Battle of the Rosebud Battlefield, Montana.

The Battle of the Rosebud was an important June 1876 battle that came, on June 17, just days prior to the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  Fought by the same Native American combatants, who crossed from their Little Big Horn encampment to counter 993 cavalrymen and mule mounted infantrymen who had marched north from Ft. Fetterman, Wyoming, at the same time troops under Gen. Terry, including Custer's command, were proceeding west from Ft. Abraham Lincoln.  Crook's command included, like Terry's, Crow scouts, and he additionally was augmented soon after leaving Ft. Fetterman by Shoshoni combatants.

The battlefield today is nearly untouched.

Called the Battle Where the Sister Saved Her Brother, or the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother, like Little Big Horn, it was a Sioux and Arapaho victory, although it did not turn into an outright disaster like Little Big Horn. Caught in a valley and attacked, rather than attacking into a valley like Custer, the Army took some ground and held its positions, and then withdrew.  Crook was effectively knocked out of action for the rest of the year and retreated into the Big Horn mountains in Wyoming.

 

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music. Beaches Of Cheyenne (Live)

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music. Beaches Of Cheyenne (Live): 

Wyoming Music. Beaches Of Cheyenne (Live)

Another Cheyenne themed song, this one centered on a tragedy at Frontier Days.

"Oil Capital of the Rockies" and other nicknames.

Monument to oil production at the Amoco Parkway in Casper, Wyoming.  The Parkway is within the confines of the former Standard Oil Refinery.

What's in a name?  A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Shakespeare

I came across the old nickname for Casper, Oil Capital of the Rockies, a bit by accident the other day and began to ponder it as a nickname for Casper, and then nicknames for Wyoming towns in general.*  Hence the entry.  

We'll start with Casper in this list, as Casper made us ponder it, but then we'll drop back to alphabetical order, to make it a bit easier reading.

Casper

Casper embraced oil production really early in its history and oil production and refining has been a feature of Casper's economy almost from its onset.  It's had a collection of refineries and, while refining isn't what it once was in Casper, it still retains a refinery today, down from the three it had when I was young.  

When I was growing up, the Casper Star Tribune had, on its masthead, the words "Oil Capital of the Rockies", a self proclaimed proud distinction that even the newspaper embraced.  There's no way on earth that the paper would have that on the masthead today, but it did for years.  I can well remember it, but I can't remember when that disappeared.  It was still there at least as late as 1970, when the logo was actually printed at the top of every page.  By 1975 the Tribune was asserting that Casper was the "World's Energy Capital", giving the town a promotion in that category which must have been inspired by the Arab Oil Embargo initiated spike in prices.  By 1980, however, as the bloom was beginning to come off the boom's rose, the Tribune made no reference in its masthead to oil or energy at all.

The embracing of the title is something that predated the masthead and continues on.  A common nickname for Casper is "Oil City", even though Natrona County actually had a town at one time actually called "Oil City", and it wasn't Casper.  The remnant of that town is barely there today.  

There are all sorts of businesses in Casper that use "Oil City" in their names, and one of the electronic news outlets uses it as well.  Oil may be in trouble now days, but the naming habits don't show it.

Casper isn't limited to a single nickname, however.  Another one you see in use is the name "Ghost Town" due to the old cartoon Casper the Friendly Ghost.  As a "ghost town" is a town that is no longer inhabited, the use of the nickname is a bit unfortunate, but it's pretty common.  Users of the nickname presumably simply assume that everyone is familiar with the animated cartoon that was first introduced in 1945.  As the cartoon frankly isn't funny, in my view, I have to wonder if my disdain for the nickname is in part inspired by that.  Be that as it may, it's certainly in widespread use.  The last truck stop on the way out of the town to the west, which actually is several miles beyond the town and actually much closer to Mills, Wyoming, than Casper, is "Ghost Town", for example, which used to have a classic, but now long gone, neon sign that looked like the front of a cabover truck.  Seeing it at night or in snowstorms remains an enduring memory of my youth.

Nobody has combined the two so far, so some opportunity remans.  Oily Ghost Town, or Casper the Oily Ghost Town, or something. . . 

Some time ago, some civic entity or perhaps the City of Casper itself came up with the name WyoCity.  Or perhaps it paid somebody to come up with that.  It hasn't stuck in the public imagination, and no wonder.  WyoCity? What does that mean?

