November 1

November is Aviation History Month.

November 27, 2017

National Aviation History Month

Somehow I managed to miss the fact that November is National Aviation History Month.

Something that would have fit in well as a topic here on our blog.

Well, at least there's a little November left anyhow.

It's also the Month of the Holy Souls In Purgatory in Catholic tradition.

Today is All Saints Day.

1620 Mayflower Compact signed, albeit by a minority of those who traveled over.

1835 Texans begin siege of San Antonio.

1866  William J. Fetterman arrives at Ft. Phil Kearney.

1886  First snowfall of what would prove to be a disastrous winter. Attribution.  Wyoming State Archives.

1904     Army War College opens, with Capt. John J. Pershing in the first class.  Pershing's father in law was U.S. Sen. Francis E. Warren of Cheyenne.

1911  The Wyoming General Hospital opens in Casper, Wyoming.  The hospital remains open today, in different quarters, as the Wyoming Medical Center.

1916   The Laramie Republican for November 1, 1916: Villa again, and the Marina
 

Similar news to that of the Wyoming Tribune, but less dramatic.

The Wyoming Tribune for November 1, 1916. Villa resurgant, land sales questioned

 

By this date in 1916, it looked to be the case that Villa, who had been down and out just this past March, was resurgent.

And the sale of public land was being questioned.

And of course the drama and tragedy of World War One continued on.

1919  A contingent of the 15th Cavalry under the command of Major Warren Dean arrived at Ft. Mackenzie from Ft. D. A. Russell in order to deal with labor strife at Carneyville, near Sheridan.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 1, 1919: Labor Strike and Reaction visits Wyoming.

On this day in 1919.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 1: 

1919  A contingent of the 15th Cavalry under the command of Major Warren Dean arrived at Ft. Mackenzie from Ft. D. A. Russell in order to deal with labor strife at Carneyville, near Sheridan.

It was a year for labor strife, and that strife was looking like it was going to visit Wyoming.  The strike itself was a nationwide coal strike.

At the time, a coal strike threatened the entire nation's well being. Everything from industry to home heat depended on coal.  And coal was a significant industry in Wyoming then, as now.

That other significant industry in the state in 1919, agriculture, celebrated the outdoor life in its December 1919 issue.

What was being shown on the cover wasn't really a very good idea.

1940  The 115th Cavalry Regiment, Wyoming National Guard, re-designated the115th Cavalry Regiment (Horse Mechanized).  The change in designation came about as a reflection in a de facto change in the TOE of the unit, which was made into a new category in the Army.  Horse Mechanized was a late horse cavalry era effort to incorporate motorization within the horse mounted units. While no horse mechanized unit ever saw action in the U.S. Army during World War Two, the concept was not far from what was actually employed by the Soviet Union during the war.

The 115th Cavalry had a very good reputation early in its mobilization period, and was highly praised by Lucien Truscott, the World War Two general, in his book Twilight of the Cavalry.

1943  The War Housing Administration met with residents of Green  River about upcoming housing projects.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1957  A blizzard featuring ice storms, a relatively rare event in Wyoming, commenced.

1995  A major winter storm closed highways.

2000 A blizzard in northeastern Wyoming brought down power lines in the area.

September 16

1620  September 16, 1620. The day the "Pilgrims" . . .

 set sail for the New World.

It was at sea for ten weeks, putting in near Cape Cod on November 11, 1620.

1810  Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costillo and several hundred of his parishioners seized the prison at Dolores, Mexico marking the beginning of the first significant Mexican rebellion against Spain.

1811 The  Astorians renamed Seeds-Kee-Dee-Agie (Praire Hen River) the Spanish River.  It would later be renamed the Green River. 

1875  J. C. Penney Jr, founder of J. C. Penny's, which first opened its doors in Kemmerer, born in Hamilton Missouri.

1920  While it didn't occur in Wyoming, and event which impacted the entire nation:

September 16, 1920. The Wall Street Bombing.

On this day, at 12:01 p.m., terrorist widely believed to be Galleanist anarchists, set off a bomb in New York's Wall Street district which killed thirty-eight people and injured hundreds more.

The bomb, designed to deploy shrapnel, killed mostly young workers in the district at a time at which young workers were very young.  It was left in a horse drawn wagon, with horse still attached, and went off at the busy noon hour.

The direct perpetrators of the act were never discovered.

