September 25

1066  Harold II of England defeats an invasion by Harald Hardrada of Norway, at Stamford Bridge near York.  Amongst the dead were King Harald, who had lead an adventurous Viking life, and Tostig, King Harold's brother who had sided with the Norwegians.  This battle is overshadowed by the Battle of Hastings, but in this battle, just a few weeks earlier, King Harold Godwinson defeated King Harald Haardaada, the King of Norway

King Harald was a tall man for the era, and when he asked King Harold "How much of England will you give me." Harold famously replied "Six feet, as you are bigger than other men.".  That's what he got.

What's this have to do with anything, you might ask?  Well, Harold's forced march to Stamford bridge with Saxon levies, followed by the battle, is sometimes cited as fatiguing his troops, who then had to turn around shortly thereafter and march to Hastings.  Some recent scholarship has questioned that, but that assertion has been made.  The Norman victory lead to the introduction of feudalism in England, which produced the Common Law as we know it, including the Common Law as used in Wyoming's courts.

1493     Christopher Columbus set sail from Cadiz, Spain, with a flotilla of 17 ships on his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere.

1789     The first United States Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. (Ten of the amendments became the Bill of Rights.)

1909  August Malchow, the "Wisconsin Kid", of Havre Montana defended his world welterweight crown at the Methany Hall in Thermopolis.  The fight was against "Kid Erne" of Lewistown.  In  his professional career Malchow would go on to fight three more bouts, two of them also in the Methany Hall, with both of those being victories (one being a technicality, as it was a draw).  He would go on to loose in Sheridan in 1910 and he died in 1915 at age 30.

1912  USS Wyoming, BB-32, commissioned.

1916   Wyoming Tribune for September 25, 1916: Villa seeking alibi for Columbus Raid. Guard to go to San Antonio.
 

A dramatic Monday newspaper.

Villa looking for an alibi for Columbus.

The Guard to go to San Antonio.

Austria was without bread, and prohibitionist were submitting a bill to the Legislature to deprive the populace of booze.

1918  The Flu shares pride of place with the Great War and Villa, September 25, 1918.

The Spanish Flu, which would kill more Americans in 1918/19 than combat in Europe would, was now sufficiently newsworthy that it was making the front page day after day.  On this day, readers of the Casper paper woke up to find that as many as 30,000 cases of the particularly deadly and virulent flu strain had run through Army camps.

They also learned that Villa had returned to full violence in his war against Carranza.

In more positive news, Germany appeared to be collapsing.

Cheyenne's readers had equally disturbing news, including a claim that the Germans had returned to worshiping pagan gods in their desperation, a rather extreme claim to say the least.

1933  Memorial to June Downey, important early professor with widely varying interests, unveiled at the University of Wyoming.  In addition to writing poetry, teaching English, later psychology, and being a department head, she wrote the schools Alma Mater.

 Where the western lights' long shadows
Over the boundless prairies fling
And the mountain winds are vocal
With thy dear name, Wyoming.
There it is brown and yellow
Floats in loving loyalty,
And the College throws its portals
Open wide to all men free.

Refrain:
And so our songs we bring.
Our Alma Mater sing,
To her our hearts shall cling,
Shall cling forever more.

Yonder we can see it standing,
Circled by purple hills,
While the flaming fire of sunset
Every Western window fills;
'Tis the College! Ah, we know it!
Shrine of many joys and tears,
And the rays that light upon it
Are prophetic of its years.

1956     The first trans-Atlantic telephone cable went into service.

1963  John F. Kennedy spoke at the University of Wyoming.  His address:

Senator McGee--my old colleague in the Senate, Gale McGee--Governor, Mr. President, Senator Mansfield, Senator Metcalf, Secretary Udall, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to express my appreciation to you for your warm welcome, to you, Governor, to the President of the University, to Senator McGee, and others. I am particularly glad to come on this conservation trip and have an opportunity to speak at this distinguished university, because what we are attempting to do is to develop the talents in our country which require, of course, education which will permit us in our time, when the conservation of our resources requires entirely different techniques than were required 50 years ago, when the great conservation movement began under Theodore Roosevelt--and these talents, scientific and social talents, must be developed at our universities.

I hope that all of you who are students here will recognize the great opportunity that lies before you in this decade, and in the decades to come, to be of service to our country. The Greeks once defined happiness as full use of your powers along lines of excellence, and I can assure you that there is no area of life where you will have an opportunity to use whatever powers you have, and to use them along more excellent lines, bringing ultimately, I think, happiness to you and those whom you serve.

