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.
Showing posts with label Ft. Reno. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ft. Reno. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

August 28

1767   Hugo Oconór became ad interim governor of the Spanish Mexican province of Texas.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1865  Ft. Connor established by Gen. Patrick Connor, 6th Mich Cav. The 6th Mich Cavalry was serving in Wyoming at the time.  The fort was renamed Ft. Reno for late Maj. Gen. Jesse L. Reno later that year.  The fort was abandoned in 1868 as a condition of the peace treaty that resulted in the end of Red Cloud's War, which is generally regarded as the only Plains Indian War which resulted in a clear cut Indian victory.

1868  Ft. Reno abandoned. 

 Where Ft. Reno was, today.

1890  A gold strike was reported near Lander.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1904  Prisoners in Laramie's jail were lynched by a crowd. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1918   The Battle of Ambos Nogales hits the Papers
 
The battle was fought yesterday, August 27, late in the afternoon.  It was on the front page the next day:


The reporting was, of course, initial, and not entirely accurate.


And in the case of the Cheyenne paper, racist epitaphs were used as well.

Of course, the Great War still predominated. But Mexico was back on the front page for the 28th.

1943  Salvage of tin cans begins in Cheyenne. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1963  Martin Luther King delivers his "I have a dream" speech at a large rally in Washington D.C.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

August 24

1842  John C. Fremont's raft capsizes in the rapids in what is now Fremont Canyon, dumping most of his party's scientific instruments.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1865  Emma Howell Knight, the University of Wyoming’s first dean of women, born in Millbrook, Ontario, Canada.

1865  Companies C and D of the 5th U. S. Volunteers (Galvanized Yankees) relieved the 6th Michigan cavalry at Ft. Reno.

1944 It was reported that the tragedy of war struck a Hanna couple for the second time, as news was reported of their loss of a second son in the war.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

August 11

1806 Meriwether Lewis is accidentally shot in the hip by one of his own men.

1865  Gen. Patrick Connor established Camp Conner in the Powder River Basin.  It would later become Ft. Reno.

1865:  From the Wyoming State Historical Society's Facebook page:

FORT LARAMIE, DAK. TER., August 11, 1865.

Maj. Gen. G. M. DODGE,
Omaha, Nebr. Ter. :
Have heard from Sixth West Virginia and Twenty-first New York. Former ordered here; latter ordered on mail road between Collins and Sulphur Springs. Also hear of three infantry regiments below Kearny. Men rapidly deserting; regiments will be mere skeletons upon arrival at Kearny. Men of Sixth U.S. Volunteers are also deserting. If troops sent out act this way with us will not have force enough on plains this fall unless additional and reliable regiments are forwarded. A half-way exhibition of power toward hostile Indians will only be productive of evil. Troops sent to Utah should have not less than two years to serve. Am sending Sixth United States and Eleventh Ohio there; both only number 1,400 men. There should be not less [than] 4,000 in Utah to protect the development of the silver mines, the surest and safest method of crushing polygamy and the one-man power now crushing that country. Will you please extend your visit to Laramie.

GEO. F. PRICE,
Captain and Acting Assistant-Adjutant-General.
(In absence of general commanding.)

1887  Cheyenne Street Railway announced its horse drawn carriages would be built at Cheyenne Carriage Works.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1898  William O. Owen, Federal surveyor and outdoorsman, Franklin Spalding, Frank Petersen, and John Shive reached the summit of the "Mount Owen" of the the Grand Tetons, the first documented climb of that peak..  The climb was sponsored by a climbing association, the Rocky Mountain Club.  Publication of the news in the New York Herald met with an immediate spat between Owens and Nathaniel P. Landford.  Landford, together with James Stevenson claimed to have reached the summit on July 29, 1872.  However, their description and sketches seem to match the summit of The Enclosure (named after a man made rock palisade of unknown Indian construction) a side peak of Grand Teton.  The debate continues on, as it is not possible to discount, or prove, Landford's earlier claim, while Owen's later one is an established fact.