On the same day, a Polish artillery regiment was destroyed, with some prisoners and wounded, by a Red Army cavalry unit that outnumbered it after it expended all of its ammunition during the Battle of Dytiatyn.  The Red Army unit was itself destroyed by Polish forces a few days latter.

The battle became a famous one for the Poles who established a military cemetery there.  That was later destroyed by the Soviets following World War Two and the location is now inside of Ukraine.

1924  A coal mine explosion at Kemmerer kills 55.

1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history.

1940 President Franklin Roosevelt orders the Army to begin mobilizing the entire National Guard for one year’s training. The National Guard's horsed cavalry regiments, would go into Federal service for the last time. Horse mechanized units, such as Wyoming's 115th Cavalry Regiment (Horse-Mechanized) would go into service for the first and last time.

More on the last two items:

Today In Wyoming's History: September 16, 1940. Conscription starts and the National Guard mobilized.

Some of those conscripted men in 1945.

On this day in 1940, a couple of monumental events occurred in the history of the US and the state. These were:

Today In Wyoming's History: September 16: 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history.

1940 President Franklin Roosevelt orders the Army to begin mobilizing the entire National Guard for one year’s training. The National Guard's horsed cavalry regiments, would go into Federal service for the last time. Horse mechanized units, such as Wyoming's 115th Cavalry Regiment (Horse-Mechanized) would go into service for the first and last time.

The story is always told a little inaccurately, and even the way we posted it on our companion blog slightly is.  The 1940 Selective Training and Service Act, reviving a conscription process started during World War One, was the first "peacetime draft" only if we omit the story of state mandatory military service which had existed from the earliest colonial times (recognizing the colonies as precursors to the state) up until after the Civil War, when it petered out.  Indeed, this history is why the National Guard, not the Army or Navy, is the senior service, dating back to December 13, 1636.  People didn't "join" the militia, they, or rather men, were compelled to be in the militia.  Only when the Frontier period caused populations to be so transient did this really change and even today many states define all men of sixteen years to sixty to be in the militia.

But Federal conscription itself was an anomaly and had only existed twice before, once during the Civil War and then again during World War One.  It had never been in existence in peacetime. And for that matter, hardly any Americans in 1940 had a living memory of mandatory militia duty, although there would have been those had been alive when it still existed.

Also of huge significance was the mobilization of the National Guard.

The mobilization of the Guard in 1940 is well known, but underappreciated.  The U.S. Army would have been incapable of fighting World War One or World War Two without the National Guard. During the Great War the reorganized Guard, reorganized as its state determined peacetime branches did not all comport with the Army's needs for a largescale European war, constituted a large percentage of the actual fighting force throughout the war.  It's peacetime establishment was reorganized again in the 1920s to match needs upon mobilization and accordingly many of the Army units that fought in the Army's early campaigns, all the way into 1943, were made up of Guard units.  Indeed, to at least some extent the Army simply used up Guard units until it could deploy newly trained men.

The significant story of the National Guard in both world wars was downplayed by the Army as, in spite of its absolute reliance on the Guard, the Regular Army always looked down on it in this period and tended to ignore its contributions.  Those contributions were enormous, and the Army's treatment of the National Guard's history unfair, and the wartime treatment of its officers shameful.

Conscription would soon start a labor shortly and ultimately start a series of social crises, conflicts and changes that permanently changed the United States and its culture.  One year of service, as had originally been passed into law, would not have done that, but when that service extended into years and ultimately into the largest war fought in modern times, it certainly did.  World War One, coming in an era of more privative transpiration, even though it was only twenty years prior, had not resulted in the transcontinental mixing of races and cultures the way World War Two did, and of course the Great War was shorter.  Those conflicts certain arose, but many of them arose afterwards, as reflected in the Red Summer of 1919.  The Great War changed the country as well but those changes really bloomed during World War Two, for lasting good and lasting ill.  The Civil Rights movement that started with the integration of the Armed Forces in 1948 really had its roots in the war during which there was a lot of dissatisfaction on the part of segregated blacks in regard to segregation, both in the military and in society itself. By wars end that segregation was going to be on the way out, even if that wasn't appreciated at the time.

