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.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

February 14

Today is St. Valentine's Day

270  St. Valentine martyred. There seems to be no strong actual connection between the martyr (there are actually three martyrs by this name) and the Romantic popular holiday celebrated on this day.

Due to some confusion on which particular St. Valentine this day originally commemorated, it is no longer on the Western church calendar. This is instead the day that commemorates Saints Cyril and Methodius, the Apostles to the Slavs. In the Eastern Church calendar, Saint Valentine the Presbyter is celebrated on July 6,and Hieromartyr Saint Valentine is celebrated on July 30. Notwithstanding that, conventionally, members of the Greek Orthodox Church named Valentinos (male) or Valentina (female) celebrate their name on February 14.

None the less, the day remains very widely observed and very popular in Western nations, and even sees an expression in school in the United States.

1841   Henry Asa Coffeen, Congressman from March 4, 1893 to March 3 1895, was born ear Gallipolis, Ohio.  He was a teacher by profession and moved to Sheridan Wyoming, his home for the rest of his life, in 1884.  He was not reelected after his single term in office.

1862  The contest for the west during the Civil War takes a new turn when the Confederate States designated New Mexico and Arizona as Confederate territories.

1870  The Sweetwater County Board of Commissioners in a vote of two to one approved Ester Hobart Morris' application for Justice of the Peace.  This made her the first woman Justice of the Peace in the United States. She served for just about nine months.  She served the full length of her term but could not secure a renomination from either political party in Sweetwater County.  Of the cases she precised over which were appealed, not one was reversed.  She lived until 1902 and is buried in Cheyenne.

1871  James Edwards born in Ohio.  Edwards would become a prosperous black rancher in Niobrara County in an era when black ranchers were fairly rare.  He filed his original homestead in 1913, after having worked since 1903 in Niobrara County for other ranchers.

1911 Niobrara County created.

1917   The Laramie Boomerang for February 14, 1917: Germans to blame for trouble in Cuba and Mexico
 


The Laramie Boomerang ran an article blaming the trouble in Cuba and Mexico on Germany. The same story had the English about to land at Tampico, Mexico, to guard Mexican oilfields, upon which the British were in fact dependent.

And the city manager form of government, which would later become common in Wyoming, didn't pass the bar in 1917.
The Cheyenne State Leader for February 14, 1917. Trouble on the border.
 

Here we learn more about what happened on the border.  Mexican forces of some sort had crossed into the US and murdered three on American soil.  Ironically, the murdered men were Hispanics, but then that likely didn't mean much to the raiders.  An abduction also occurred.

It was rumored that the leader of the expedition that had just returned from Mexico, John J. Pershing, was about to marry. That would prove not  to be the case. While he'd come close on occasion, Gen. Pershing never married again and remained a widow for the balance of his life.
The Wyoming Tribune for February 14, 1917. US Cavalry back across the border.
 

Some regard this day as the last day of the Punitive Expedition.

Perhaps that's because US cavalry again crossed the border on this day, seeking to find three American cowboys who were taken by force into Mexico.  So, American forces were back in Mexico on this day, or maybe it was just being reported on, on this day.

In other news, American ships were going down, the German Ambassador was leaving, somebody had insulted the Legislature and authorities had had enough of bears dancing in saloons in Lincoln County.

And, having just gotten out of Mexico we were now thinking of getting into Cuba.
Major Leroy Eltinge delivered a speech on the use of cavalry.
 
Major Leroy Eltinge delivered a speech on the use of cavalry on this day, in 1917.
Major Eltinge had commanded an element of the 8th Cavalry in Mexico, so this speech was delivered hard on the heels of his recent experiences.  He was a career Army officer, in the service since 1896 who would go on to rise to the brevet rank of Brigadier General as Deputy Chief of Staff of the AEF during World War One before reverting to his permanent rank of Major following the war.  He'd re-obtain the rank of Brigadier General in 1924 and died while still a serving officer during World War Two.
A ship that served in World War Two was named in his honor.

1919  St. Valentine's Day, 1919. The Polish Soviet War commenced, Quixotic Portuguese Monarchist fail, Blizzard shuts things down, League of Nations floated, Novel spellings.
Heroic late war Polish poster.

