How To Use This Site




How To Use This Site


This blog was updated on a daily basis for about two years, with those daily entries ceasing on December 31, 2013. The blog is still active, however, and we hope that people stopping in, who find something lacking, will add to the daily entries.

The blog still receives new posts as well, but now it receives them on items of Wyoming history. That has always been a feature of the blog, but Wyoming's history is rich and there are many items that are not fully covered here, if covered at all. Over time, we hope to remedy that.

You can obtain an entire month's listings by hitting on the appropriate month below, or an individual day by hitting on that calendar date.
Use 2013 for the search date, as that's the day regular dates were established and fixed.

Alternatively, the months are listed immediately below, with the individual days appearing backwards (oldest first).

We hope you enjoy this site.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

June 23

1810   John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company.

1845  Texas voted to accept annexation by the United States.

1916   The Casper Weekly Press for June 23, 1916
 

Some of the news of June 23, 1916, is freakishly familiar a century later.

1917   June 23, 1917. War news of all types
 

I haven't been covering it much, although I've been meaning to post a separate thread on it, but the arrival of the Great War in Wyoming, and the expectation that thousands of troops would be flooding into the state's two military posts, produced a flurry of all sorts of activity. 
One of the collateral impacts of the war was Cheyenne going dry due to Congressional action (arguably unconstitutional) and, soon thereafter, the town fathers. . . and mothers, moving to shut down the "resorts".

Resorts, at the time, was the euphemistic term for houses of prostitution, of which Cheyenne apparently had some prominent ones.  The town reacted, and the town's women in particular reacted to have them shut down, with the war as the ostensible reason.  The war may have been the reason, but it isn't as if Ft. D. A. Russell was brand new. . . but then thousands of conscripted soldiers going through there was a new thing.  Cheyenne was apparently more worried about vice and regular boys who ended up in the service, and recalled National Guardsmen, than it was about regular soldiers.

Anyhow, some of the soiled doves flew to Laramie and right away Laramie followed Cheyenne's lead.  In today's headlines, we see a specific example of a "colored" house being closed.  The move was on against all of them, but for some reason that one got the axe first, with the others ordered to  quit serving alcohol.


Cheyenne's papers, in contrast, were reporting that Russia would stay in the war. . . which of course it wouldn't.  It would stay in a war, of course, one of its own horrific internal making.

And another headline gave a glimpse into the past, although it was a fairly recent past in 1917.
Ernie Shore's Relief No Hitter. June 23, 1917.
 
In a pitching event against the odds, Ernie Shore came in to relieve Babe Ruth, then the Boston Red Sox's starting pitcher, and turns in a no hitter.

Ernie Shore on the left, Grover Cleveland Alexander on the right, 1915 World Series.  Shore was a remarkably tall pitcher, particularly for his era, as he was 6'4" tall.

What's amazing about it is that Shore had virtually no time to warm up and nearly pitched the entire game.  Indeed, at one time, this was regarded as a perfect game.

The reason for that is Babe Ruth.

Ruth pitched to just a single batter, the Washington Senator's Ray Morgan.  Morgan was walked, but not before Ruth hotly disputed three out of the four pitches that were called as balls, letting home plate umpire Clarence "Brick" Owens know it in no uncertain terms.  After the fourth ball, he yelled out at Owens again.  Owens calmly replied and warned Ruth to calm down, or he would be ejected, to which Ruth may have replied “Throw me out and I’ll punch ya right in the jaw!”, or might not have. At any rate, Owens ejected Ruth at that point and Ruth took a swing at him, hitting him in the ear but knocking him down. The Boston police then escorted Ruth off the field.

Babe Ruth as a Red Sox pitcher, 1917.  {{PD-US}} – published in the U.S. before 1923 and public domain in the U.S.
Shore, a very good pitcher in his own right, then came in and pitched a nearly perfect game.  Indeed, at one time this was regarded as a perfect game, although now it's only regarded as a no hitter.
That woman on a car photo?
 
Nephele A. Bunnell at the automobile fashion show held at Sheepshead Bay Race Track, New York City, June 23, 1917.

 Nephele A. Bunnell
 Ruth McDonald

Mrs. James H. Kidder.

Actress Gertrude McCoy

Gertrude McCoy

Beatrice Allen, Hazel Dawn, Consuelo Bailey, Eleanor Dawn, Ann Pennington, Gertrude McCoy, and Vera Maxwell
 The cars
 
1922.  A tragedy.

Friday, June 23, 1922. Confederate Veterans visit the White House, Chinese Prime Minister Wu Tingfang dies, A forgotten tragedy.

On this day in 1922, a group of Confederate veterans visited the White House.


 An annual reunion was ongoing in Richmond, and this event was likely associated with it.



I suppose it demonstrated a spirit of reconciliation that had developed, with the old rebels now celebrated as old soldiers.  At the time, the ongoing repression of blacks, often violent, and the failure of Reconstruction, seemingly didn't figure into the equation.

Chinese Prime Minister Wu Tingfang, in office for mere days, and part of an effort to consolidate the reunification of China, died of pneumonia.

A forgotten tragedy was reported on in Casper.


He was apparently keeping time with other women, maybe.  She was upset, but wanted to reconcile, and then, the note stated, didn't want to live alone.

Earlier this week, we noted this:

Thursday, June 21, 1923. Dawn of the advertising age. Somewhere West Of Laramie.

The modern advertising age dawned on this day in 1921 with an ad for the Jordan Playboy automobile:

Today In Wyoming's History: June 211923   This advertisement first ran in the Saturday Evening Post:


The advertisement is the most famous car ad of all time, and the ad itself revolutionized advertising.  Based on the recollection of the Jordan Motor Car Company's founder in seeing a striking mounted girl outside of Laramie, while he was traveling by train, the advertisement is all image, revealing next to nothing about the actual product.  While the Jordan Motor Car Company did not survive the Great Depression, the revolution in advertising was permanent.

Anyway you look at it, it's still a great ad.

This, by the way, is the print date.  The actual issue of the magazine would be a few days later.

On this date, the advertisement actually ran.  I've always thought that it ran in the form set out above, but there were multiple versions, and it would appear that in actuality, the version below is the one that ran.

It's similiar.


But I like the one set out at the very top better.

Sculptor Guzon Borglum began carving the Stone Mountain Memorial bas-relief.  He'd work on the Confederate memorial until 1925, and then abandon the project, blasting his carving of Robert E. Lee off the mountain.  None of his work at Stone Mountain remains.


President Harding crossed Wyoming by train.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1925  Lower Slide Lake forms near Kelly as a result of a massive landslide.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1943  A clothing drive for Russians began in Cheyenne. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

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