Somewhat missed in this debate is that another rival claim exists on the part of Captain Charles Kieffer, Private Logan Newell, and Private John Rhyan who may have climbed the peak on September 10, 1893, using the difficult Exum Ridge Route.  These soldiers were all stationed at Ft. Yellowstone and, according to a letter sent from Kieffer to Owen after Owen's assent, accompanied by his depiction.  Kieffer indicated that the three soldiers attempted the climb a second time later, but failed due to early snows.  It's interesting to note that Owen did not publish or reveal the letter, fwiw, and it only came to light when it was uncovered in the Owen papers at the Western History Research Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, by Leigh N. Ortenburger in the spring of 1959.

The dispute will never be settled, but I suspect that the Army party was the first one.

1911 Catholic Bishop  James John Keane of the Diocese of Cheyenne is appointed the Archbishop of Dubuque.

1919  August 11, 1919. Laramie to Medicine Bow on the 1919 Motor Transport Convoy. Andrew Carnegie passes away and the Weimar Republic born.
A Packard furnished by the Firestone company crosses what passed for a bridge west of Laramie on this day in 1919.

On this day in 1919, the Motor Transport Convoy resumed its travel along a road that today is a state highway.

The path on the state highway today would take you to all the same spots, in much of the same conditions.  You'd still pass through Rock River, although the tiny town today would be hard pressed to offer a Red Cross canteen service.

Motor Transport Convoy in Rock River.

Today Rock River is a very small town, although its fortunes appear to have somewhat revived recently.


The Virginian Hotel in Medicine Bow is still there and its still open, so perhaps similar festivities could be held today at that location.  The once busy train depot, however, doesn't serve passengers anymore.


Virginian Hotel in background, old Union Pacific depot to the right.  The hotel is named after the protagonist in Owen Wister's novel, which starts off in Medicine Bow.

The big news on this day is that Andrew Carnegie, the industrialist turned philanthropist, died at age 83.  His passing as headline news.

Carnegie in 1905.

In Germany, the Weimar Constitution was formally adopted.  With that, Germany had officially passed from having a caretaker government made up exclusively of Socialist to being a liberal parliamentary democracy. The shepherding of that effort by the heads of the SDP had been a difficult one, meeting opposition from the more radical left which wanted a government of soviets, and which was willing to rebel in support of that cause, and only barely supported by the right, which was already turning to militarism.

On the same day, the Reichstag passed the Reich Settlement Act, and agricultural act that provided for limited land redistribution.  The act did not result in a large scale change in German agricultural land owning patters but it did ultimately result in 57,000 German farmers coming into land ownership.  It's passage took a middle of the road approach to land questions signaling the moderate nature of the postwar German parliament.

1929 Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

1942  The first internees arrived at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center.

1946 Wyoming Air National Guard organized.

1955 Arthur G. Crane, Governor in 1949 died at age 79, when Lester C. Hunt resigned.  He had been the Secretary of State at the time.  He was President of the University of Wyoming from 1922 to 1941.

1956  Cody born Jackson Pollock died in New York at age 44.

2011 Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning center opened.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

July 9

1866 Colonel Henry B. Carrington leaves Fort Reno for Piney Creek to select the site for what became Ft. Phil Kearny.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1915  The last stage robbery in the United States occurred in Yellowstone National Park, seeing financier Bernard amongst the passengers robbed.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1920  July 9, 1920
Jackson Lake Dam and spillway on the Snake River near Moran, Wyoming.  July 9, 1920

1934  Sheridan's first radio station commences operation.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1945   Cheyenne was proclaimed to be "a City of the First Class".

1982  Madison Museum, in Yellowstone National Park, added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1982  Obsidian Cliff Kiosk in Park County added to the National Register of Historic Places.  

Sunday, May 19, 2013

May 19

1848   Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo acknowledging the acquisition of Texas and New Mexico by the United States, which included a small portion of Wyoming, via Texas.