The Polish Soviet War commenced on this date in 1914 when Polish troops were allowed to occupy a town in current day Belarus by the Germans, as part of the German withdrawal from the region, and were soon thereafter attacked by the Red Army.

The war would go on until March, 1921.

The results of the war are surprisingly disputed.  By most measures it would have to be regarded as a Polish victory given that they held off the Red Army even to the point of defending Warsaw against a Soviet offensive.  Moreover, the first Red Army attack had been given a name that suggested Warsaw was its goal.

Soviet propaganda poster showing the Red Army as liberators.

On the other hand, the initial Polish counteroffensives had been enormously successful and the Polish Army had been able to maintain that stance for quite some time during the war, advancing into territory they disputed in Russia and Ukraine.  The reversals in fortune were enormous and the Poles nearly retreated to the German border in the late stages of the war.  Still, Red Army losses during the Battle of Warsaw late in the war were so severe that the Poles were given a border that closely approximated that of the 1772 partition and therefore granted them most of the territory they were seeking,including the debatable Lithuanian town of Vilnius.  By and large, the Poles gained the territory they were seeking, although less than that which Pilsudski would have wanted for a greater Poland.

Polish propaganda poster showing Polish cavalry, which in fact there was a lot of, fighting bestial troops of the Red Army.

The war at least arguably put an end to the Trotsky vision of marching through Poland and on into Germany and likely cemented a growing rift between Stalin who wished thereafter to build Communism in what remained of the Russian Empire as opposed to Trotsky who argued for an immediate global revolution.

Polish solders with captured Soviet battle flags.  The Red Army may have been a new people's army in theory, but in the field it kept the trappings of earlier armies in having battle flags.

Poland, it might be noted, founds itself in substantial wars from the very first moment of the "Peace" of November 1918.  It's amazing it survived as a state.  It fought all of its neighbors to some degree in one way or another.

Meanwhile, in Portugal, a quixotic effort to restore the Portuguese monarchy, which had never received the endorsement of the former Portuguese royal family, ended and with it the self declared Portuguese Monarchy Of The North.

Portuguese monarchist who fought for a monarchy whose former leaders didn't endorse it.

It's flat out bizarre to contemplate a rebel movement to restore a monarchy occurring in 1919 when in many other nations rebels had successfully operated to depose their nation's monarchies.  Yet, in Portugal, such an attempt was oddly made.  It's hard to figure really, but it is perhaps best understood in the context of it being an ultra conservative revolution with no place to go.

Well, closer to home, sort of . . . .


The Tribune had a headline that today would cause people to recall its occasional nickname, the "Casper Red Star", what with its reference to a "World Constitution".  This referred, of course, to a stout League of Nations.

Rumors were afloat about bribery being a factor on a bill for a new county and a "dry" rally was being planned.


And news of a big blizzard was being reported everywhere in the state.

Hopefully that blizzard wouldn't delay the return of the returning Guardsmen of the 116th Ammunition Train which were anticipated to be home within a week.

The Cheyenne paper remembered it was Valentine's Day.


The second Cheyenne paper noted that communications with the East hung on by a thread, due to the blizzard.

Interestingly, but also without details, that paper also reported that "Dean Huston", a Cheyenne clergyman, would be choosing between two parishes for his new assignment back east.  No other substantial details were provided, but it's likely that he was an Episcopal churchman as the Episcopal Church used that title and that would make sense in context.


And finally the pressed for space Laramie Boomerang resorted to Rooseveltian phonetic spelling, as Wyoming papers in this era occasionally did, for their headline, changing Cheyenne to Chian.  

Theodore Roosevelt, who in spite of his genius was somewhat spealling challenged, had advocated for this movement which would have altered the somewhat bizarre spellings common in English to phonetic ones at large and tried writing that way himself for awhile, but like everyone else, he gave it up. For a brief time, however, Wyoming newspapers would resort to it if headlines seemingly required it, as here.

1971  A campaign was commenced to save the Ivinson Mansion in Laramie.   It is now the Laramie Plains Museum.  The substantial building had been built by the Ivinson family, early significant figures in Laramie, and belonged to the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming at the time, which was considering selling it due to the costs involved in keeping it.  The Ivinson's, immigrants from the Virgin Islands, were originally British citizens and were members of the Episcopal Church.  The impressive structure is familiar to anyone who has spent any time in Laramie.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Blog Mirror: Lex Anteinternet: The 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic

Lex Anteinternet: The 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic: Its flu season in the Unites States, and this one is a bad one.  The worst that I remember for many years, maybe the worst ever during m...