What I think we must realize is that the problems which now face us and their solution are far more complex, far more difficult, far more subtle, require a far greater skill and discretion of judgment, than any of the problems that this country has faced in its comparatively short history, or any, really, that the world has faced in its long history. The fact is that almost in the last 30 years the world of knowledge has exploded. You remember that Robert Oppenheimer said that 8 or 9 out of 10 of all the scientists who ever lived, live today. This last generation has produced nearly all of the scientific breakthroughs, at least relatively, that this world of ours has ever experienced. We are alive, all of us, while this tremendous explosion of knowledge, which has expanded the horizon of our experience, so far has all taken 'place in the last 30 years.

If you realize that when Queen Victoria sent for Robert Peel to be Prime Minister-he was in Rome--the journey which he took from Rome to London took him the same amount of time, to the day, that it had taken the Emperor Hadrian to go from Rome to England nearly 1900 years before. There had been comparatively little progress made in almost 1900 years in the field of knowledge. Now, suddenly, in the last 100 years, but most particularly in the last 30 years, all that is changed, and all of this knowledge is brought to bear, and can be brought to bear, in improving our lives and making the life of our people more happy, or destroying them. And that problem is the one, of course, which this generation of Americans and the next must face: how to use that knowledge, how to make a social discipline out of it.

There is really not much use in having science and its knowledge confined to the laboratory unless it comes out into the mainstream of American and world life, and only those who are trained and educated to handle knowledge and the disciplines of knowledge can be expected to play a significant part in the life of their country. So, quite obviously, this university is not maintained by the people of Wyoming merely to help all of the graduates enjoy a prosperous life. That may come, that may be a byproduct, but the people of Wyoming contribute their taxes to the maintenance of this school in order that the graduates of this school may, themselves, return to the society which helped develop them some of the talents which that society has made available, and what is true in this State is true across the United States.

The reason why, at the height of the Civil War, when the preservation of the Union was in doubt, Abraham Lincoln signed the Land Grant College Act, which has built up the most extraordinary educational system in the world, was because he knew that a nation could not exist and be ignorant and free; and what was true 100 years ago is more true today. So what we have to decide is how we are going to manage the complicated social and economic and world problems which come across our desks-my desk, as President of the United States; the desk of the Senators, as representatives of the States; the Members of the House, as representatives of the people.

But most importantly, as the final power is held by a majority of the people, how the majority of the people are going to make their judgment on the wise use of our resources, on the correct monetary and fiscal policy, what steps we should take in space, what steps we should take to develop the resources of the ocean, what steps we should take to manage our balance of payments, what we should do in the Congo or Viet-Nam, or in Latin America, all these areas which come to rest upon the United States as the leading great power of the world, with the determination and the understanding to recognize what is at stake in the world--all these are problems far more complicated than any group of citizens ever had to deal with in the history of the world, or any group of Members of Congress had to deal with.

If you feel that the Members of Congress were more talented 100 years ago, and certainly the Senators in the years before the Civil War included the brightest figures, probably, that ever sat in the Senate--Benton, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and all the rest-they talked, and at least three of them stayed in the Congress 40 years--they talked for 40 years about four or five things: tariffs and the development of the West, land, the rights of the States and slavery, Mexico. Now we talk about problems in one summer which dwarf in complexity all of those matters, and we must deal with them or we will perish.

So I think the chance for an educated graduate of this school to serve his State and country is bright. I can assure you that you are needed.

This trip that I have taken is now about 24 hours old, but it is a rewarding 24 hours because there is nothing more encouraging than for those of us to leave the rather artificial city of Washington and come and travel across the United States and realize what is here, the beauty, the diversity, the wealth, and the vigor of the people.

Last Friday I spoke to delegates from all over the world at the United Nations. It is an unfortunate fact that nearly every delegate comes to the United States from all around the world and they make a judgment on the United States based on an experience in New York or Washington; and rarely do they come West beyond the Mississippi, and rarely do they go to California, or to Hawaii, or to Alaska. Therefore, they do not understand the United States, and those of us who stay only in Washington sometimes lose our comprehension of the national problems which require a national solution.

This country has become rich because nature was good to us, and because the people who came from Europe, predominantly, also were among the most vigorous. The basic resources were used skillfully and economically, and because of the wise work done by Theodore Roosevelt and others, significant progress was made in conserving these resources.
The problem, of course, now is that the whole concept of conservation must change in the 1960's if we are going to pass on to the 350 million Americans who will live in this country in 40 years where 180 million Americans now live--if we are going to pass on a country which is even richer.

