John Huntin marker, Douglas Wyoming.

 

"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".

October 20

1803  Louisiana Purchase ratified.

1889  Oil discovered near Douglas.

1906  Southeast Wyoming hit by a three day blizzard.

1913  The Burlington Northern arrived in Casper.

1917   Louis Senften  was murdered near Leo.  This resulted in his neighbor, John Leibig, who was the only one to witness the death, being accused of murder.

The accusations against Leibig seem to have been motivated, at least in part, by his being of German origin.  Senften had just purchased his ranch after a long effort to do so but there were details concerning that purchased that may have caused Leibig's neighbors to wish him gone.  Be that as it may, he was acquitted of murder but was also held on an additional eleven counts of espionage, a fairly absurd accusation against somebody who lived in such a remote location.  Leibig, perhaps wanting to simply get past the matter, entered a guilty plea to those charges as part of a plea bargain.  He was accordingly sentenced to a year and a half in a Federal Penitentiary, but President Wilson commuted the sentence to one year.  The short length of the sentence would suggest that both the Court and the President doubted the espionage claims' veracity.

Wyoming's U.S. Attorney continued Quixotic efforts to strip Leibig of his citizenship until 1922, although he had in fact lost it by operation of his sentence.  He ultimately would relocate to Colorado after being released from the Federal Penitentiary at Ft. Leavenworth Kansas.

More can be read about his trial on the WyomingHistory.org webiste.

1918  Countdown on the Great War. Sunday, October 20, 1918. The Allied advance keeps on keeping on, New American Divisions keep on forming, German Submarines and mines keep on sinking ship, and the Spanish Flu is still on a rampage.

American troops getting newspapers from the back of an American Red Cross truck.

1.  The British occupied Roubaix and Tourcoing.

2.  The U.S. 96th Division came into being, showing how the Army had grown and was continuing to grow.  It never left the states.

3.  The British schooner Emily Millington was sunk by a surfaced submarine without loss of life.   The British mointor HMS M21 hit a mine and sank in the English channel.

4.  The Spanish Flu was on a "rampage":

1958  Northeast Wyoming and Southeast Montana hit by a severe blizzard.

2009  Clifford Hanson, former Governor of Wyoming and Senator from Wyoming, died.

October 1

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

(Linked in from Lex Anteinternet on October 1, 2017).

Helene Ethel Fairbanks (nee Cassidy) (1882-1944), wife of Warren Charles Fairbanks and daughter-in-law of Charles Warren Fairbanks, Vice President of the United States to Woodrow Wilson.  No, this photograph doesn't have a direct relationship to this topic, but then again it does.

Normally Sundays are a slow day here on Lex Anteinternet, but we've posted a bunch this morning.  It's just one of those days, I guess.

One thing we'd note, having noted it in the Casper Star Tribune this morning, is that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Coming at the start of a week in which the past week saw the death of Hugh Hefner, ossified creep, who pretty much seems to have thought of women as nothing more than a set of breasts and one other organ, perhaps his death can serve to at least emphasize the terrible nature of this deadly killer.  I wonder how many of his young female subjects who prostituted their images in his slick print journal came down this this?  You know that some did.  That has to be the case as it strikes a massive number of women. The figures are staggering.

So here's hoping that perhaps this awful disease can be stopped, and here's to hoping that women pay attention to it, and I'm sure most do, so that they don't fall victim to it.  For folks who don't bother with their local paper anymore, on a day like today, it's worth picking up.

 

 Depression era WPA poster.

1800         Spain cedes Louisiana to France in return for Tuscany. Spain retained, however the right of first refusal on the territory.

1886  242 town lots were sold in Douglas.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1908 Henry Ford introduced the Model T automobile to the market at $825 a piece.  The start of the revolution of rural transportation had begun.

1901  Casper businessman Louis T. Holscher born in Dyersville, Iowa.  Holscher was from a large German American family in Dyersville that had been in commercial activities in that state since the family had immigrated from Westphalia in the 1840s.  Leaving home, with his parents permission, at age 13 he traveled to San Francisco, where he worked for awhile for the Cunard ship line as an office boy.  Making his way back west to Colorado, he went to work for the Swift Meat Packing company where he worked for many years, both in Denver and in Scottsbluff, rising to the managerial level.  In the early 1940s he purchased a meat packing plant in Casper which he operated, together with a creamery, until is death in the late 1940s.

1916   Sunday State Leader for October 1, 1916: Guard arrives at border and placed under command of a Regular
 

The news broke that the Wyoming National Guard made it to the border; Deming New Mexico to be exact.

And UW went down to defeat against the Colorado Aggies in football.

Wilson apparently warned that voting in the GOP risked war, an ironic statement, given what we knew would happen in a few short monts.

Europe, 1916

 

From the October 1916 edition of The Masses.

1917   The Laramie Boomerang for October 1, 1917. Liberty loans and a shakeup in the officer corps.
 

The Monday, October 1, 1917 edition of the Laramie Boomerang presented a grim cartoon for Monday morning readers as well as news on the first big Liberty Loan campaign that was kicking off.

