Sgt. Dennis Schulze and Rose McKag (Lisa Burge) rush smiling from the saloon, as sabers raised to form an arch of steel.

CAMP LOGAN – The laundry business in Dixie Town will have to start looking for a new wash woman, but Sgt. Dennis Schulze is through searching for love.

The soldier, on duty here from St. Paul Minnesota, married Rose McKag in a military ceremony attended by many of the newlyweds’ friends and officiated by Lt. Col. George Crook inside the Dixie Starr Saloon.

The ceremony, as performed by the colonel, was brief, with few frills, but nonetheless a romantic moment between the bride and groom.

The best man was 1st Sgt. Charles Montague, and the maid of honor was Danielle Black.

There were several cakes, with many layers, brought in by smiling ladies, showing just how popular the bride is among the townsfolk.

When the ceremony concluded, the newlyweds rushed smiling from the saloon, as soldiers lined their path, sabers raised to form an arch of steel, signifying a safe transition to their new life together.

Sgt. Schulze and his new bride met five months ago here at Camp Logan, and it was love at first sight, said the blushing bride.

A honeymoon will have to wait, due to the the sergeant’s militarty duties, but the happy couple will immediately begin making a home in the area.

The wedding was nearly postponed because of a savage and surprise Indian attack at the MorningStar Mine.

“The Indians stole my gold,” miner James Heckle said through clenched teeth, obviously in great pain from being shot in the belly with a arrow, as he was carried on a stretcher to the hospital tent.

Inside the tent, Dr. Dunmar and Dr. Crockett tried their best to ease the man’s pain, with bromide on the wound and whisky down the throat, but they knew Heckle was done for.

“Don’t know what your chances are,” Dunmar said kindly.

“Thank you, Doc,” Heckle replied, and he asked for more whisky, which was generously given.

Capt. Dudley Seward eased the fears of the citizenry when he announced that soldiers had apprehended the hostile and reinforced the post, and the wedding went on without any further calamity.

The cake was served, and then Mrs. Emmaline Starr, owner of the saloon, opened her establishment to more profitable pursuits, and soon soldiers were playing poker and music was being played by sisters Jenny Marsden, on the violin, and Cherie Marsden, on the flute.

The duo played “Dusty Bob’s Jig,” and the lively music could be heard above the din of laughing, off-duty soldiers and gunshots from down the street, where cowboys tested their fast-draw skills.

Mrs. Starr, who changed her name from Ekaterina Lapay when she arrived years ago on the east coast of America from Russia, comes from the upper crust of Russian life, or so she says, and she surveyed the goings-on in her place of business with the bearing of a queen. Certainly, the girls under her charge hopped to at her orders.

Mrs. Starr arrived here with her husband, Asa Starr, a writer of some sort, who spends much of his time loitering in the saloon, but looking dapper as he does it. They met on the Oregon Trail, a path many of the town’s residents took to get to these parts of Eastern Oregon.

Such was life two years after the Civil War in Dixie Town and Camp Logan, a military garrison established in 1865 near present-day Prairie City, and considering the authentic military dress and the clothes worn by the civilians, the canvas Army tents, the horse and buggy, the old wood-burning stoves in the saloon, in Kate Howdy’s Kitchen and outside the tent from where the Grant County Genealogical Society was selling pies, white smoke curling from iron chimneys, and the muddy street running through it, it was easy for a visitor to imagine himself walking into a set piece of American history.

And it was a whole lot of fun, made all the more so by wet weather, which kept the crowd down on the second day; so most of the people were re-enactors and the scene seemed real enough to be a movie set.

This was the third year for Camp Logan, put on by the Prairie City History Club, this time on May 21 and 22. The first day was bright and sunny and 200 people by some estimates paid the admission and walked up the road past the sentry to enter a time of Indian wars and the Recontruction, when Oregon was booming, just five years after the first gold strike in Canyon City.

The two-day event also included a fast-draw competion between gunslingers from the North American Fast Draw Association, one of whom skinned leather in 2.7 seconds, and there was a museum, a seamtress and a women slicing potatoes and carrots with a knife that looked to be from the original Camp Logan.

The newlyweds were Dennis Schulze and Lisa Burge, who are courting in real life. He works fish and wildlife at the fish screen shop, and she works at Bisnett Insurance. Lt. Col. Crook was played by Pete Piazza; Montague was Randy Brusse; the maid of honor was Katie Cary; the two doctors were David Packard, a Prairie City police office and volunteer firefighter, and Dr. Bob Holland; the gut-shot miner was Jim Bowler; Mrs Starr was Diane Lesniak, a teacher at Prairie City School, and her husband, Asa Starr, was Mark Lesniak, also her husband in real life, who is the director of the local Head Start program and a track coach at Prairie City School; Jenny and Cherie Marsden played themselves; Capt. Dudley Seward was brought alive by Andrew Demko, a history teacher at Prairie City School; and the woman slicing vegetables was Bethany Hoeffner.

Other re-enactors included saloon girls Christina Butler, Meaghan Keffer, Irene Ribeiro and Reagan Emmel; Caitlin Patten, who played a doll maker; soldiers Casey Brizendine, Blake Palmer and Brady Doty; and Dave Hoeffner, who played circuit-riding preacher Rev. Thomas Dewitt Talmage.

Those are just some of the many people who made Camp Logan and Dixie Town come alive over the weekend.

The Oregon School Boards Association last year awarded the Camp Logan Living History Days team from Prairie City School District one of two statewide $500 Salute to Success Grants.