1846  resident Polk approved an act that provided for a line of military posts along the Oregon Trail.  In some ways, this has to be regarded as a major development in the history of the United States and the U.S. Army, as the expansion of the Army on to the Western Frontier dominated much of its character for the next century, even continuing to have an influence into its nature well after the Frontier had closed.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1866  Colonel Carrington left Fort Kearny for Fort Laramie where he received instructions from General Pope to name two new outpost along Bozeman Road Fort Philip Kearny and Fort C.F. Smith.  The widely spaced forts were to form more northerly bastions to guard the Bozeman Trail, the southernmost post, Ft. Reno, having already been established during the Civil War by Patrick Connor.  Carrington was one of a group of officers who remained in the Army following the Civil War when Congress established the policy of making room for some wartime officers who had not come from pre war military service or West Point.  Alfred Terry was another, with both men having been lawyers prior to the Civil War.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1869  Territorial government was formally in effect.  Territorial Supreme Court took the oath of office.

1871  Robert H. Milroy takes office as U.S. Marshall.

1887  Sheridan Post established.

1902  The first Carnegie Library in the United States, the Laramie County Library, opened.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1915  Dr. Amos Barber, Wyoming's second governor after statehood, whose governorship was marred by the Johnson County War and his general ineffective reaction to it, died.  Barber had a successful career as an Army surgeon before entering private practice, and he followed up on that with service again during the Spanish American War, but his having participated through acts of omission in the large cattleman's invasion of central Wyoming is principally what he is remembered for.

1919  May 19, 1919. Laramie to get a refinery, Daniels comes home, Ataturk in Samsun


Big news in Wyoming, and most particularly in Laramie, was that the Midwest Oil Company, which was very active in Natrona County, had determined to build a refinery in Laramie.

People in Laramie today may be surprised to know that this was even considered, let alone that it was actually built, which it was later that year, although the remnants of the refinery remain there.  Indeed, oddly enough, discussion has been going on for several years on how to clean the remnants of the refinery up, a project that has been ongoing, and on May 5 of this present year a legal notice regarding the final work on it was published.

The refinery operated from 1919 to 1932, making it a plant that closed during the height of the Great Depression.  The same location was later operated for a few years as a Yttrium plant, although most of the refining equipment had been removed in the 1930s.  Clean up of the site is nearly complete.

1938  Niobrara County Wyoming becomes the first county in the United States to have all of its mail for a day delivered via airmail.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1941  Fire destroyed three Union Pacific shop buildings in Cheyenne.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1987  The U.S. Post Office in Basin Wyoming, the U.S. Post Office in Buffalo the U.S. Post Office in Evanston, the U.S. Post Office and Federal Courthouse in Lander, the U.S. Post Office in Yellowstone National Park, the U.S. Post Office in Newcastle, the U.S. Post Office in Kemmerer, the U.S. Post Office in Thermopolis, the U.S. Post Office in Torrington, added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1996  A  4.2 magnitude earthquake, which your correspondent experienced, occurred 22 miles from Casper.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

April 28

1868 Negotiations at Ft. Laramie commence with the goal of ending Red Cloud's War.

1903   Governor De Forest Richards died in office. Fennimore Chatterton, the Secretary of State, became governor.

1926  Caroline Lockhart sued for libel.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1944  USS Crook County, LST-611, named after Crook counties Wyoming and Oregon, launched. She was a landing ship, tank.

1958  Minor, but perceptible, earthquakes happened in Yellowstone National Park. Attribution:  On This Day.

1960  Tom Browning, former pitcher for the Kansas City Royals and the Cincinnati Reds, born in Casper.

1970  Fort Reno added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

1970  Bridger Pass added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1970  Ft. Bonneville added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1970  The site of a Mass celebrated by Father Pierre DeSmet in Sublette County added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1970  Fort Halleck added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1970  Sand Creek Massacre Site, in Colorado, added to the National Register of Historic Places.

 

Thursday, March 28, 2013

March 28

1845   Mexico dropped diplomatic relations with US.

1846   US troops move onto the left bank of the Rio Grande River.

1865   The District of the Plains was established.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1870  Camp Augur reorganized and renamed Camp Brown.

1906  An ore mill at Encampment burned. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1908  Fifty-nine people killed in a mine explosion at Hanna.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1916   The Punitive Expedition: The Casper Daily Press, March 28, 1916
 

Note in this one the fruit and vegetable advertisement.  Quite a difference in regards to how available these things are today.