Chances are, however, that men and women with sons in the National Guard were more interested in the article indicating that the Army was culling the officer corps of the Federalized Guard, which it was..

This is a story that's well known to students of the Guard in World War One and World War Two, but perhaps less so to others.  Having just run an item here on the Guard during the Vietnam War in which I sought to correct something that's a bit of a slight to the National Guard it might seem here that I'm doing something that's a bit of the opposite, but history is what it is.

Truth be known, while the Guard had been reforming itself and drawing closer to the Army since the passage of the Dick Act early in the 20th Century, which made it an official component and reserve of the Army, old aspects of the more independent state militia system lingered on in a couple of forms.  One was the existence of "Champagne Units" which were nearly fraternal military organizations for the very well heeled.  These units were not necessarily bad, we should note and indeed at least one of them was very good. But that was truly an oddity. Often over subscribed these units, typically cavalry, were hard to get into and saw men who were millionaires serving as privates.  Again, having said that, they weren't bad units.

More problematic is that the officer corps of the National Guard could be inconsistent.  The degree to which this was truly a problem remains debated, but that there was some problem can't be doubted.  Some men were simply unsuited to be officers and others were not fit enough to be officers.

Having said that, that wasn't completely untrue in the Regular Army, although it was much less true, and it would also be true of the Army raised to fight the war.  All in all, most men were suited and indeed sometimes highly suited for their wartime roles and the National Guard gave a good account of itself.  The war couldn't have been fought, from the American prospective, without the Guard.  The lingering Regular Army resentment over the Dick Act, which had not been universally popular with the Army, played a role in what would occur with National Guard officers as well, and that would continue on in to World War Two.

By World War Two, however, the National Guard would be closer yet to the Regular Army. That war would draw it much closer and by the time of the Korean War it was much more like it is today in those regards.  Today, it's very close.

As an aide in this paper, it's odd to see the headline about a "star athlete" opting to attend the university.  With a big war breaking out, that's not a headline we expect to see.

August 18

1813  Battle of the Medina River at which Royalist forces defeat Mexican-American Republican Guetierrez-Magee Expedition south of San Antonio.  The Republican forces, which lost 1,300 men to the Royalist 55, was seeking independence for Texas from Spain.

1824  The Mexican Congress passed a national colonization law that became the basis of almost all colonization contracts in Texas.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1872  The  Hayden Expedition camped at Geyser Basin in Yellowstone.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1914    President Woodrow Wilson issued his Proclamation of Neutrality in World War I.

1916   Fire destroyed coal chutes and four freight cars that belonged to the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Company in Douglas.  Attribution:  On This Day.

 Douglas has a nice park dedicated to railroad today.

Douglas Wyoming railroad sites
 

These are scenes from Douglas Wyoming, which is the location of a Railroad Interpretive Center.  The old Great Northwestern depot serves as its headquarters, as well as the chamber of commerce's headquarters.

 

  

 

 

 

The last photograph is not at the Railroad interpretive center, but is nearby. This is the former Burlington Northern depot, now a restaurant.

 

Updated on April 28, 2015, from the original March 31, 2012 publication.  Most of these photos depict things already photographed, but an old railroad building of some kind, now in use for another purpose, also now appears.

1920   The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is ratified by Tennessee, giving the amendment the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it law.

1941  One hundred Casper men and boys enrolled in the Wyoming State Guard.  State Guards were the wartime replacements for the National Guard, which had been Federalized in 1940, and therefore was no longer existent, now being part of the U.S. Army.  The mission of the State Guard was to provide the services to the State that the National Guard did in peace time.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1959  A magnitude 7.7 earthquake occurred about 78 miles from Cody and Jackson.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1969 Jimmy Hendrix opens the final day of the Woodstock music festival with an electric version of The Star Spangled Banner.

2015  Casper's city counsel votes to allow chickens to be kept in the city, by a vote of seven to one.

May 17

1876  7th Cavalry departs Ft. Lincoln on campaign.  Family members gathered to watch them leave the post as the band played martial music.  Quite a few of the troopers would never return.

1888  Douglas chosen as the county seat for Converse County.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1902  Rock Springs hits its record high temperature, 112F.

1918  Casper Daily Press for May 17, 1918. Loafers Must Go To Work, Nonproducers Will Be Barred From Casper By Orders of City Fathers, "Get Work, Enlist, Or Go"

It was a hard day for leisure in Casper, 100 years ago.

1921  Laramie's  Elmer Lovejoy patented a Trackage for Ceiling Type of Doors with Door-Openers (Patent No. 1,378,123). Attribution:  On This Day.

1928  Mother Featherlegs Monument dedicated in Lusk.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

2009  A 3.9 magnitude earthquake occurred 15 miles west-northwest of Jeffrey City.  Attribution:  On This Day.

May 15

1872  Bill Cody tracked down three Indians committing "depredations" and killed them in the ensuing engagement near North Platte, Nebraska.

