June 4

1789   The US constitution, enacted as sovereign law, went into effect.

1812   The Louisiana Territory was renamed the Missouri Territory.

1876  A mere 83 hours after leaving New York City, the Transcontinental Express train arrives in San Francisco.

1889  Converse County Sheriff  Josiah Hazen was shot and killed attempting to arrest members of a train robbing gang that included Kid Curry, who became well known as a member of the Wild Bunch.

1914 Thursday, June 4, 1914. Graduation.

The graduating class of NCHS had their photographs on the front page of the paper.  Slightly more were female than male, which was generally the rule at the time.  Some familiar last names in the group, including one, Edness Kimball, whose name is memorialized in a city park, and who Wyoming's first female Speaker of the House, and another whose last name, Speas, adorns the fish hatchery.  A notable group, we might note, came from ranching families, including one, Grieve

Kimball, or as she's usually called, Kimball Wilkins, was remarkable in a variety of ways. And showing how much Wyoming has changed, she was elevated to speakership in 1966 as a Democrat, as the Democrats were the majority party in the Legislature in the late 1960s.  She never actually got to serve in that role, however, as the legislature met every other year, and she was elected to the State Senate that year.  She lost her bid for reelection in 1970, but was elected again to the House in 1972, serving until her death in 1980 at age 84.

Myrtle Speas went on to become a teacher, and then married and moved to Memphis.  Interestingly, she returned to the Speas Ranch in 1921 for the birth of her first child, then returning.  Her daughter, Mary, lived until 2019, dying at age 97 in Tennessee.

Draft horses, as can be seen, remained such a significant source of, well, horsepower, that there was an advertisement for them in the paper.

The Homestead Act was still in force (the peak for homestead entries was still yet to come), but there was an ad trying to lure Wyomingites to Western Canada for better opportunities . . .opportunities today which are largely available only to the very wealthy.

1918  Battle of Belleau Wood. General Bundy takes command and the French arrive. June 4, 1918.

On this day in 1918, Omar Bundy, U.S. Army, 2nd Division, took command of the entire Belleau Wood front thereby giving it a consolidated leadership. On the same day the French 167th Division arrived, which was placed under Bundy's command.

Omar Bundy, U.S. Army.

And the news of what would come to be known as the Battle of Belleau Wood began to hit the front page back in the US.

1919  June 4, 1919. Congress passes 19th Amendment.

Congress passed the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution when the Senate approved the same, providing the franchise to women:

The right had already been confirmed by a variety of states, including Wyoming.  It would be ratified by the states on August 18, 1920.

The "Silent Sentinels" ceased picking the White House on this day as a result of the passage of the 19th Amendment.  They had been picking six days a week, excluding Sundays.

1922  Legendary Wyoming oilman and philanthropist Fred Goldstein married Ida Goldberg in Denver.  Goldstein is an example of how a lack of education was not a bar to success in his era.  He only attended school through grade 8 before going to work in American Pipe & Supply, his father's company, in Denver.  This would lead to a career which would make him enormously financially successful and which would also have a dramatic impact on Casper, where he ultimately relocated to direct the company's activities there.

1931  Amelia Earhart landed at Parco and stayed the night in the famous Lincoln Highway hotel there.

A thread on that hotel on our companion blog:

The Golden Era of Classic Hotels: Parco

The Parco Hotel.

If you try to book a room in the Parco Hotel today, you won't be able to.  Indeed, you won't even be able to find Parco. But the classic building is still there, in another use, and the town is still there, under another name. 

Parco was a company town started by the Producers & Refiners Corporation to house their operations and workers in Carbon County Wyoming.  It was built in 1925.  It says something, perhaps, about the nature of transportation at the time that the company undertook this, as the existing town of Rawlins was very well established by that time and quite nearby.  I estimate Rawlins to be a mere seven miles distant, and the Wyoming Highway Department places it at three miles.  Not much.  But ParCo chose to build its refinery distant from the Union Pacific railroad town and county seat for some reason.

 Spanish architecture buildings in Sinclair.

That wasn't the only (perhaps) unusual thing ParCo did. It also hired an architect to design the company town with a distinct architectural style and to include a very distinct hotel.  The town was not only on the Union Pacific, a necessity for a Carbon County refinery, but it was also on the Lincoln Highway.  ParCo was apparently run by a type of visionary, who saw that at least travelers heading west from Laramie and who passed by Medicine Bow might be looking for attractive lodging for the night.

So the company built the Parco Hotel.  Covering an entire city block, the Spanish architecture hotel featured 60 rooms and had two bell towers.  It was quite the hotel.  ParCo, however, didn't survive the  Great Depression and sold out to Sinclair in 1934.  In the 1940s, the town, still owned by the main employer, with that employer being Sinclair, changed its name to Sinclair.  In the 1960s Sinclair sold the town's buildings to its residents.

Another view of the Parco Hotel.

When the Parco Hotel ceased to be a hotel, I have no idea, but it was long ago.  In some ways, it's almost a shock to think of there being a near luxury hotel in its current location, with the larger town of Sinclair so close, and the main employer in Parco being the refinery, which continues on in operation to this day.

Towns separated by only a few miles are unusual in Wyoming's interior. There are some other examples, but not many.  That Parco came about with Rawlins so close is a bit of a surprise, and a luxury hotel in Parco is an even greater surprise. But perhaps that says something about transpiration at the time.  Even at three miles, in 1925, could have been rough traveling in in the winter, and perhaps for refinery operations you need the workers right there.  If the refiner wasn't going to build in Rawlins, it perhaps had to have a company town where it built.  And town it built had nice buildings. That they thought of a hotel where they did, perhaps reflected the nature of travel on the early Lincoln Highway.  The trip by interstate highway from Laramie to Sinclair is 93 miles today. If a person is driving from Cheyenne its 142 miles. But on the Lincoln Highway those miles were longer, and harder.  I'd guess that the distance on the Lincoln Highway was more like 110 to 120 miles from Laramie, with an added 50 if you came from Cheyenne.  By the time you traveled that distance, in 1925, you were likely ready for a stop. Rawlins was only another few miles, but that few miles probably seemed like an unwelcome few miles in 1925.  Rawlins was, no doubt, catching all of the train travelers.  But Parco probably caught quite a few of the motorists.

1943  Little Laramie River Floods.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1980  Miner's Delight placed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

2002  Draper Museum of Natural History opens in Cody. Attribution:  On This Day.

2018  A rare EF3 tornado touched down in Campbell County Wyoming near Gillette in the early afternoon. The destructive tornado destroyed homes.  It was the first EF3 to touch down in Wyoming since 1987.

2018  Wyoming became the first state to have a legally sanctioned bare knuckle boxing match in decades, with the opening bouts between a host of contestants. The bout was held in the Cheyenne ice arena and drew large crowds. Wyoming authorized the bare knuckle contest based on research showing that bare knuckle boxing was perhaps less dangerous to the contestants than conventional boxing.  The bouts were also shown on Pay Per View.