February 13

World Radio Day
 


Shoot, I missed it.  It was February 13.

Well, here's to World Radio Day. . . belated though I am.

1831         John A. Rawlins, Brig Gen, U.S., born.  Rawlins Wyoming, which is near a location where he camped in 1867, is named for him.  He practiced law from 1854 to 1860, and served with Grant thereafter even though he was suffering from tuberculosis..  He remained in the Army after the war until becoming Secretary of War under Grant in 1869, but died of ill health just six months later.  He was instrumental in surveying the course of the Union Pacific Railroad which is what took him near to Rawlins Wyoming's location.

 John A. Rawlins with his family, City Point, Virginia.

1865  1st Lt. Henry C. Bretney assumes command of Comapny G, 11th Ohio Cavalry, stationed at Platte Bridge Station, when its commander, Cpt. Levi M. Rinehart is killed by a drunken trooper accidentally during a skirmish with Indians.

1890  The Northwestern and Elkhorn Railroad announced it would be extending its line to Sundance.

1901  Stinkingwater River renamed the Shoshone River.

1911  Campbell County created.

1917  The Wyoming Legislature appropriated $750 to move Jim Baker's cabin from Carbon County to Cheyenne.  Baker was a frontiersman who came West working for the American Fur Company.  He was later Chief Scout for Gen. Harney out of Ft. Laramie.  In 1859 he homesteaded at a location that is now within Denver Colorado.  He held a commission in the Colorado State Militia during the Civil War.  He relocated to a site near Savery Wyoming in 1873 and homesteaded there.  He continued to ranch in that location until his death in 1898, although he did serve the Army as a scout occasionally in the 1870s.

Today the cabin is located once again in Savery.  It is an unusual structure, as it was built partially as a block house in case of attack.

It's interesting to note that a concern for preserving the early history of the state became quite pronounced during this period.

1917   Cheyenne State Leader for February 13, 1913: Carranza the peacemaker?
 


Carranza, who was settling in as the recognized head of the Mexican government, but still fighting a civil war himself, entered the picture of the Great War by proposing an arms embargo.  Some cynics suggested German influence in his proposal.

1919  February 13, 1919. No love for alcohol

The big Wyoming news on this Valentine's Day Eve was the passage of a "Dry Bill" that limited the production of alcohol to beverages with no more than 1% of the stuff in them.

This has been noted before here, but the curious thing about this bill is that it was wholly redundant.  It was known at the time that the Federal government was going to pass its own bill to bring the provisions of the 18th Amendment into force. So why was a state bill necessary? Well, it really wasn't.

Or maybe it wasn't.  A modern analogy might be the bills regarding marijuana, which remains illegal under Federal law.  Many states prohibited it, and still do, under state law.  The Federal law remains in full force and effect for marijuana which technically, in legal terms, makes all state efforts to repeal its illegality, which date back to the early 1970s, moot.  However, in recent years the Federal Government has chosen not to enforce the law, and states have legalized it under state law.  There's nothing to preclude the Federal government from enforcing its own laws again other than that it would be unpopular.

Something similar, but not identical, occurred with alcohol.  The Prohibition movement was successful in making it illegal under the laws of numerous states before the 18th Amendment became law.  Even running right up to that states were passing anti alcohol laws right and left, and as can be seen, some passed them even after Prohibition came to the U.S. Constitution.  But that meant than when the 18th Amendment was repealed those same states, i.e., most of them, had to figure out how to deal with the ban under their own laws.  Wyoming chose to step out of Prohibition slowly over a term of years.

To bring this current, in recent years there's been efforts in Wyoming to have Wyoming follow the smoky trail laid down by weedy Colorado, and to allow marijuana for some purposes.  If it did, that would certainly be the first step to being a general legalization under state law.  As people have become unaware that it remains illegal under the Federal law, that would be regarded as a general legalization, and indeed my prediction is that at some point in the future when the Democrats control both houses of Congress, the Federal law will be repealed.

