Only men ever use the rooms at the Beard hotel, but they come for various reasons: traveling salesmen, jurors from out of town, weather-stranded countrymen, even two "town young bloods" who keep a room as a place for gambling. Besides Byron Snopes, some - bachelors identified as "clerks, mechanics and such" - live there more permanently (104).
This is the "rejuvenated rented cabin" into which the "family of country people" whom Narcissa Benbow looks after during World War I move when they come "to town" (72). The novel states that it is "on the edge of town" (72), but our decision to put it on the southeast side of Jefferson is almost entirely speculative. It is far enough from the railroad station that they use a borrowed car to get there from the cabin, which suggested the east side of town. And the fact that so many other "country people" in Flags in the Dust are from Frenchman's Bend suggested the southeast side.