The war also started the process of dismantling the strong ethnic neighborhoods in the country's majority white population and to at least some degree turned the temperature up on the melting pot.  At the same time, the war encouraged a period of loose morals that would begin to reflect back on the country after the war, really starting off when Hugh Hefner took the wartime image of the town girl that had adorned American bomber after bomber and put her in glossy centerfolds.  Much of what the war brought is still being sorted out, and the full impact of it will likely take another half century or more to really appreciate.

And that process, for the United States, began today, eighty years ago.

1947  BB-32, the USS Wyoming, stricken from the Navy rolls.

1950  War Memorial Stadium opened.   Attribution:  On This Day.

1988 Casper native Tom Browning, Cincinnati Reds pitcher, pitched a perfect game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

March 1

1836  A convention approved the Texas Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Attribution:  On This Day.

1837  The United States sent a diplomatic agent to Texas.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1845 President John Tyler signed a congressional resolution to annex the Republic of Texas.

1866  Crowheart Butte, Wyoming

This item, linked in from our Some Gave All blog, is noted here, not because this is the correct date, but rather because I can't find an exact date.  The sources I've read refer to this event happening over five days in "March", so this is being linked in here.

This is a bit of an unusual roadside monument in the West as it doesn't commemorate a battle between European Americans and Indians, but rather between two separate tribes if Indians.  It commemorates the March 1866 battle between the Shoshone and Crows near the Wind River Range in Wyoming.

The date, and the event, are interesting ones.  By 1866 warfare between the United States and the combined Sioux and Cheyenne had broken out in earnest.  The Crows were fighting the Sioux and had been for quite some time.  Indeed, they were fighting a loosing battle in their war with the Sioux and had offered to throw in with the United States in aid that effort.  Ironically, the Shoshone were allies of the United States.

Both the Shoshone and the Crows were under tremendous pressure from the Sioux and Cheyenne, who had been expanding out onto the territory that had formerly belonged to those tribes. The Crows in particular had suffered a tremendous territorial loss in that they had been pushed out of the prairie region of Wyoming for the most part by that time but they were still attempting to contest for it.  The Shoshone had also suffered a territorial loss but, with their anchor in the Wind Rivers, which the Sioux had not yet reached, their situation was not as dire.

Nonetheless, we see how these factors can play out in odd ways. Both tribes were here essentially defending their traditional grounds. The Crows could hardly afford to loose any more of theirs as they'd already lost so much.  Nonetheless, as can be seen here, they were defeated in this battle and they would in fact go on to have to accept the loss of much of what they had formerly controlled.

The Shoshones were already looking at asking for a reservation at the time this battle took place and even though this ground had been already assigned to the Crows by treaty.  The Crows were effectively defeated by the Shoshone in the area and Crowheart Butte became part of the Shoshone Reservation very shortly thereafter.

The text of this roadside monument makes it quite clear that this sign was made quite some time ago, probably in the 1950s.  The text that is on it would never be placed on a monument today, in that the partisan language regarding "whites" would simply not be done.  Indeed, in many instances such signs tend to get removed.  At least one old historical marker in New Mexico has had some of the text chipped out in order to edit it, and at least one of these road side markers in Wyoming that had somewhat similar content has been removed.  That's a shame, as in editing to fit our current definition of history, we in fact do a little injustice to the story of history itself by removing the evidence of how things were once perceived.

1867 Nebraska became the 37th state.

1868  Dr.  Frank H. Harrison, a Canadian by birth, who entered the US to practice medicine for the U.S. Army during the Civil War, opened Laramie's first doctors office.  He would not remain there, as he was traveling with the Union Pacific as it advanced.

1872 Congress authorized creation of Yellowstone National Park.

1875  John A. Campbell resigned as Territorial Governor.

1875  John Thayer commenced his term as Territorial Governor.

1876  The 1876 Powder River Expedition set out from Ft. Fetterman.

1877  Jack McCall, Wild Bill Hickok's killer, Following the killing, he'd gone to Laramie where is bragging about the killing and his making up a story to cover it, about the killing of a fictional brother, lead to his arrest and ultimately his trial.

1913   Governor Carey approved an act of the Legislature that created two additional judicial districts.  Today there are nine.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1913     Federal income tax takes effect, as per 16th amendment

1917  The Buffalo Bill Memorial Association was charted  Attribution:  on This Day.

1917  The Wyoming Tribune for March 1, 1917: Wilson asked to explain story.
 

Somebody should have explained the story about Japan anyhow, that's for sure.