Another unofficial nickname for Casper is Wind City, which nobody who has ever been to Casper need wonder about.  Chicago may call itself the Windy City, but it has nothing on Casper in regard to wind.  As with Oil City, various local businesses have embraced the name and use it.

Big Piney

Big Piney is cold in the winter. Really cold.  Like wind in Casper, residents of Big Piney have embraced that and its nickname is "Icebox of the Nation". They aren't joking.

Cheyenne.

Cheyenne, like Laramie, has an old nickname that probably goes back to early boosterism, with that being the "Emerald City of the Rockies".  Towns on the Union Pacific at the time must have had a gem stone theme going on.  The nickname was used early on and it competed with Denver's, which chose to call itself the "Queen City of the Plains".  Oddly, Denver is really closer to the Rocky Mountains than  Cheyenne, which is actually on the plains.  Anyhow, Emerald City has fallen into disuse, and probably  The Wizard of Oz didn't help that.

At some point the city itself decided it didn't like it, and it changed its nickname officially to the "Magic City of the Plains".  Or, perhaps, the nickname existed simultaneously.  It seems to have been based on the town springing up overnight, as if by magic, when it was built in 1867.  The city still uses that nickname.

Unofficially people sometimes refer to Cheyenne as "Shy Town", using the sound of its first syllable.  The nickname is simply a play on words and infers nothing beyond that.  

Cody

Cody bills itself as the Rodeo Capital of the World, which is frankly bizarre.  I doubt anyone uses the nickname and I've never seen a "Rodeo City" business there.

The name likely stems form the Cody Night Rodeo, which occurs nightly during the summer, but that wouldn't make it the Rodeo Capital.  Cheyenne and Calgary would have better claims to that.

Douglas

Douglas is the "Jackalope Capital of the World", playing on its adoption of the jackalope as its official symbol.  Indeed, the town has embraced the mythical creature and there are several jackalope statutes in town, although the one that used to be in the middle of the main street downtown has been removed as it was determined to be a bit of a traffic hazard.

Douglas has to get credit for embracing something whimsical and just running with it.

Frannie

Frannie, which is in two counties, but which is a really small town, bills itself as the The Biggest Little Town in the Nation.

Gillette.

Gillette calls itself the "Energy Capital of the World", although these days its energy businesses are hurting.  By doing that, it's co-opting a nickname that the Casper Star Tribune had claimed earlier for Casper.

Gillette may have an official nickname, but like Cheyenne and Casper, it has an unofficial one that's a play on its name, that being "Razor City".  Gillette, the company, manufactures shaving razors, and hence the nickname.  Again, it doesn't apply more than that.

Gillette may be a bit fortunate in this regard, as its original name was "Donkey Town", having been named for Donkey Creek.  Razor City isn't a great nickname, but it's better than Donkey Town as an official one.

Jackson

Jackson Wyoming is located in Jackson Hole and residents refer to the town as "The Hole".   The area around Jackson, however, has a lot of nicknames.

Teton Valley, Idaho, which is just next-door to some extent, interestingly has a lot of nicknames. But as this post isn't on that topic, we'll omit them.

Laramie.  

Laramie is the "Gem City of the Plains" for reasons that are unclear to me.  The nickname has been around for a long time, and it was probably part of an early effort at boosterism.  Laramieites know of the nickname, however, and its used in some businesses in Laramie.  The official newsletter of the City of Laramie is the "Gem City Spark", so unlike Casper's government, it's embraced its old nickname.

Some haven't embraced it, however, and those appear to be students.  UW students have taken up calling Laramie "Laradise", something that's come on since I lived there.  Laramie can be a fun town, and students have a sarcastic streak, so the nickname probably embraces both, both implying that Laramie might be a paradise for the young, and that it isn't, at the same time.

Lovell

Lovell, Wyoming asserts that its the Rose City of Wyoming.  This is because an early resident of the town, Dr. William Horsley, was a renowned expert on roses and promoted their growth in the community over a fifty year period.  The nickname is unknown for the most part outside of Lovell, but it has been embraced by the town and businesses in the community use it for their names.

Meeteetse

Meeteetse bills itself as the Ferret Capital of hte World as the endangered black footed ferret, which was believed extinct, was relocated there.  It also calls itself Where Chiefs Meet, which is taken from the meeting of its name in Shoshone, which is reputedly "meeting place", although that translation is disputed.