All of that is, in my view, a tragedy as Americans clearly don't need anything more to dull their whits chemically than they already have.  While I'm not a teetotaler, and I think passing the 18th Amendment in general was a foolish thing to do, it's a shame that once it came it was reversed as society would have been better off without alcohol quite clearly.  In terms of public health, Prohibition was a success and likewise, the legalization of marijuana will be a disaster.  About the only consolation that can be made of it is that, in my view, within a decade it'll prove to be such a public health threat that lawyers will be advertising class action law suits against weed companies for whatever long lasting health effects, and it will have some, that its proven to have.  It'll vest into American society like tobacco, something that we know is really bad for us, but people use anyway, and then they file suit against companies that produce it based on the fact that they turn out to be surprised that its really bad for you.

In other 1919 news, a big blizzard was in the region.

1924  Police corruption in Casper.



1936  First social security checks mailed.

1942  US and Canada agree to construct the Alcan Highway.  This is, of course, not directly a Wyoming event, but it is significant in that it represents the ongoing expansion of road transportation.  A highway of this type would not have even been conceivable just 20 year prior.  It also is a feature of the arrival of really practical 4x4 vehicles, all Army vehicles at that time, which were capable of off road and road use for the first time. Such vehicles would become available to the public at the conclusion of World War Two, and would provide widespread easy winter access to much of Wyoming for the very first time.

1942  All Japanese nationals employed by the Union Pacific Railroad were dismissed.

2012.  Legislature convenes.

2012  Chief Justice Marilyn Kite delivers an address to the Legislature.

2016  Antonin Scalia passes on.
 

By the time this goes up here, this will hardly be in the category of really new "news", as it was already widely discussed and analyzed on the very day that it occurred.  The story, of course, is that Judge Antonin Scalia has died at age 79.

I've posted a lot about the Supreme Court and the fact that the system we have would create in the very near future an opening on the Court that would be of huge significance, so the analysis being done today is something I've already touched upon.  Suffice it to say, however, while no man controls the date of his passing, the passing of Justice Scalia couldn't come at a time that would have more impact.  Or, perhaps, make the impact of Presidential elections more obvious.  Some far left Liberals are frankly almost gloating about this death, which is unseemly to say the least, but his death, like his life, may have more of a Conservative impact than those gloaters may think.

First, the man. Scalia was, by all who would evaluate him objectively, a massive intellect.  In recent years Scalia stood out with his political opposite Ruth Bader Ginsberg in those regards.  Not every Justice can have that claimed and almost none can have it claimed to the extent it was true about Scalia.  It was impossible to ignore him as the force of his logic and opinion were simply too great to to do so.

Appointed by Ronald Reagan, Scalia was only older than the other surviving Reagen appointee, the disappointing Anthony Kennedy.  He was not the oldest Justice at the time of his death, that being Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  For some time I've been expecting either Ginsberg or Scalia to pass on, simply based on their appearance, which did not look good to me.  That may sound morbid, but it's realistic. Kennedy appears much healthier.  But, any way this is looked at, at the age that four, now three, of the Justices have been, death has been something that's been in the Court chambers every day.  During the next President's term, whomever that is, there will be at least one more Justice to replace in this manner, if not three.  This fact alone, evident seemingly to all, has made me wonder why Ruth Bader Ginsberg did not resign last year, thereby making it semi assured that President Obama would pick her successor rather than potentially a Republican President next term.

That gets ahead, I suppose, of the story a bit.

Scalia was born in 1936 in Trenton New Jersey.  His father was from Sicily and his mother was an American whose parents had immigrated from Italy. At the time of his birth his father, who would go on to be a professor of Romance languages, was a graduate student.  His mother was an elementary school student.  He attended a public grade school and a Jesuit high school before going on to Georgetown University and then Harvard Law School.

As a lawyer, he only practiced for six years before moving on to a teaching position at the University of Virginia.  In 1971 he began a series of posts with the then Administration which he retained until appointed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1982.  He was appointed to the United States Supreme Court on September 17, 1986.  He was the longest sitting justice at the time of his death.

Scalia's career, quite frankly, defines much of what I have criticized about the United States Supreme Court.  He practiced in the real world very little, and was yet one of the many Ivy League graduates to be appointed to the bench. And, of course, he occupied the position for eons, leaving it only through death.  But I'll concede that Scalia's intellect argues against my position.  He was a giant.

