October 9

Today is Leif Erikson Day

Leif Erikson Day has been federally recognized since 1964, but the day is merely a recognition, not a holiday.  The October 9 date was chosen as it was the date on which the Restauration, a ship carrying Norwegian immigrants to the United States, entered New York Harbor in 1825. That wasn't the first ship carrying Scandinavian immigrants to enter U.S. waters, but it was an early one in what became a significant migration.  Erikson's landing in North America, on what is now Labrador or thereabouts, occurred approximately on this date in 1002, however.

1835    Texans occupy Goliad.

1892  A natural gas deposit was discovered near the brewery in Buffalo. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1906  Joseph F. Glidden, inventor of barbed wire, died.

1916   A game so long it didn't even make the afternoon edition. The Wyoming Tribune for October 9, 1916
 

Yesterday's (i.e., October 8, 1916) spectacularly long and spectacular fourteen inning, one score, World Series game apparently ran to long to make the 3:30 edition of the Wyoming Tribune, which had to accordingly report it the following day.

Also on that day we learn that a Cheyenne girl was on a ship torpedoed at sea, and that the Tribune felt that Wilson's game was up.

1916   Holscher's Hub: Utah State Capitol. Inaugurated on this day in 1916.
 

Holscher's Hub: Utah State Capitol:

The Utah State Capitol was inaugurated on this day in 1916.

When you are a business traveler, you see things when you see them. Early morning photo of the Utah State Capitol building.  Taken with an Iphone.

1918  Countdown on the Great War. October 9, 1918. Cambrai Falls, Lost Battalion Rescued, UW Closes.

Private Thomas M. Holmes of the 82nd Division, East Aurora New York, receives chocolate from Lt. Burgess of the American Red Cross Field Hospital No. 328.  October 9, 1918.

1.  Cambrai Falls to Allies.

2.  The Lost Battalion rescued.

3.  UW closes its doors due to the flu.

4.  Landgrave Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse took a late war job opportunity to become the elected King of Finland. He'd occupy that role, designed to cement Finland to Imperial Germany, only until December 14 when the position ended in light of the end of Imperial Germany.  He never actually made it to Finland while he was King.

1919  The first fatal airplane crash in Wyoming's history occurred when Lt. Edwin Wales's plane crashed in a snowstorm near Elk Mountain.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Oberg Pass. The Site of the first aircraft fatality in Wyoming.

Which occurred as part of the 1919 Air Derby.

This crash, discussed elsewhere, is usually referenced as occurring "west of Cheyenne".  It is west of Cheyenne, but the pilot was following the Union Pacific Railroad and a much better description would have been north west of Laramie, or even south of Medicine Bow.

Blog Mirror: Small planes, big mountains: Retracing the 1919 ‘Air derby’

Small planes, big mountains: Retracing the 1919 ‘Air derby’

October 9, 1919. The Reds Win A Tainted Series, Air Racers Already in State, and a Tragedy

Lefty Williams, the White Sox starting pitcher for the final game of the 1919 World Series. His performance was so bad that he was taken out of the game after one inning and replaced by Big Bill James, who was not in on the plot, but who performed badly all on his own.

And so it came to an end, at least for now.

The headlines seemed to say it all.  But as a win goes, it will forever be remembered as a false victory.  One obtained because certain members of the Red Sox not to win, but rather to accept money in payment for losing.

The loss was pathetic.  Rumors started nearly immediately that the game had been thrown and one noted sports reporter write a column that no World Series should ever be played again.

In less than a year, the cover of the plot would be off.

As the series ended, news of the air race started to dominate the local papers.  The speed of the new mode of transportation was evident. The race had just started and planes were already over Wyoming.

Airco DH-4

Not reported in these editions, one of the planes had gone down in Wyoming, killing the pilot.  It was the first fatal air crash in Wyoming's history.  It occurred when Lt. Edwin Wales DH-4 would go down in a snowstorm near Coad Peak (near Elk Mountain).  Specifically it went down over Oberg Pass.  His observer, Lt. William C. Goldsborough, survived the crash and walked into an area ranch for help.

Hard to discern in this photograph of the old rail bed of the Union Pacific, you can see Kenneday Peak, Pennock Mountain and Coad Peak.  The pilots had been following the Union Pacific and were diverting to what looks like low ground to the right, Oberg Pass.

Oberg Pass is the low ground between Pennock Mountain and Coad Peak.  In decent weather they would have been fine, but flying in 1919, in a snowstorm, they likely iced up right away. They no doubt knew they were in big trouble pretty quickly and the plane went down in rugged ground.

Elk Mountain as viewed from Shirley Basin.  This was to the north of the where they went down and they were trying to go to the south of the substantial peak.

This crash is often inaccurately noted as having occurred "west of Cheyenne".  It was "west" of Cheyenne, but west a long ways west of Cheyenne.  It was northwest of Laramie and the closest substantial town was that of Medicine Bow, if you consider Medicine Bow a substantial town.  The destination was Wolcott Junction, which doesn't have an airfield today.  Of course, the DH-4 didn't take much of a run way of any kind to land on.  Going through the pass would have shaved miles off the trip and avoided a big curve around the substantial Elk Mountain.

The Air Derby had already proved to be a fatal adventure, and it would continue to be so.  Lt. Goldsborough would carry on after recovering however, by which we mean carrying on in the Air Corps.  He lived until age 73 and retired to Redondo Beach, California.  He went to Hawaii with the Air Corps in 1923 and therefore was a very early aviator there.  

Not surprisingly, given the infancy of aviation, Goldsborough would go on to endure other incidents. As a Captain he ground looped a Boeing P-12 C in 1937. In 1938 he'd be involved in another airborne tragedy, as a Major, when he was the pilot of a plane that left Langley Field for a flight to Jacksonville Florida and weather conditions so obscured the ground that he could not land.  Both he and a civilian government employee passenger were forced to bail out of the aircraft as it ran out of gas. The passenger's parachute failed to open and he was killed.  The then Major Goldsborough successfully landed.  The incident ended up in a lawsuit against an insurance company.  He must have still been in the Air Corps when World War Two started, but at that point, I've lost track of him.  At age 46, and a Major, he would have then been a fairly senior officer.

1919  The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series, but soon it would be evident that some members of the Chicago White Sox had taken bribes to thrown the series, sparking an enduring scandal in American sports.

1922  A petition for rehearing was granted by the United States Supreme Court in Wyoming v. Colorado, a suit seeking to adjudicate the distribution of water from the Laramie River.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Charles Burke telegrammed Superintendent of the Wind River Reservation's Shoshone Agency R. P. Haas at Fort Washakie, giving him permission to work with actor Tim McCoy and film producers in the movie The Thundering Herd.