Riverton

I've heard Riverton occasionally referred to as "River City", probably recalling the fictional town in The Music Man.  It's official nickname, however, is "The Rendezvous City", reflecting that one of the early fur trapping Rendezvous gatherings was held there.

Rock Springs.  

Like Cheyenne, Rock Springs has an unofficial nickname that plays on its actual name, that being "Rocket City".  It has an official one as well, however, that being "Home of 56 Nationalities", reflecting its early mining history when it was indeed very polyglot.

Saratoga 

Saratoga calls itself "Where the Trout Leap in Main Street".   The North Platte River runs right through town and the small town has an outdoorsy nature, so this might help explain this.  Having said that, it might also stem from an early freighter tossing lighted sticks of dynamite off the bridge into town and blasting fish up on to the road, an act he took as he was tired of waiting for help to unload a wagon.

Upton 

Upton calls itself the "Best Town on Earth", which its boosters must feel that it is.

Honorable mention, Interstate 80.

Not a town, but another sort of man made geographic feature, Interstate 80 also has a nickname, at least in part.  The stretch of highway between Wolcott Junction and Laramie along Interstate 80 bears the nickname the "Snow Chi Minh Trail".

That nickname obviously can go no further back than the 1960s and I think it started in the 1970s, when the memory of the North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh Trail was still fresh. That NVA effort was persistently vexing to the United States and the blizzardy section of the highway is likewise vexing to motorist, hence the nickname.

___________________________________________________________________________________

*For those who might wonder, Tulsa Oklahoma bears the nickname "Oil Capital of the World", although even by contemporary American standards, that nickname would more properly belong to Houston, Texas.  Cognizant of that, Houston is the "Energy Capital of the World".

Lex Anteinternet: Bells of Balangiga to depart

Bells of Balangiga to depart

Gen. Jacob Smith inspects the ruins of Balangiga a few weeks after the battle there.

The Bells of Balangiga, war trophies from the Spanish American War, are going back to the Philippines, according to a government press release.

The bells have long been a matter of contention between the United States and the Philippines.  The 9th Infantry, which took the bells, maintained that it was ambushed in the locality, where it was garrisoned, and the bells symbolized its defense of itself from a surprise treacherous attack.  The Philippines have asserted the battle represented an uprising of the indigenous population against occupation and that the conclusion of the battle featured the killing of villagers without justification.  Both versions of the event may be correct in that it was a surprise attack on a unit stationed in the town and, by that point in the war, 1901, it had begun to take on a gruesome character at times.

Whatever the case may be, the bells, from three Catholic Churches, have long been sought to be returned.  Two of the bells are at F. E. Warren Air Force Base, which which the 9th Infantry had later been stationed at when it was Ft. D. A. Russell, and a third has been kept in Alaska.  It would appear that they're now going to go back to the churches from which they came in the Philippines, almost certainly accompanied by at least some vocal protestations from Wyoming's representation in Congress, I suspect.  As the current Wyoming connection with the 9th Infantry, let alone the Philippine Insurrection, is pretty think, it's unlikely that the average Wyomingite, however, will care much.  Indeed, while it caused its own controversy, a former head of a veteran's position in the state came out for returning the bells the last time this controversy rolled around a few years ago.

Some Gave All: Wyoming Capitol Rotunda Statutes: The Casper Star...

Some Gave All: Wyoming Capitol Rotunda Statutes: The Casper Star Tribune reports that. . .

allegorical monuments will be going in, in Cheyenne.

The Capitol prior to reconstruction commencing.

They will not, however, be topless.  Not even partially.

The statutes, representing hope, courage, justice and truth, will be created by Delissalde Designs of Denver, after a competition on the same. They will all be female figures.

The announcement that they won was made last week.  Reports have it that they female Truth shall have a peace pipe, female Courage will have a snake wrapped around her leg, female Justice will have copies of the U.S. and Wyoming Constitutions.  I don't know what Hope will have.

Other than clothes.  There was apparently some concern that the figures were a little scantily dressed.  Senator Eli Bebout, for example, made a specific inquiry about this.

