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.

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Some Gave All: The Black 14, University of Wyoming, Laramie Wyoming

Some Gave All: The Black 14, University of Wyoming, Laramie Wyoming


This is a monument to The Black 14 in the University of Wyoming's Student Union.



The Black 14 were fourteen University of Wyoming football players who, in 1969, wanted to wear black armbands during the University of Wyoming v. Brigham Young football game. The action was intended to protest the policy of the Mormon church in excluding blacks from leadership roles in their church.  Coach Eaton, the UW football coach at the time, dismissed all fourteen players prior to the game, ending their football careers at UW and, at least in some cases, simply ending them entirely.


The event was controversial at the time, and to a lesser degree, has remained so.  Generally, in most of Wyoming, Coach Eaton was supported, rather than the players, which doesn't mean that the players did not have support.  As time has gone on, however, views have changed and generally the players are regarded as heroes for their stand.  Views on Eaton are qualified, with some feeling he was in the wrong, and others feeling that he was between a rock and a hard place and acted as best as
he could, even if that was not for the best.




It is indeed possible even now to see both sides of the dramatic event.  The players wanted to wear black armbands in protest of the Mormon's policy of not allowing blacks to be admitted to the Mormon priesthood and therefore also excluding them from positions of leadership in the Mormon church.  This policy was well know in much of Wyoming as the Mormon theology behind it, which held that blacks were descendant of an unnatural union on the part of Noah's son Cain, resulted in black human beings.  This was unlikely to be widely known, however, amongst blacks at the University of Wyoming, most of whom (but not all of which) came from outside of the state.  A week or so prior to the UW v. BYU game, however, Willie Black, a black doctoral candidate at UW who was not on the football team, learned of the policy.  Black was head of the Black Students Alliance and called for a protest.  The plan to wear armbands then developed.
The protest, therefore, came in the context of a civil rights vs. religious concepts background, a tough matter in any context.  To make worse, it also came during the late 60s which was a time of protest, and there had been one against the Vietnam War just days prior to the scheduled game. Following that, Eaton reminded his players of UW's policy against student athletes participating in any demonstration, a policy which raises its own civil liberties concern. The players went ahead with their plans and Eaton removed all of them from the team.
 
Looked at now, it remains easy to see why Eaton felt that he had to act, while also feeling that he acted much too harshly.  Not everyone agrees with this view by any means, however.  Many, but a declining number, still feel Eaton was right.  A much larger number feel he was definitely wrong.  Few hold a nuanced view like I've expressed.  Even those who felt that Eaton was right often admire the protesting players, however. 
 
Anyway its looked at, the Black 14 are now a definite part of Wyoming's legacy as The Equality State, even if most of them were not from here (at least one, and maybe more, were).  This year at Wyoming History Day, a statewide high school history presentation competition, which had the theme of "taking a stand", they were the subject of one static display and two video presentations.  They may be more well remembered now than at any time since the late 1970s, and this memorial in the student union certainly contributes to that.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Friday, March 24, 2017

It seemed wet

The Casper Star Tribune is reporting that:
Wyoming’s three main winter months – December through February – were the wettest in the state’s recorded history, according to the National Weather Service.
Almost 5.5 inches of precipitation fell on the state this season, breaking the previous record of 4.93 inches set in 1898.
It seemed wet, that's for sure.

And its not really over yet.

 Image may contain: outdoor

Wyoming Experiences a Population Decline for the first time since 1990

The Casper Star Tribune is reporting that:
Wyoming’s population contracted for the first time in nearly three decades, likely because people left the state for work elsewhere, according to estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau and state.

In July, 585,501 people called the Cowboy State home, a decrease of 0.2 percent from July 2015, or 1,054 fewer Wyomingites.
We always have a transient population, and surely this came as no surprise to anyone who watched how heated the oil and gas fields became in the last few years.  Many of the workers who came in at that time expressed an intent to return home when they could, and they no doubt did.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming Pioneer Sheep-Man J D Woodruff

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming Pioneer Sheep-Man J D Woodruff: According to my calendar, Spring-2017 started yesterday, and it felt like it. Today seems like we slipped back into the ending days of wint...

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Lex Anteinternet: 1917 The Year that made Casper what it is. Or ma...

From one of our companion blogs:
Lex Anteinternet: 1917 The Year that made Casper what it is. Or ma...: I have no before and after pictures for Casper that would cleanly show what the town looked like in January, 1916 and then later looked lik...
Added, we'd note, the Sidebars here on this site.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Lex Anteinternet: Czar Nicholas abdicates.

Lex Anteinternet: Czar Nicholas abdicates.: The Headquarters To the Chief of Staff In the days of the great struggle against the foreign enemy, which almost for three years has t...

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Friday, February 17, 2017

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Lex Anteinternet: Budget chicken?

Lex Anteinternet: Budget chicken?: From the Star Tribune, regarding proposed cuts by the Legislature in education funding.  Supposedly this is just a strategy move on the par...

Friday, February 3, 2017

Lex Anteinternet: Getting a clue

Lex Anteinternet: Getting a clue: I often don't post these things on the same day I start them, and sometimes that's a good thing. This is one story I starte...

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Farson Scenes

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Little Sandy Crossing, Sweetwater County, Wyoming.


This is a State of Wyoming monument to the Little Sandy Crossing in Sweetwater County, near Farson.   





Pony Express Monuments, Farson Wyoming


One of the disadvantages of taking these photos the way I do, on a catch as catch can basis, is that you get some truly lousy photographs that way. Weather and light conditions can simply be against you. But, on the passing by basis I take these, there's not much I can do about that as a rule.  I've driven past these monuments to the Pony Express at Farson a few times, but this is the first time I had time to stop and take a picture.  Unfortunately these late afternoon, sub zero photographs, are not good, and there isn't much I could do about it.


While you could never tell from this bad light photograph, this 2003 monument to the Pony Express shows to riders greeting each other on a starry night.  The winter snow has obscured, and dirtied, the monument.  If I have a  chance to photograph it again in morning light, I will.  The top of the monument says "East meets West".


This is an older State of Wyoming monument to the Pony Express which also notes the Big Sandy Station that was once on this location.


This monument to the Big Sandy Station was dedicated at the same time, and by the same donors, as the East Meets West monument. For some reason, this one looks just as clean as when it was dedicated, while the East Meets West monument does not.

The Ice Slough

Ice Slough, Fremont County, Wyoming


The Ice Slough, or what I used to always hear people around here refer it by, the "Icey Slough".



Saturday, January 7, 2017

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Snow and the Blizzard of 1887

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Snow and the Blizzard of 1887: Last night it was cold, really cold. When I got up this morning, I checked our indoor outdoor thermometer which read -20. The weather app o...

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Lex Anteinternet: Looking back on '16. . . 2016 and 1916

Lex Anteinternet: Looking back on '16. . . 2016 and 1916: Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne*? CHORUS: For ...

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Lex Anteinternet: 2016 exits, and 2017 begins

Lex Anteinternet: 2016 exits, and 2017 begins: “The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world ...

Friday, December 30, 2016