February 15

1812   The Astorians reached the mouth of the Columbia River.  They traveled overland with one horse for each two men.

1869  Laramie's first school opened.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1879   President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the United States Supreme Court.

1887  Reports from Montana start to place the state's cattle deaths from this disastrous winter at 60%.

1898 The U.S.S Maine blew up in Havana Harbor.  This event would lead in short order to the Spanish American War, the first US war that Wyoming would participate in as a state.

 Wreckage of the USS Maine.

1909  Park County formed.

1917  The Natrona County Tribune for February 15, 1917: Casper Man Witnesses Return of Pershing's Expedition
 

An eyewitness Wyoming Guardsman reported on what he saw on the return of the Punitive Expedition from Mexico.

In other local news, a German-Hibernian bank was being formed.

The Cheyenne State Leader for February 15, 1917: Villistas threaten U.S. "Line".

 

Using terms now familiar to the readers to due the news on the Great War, Villistas were reported to be threatening the U.S. "line".

The news, in regards to Mexico, had nearly returned to the state of the year prior.

Otherwise, the news was much as noted in the paper below.  Gas leases, horse thieves, and the German U-boot campaign.

And Cuba again.

The Wyoming Tribune for February 15, 1917: Five Americans Shot by Mexican Raiders.
 

The border with Mexico was fully back on headlines, recalling the year prior, with news of a deadly Mexican raid into the US.

In other news, the crisis with Germany loomed large, but so did the capture of horse thieves.

1918    German Greed and Trotsky Goofs. . . and the Allies

Horseless Age, volume 43, number 4, February 15, 1918, page 50.

Four horse transport at No.4 Remount Depot in Boulogne, 15 February, 1918

Kipling, February 15, 1918.

If you will allow me, 1 will tell you a story.

1919  February 15, 1919. Wyoming passes its own Prohibition Act. . .

which would take effect on June 30 of 1919.

And for no good reason either.

You've read all about it, leading up to this date, but on this date.  It was signed into law.

New Governor Robert Carey signed the bill with three pens, which he then gave to the Friends Of Dry Wyoming.  The bill featured an unusual Saturday morning singing.

The Wyoming Star Tribune reported, in noting it, that; "The prohibition question is a closed question in Wyoming."

1919  A selection of non career U.S. Army officers serving in France were assembled, under the orders of Gen. Pershing, to work on the formation of an organization that would become the American Legion.

1921 Teton County formed.

1921  Sublette County formed.

1925  Fire in Shoshoni destroyed twelve buildings.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1933     President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami but which claimed the life of Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak.

The attempted assassin in this matter was Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian veteran of World War One who was fairly clearly in poor health and increasingly suffering from delusions to some extent.  The wounded Mayor Cermak survived until March 6, 1933.  By that time, Zangara had already been sentenced for four counts of attempted murder, and was given 20 years for each count.

That is, he had been sentenced in less than a month.

He was charged with homicide on March 8, 1933, due to Cermak's death.  He plead guilty and was executed on March 20, 1933.

Cermak never contested his responsibility for the crimes.  He was increasingly ill and suffering from delusions, but his statements made it fairly clear that he conceived of his actions as some sort of radical anti-capitalist action.  What strikes me as amazing, however, is that he went from arrest to execution in a little over a month.  Indeed, he went from arrest for homicide to execution in 14 days.

I am not noting this in order to make a comment about the death penalty.  That's an entirely different topic and frankly addressing it in the context of 2012 in comparison to 1933 isn't really even possible.  But what is really striking is that the criminal process played itself out so very rapidly.  Now I would have expected a process of examination to determine if Zangara was sane or even competent to make a confession, and there's no way on earth that the process would have occurred so very rapidly.

1955 "Wyoming" adopted as the official song of Wyoming.

The lyrics are:

In the far and mighty West, Where the crimson sun seeks rest, There's a growing splendid State that lies above, On the breast of this great land; Where the massive Rockies stand, There's Wyoming young and strong, the State I love!

Chorus:  Wyoming, Wyoming! Land of the sunlight clear! Wyoming, Wyoming! Land that we hold so dear! Wyoming, Wyoming! Precious art thou and thine! Wyoming, Wyoming! Beloved State of mine!

In the flowers wild and sweet, Colors rare and perfumes meet; There's the columbine so pure, the daisy too, Wild the rose and red it springs, White the button and its rings, Thou art loyal for they're red and white and blue,

Where thy peaks with crowned head, Rising till the sky they wed, Sit like snow queens ruling wood and stream and plain; 'Neath thy granite bases deep, 'Neath thy bosom's broadened sweep, Lie the riches that have gained and brought thee fame.

Other treasures thou dost hold, Men and women thou dost mould, True and earnest are the lives that thou dost raise, Strengthen thy children though dost teach, Nature's truth thou givest to each, Free and noble are thy workings and thy ways.

In the nation's banner free There's one star that has for me A radiance pure and splendor like the sun; Mine it is, Wyoming's star, Home it leads me near or far; O Wyoming! All my heart and love you've won!

1961  Laramie County Sheriff Norbert E. Tuck was killed in a railroad crossing accident in Iowa while returning a prisoner to Wyoming.

2006  Cheyenne's Union Pacific depot declared a National Historic Landmark.