One of the justices whose opinions were consistently well thought out and frankly brilliant, it won't be easily possible to replace him.  And his death occurs at a time when American politics have descended into an increasingly extreme stage, epitomized by a very odd Presidential race, while the Court has been consistently split between four conservatives and four liberals with Justice Kennedy in the middle.  His death means we now have a more or less liberal court with a swing vote that is problematic.  So, this court will swing between deadlocked and liberal at least until the next appointee makes it something else.

The appointment of that Justice is of massive importance.  President Obama will nominate somebody, but of course he well knows that there is little chance that nominee shall be approved (but not no chance whatsoever).  Given that, it will be interesting to see who he chooses for a position that can probably not be obtained, at least right away.  And now, who will fill this vacated bench, will become an issue in this campaign.

Who fills the Supreme Court seats should in fact always be an issue, and perhaps in this fashion Justice Scalia serves us one more time. Grant that it should be somebody of such equal intellect.

2019  Governor Gordon's First Signed Bill. Women's Suffrage Day.
Governor Gordon's first bill signed into law. An act establishing December 10 as Women's Suffrage Day.



ORIGINAL SENATE ENGROSSED
JOINT RESOLUTION
NOSJ0003

ENROLLED JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 1, SENATE

SIXTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING
2019 GENERAL SESSION


A JOINT RESOLUTION recognizing December 10, 2019 as Wyoming Women's Suffrage Day.

WHEREAS, Wyoming is often referred to as the "Cowboy State," its more apt sobriquet is the "Equality State"; and

WHEREAS, women, like all persons, have always inherently held the right to vote and participate in their government; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming was the first government to explicitly acknowledge and affirm women's inherent right to vote and to hold office; and

WHEREAS, this inherent right, at the founding of the United States, was inhibited; and

WHEREAS, women, at the founding of the United States, were also prevented from holding office; and

WHEREAS, women's suffrage — the basic enfranchisement of women — began to burgeon in the United States in the 1840s and continued to gain momentum over the next decades, despite the oppressive atmosphere in which women were not allowed to divorce their husbands or show their booted ankles without risk of public scandal or worse; and

WHEREAS, during the 1850s, activism to support women's suffrage gathered steam, but lost momentum when the Civil War began; and

WHEREAS, in the fall of 1868, three (3) years after the American Civil War had ended, Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant was elected President, and chose John Campbell to serve as Governor of the Wyoming Territory; and

WHEREAS, Joseph A. Carey, who was thereafter appointed to serve as Attorney General of the Wyoming Territory, issued a formal legal opinion that no one in Wyoming could be denied the right to vote based on race; and

WHEREAS, the first Wyoming Territorial Legislature, comprised entirely of men, required consistent and persistent inveigling to warm to the notion of suffrage; and

WHEREAS, abolitionist and woman suffrage activist, Esther Hobart Morris, was born in Tioga County, New York, on August 8, 1812, and later became a successful milliner and businesswoman; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris, widowed in 1843, moved to Peru, Illinois, to settle the property in her late husband's estate and experienced the legal hardships faced by women in Illinois and New York; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris married John Morris, a prosperous merchant, and in 1869 moved to the gold rush camp at South Pass City, a small valley situated along the banks of Willow Creek on the southeastern end of the Wind River Mountains in the Wyoming Territory just north of the Oregon Trail; and

WHEREAS, William Bright, a saloonkeeper, also from the once bustling frontier mining town South Pass City, was elected to serve in the Territorial Legislature and was elected as president of the Territorial Council; and

WHEREAS, the Territorial Legislature met in 1869 in Cheyenne and passed bills and resolutions formally enabling women to vote and hold property and formally assuring equal pay for teachers; and

WHEREAS, William Bright introduced a bill to recognize the right of Wyoming women to vote; and

WHEREAS, no records were kept of the debate between Wyoming territorial lawmakers, although individuals likely asserted a myriad of motivations and intentions in supporting women's suffrage; and

WHEREAS, the Wyoming Territory population at the time consisted of six adult men for every adult woman, some lawmakers perchance hoped suffrage would entice more women to the state; and

WHEREAS, some lawmakers may have believed that women's suffrage was consistent with the goals articulated in post-Civil War Amendment XV to the United States Constitution guaranteeing the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude"; and