This is oddly reminiscent, FWIW, in regards to the selection of the State seal over a century ago. A legislative committee worked on that only to have a sitting Governor substitute a competing design that had a central female figure appear on the seal he liked better who was topless.  Not that this was uncommon at the time.  Nearly every allegorical character used in art has been female and, probably as they were created by male artists looking, at least subconsciously for an excuse, they were very frequently topless.  Even a century ago, however, that made some uneasy, including male legislators, and the original Wyoming seal that was chosen featured a fully clothed figure, only to have a Governor sub it out. When that was discovered, that was pulled, and treasury notes issued commemorating Wyoming for a time had a figure that had been chosen by the U.S. Mints (yes, that is plural and it was referred to that way at the time) rather than something we'd chosen ourselves.  We subsequently got around to the current design.

It's odd to think that we'd repeat that event over a century later, but perhaps its even odder, in the context of the times, to consider that allegorical figures remain principally women and that the artists submitting designs would, by default, figure that allegorical female figures might bear a closer resemblance, both in form and degree of clothing, to Kate Upton than Ruth Bader Ginsberg, but some things simply don't change much, it would seem.

Well, Hope, Justice, Courage and Truth will be on the cupola of the new Capitol rotunda, gazing down at the public.  The public, gazing back up, will have no excuse for exercising prurient interests.

Some Gave All: Frank Wenger Holliday Memorial, Cheyenne Wyoming.

Does anyone here know the story behind this memorial?

Frank Wenger Holliday Memorial, Cheyenne Wyoming.

This is an unusual private memorial on a small, traffic island, park in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  I had thought it might be a war memorial, but it is instead a memorial to the thirteen year old son, Frank, of Cal and Rudolphia Holliday.  Cal Holliday was a Cheyenne businessman and mayor in the city's early days. What happened to the Holliday's young son I do not know.

This unusual memorial is just off of the downtown business district of Cheyenne in its historic district.  This post is clearly off topic.

Some Gave All: Cheyenne, Ft. Laramie, Deadwood Trail, 1868-1887

Cheyenne, Ft. Laramie, Deadwood Trail, 1868-1887

This post is somewhat off topic here, but this is a marker for the Cheyenne, Ft. Laramie, Deadwood Trail.  The marker is on the old state  highway, but is visible in terms of its location from the present
Interstate Highway.  It's north of Cheyenne.

December 24

 Today is the day of the Christmas Vigil (Christmas Eve) in the Christian world.
 Aðfangadagskvöld, the day when the 13th and the last Yule Lad arrives to towns, in Iceland.
 Feast of the Seven Fishes in Italy.
 Jul in Denmark and Norway.
 Nochebuena in Spanish-speaking countries.

1809.  Christopher "Kit" Caron born in Kentucky.  Raised in Missouri, he would have an amazing career as a frontiersmen in the West, including Wyoming.  He is one of those fellows who seems to have been everywhere, and at the right time.

1814     The War of 1812 officially ended as the United States and Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent.  Fighting continued, as news in the 19th Century traveled slowly.

1826   The Eggnog Riot at the United States Military Academy begins that night, wrapping up the following morning.

1851     Fire devastated the Library of Congress destroying about 35,000 volumes.

1859  First known lighting of a Christmas Tree in Wyoming occurs, near Glenrock. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1868  A. J. Faulk, Territorial Governor of Dakota Territory, approved of act incorporating Cheyenne.

1922  Sunday, December 24, 1922. Christmas Eve, 1922.

Normally I post these matters in chronological order, oldest to newest, but I missed something here of interest, that being the death of Sgt. John Martin.

Sgt. Martin, circa 1904.

Martin was a career soldier in the U.S. Army who is remembered today as the 7th Cavalry trumpeter who was assigned by George A. Custer to deliver a message to Frederic Benteen, to the effect of:

Benteen.

Come On. Big Village. Be quick. Bring Packs.

P.S. Bring packs. W.W. Cooke

The message delivered to Benteen, from Custer, had been reduced to writing by Custer's adjacent, W. W. Cooke probably because Benteen didn't trust Martin to be able to accurately convey the message, given his heavy Italian accent.  Martin had been born Giovanni Martino.

Martino had started off in life roughly, being born in 1852 in Salerno and being delivered to an orphanage just days after his birth.  He served as a teenage drummer under Garibaldi, joining that revolutionary force at age 14.  He immigrated to the United States at age 21 and joined the U.S. Army, serving as a trumpeter.  He was temporarily detailed to Custer's command on the date of the fateful Little Big Horn battle, and therefore received the assignment that would take him away from disaster somewhat randomly.