1917   The Cheyenne State Leader for March 28, 1917: Calls to arms.
 

A general call to arms was going on, as Wyoming National Guardsmen were returning to service.

1918   Wyoming State Tribune, March 28, 1918. Muleless Days?
 

The big news was on the war, of course, but a frightening item about a shortage of mules appeared on the front cover as well.

At that time, that was no minor matter.  Mules and horses remained the prime movers of short hauling and agriculture in the United States in 1918.  And the US was also a major supplier of both to the Allies.

Unlike automobiles, a demand for equines couldn't simply be supplied overnight.  A natural product had to develop naturally.  By this point in 1918 horses and mules that were born in the first year of the war were just getting to the point where they were trainable.  Horses and mules of older age, and usable for anything, had been pressed into the demand long ago.

1920  March 28, 1920. Tornadic outbreaks, Typhus, Bulgarian elections, and movies.


A disaster of another type, contaminated water, was plaguing Casper.  Casper would have outbreaks of waterborne diseases for years, including typhus.


1970  The location of Ft. Reno placed on the National Register of Historic Sites.

1975   A 6.2 earthquake occurred about 93 miles from Evanston, WY.

1982  The Sheridan County Historical Society transferred title in the Trail End Historical Center to the State of Wyoming.

2008 Gray wolves removed from the Endangered Species List.

2020  In an emergency session, the Town of Jackson, Wyoming, issued a shelter in place order for the town, implementing recommendations from Teton County's health official brought about by the COVID 19 pandemic.  The country recommendations, issued on the 24th, further recommended that people from outside the county or with second homes leave the county for their primary residences.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

March 2

1836  Texas declared independence from Mexico.

1836  The city of Wyoming Illinois founded by General Samuel Thomas.

1861  Congress created the Dakota and Nevada Territories out of the Nebraska and Utah territories.  Wyoming was part of the Dakota Territory at that time.

1868  General Grant issued an order to abandon Fort Reno Fort Kearny, and Fort C. F. Smith on the Bozeman Trail.  The fort abandonments were byproducts of the end of Red Cloud's War, which is regarded as the only Plains Indian War won by the native combatants.

The closure of the posts was not instant.  It was winter in Wyoming and Montana and the actual closings occurred in the summer.

1888  The territorial legislature overroad a public works bill's veto by Governor Moonlight.  The bill was for the construction of public buildings and Moonlight had been worried about excessive expenditures.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1890  Ft. Laramie's status as an active Army post ended.

 Ruin of cement building at Ft. Laramie.  Ft. Laramie was unusual for its era in that cement buildings were actually constructed on its grounds in the 1840s.

1891  The American Exchange Bank opened in Casper.

1899 Wyoming volunteers moved to trenches on the Pasig River in the Philippines.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1915  Seventh Judicial District created by the Legislature.The Seventh Judicial District encompasses Natrona County.

1917   The Cheyenne Leader for March 2, 1917: National Guardsmen having a good time at Ft. D. A. Russell.
 

After the early spat about it, Colorado Guardsmen, we learned were having a good time at Ft. D. A. Russell.  Wyoming Guardsmen were about to arrive there.

Keep in mind that Wyoming Guardsmen were not allowed to muster there when they were called into service, oddly enough.  The post is just outside of Cheyenne.  But they were being allowed to demuster there.

And, in other news, things were looking pretty grim following the release of the Zimmerman Note, which makes a person wonder why the Federal Government was demustering troops that logic dicated they'd be calling back into service shortly.

1920   Joseph Wisniewski, a Polish immigrant living in New Acme, received a patent for a roller skate.

1943 The Pepsi Cola bottling plant in Douglas was damaged by fire.  While soft drink bottling plant operations are not unknown in the state now, at that time smaller ones were more common.  Casper had a Coca Cola bottling plant.

1947   Grace H. Emerson, Wyoming's first woman deputy state auditor, died.

2011  Governor Matt Mead signed a bill amending Wyoming's concealed firearms laws to allow for carry without a permit by those who would be qualified under the law to obtain a permit.  

2002  Largest crowd, to date, to watch a basketball game in the University of Wyoming's Arena Auditorium. The game was played between Wyoming and Utah.  Wyoming won 57 to 56.