WHEREAS, some lawmakers inherently knew that guaranteeing the right of women to vote was, simply, the right thing to do; and

WHEREAS, the Territorial Legislature advanced a suffrage bill stating, "That every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in this territory, may, at every election to be holden under the laws thereof, cast her vote. And her rights to the elective franchise and to hold office shall be the same under the election laws of the territory, as those of electors" and that "This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage"; and

WHEREAS, when invited to join the Union, demanding that women's suffrage be revoked, the Wyoming Legislature said, "We will remain out of the Union one hundred years rather than come in without the women"; and

WHEREAS, in July 1890, Esther Hobart Morris presented the new Wyoming state flag to Governor Francis E. Warren during the statehood celebration, making Wyoming the 44th state to enter the Union and the first with its women holding the right to vote and serve in elected office; and

WHEREAS, the United States did not endorse women's suffrage until 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; and

WHEREAS, despite the passage of the 19th Amendment, women of color continued to face barriers with exercising their right to vote, as American Indian men and women were not recognized as United States citizens permitted to vote until the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, and ongoing racial discrimination required the passage and implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and

WHEREAS, achieving voting rights for all women required firm and continuing resolve to overcome reluctance, and even fervent opposition, toward this rightful enfranchisement; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming, the first to recognize women's suffrage, blazed a trail of other noteworthy milestones, such as Louisa Swain, of Laramie, casting the first ballot by a woman voter in 1870; and

WHEREAS, in 1870 the first jury to include women was in Wyoming and was sworn in on March 7 in Laramie; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris was appointed to serve as justice of the peace in February 1870, making her the first woman to serve as a judge in the United States; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming women become the first women to vote in a presidential election in 1892; and

WHEREAS, in 1894 Wyoming elected Estelle Reel to serve as the state superintendent of public instruction, making her one of the first women in the United States elected to serve in a statewide office; and

WHEREAS, the residents of the town of Jackson in 1920 elected a city council composed entirely of women — dubbed the "petticoat government" by the press — making it the first all-women government in the United States; and

WHEREAS, in 1924 Wyoming elected Nellie Tayloe Ross to serve as governor of the great state of Wyoming, making her the first woman to be sworn in as governor in these United States; and

WHEREAS, all these milestones illuminate and strengthen Wyoming's heritage as the "Equality State"; and

WHEREAS, December 10, 2019 marks the 150th anniversary of the date women's suffrage became law.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING:

Section 1.  That the Wyoming legislature commemorates 2019 as a year to celebrate the one hundred fiftieth (150th) anniversary of the passage of women's suffrage. 

Section 2.  That the Wyoming legislature is proud of its heritage as the first state to recognize the right of women to vote and hold office, hereby affirming its legacy as the "Equality State."

Section 3.  That the Secretary of State of Wyoming transmit a copy of this resolution to the National Women's Hall of Fame in support of Esther Hobart Morris' induction into the Women of the Hall.

Section 4.  That the Wyoming legislature encourages its citizens and invites its visitors to learn about the women and men who made women's suffrage in Wyoming a reality, thereby blazing a trail for other states, and eventually the federal government, to recognize the inherent right of men and women alike to elect their leaders and hold office.

(END)






Speaker of the House


President of the Senate





Governor





TIME APPROVED: _________





DATE APPROVED: _________


I hereby certify that this act originated in the Senate.




Chief Clerk

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

February 12

1809     Abraham Lincoln born in present-day Larue County, Ky.

1870     Women in the Utah Territory gained the right to vote.

1873  Barnum Brown, paleontologist, born in Carbondale Kansas. See February 5.

1915  A fire in the downtown area of Powell caused resort to dynamite to blow out the flames.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1918   February 12, 1918. The bad news. Some good. And a Holiday.
 

The paper was expressing the worries that a lot of people no doubt had.

The King had addressed his nation.

It turned out that the recently sunk Tuscania did have some Wyoming men on board it, but they had survived.

Cheyenne was named as a future air hub for airborne travelers to Yellowstone, and interesting forward looking thought.

And it was Lincoln's Birthday, a holiday.

February 12, 1919. Lincoln's Birthday. Returning heroes, Women and radios, Highways in Wyoming, Worker's Compensation and Villa not dead.


Returning black soldiers were photographed returning to New York.  The link posted in above details their heroism and their later lives, something I always find interesting.

