1887 The final run of the Black Hills stage left Cheyenne. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.
1901 A bill prohibiting gambling signed into law.
1915 The Governor signed to acts pertaining to improvements at the state capitol consisting of the addition of wings onto the capitol building. One was to approve the construction, and another to authorize a property tax to pay for it.
1915 The Natrona County Tribune merges into the Wyoming Weekly Review.
1917 The State Highway Commission created by the signature of the Governor of an act approving it.
It's odd to think of Wyoming lacking a Highway Department but up until
this date in 1917, it did. That was common at the time as most
vehicular transportation remained strictly local. However, that would
begin to change with the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, which provided
funds, for the first time, to state highway departments in one of the
"progressive" policies of the Wilson Administration.
The activities of the Commission would be modest but growing throughout
its early years. Limited winter plowing commenced in 1923 and then it
began in earnest in 1929. In 1991 the highway department became the
Wyoming Department of Transportation, which it remains.
On this date in 1917 a shock happened to the nation. The general who
Woodrow Wilson already had in mind for an American expeditionary force
in Europe, should the US enter the Great War, which was becoming
increasingly likely, died.
And with his death, it truly seemed that an era had really passed.
Funston was a hero and a legend. He'd risen to high command on the
strength of his military achievements without being a West Point
graduate. He was truly an exception to the rules.
Funston was born in Ohio in 1865 and in some ways did not show early promise in life. He was a very small and slight (at first) man, standing only 5'5" and weighing only 120 lbs upon reaching adulthood. He aspired as a youth to the military, after growing up in Kansas, but he was rejected by West Point due to his small size. He thereafter attended the University of Kansas for three years but did not graduate. Following that he worked for awhile for the Santa Fe Railroad before becoming a reporter in Kansas City in 1890.
Only after a year he left reporting and went to work for the Department of Agriculture as a researcher in an era when that was an adventuresome occupation. In 1896, however, Funston left that to join the Cuban insurrection against Spain in Cuba.
And with his death, it truly seemed that an era had really passed.
Gen. Frederick Funston, next to driver, in 1906.
Funston was born in Ohio in 1865 and in some ways did not show early promise in life. He was a very small and slight (at first) man, standing only 5'5" and weighing only 120 lbs upon reaching adulthood. He aspired as a youth to the military, after growing up in Kansas, but he was rejected by West Point due to his small size. He thereafter attended the University of Kansas for three years but did not graduate. Following that he worked for awhile for the Santa Fe Railroad before becoming a reporter in Kansas City in 1890.
Only after a year he left reporting and went to work for the Department of Agriculture as a researcher in an era when that was an adventuresome occupation. In 1896, however, Funston left that to join the Cuban insurrection against Spain in Cuba.
Funston as a Cuban guerilla.
As most Americans spending any time in Cuba at the time experienced, he
came down with malaria while serving the Cuban revolution. Returning to
United States weighing only 95 lbs he found himself back in the United
States just in time to secure a commission with the 20th Kansas Infantry
as it was raised to fight in the Spanish American War.
"Funston's Fighting Kansans" in the Philippines.
The 20th Kansas didn't fight in Cuba, it fought in the Philippines.
Funston served there heroically and received the Medal of Honor, and
found himself promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the Regular
Army at age 35, a remarkable rise contrary to the usual story of
military advancement and more reminiscent of the Civil War than anything
thereafter. Following his service in the Philippines, however, he fell
into a period of controversy due to aggressively pro military action
comments he made in the United States.
He was stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco upon his return to the
United States and was there at the time of the 1906 earthquake. He
controversially declared martial law to attempt to combat the fire and
looters and in fact authorized the shooting of looters. Following that
he was stationed again in the Philippines and Hawaii. In 1914 he was
placed in command of the Southern Department of the Army and was in
command of the US forces in Vera Cruz and thereafter in Mexico under
Pershing.
On this date in 1917 he was relaxing at the St. Anthony Hotel in San
Antonio Texas when he suffered a massive stroke and died. He was only
51 years of age but he had put on a tremendous amount of weight in
recent years. Indeed, his weight had prevented him from active field
service by the time of the Punitive Expedition, but the fact of his
death in this fashion would suggest an undiagnosed high blood pressure
condition, something that was commonly fatal in that era.
The Laramie Boomerang for February 19, 1917: Two Wyoming Battalions To Leave Border as Cowboys cross it.
Two Battalions of the Wyoming Infantry were to be on their way home, the Boomerang reported.
And Theodore Roosevelt was planning to reprise his Spanish American War role if the US went to war with Germany. Well. . . .Woodrow Wilson might have a say in that.
And the situation in Mexico was apparently getting complicated by a private body of cowboy militia crossing the border in reprisal for the recent death of their fellows.
Finally, the Boomerang reported the situation with Germany as "hopeful".
1917
The Wyoming Tribune for February 19, 1917: Colorado and Wyoming National Guard headed for Ft. D. A. Russell for Demobilization
News came on this Monday (in 1917) that indeed, Wyoming and Colorado state troops were headed home, or at least to Ft. D. A. Russell.
A general with a Cheyenne connection, John J. Pershing, now a national hero and the recent commander of the Punitive Expedition, came out for universal military training. That was big movement, of course, at the time.
And John B. Kendrick was on his way to the U.S. Senate, finishing up his time as Governor by signing the bills that had passed the recent legislative session.
Miss Elanor Eakin Carr's engagement to Howard P. Okie, son of J. B. Okie of Lost Cabin, the legendary sheepman of the Lost Cabin area. He'd take over his father's mercantile interest that year, but the marriage would not be a long one. He died in 1920
1927 Nineteenth state legislature adjourned.
1942 Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas "as deemed necessary or desirable." This would lead to internment camps, including Heart Mountain near Cody.
Map showing interment camps and other aspects of the exclusion of ethnic Japanese from the Pacific Coast during World War Two.
1945 The US government imposes a midnight curfew on all places of entertainment.
1986 Vice President George Bush addressed the legislature.
1990 Budget session of fiftieth state legislature convened.
1996 Budget session of the fifty third state legislature convened.
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