And Ft. Russell was clearly gearing up for war.

The Cheyenne Leader for March 1, 1917: German-Jap-Mex Plot?
 

On March 1, 1917 the news all over the country was on the release of the Zimmerman Note and what it meant.  But, oddly, there was apparently a feeling that the Japanese were tied up in it, which wasn't the case.

And the Colorado National Guard arrived at Ft. D. A. Russell for demobilization.

1920  March 1, 2020. Railroads Revert To Civilian Control, Caroline Lockhart hits the Screen.

On this day in 1920, the railroads, which had been taken over by the U.S. Government during World War One reverted to civilian control.

The country's rail had been nationalized during the war and then run by the United States Railroad Administration as the system was proving to not be up to the tasks that were imposed upon it due to the crisis of World War One.  Additionally, concerns over pricing and labor unrest called for the action.  Following the war there was some serious consideration given to retaining national control over the lines, which labor favored, but in the end the government returned the system to its owners.

While U.S. administration of the railroad infrastructure was a success, it was not repeated during the Second World War when the rail system was just as heavily taxed by an even heavier wartime demand.  There proved to be no need to do it during World War Two.

Not too surprisingly, the news featured prominently on the cover of Laramie's newspapers, as the Laramie was, and is, a major Union Pacific Railroad town.

Union Pacific Depot in Laramie, Wyoming.

On the same day a movie featuring Wyoming as the location (which doesn't mean it was filmed here), was released.

The 1916 vintage Burlington Northern depot in Casper, Wyoming.

Likewise, the reversion was big news to the double railhead town of Casper.

Former Great Northwestern Depot in Casper.

The Fighting Sheperdess was the story of just that, a fighting female sheep rancher was was struggling to keep her sheep ranch against raiding cattlemen.

In reality, the sheep wars in Wyoming had largely come to an end by this time, although it was definitely within living memory.  The Spring Creek Raid of 1909 had only been a decade prior, and there had been two more raids in 1911 and 1912, although nobody had been killed in those two latter events.  The peace was, however, still an uneasy one, perhaps oddly aided by a massive decline in sheep, which still were vast in number, caused by economic conditions during the 1910s.  By 1914, the number of sheep on Wyoming's ranges had been cut 40% from recent numbers. World War One reversed the decline, and then dumped the industry flat, as the war increased the demand for wool uniforms and then the demand suddenly ended with the end of Germany's fortunes.  Colorado, however, would see a sheep raid as late as this year, 1920.

The novel the movie was based on was by author, Caroline Lockhart, a figure who is still recalled and celebrated in Cody, Wyoming.

Illinois born Lockhart had been raised on a ranch in Kansas and was college educated.  She had aspired to be an actress but turned to writing and became a newspaper reporter in Boston and Philadelphia before moving to Cody, Wyoming in 1904 at age 33, where she soon became a novelist.  During the war years she relocated to Denver, but was back in Cody shortly thereafter, until she purchased a ranch in Montana, showing how successful her writing had become.  She ranched and wrote from there, spending winters in Cody until she retired there in 1950.  She passed away in 1962.

The Fighting Shepherdess was her fifth of seven published novels, the last being published in 1933.

1942 Elanor Roosevelt visited Cheyenne, Wyoming.

1944 Fremont County Wyoming agriculture agents request 200 POWs for farm labor.

1957  KTWO in Casper started operations as Wyoming's second television station.

1984  Casper's hospital, The Wyoming Medical Center, commenced using its new heliport which has remained a major feature of its operations. Everyone in Casper today is familiar with the sounds of the hospital's helicopter, and knows what it means.

January 1. New Years Day

Today is New Years Day.

45 BC  January 1 celebrated as the beginning of the year for the first time under the Julian Calendar.  Recognizing January 1 as the beginning of the year would later lapse, but would be reestablished under the Gregorian Calendar.

1622 Papal Chancery adopts January 1 as beginning of the year.  A fair number of nations already recognized January 1 as the start of the new year at that time, but it would take over a century for the change to be universal in the Western World.

1861  Stephen W. Downey, later State Auditor of Wyoming, promoted to the rank of 1st Lieutenant in the Potomac Home Brigade, Maryland Infantry.  He would be a colonel in 1863, at the time he mustered out of the service.

1863 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

1863  Daniel Freeman files the first homestead under the newly passed Homestead Act.  The homestead was filed in Nebraska.

