skid row

"Skidding" refers to the method of moving logs/timbers by dragging them along the ground. Before the age of trucks and the internal combustion engine Skidding was done by teams of horses/mules/oxen driven by burly men of a rather low station in life. A skid road led from the outlying area where timber cutting was done to the sawmill usually near a city or source of power such as a millrace. "skid row" referred to the row of low cost wooden shanties which sprang up along the skid road. Persons living in these shanties were associated with or subservient to the skidders, timber cutters etc and usually represented the lowest station in the social life of a town or village. Skid row was often populated with prostitutes, homeless, paupers, transients etc.