He married an Irish immigrant in 1879, and together they had five children.  He served in the Spanish American War, and retired from the Army in 1904, having served the required number of years in order to qualify for a retirement at that time.  Note that this meant he'd served, at that time, thirty years.  Following that, his family operated a candy store in Baltimore.  In 1906, for reasons that are unclear, he relocated to Brooklyn, seemingly to be near one of his daughters, working as a ticket agent for the New York subway.  The relocation meant a separation from his wife, which has caused speculation as to the reasons for it, but he traveled back to Baltimore frequently.  That job wore him down, and he took a job as a watchman for the Navy Yard in 1915.  His sons followed his footsteps and entered the Army.

In December 1922 he was hit by a truck after work and died from his injuries on this day.

All in all, this presents an interesting look into the day.  Martin was an adult when he immigrated in 1873, and found work in an occupation that readily took in immigrants, the military, and doing what he had done in Garibaldi's forces before, acting as a musician.  His marriage was "mixed", of a sort, with the common denominator being that he and his wife were both Catholics.  In spite of retiring from the Military after long service, he continued to need to be employed, at jobs that at the time were physically demanding.

And of interest, when his life, long under the circumstances, was cut short, he was a veteran of Little Big Horn living during the jazz age.

1944   All beef products are again being rationed. New quotas are introduced for most other commodities as well.

1983  Recluse Wyoming sees -51F.  Echeta, -54F.

December 17

1619     Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Royalist cavalry commander in the English Civil War, born.  He returned England with the restoration of Charles II, and headed the investors group that in 1670 got a charter for the Hudson's Bay Company and title to all lands draining into Hudson Bay.  He was the first Governor of the HBC.

1890  Union Pacific swithmen went on strike.   Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1904  John J. McIntyre born in Dewey County, Oklahoma.  He was the Congressman from Wyoming from 1941 to 1943, serving a single term.  He served as State Auditor in 1946, and was later a Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court from 1960 until his death in 1974.

McIntyre graduated from high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma and had a law degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1929.  He relocated to Wyoming in 1931 where he became the Converse County Attorney in 1933 and entered Federal service as an attorney in 1936.  He was a member of the Wyoming National Guard and was promoted to the rank of Captain in1936. This was not unusual for lawyers of that period, as many held commissions on the Guard.  He must have been in the Guard at the time it was Federalized in 1940, but his status as a Congressman likely took him out of service at the time of Pearl Harbor.  He was not reelected to Congress and served as a Deputy Attorney General in 1943 and 1944, and then entered the U.S. Army as an enlisted man where he was a Staff Sergeant with the 660th Field Artillery.

1916  Inter Ocean destroyed by fire.

The Inter-Ocean

1916   Inter-Ocean Hotel in Cheyenne destroyed by fire.  Attribution; Wyoming State Historical Society.

The Inter-Ocean was one of several Cheyenne hotels that were big deals and major watering holes, something very common in that era and for decades thereafter (and still somewhat true in larger cities today).  It's remembered to Western History for being the location referenced by Tom Horn in his famous conversation with  Joe LeFors.

If you go to the Inter-Ocean to sit down and talk a few minutes some one comes in and says, 'Let us have a drink,' and before you know it you are standing up talking, and my feet get so *&^*&^^  tired it almost kills me. I am 44 years, 3 months, and 27 days old, and if I get killed now I have the satisfaction of knowing I have lived about fifteen ordinary lives.

Horn was in fact arrested outside of the Inter-Ocean.

The hotel had been built by Barney Ford, a businessman who had been born a slave, a status that he escaped from.  His father was the white plantation owners where his black mother was enslaved.  After escaping he lived an adventuresome life and rose to great wealth in Colorado.

He apparently liked the name "Inter-Ocean" as he built another hotel in Denver's 16th Street by that name.  Like the Cheyenne hotel, it is no longer there, which is a real shame as funky buildings like this are all the rage in Denver now..

Denver's Inter-Ocean

1916  Sunday State Leader for December 17, 1916: Measles killing Guardsmen at Deming.

Not the only news of the day, but two Arkansas Guardsmen died from the measles at Deming, New Mexico, news that surely worried Wyomingites with family members serving in the Guard at Deming.

William F. Cody  was reported very ill at his sister's house in Denver.

And death claimed the life of a former Rough Rider living in the state as well.

The State Health Officer reported, in cheerier news, on the state's healthful climate.

