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 Wyoming Illinois. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wyoming Illinois. Show all posts

Friday, May 3, 2013

May 3


1836  Wyoming Illinois founded. 

1881  Grounds of Camp Stambaugh transferred to the Department of the Interior.

1885 Post hospital opens at Ft. Fetterman.

1898  All of the Wyoming units mustered for service in the Philippines assembled in Laramie County.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1917  

The Casper Daily Tribune for May 3, 1917: Lazy men and soldiering, and the start of a Casper landmark


There are a couple of items in this May 3, 1917 issue of the Casper Daily Tribune that are relevant for later eras.
For one thing, the boom in the town was now reflecting itself in the new professional appearance of the newspaper.  Gone was the small town appearance of purely local news.  Casper, for the first time, now had a paper that was starting to rival the big established papers in other regions of the state.  This paper doesn't even resemble the appearance of the Casper papers of just a couple of months ago.


The church, as can be seen above, is of substantial size and that also points to the change in Casper's economic fortunes in this period. 
Finally, from the various news articles I've seen, I've sort of taken it to be the case that Casper, which was a tiny town prior to 1917, did not have a National Guard unit up until this time.  I could be in error, however, as Casper's newspapers were of a fairly poor quality and they aren't all available by any means.  Douglas had one, however, and its small papers reported on that unit extensively.  Over the last couple of issues, however, its clear that the National Guard, which was actively recruiting for new units in the opening weeks of American participation in World War One, was recruiting for just such a unit to be formed in Casper.
Earlier we noted that 1917 was the year that really made Casper. This newspaper, in and of itself, provides some pretty good examples of how that is true.

1918  The News. May 3, 1918.
I don't point these papers out today for the war news, although there was plenty of it.  No, I'm pointing them out for the local goings on in Cheyenne and Casper.

Let's look at Cheyenne:


This issue is remarkably similar to an issue of this Cheyenne paper that ran a year ago.  We learn here that, once again, a bevy of Cheyenne high school beauties were the "sponsors" of the Annual Cadet Show, an even that no doubt took on more meaning in 1917 and 1918 than it ever had before.

And once again, oil prospects near Cheyenne were in the news.  Those prospects were real, but it wasn't until the 2010s that they'd be developed.  New technology made that possible.

A school nurse was recommending something that was fairly radical at the time. . . but as this came at the tail end of the Progressive Era, it was a somewhat radical age.

Around the state 167 men were called to the colors.  Elsewhere, a terrible military balloon tragedy had occurred.

And in Casper:



Casper's newspapers, now larger with a larger reading audience, continued to improve and at least this issue of the Casper Daily Press was real news. . . not all optimistic petroleum boosterism.

A real city improvement, sanitary and storm sewers were being put in. And that was big news.

William Ross, who would become governor. . . as would his wife, was rising in the Democratic ranks.

And the balloon tragedy also made the front page news in Casper.

1933   Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the Director of the Mints, an office she would hold until 1953.

1944  The Soviet Union decorated a Wyoming officer with the "Order of the Fatherland's War".  Such awards by the Soviets to Western servicemen were not uncommon.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1946         Military Tribunal in Tokyo begins war crimes trials.  One of the principal Japanese defendants was defended by Cheyenne lawyer George Guy.

1968   Colorado Air National Guard 120th Tactical Fighter Squadron, flying F-100Cs, becomes the first Air Guard unit to arrive in Vietnam.

1980  First Wyoming History Day.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

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.