Williamh Workman News Today

As the bleak winter of 1862 dragged on into 1863, the isolated, ramshackle town of Los Angeles was visited by a terrifying scourge — smallpox. With its telltale fever and disfiguring skin rash, the highly infectious disease jumped from adobe to adobe, killing more than 100 people and sickening hundreds of others. If those numbers dont sound like much, remember L.A. had only 4,000 or so souls at the time and the outbreak wiped out half of its indigenous residents. "The citys smallpox wagon, du...