Women radio operators of the U.S. Army, February 12, 1919.

Women were brought into the service in the Great War in substantial numbers for the first time.  Among their roles was that of radio and telephone operators.  As with other soldiers, some stayed on in Europe after the war, where their services remained in need.


I'll have a post on something in the 2019 genre that is related to the above, but the winds of change were blowing in the state as evidence by the article that the State was getting into highway funding in a major way.  $6,600,000 was a huge amount of money in 1919, and it was going into highway construction.

The automobile era had arrived.


A renewed war scare was building as well as it appeared that Germany was about to rearm.  It would have had a really hard time doing so in 1919, but the fear was understandable.

And surprisingly, there was discussion in the legislature about adding agricultural workers to the Workers Compensation rolls.  They were exempted when the bill passed a few years earlier, and they still are.  Such a suggestion would get nowhere today, but then there was a higher percentage of the population employed in agriculture in 1919 than there is in 2019.

And Villa was reported dead again, but the paper was doubting the veracity of that report.

1919  February 12, 1919. Lincoln's Birthday. Returning heroes, Women and radios, Highways in Wyoming, Worker's Compensation and Villa not dead.

Returning black soldiers were photographed returning to New York.  The link posted in above details their heroism and their later lives, something I always find interesting.

Women radio operators of the U.S. Army, February 12, 1919.

Women were brought into the service in the Great War in substantial numbers for the first time.  Among their roles was that of radio and telephone operators.  As with other soldiers, some stayed on in Europe after the war, where their services remained in need.


I'll have a post on something in the 2019 genre that is related to the above, but the winds of change were blowing in the state as evidence by the article that the State was getting into highway funding in a major way.  $6,600,000 was a huge amount of money in 1919, and it was going into highway construction.

The automobile era had arrived.


A renewed war scare was building as well as it appeared that Germany was about to rearm.  It would have had a really hard time doing so in 1919, but the fear was understandable.

And surprisingly, there was discussion in the legislature about adding agricultural workers to the Workers Compensation rolls.  They were exempted when the bill passed a few years earlier, and they still are.  Such a suggestion would get nowhere today, but then there was a higher percentage of the population employed in agriculture in 1919 than there is in 2019.

And Villa was reported dead again, but the paper was doubting the veracity of that report.

1924 George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" premiered in New York City.

1941  Governor Smith designates the period of February 12 to 22 National Defense Week.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1971  James Cash Penney died in New York City. Penney, in partnership with Guy Johnson and Thomas Callahan, opened his first store in Kemmerer in 1902.  He had been working for Johnson and Callahan in Golden Rule stores in Utah, and they had been impressed with him as an employee.  Penny bought them out in 1917 and the franchise expanded rapidly thereafter.  The company did have its ups and downs and Penny himself had to fund the company by borrowing on his life insurance to keep it running during the Great Depression.

2018  The Legislature opened with Governor Mead's State of the State address.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CZcrJnJIWVw" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

2018   Big Brown Closes
 
Big Brown in Fairfield Texas, a coal fired power plant that used Wyoming coal, has closed, the victim of natural gas.

We've been tracking this trend for some time.  It's this trend, the phasing out of coal for electrical power generation, that's causing the decline in demand for Wyoming coal. And this trend will continue.
It's worth noting, a day after Natrona County's Chuck Gray introduced a quixotic bill to sue Washington State over it's "no" to a coal terminal in its state, thereby proposing to bypass the Attorney General who no doubt know that such an effort is doomed to failure, that this is not only a national trend, but set to become a global one.  Indeed, it hit in Europe in some ways before here, and its in full swing here.  People who look to Asian markets to save coal are fooling themselves.  Sure, they might consume it at an increased rate briefly, but at the speed this conversion is occurring, it will be brief indeed.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6kS931nz_UVg_uh8nrAPeYLFtrQTfiwhVZFeVIWJzmC_j4N1HYDMilK1UOn59liWzhyQPwO00DmifI_HAenYw2HLjzYfWFXDzEEPiG2ml5N8G9mutWm_hklyyX2NrWoNdj-M6h4gfo8s/s1600/scan0004.jpg
Me, third from right, when I thought I had a career in geology.

2024.  State of the State, and State of the Judiciary.