1885 Louis Riel surrenders to Middleton's troops; North West Rebellion ends after 100 days.

1888 Voters chose Douglas as the county seat of Converse County.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1889  State mental hospital opened in Evanston.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1898  Pioneer Jim Baker died.

1918  The news. . . Germans stall. .. Soviets react. . . .Airmail starts. . . Mayor Speer of Denver dies. . . The news from May 15, 1918.

A familiar name, even if most people don't recall who his was.  Mayor Speer, after whom Speer Blvd in Denver is named, passed.

One of the 1918 epidemic tally?

The Soviets had apparently had enough of German encroachment and were now fighting back.

Perhaps the Germans should have thought that through. It's not as if they had a lot of spare men, after all.

That Bisbee thing was back in the news.

And airmail was getting rolling!

1921  The Great Solar Storm of 1921 was impacting the region.

The Great Solar Storm, which impacted most notably New York state in the US, also impacted the Rocky Mountain Region, as of course it would, being a global event.

It didn't keep, however, Curtiss Flying Field from opening in Garden City, New York, even though flying during a solar storm in something made out of, basically, paper and wood seems like a bad idea.

1930 Ellen Church, the first airline stewardess, went on duty aboard a United Airlines flight from San Francisco and Cheyenne, Wyo.

1942   Gas rationing limits US motorist to 3 gallons per week, except for those in critical industries.

1944  It was announced that Italians soldiers brought into the US as POWs would receive technical training at Ft. F. E. Warren.  By this time, the Italians were no longer prisoners, as Italy had first surrendered and then declared war on the Axis powers.  A fair number of Italian POWs had been brought into the US due to combat in North Africa and Sicily.  In Wyoming, Italians were held in at least one location, that being the POW camp at Douglas.  They painted the murals there, which still exist in the one surviving building from the POW camp.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1944 USS Crook County commissioned.

1975  F. E. Warren (D. A. Russell) designated a National Historic Landmark District.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1978  Significant flooding occured throughout the state resulting in over $15,000,000  in damage in 1978 dollars.

1986  The Jack Creek Guard Station outside of Saratoga added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1990  The Remount Ranch in Laramie County added to the National Register of Historic Places.  It had been owned by Mary O'Hara, author of My Friend Flicka.  Her husband at the time had raised Remounts for sale to the Army, although the ranch largely raised sheep.

2020  The Legislature convened in a special session to deal with Coronavirus Pandemic emergency funding.

March 2

1836  Texas declared independence from Mexico.

1836  The city of Wyoming Illinois founded by General Samuel Thomas.

1861  Congress created the Dakota and Nevada Territories out of the Nebraska and Utah territories.  Wyoming was part of the Dakota Territory at that time.

1868  General Grant issued an order to abandon Fort Reno Fort Kearny, and Fort C. F. Smith on the Bozeman Trail.  The fort abandonments were byproducts of the end of Red Cloud's War, which is regarded as the only Plains Indian War won by the native combatants.

The closure of the posts was not instant.  It was winter in Wyoming and Montana and the actual closings occurred in the summer.

1888  The territorial legislature overroad a public works bill's veto by Governor Moonlight.  The bill was for the construction of public buildings and Moonlight had been worried about excessive expenditures.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1890  Ft. Laramie's status as an active Army post ended.

 Ruin of cement building at Ft. Laramie.  Ft. Laramie was unusual for its era in that cement buildings were actually constructed on its grounds in the 1840s.

1891  The American Exchange Bank opened in Casper.

1899 Wyoming volunteers moved to trenches on the Pasig River in the Philippines.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1915  Seventh Judicial District created by the Legislature.The Seventh Judicial District encompasses Natrona County.

1917   The Cheyenne Leader for March 2, 1917: National Guardsmen having a good time at Ft. D. A. Russell.
 

After the early spat about it, Colorado Guardsmen, we learned were having a good time at Ft. D. A. Russell.  Wyoming Guardsmen were about to arrive there.

Keep in mind that Wyoming Guardsmen were not allowed to muster there when they were called into service, oddly enough.  The post is just outside of Cheyenne.  But they were being allowed to demuster there.

And, in other news, things were looking pretty grim following the release of the Zimmerman Note, which makes a person wonder why the Federal Government was demustering troops that logic dicated they'd be calling back into service shortly.

1920   Joseph Wisniewski, a Polish immigrant living in New Acme, received a patent for a roller skate.

1943 The Pepsi Cola bottling plant in Douglas was damaged by fire.  While soft drink bottling plant operations are not unknown in the state now, at that time smaller ones were more common.  Casper had a Coca Cola bottling plant.

1947   Grace H. Emerson, Wyoming's first woman deputy state auditor, died.

2011  Governor Matt Mead signed a bill amending Wyoming's concealed firearms laws to allow for carry without a permit by those who would be qualified under the law to obtain a permit.  

2002  Largest crowd, to date, to watch a basketball game in the University of Wyoming's Arena Auditorium. The game was played between Wyoming and Utah.  Wyoming won 57 to 56.