The fact of the matter is that the management of our natural resources instead of being primarily a problem of conserving them, of saving them, now requires the scientific application of knowledge to develop new resources. We have come to. realize to a large extent that resources are not passive. Resources are not merely something that was here, put by nature. Research tells us that previously valueless materials, which 10 years ago were useless, now can be among the most valuable natural resources of the United States. And that is the most significant fact in conservation now since the early 1900's when Theodore Roosevelt started his work. A conservationist's first reaction in those days was to preserve, to hoard, to protect every non-renewable resource. It was the fear of resource exhaustion which caused the great conservation movement of the 1900's. And this fear was reflected in the speeches and attitudes of our political leaders and their writers.

This is not surprising in the light of the technology of that time, but today that approach is out of date, and I think this is an important fact for the State of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain States. It is both too pessimistic and too optimistic. We need no longer fear that our resources and energy supplies are a fixed quantity that can be exhausted in accordance with a particular rate of consumption. On the other hand, it is not enough to put barbed wire around a forest or a lake, or put in stockpiles of minerals, or restrictive laws and regulations on the exploitation of resources. That was the old way of doing it.

Our primary task now is to increase our understanding of our environment to a point where we can enjoy it without defacing it, use its bounty without detracting permanently from its value, and, above all, maintain a living balance between man's actions and nature's reactions, for this Nation's great resources are as elastic and productive as our ingenuity can make them. For example, soda ash is a multimillion dollar industry in this State. A few years ago there was no use for it. It was wasted. People were unaware of it. And even if it had been sought, it could not be found--not because it wasn't here, but because effective prospecting techniques had not been developed. Now soda ash is a necessary ingredient in the production of glass, steel, and other products. As a result of a series of experiments, of a harnessing of science to the use of man, this great new industry has opened up. In short, conservation is no longer protection and conserving and restricting. The balance between our needs and the availability of our resources, between our aspirations and our environment, is constantly changing.

One of the great resources which we are going to find in the next 40 years is not going to be the land; it will be the ocean. We are going to find untold wealth in the oceans of the world which will be used to make a better life for our people. Science is changing all of our natural environment. It can change it for good; it can change it for bad. We are pursuing, for example, new opportunities in coal, which have been largely neglected--examining the feasibility of transporting coal by water through pipelines, of gasification at the mines, of liquefaction of coal into gasoline, and of transmitting electric power directly from the mouth of the mine. The economic feasibility of some of these techniques has not been determined, but it will be in the next decade. At the same time, we are engaged in active research on better means of using low grade coal, to meet the tremendous increase in the demand for coal we are going to find in the rest of this century. This is, in effect, using science to increase our supply of a resource of which the people of the United States were totally unaware 50 years ago.

Another research undertaking of special concern to this Nation and this State is the continuing effort to develop practical and feasible techniques of converting oil shale into usable petroleum fuels. The higher grade deposits in Wyoming alone are equivalent to 30 billion barrels of oil, and 200 billion barrels in the case of lower grade development. This could not be used, there was nothing to conserve, and now science is going to make it possible.

Investigation is going on to assure at the same time an adequate water supply so that when we develop this great new industry we will be able to use it and have sufficient water. Resource development, therefore, requires not only the coordination of all branches of science, it requires the joint effort of scientists, government--State, national, and local--and members of other professional disciplines. For example, we are now examining in the United States today the mixed economic-technical question of whether very large-scale nuclear reactors can produce unexpected savings in the simultaneous desalinization of water and the generation of electricity. We will have, before this decade is out or sooner, a tremendous nuclear reactor which makes electricity and at the same time gets fresh water from salt water at a competitive price. What a difference this can make to the Western United States. And, indeed, not only the United States, but all around the globe where there are so many deserts on the ocean's edge.

It is in efforts, I think, such as this, where the National Government can play a significant role, where the scale of public investment or the nationwide scope of the problem, the national significance of the results are too great to ignore or which cannot always be carried out by private research. Federal funds and stimulation can help make the most imaginative and productive use of our manpower and facilities. The use of science and technology in these fields has gained understanding and support in the Congress. Senator Gale McGee has proposed an energetic study of the technology of electrometallurgy--the words are getting longer as the months go on, and more complicated-an area of considerable importance to the Rocky Mountains.

