Justified has merited a lot of coverage in TV Guide since it first debuted. I've read all the coverage, so, again, odd as it may seem, there really wasn't anything in your description that I really wasn't already aware of. That's how I know about Margot Martindale, from reading about the show in TV Guide. I guess Justified made her into another one of those overnight sensations who's actually been around for years in anonymous/supporting character roles. I ought to check her filmography at IMDb.
Sorry, I should have guessed that from your MM reference. Yeah, I recognized her at once when she appeared on
Justified, though I hadn't known her name before that. She's a very familiar character actor. The only specific role I can recall without looking her up was as Hilary Swank's trailer-trashy mother in
Million Dollar Baby.
OK, I do tend to get obsessed about these things. ...
In the link below is a very brief mention of what I vaguely remembered about a possible basis in history for Here Come the Brides. I intend to do some more research, but supposedly--at least, according to the National Park Service, a man named Asa Mercer, apparently the first president of the Washington Territorial University, brought a group of 11 marriageable young women to Seattle in 1864, and another group of 34 in 1866. They are known as "the Mercer Girls."
http://www.nps.gov/klse/historyculture/index.htm
Edit to Add:
OK, once I knew what to Google, that didn't take long. Here's the Wikipedia article on the Mercer Girls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Girls
Kind of a sad tale about the one woman who didn't get married right away (besides the one who died) because she was "old" at 35. I got married when I was 36!
Here I'd assumed that HCtB was based on a historical whorehouse. But of course "marriageable," in those days, meant not only young but "not a whore."
Now, though, I have to reinstate my insistence that you try
Deadwood. I'm always telling people to watch
Justified, but I know it's not for everybody, and aside from TO I'm not sure it would necessarily be your cup of tea.
Deadwood, however, at least as I understand it, follows fairly closely the actual historical records. So someone like you, interested in history and the West (and again, TO!), I think would find it quite interesting.
The only problem with the series is that it just sort of ends after three seasons, with all sorts of unresolved plot points. It was supposed to continue for a couple more seasons, but HBO canceled it. However, I read somewhere that might be for the best, because the real Deadwood was burned to the ground at some point not long after the events portrayed in the series, which would be sort of a bummer as a TV-series ending.