1916  Carranza rejects the protocol

 

We've run a lot of newspaper articles on the negotiations between the United States and Mexico, or perhaps more accurately between the United States and the Constitutionalist government of Mexico lead by Venustiano Carranza

 Carranza

On this day he ended the doubt, he refused to sign it.

Carranza was a tough minded individual.  He never liked Woodrow Wilson and he had a grudge against the United States.  Irrespective of what may seem to be the advantages of the proposals that were made, he wouldn't agree.

And he never did.  Carranza never executed a protocol with the United States.

By this point the United States clearly wanted out of Mexico.  The intervention had bogged down to an uneasy occupation since the summer and was going nowhere.  Carranza guessed correctly that the United States would be leaving no matter what, although that did not mean that the US would be passive in protecting its interests.

1918  The USS Cheyenne, formerly the USS Wyoming, but renamed due the later battleship being assigned that name, assigned to Division I, American Patrol Division.

1918  December 17, 1918. No Booze for Soldiers. No Booze for Coloradans, No Booze for Montanans. Villa ponders attack

Up until at least the Korean War, if not the Vietnam War, a deficit of clothing meant that discharged soldiers often wore their uniforms after a time following their discharge.  That was very much the case after World War One and World War Two.  Here, the Federal Government was concerned about discharged soldiers drinking in uniform.

In the popular imagination, Prohibition was forced on an unwilling nation by a bunch of silly temperance women who didn't realize that America was a drinking nation.  That version of the story is very far from true.

The Cheyenne State Leader was reporting that Montana would go dry on December 30.  1918 was to be Montana's last "wet" year.  Villa, the paper also reported, was up to no good.

In reality, Prohibition was a hugely popular movement and was gaining ground in the states prior to it become Federal law.  By this date in 1918, Colorado had gone "bone dry" and Montana was about to.

Not all was bleak. One of the Casper papers was reporting that American soldiers still preferred American girls.  Those American soldiers would be bringing home quite a few French brides and even a few Russian ones.  Of course, the report here did contain some bad news for American women.  Some of the soldiers were reporting pretty favorably on les femmes Francais.

So Prohibition was really arriving in the individual states prior to the Volstead Act making it the law of the land and prior to any Constitutional amendment requiring it.  When Prohibition was repealed, it meant that each state that had laws on the books had to revisit those laws if it wanted to likewise repeal Prohibition in their state, which serves as a lesson in rushing to amend laws to comport with what seems to be a national development.  That allowed those states a breather to adapt to the new situation, which in the case of Wyoming it very much took, phasing drinking back in over a period of years.

1919 

Vernon Baker born in Cheyenne.  Baker is a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in combat in World War Two, with his citation reading as follows:

For extraordinary heroism in action on 5 and 6 April 1945, near Viareggio, Italy. Then Second Lieutenant Baker demonstrated outstanding courage and leadership in destroying enemy installations, personnel, and equipment during his company's attack against a strongly entrenched enemy in mountainous terrain. When his company was stopped by the concentration of fire from several machine gun emplacements, he crawled to one position and destroyed it, killing three Germans. Continuing forward, he attacked an enemy observation post and killed two occupants. With the aid of one of his men, Lieutenant Baker attacked two more machine gun nests, killing or wounding the four enemy soldiers occupying these positions. He then covered the evacuation of the wounded personnel of his company by occupying an exposed position and drawing the enemy's fire. On the following night Lieutenant Baker voluntarily led a battalion advance through enemy mine fields and heavy fire toward the division objective. Second Lieutenant Baker's fighting spirit and daring leadership were an inspiration to his men and exemplify the highest traditions of the Armed Forces.

Baker had a rough start in life when his parents died while he was still young.  Partially raised by his grandparents, he learned how to hunt from his grandfather in order to put meat on the table.  Entering the Army during World War Two, he made the Army a career and retired in 1968 as a First Lieutenant, his rank at that time reflecting force reductions following World War Two.  He retired to Idaho where he chose to live as he was an avid hunter, and he died there in 2010.  Baker is a significant figure from Wyoming not only because he won the Congressional Medal of Honor, but because he was part of Wyoming's small African American community.

1985  Alan B. Johnson received his commission as a Federal Judge for the District of Wyoming.

2003  Wyoming filed a petition to delist the Prebbles Jumping Mouse from the Endangered Species List.