this small. We'll see. There are smaller spools available, and if not, plenty of other cylindrical pieces of junk I can use as a baseline.
Although it also occurs to me that this saloon kit would, with a Prairie Fire Inn sign to replace the one that it comes with, be a really good alternative too, and maybe it'd be nice to have it be a slightly larger building. Although still small. Keep in mind that the red building shown next to it is a separate kit.
Anyway, I also found that the Chooch Columbia Depot kit #9004 that Olson used twice on the J&S was actually a kit that he designed! it's a nice little kit, although obviously out of print now, but it's also curious that he truncated it both times. It's a small depot, but the original does have a little covered loading dock, which he doesn't use. In at least one case, the copy of the kit in Clarkdale, it's obviously not intended to be a depot at all, as it's not particularly close to the track. It's just a little building, store, or shack of some kind.
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