While the original Homestead Act provided an unsuitably small portion of land for those wishing to homestead in Wyoming, it was used here, and homesteading can be argued to be responsible for defining the modern character of the State.

1868  Susan B. Anthony, leader of the women's suffrage movement, first publishes a weekly journal titled The Revolution.

1870  Carbon County came into existence.

1879  The Laramie Daily Times starts publication in Laramie.  Attribution:  On This Day .com.

 Calendar for 1888.

1888 John C. Garand born in Quebec.  Garand was a Federal employee who designed the legendary M1 Garand rifle used by the U.S. Army during World War Two and the Korean War, and which went on to be used by the Wyoming Army National Guard until it was replaced with the M16A1 in the 1970s.

 Calendar for 1888.

1892 The Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York opened.

 Calendar for 1896.

 Calendar for 1897.

 

Calendar for 1898.

 Calendar for 1899.

Calendar for 1899.

 Calendar for 1905.

Calendar for 1906.

Calendar for 1906.

 Calendar for 1918

1918  Oil and gas pipeline commences operation from the Salt Creek field to Casper.  The first such pipeline in the Casper region.  Attribution:  On This Day .com

I've been told, and indeed I've seen the photos, that my father in law's great grandfather worked on hauling material to the Salt Creek fields during their construction. And this by mule team.  Photographs of locals hauling equipment from Casper to Salt Creek by mule are really impressive.  It's interesting to note that early on, it was mule power, not heavy truck power, that supported the petroleum industry.

The Salt Creek field remains in production today.

1918

1918 newspapers posted on  Attrition and Saving the Bacon. The United States and World War One

1919   New Years Day, 1919

The Wyoming State Tribune offered a helpful tip for writing the date of the new year correctly.

1920 1,000 "radicals" arrested in 33 US cities in the Great Raid of the Red Scare.

January 1, 1920. New Year's Day. Revelry and Raids.

And so the violent 1910s had end and 1920, not yet roaring, was ushered in. . .ostensibly dry although efforts were already being made to evade Prohibition, both great and small, as the Chicago Tribune's Gasoline Alley made fun of.

January 1, 1920.  Gasoline Alley:  Happy New Years On Avery

On this day in Chicago undoubtedly sober agents conducted raids on suspected Reds in various gathering places they were known to frequent, arresting 200 people.  The same was conducted across the country under J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, with about 6,000 people being arrested as a result.

U.S. Attorney General Alexander Palmer.

1923  William B. Ross took office as Governor.

1930  Ft. D. A. Russel becomes Ft. Francis E. Warren.

1934  Joseph C. O'Mahoney takes office as a Democratic Senator from Wyoming.  O'Mahoney was born in Chelsea Massachusetts in 1884 and entered the newspaper business as a reporter as a young man.  He relocated to Boulder, Colorado, in 1908, and then to Cheyenne in 1916, where he became the editor of the Cheyenne State Leader.  He apparently tired of that and entered Georgetown Law School from which he graduated in 1920, which would indicate that he only served as an editor in Cheyenne for a year at most.  This would make sense, as he was also employed as John B. Kendrick's secretary during this time frame, and he was not doubt working on his law degree concurrently.  He replaced Kendrick upon his death.  With a brief break, he would be a U.S. Senator until leaving office in 1960.  

1935 $6,329,995.57 paid out in benefits to World War One veterans in Wyoming.

1941  Cody business men sent a telegram to President Roosevelt urging him to aid the United Kingdom in its war effort.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1942 The U.S. Office of Production Management prohibited sales of new cars and trucks to civilians.

1944  The 115th Cavalry broken into three separate units.   After having been Federalized in 1940 the unit had been used early in the war to patrol the Pacific Coast.  It was then heavily cadred out as experienced men were sent to other units.  Ultimately, the late war unit, of which a majority were no longer Wyoming National Guardsmen, saw only the Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 115th Cavalry Group sent overseas into action.

1948  The hospital in Rock Springs is transferred from  state ownership to Sweetwater County's ownership.

1951  Frank A. Barret took office as Governor.

1959  Wyoming Township Michigan became a city.

1965  The Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge comes into existance.  Attribution:  On This Day .com.

1968  The University of Wyoming loses to LSU, 13 to 20, in the Sugar Bowl.

1984   The first memorial plaques installed at Grand Encampment Museum.  Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.