Casper College Western History Center: Archival Needs Assessment Report

 Casper College Western History Center:Archival Needs Assessment Report

Blog Mirror: Casper College's Western History Center 'in disarray,' consultant finds

 

Casper College's Western History Center 'in disarray,' consultant finds

Casper College's Western History Center Eliminates Its Archivist Position.

 

The Western History Center is now without a full-time archivist. Local historians aren't happy about it.

So reads a headline in the Tribune from the Sunday, May 30, edition.

The Casper College Western History Center is an excellent resource with a fine collection of materials.  The college emphasizes that it is not closing it, but rather combining the position with another one in its library, so that two positions will be held by one employee, more or less.  Or, put another way, the positions are merged and the archivist loses his job.

That archivist has done an excellent job, to the extent that I know him, which isn't well.  Others in the local history community do know him well, however, and rallied to back an effort to try to save his position.  The college said it just couldn't afford it.

And so one history position lost.

I wish I could comment more intelligently on this, but I can't.  I understand the need to balance budgets, to be sure, but this is a real treasure that I fear will now suffer.  And on a more personal note, the archivist has a Juris Doctorate, as do I, and therefore fits into that category of history loving lawyers, although unlike me, he was employed in the field.  I feel badly for him.

Indeed, even now, I hope this can be reversed, even though I know that it won't be, at least in the near term.

Lex Anteinternet: Coming back to the past: Vince Crolla

Coming back to the past: Vince Crolla

An article on Vince Crolla, who took a different path than most law school graduates and is now the archivist at Casper College's Western History Center.

A very nice fellow, I met him when I gave a talk on my book up there.

I'd note that as archival material, old law books (those are in the CC collection), don't have much value any more, or at least that'd be my view. With everything on Westlaw and Lexus, the need to maintain a library of case books, which is what those are, has pretty much vanished.

September 17

Today is U.S. Constitution Day.

1787.  The U.S Constitution completed and signed by a majority of delegates, nearly giving the US it's current constitutional form, and radically altering the form that had existed under the Articles of Confederation.  Concerns over the lack of limits on Federal power would shortly lead to the Bill of Rights, which were a series of early amendments to the Constitution.

1842  Mathew Caldwell Texas' forces defeated a Mexican force under Adrián Woll.

1842  A small Texas force under Captain Nicholas Dawson defeated by a large force of Mexican cavalry.

1843   John W. Meldrum, the first Commissioner of Yellowstone National Park, born in Celdonia New York.

1851  The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was signed between United States treaty commissioners and representatives of the Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Shoshone, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara nations.  Of note, not all of these Tribes were typically at peace amongst themselves. The treaty sets forth traditional territorial claims of the tribes as among themselves, guaranteed safe passage for settlers on the Oregon Trail  and provided for return for an annuity in the amount of fifty thousand dollars for fifty years. It also provided for the establishment of roads and forts on Indian territory.

The United States Senate ratified the treaty but adjust compensation from fifty to ten years. Acceptance of the revisions was forthcoming from all the tribes except the Crow, who ironically were generally regarded as US allies but more accurately were Sioux enemies. was procured.

This treaty should properly be regarded as a failure.  Not all of the promised payments were forthcoming.  The payments, while not at all unsubstantial by 19th Century standards, were likely not well understood by the intended recipients.  The general acceptance of the Indian tribes was questionable to a degree, as the ability of any one group of delegates to ratify anything for an entire Tribe was questionable.  The United States failed to accurately gauge the degree of Western movement that would occur in the 1850s and 1860s, as it could not have predicted the impact of gold strikes in the West and then the mass emigration caused by the Civil War, so it was completely ineffectual in restricting emigration to the Oregon Trail.

1851  Ordinance Sgt Leodogar Schynder appointed Garrison Postmaster at Ft. Laramie.  Schnyder served more years at Ft. Laramie,  37 than any other enlisted soldier, during his 53 years in the Army.

1865   Sergeant Charles L. Thomas of Company E, 11th Ohio Cavalry. "Carried a message through a country infested with hostile Indians and saved the life of a comrade en route." which won him the Medal of Honor.  Thomas was with Gen. Connor's Powder River Expedition, in Wyoming, at the time.

What's missed in the official account is that Gen. Patrick Connor called for a volunteer "to go as a scout and find Cole or perish in the attempt."  Thomas volunteered.  Col. Cole, who was hoping for relief, was surrounded with his command the time, as a patrol had revealed.  Sgt. Thomas was to deliver a message back to him, traveling 201 miles alone over a 36 hour period.  Part of the time Thomas was under fire and he actually captured an Indian pony en route and took it along with his own.  He ended up delivering the Indian pony to a soldier of the 2nd Missouri he encountered en route, and took him along the remainder of the way to Cole's camp.

1916   Cheyenne State Leader for September 17, 1916. The Wyoming Guard to the border, and Villas raid on Chihuahua
 

The Wyoming National  Guard is ordered to the border.  On the same day, showing how initial news reports might not be fully accurate, the Villista raid on Chihuahua was reported as a defeat, when in reality, it was not.  A better question would have been how a force that had been down to 400 men just a few weeks prior now had many times that number.

1945  The first classes were held at Casper College.  The college occupied the top floor of Natrona County High School for the first years of its existence.

2001  The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 Attacks, its longest closure since the Great Depression.