History
The family founded what would become Basin City during Gold Rush, when a Roark ancestor brought with him a large number of foreign prostitutes to the gold mining camp. The prostitutes were immediately popular, turning a small camp into a thriving city. Over the years, the prostitutes themselves eventually split from the family and formed their own district reserved specifically for prostitution. This red light district would later be known as Old Town.
In the time period of the comics, the Roark dynasty is currently thriving, with family members in the United States Senate, an Attorney General and a Cardinal.
Read more about this topic: Roark Family
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“When the history of guilt is written, parents who refuse their children money will be right up there in the Top Ten.”
—Erma Brombeck (20th century)