All this, I think, is going to change the life of Wyoming and going to change the life of the United States. What we regard now as relative well-being, 30 years from now will be regarded as poverty. When you realize that 30 years ago r out of 10 farms had electricity, and yet some farmers thought that they were living reasonably well, now for a farm not to have electricity, we regard them as living in the depths of poverty. That is how great a change has come in 30 years. In the short space of 18 years, really, or almost 20 years, the wealth of this country has gone up 300 percent.

In 1970, 1980, 1990, this country will be, can be, must be--if we make the proper decisions, if we manage our resources, both human and material, wisely, if we make wise decisions in the Nation, in the State, in the community, and individually, if we maintain a vigorous and hopeful 'pursuit of life and knowledge--the resources of this country are so unlimited and science is expanding them so greatly that all those people who thought 40 years ago that this country would be exhausted in the middle of the century have been proven wrong. It is going to be richer than ever, providing we make the wise decisions and we recognize that the future belongs to those who seize it.

Knowledge is power, a saying 500 years old, but knowledge is power today as never before, not only here in the United States, but the future of the free world depends in the final analysis upon the United States and upon our willingness to reach those decisions on these complicated matters which face us with courage and clarity. And the graduates of this school will, as they have in the past, play their proper role.

I express my thanks to you. This building which 15 years ago was just a matter of conversation is now a reality. So those things that we talk about today, which seem unreal, where so many people doubt that they can be done--the fact of the matter is, it has been true all through our history--they will be done, and Wyoming, in doing it, will play its proper role.

Thank you.

1997   Guernsey State Park designated a National Historic Landmark.  Attribution:  On This Day.

September 24

1906   The First US National Monument, Devils Tower, was designated by President Theodore Roosevelt.

1911  Governor Richards daughter and son in law murdered at Richards' Red Banks ranch on the Nowood.

1916   Cheyenne Sunday State Leader for September 24, 1916: Guard awaits order to move to border
 

This story was repeating itself by this time, but the State's National Guard was expecting orders to move out.

Meanwhile, Army camps were proving to encourage theft, a common story, as it was found that National Guard items were making their way from Camp Kendrick to Cheyenne.
  

1918 

The Influenza Epedemic Abating? The Casper Daily Tribune, September 24, 1918.

The horrible disaster of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic was just starting to hit the front pages of Wyoming newspapers and here it's reported as abating.

Technically, it might have been. The flu had valleys and peaks, the epidemic rose and fell and then rose again.  It might actually have been in a declining state, but far from gone, in September 1918.

And a call went out for fruit pits to help counter poison gas. . . 

1919  Woodrow Wilson spoke in Cheyenne as part of his nationwide tour in support of the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles.

September 24, 1919. President Wilson in Cheyenne.

The Cheyenne State Leader lead with Wilson's arrival, also noting that the first vote didn't look promising for the League of Nations.

On this day in 1919, Woodrow Wilson, touring in support of the Versailles Treaty arrived in and was greeted by the City of Cheyenne.

The Laramie Boomerang noted the President had in fact been in Laramie and at about the time it had predicted the day prior.  But he only remained in town for ten minutes and chose not to make a middle of the night speech.

He was in Laramie first, where he did not speak. But he did acknowledge the crowed in the early morning hours.

Cheyenne gave the touring President a big welcome, as had other cities he'd been in.

Casper's paper got the time wrong.  Note the use of Simplified Spelling for Cheyenne, which was a movement at the time.

Wilson was only 63 years old, but he looked older, worn down by the the burdens of his Presidency, and this schedule was grueling and soon to prove too taxing.

His next stop was Pueblo, Colorado.

1937  President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered an address from the back of a train in Thermopolis.  He would travel through Cheyenne and Casper on the same day.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

September 21

1890   It was reported that every county in the state elected a female school superintendent.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1897     The New York Sun ran an editorial that answered a question from 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon: "Is there a Santa Claus?"  Suffice it to say, this annually run article was run a bit earlier in the year than generally supposed.

1904   Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph dies on the Colville reservation in northern Washington at the age of 64.

1909  Municipal natural gas service starts in Basin. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1916   The Cheyenne Leader for September 21, 1916. State Troops Expect Orders
 

During this week Wyoming would receive visits from both William Jennings Bryan and Charles Everett Hughes.  Included in the big news, however, was that the Wyoming National  Guard was expected to go to the border.

1917   The Wyoming National Guard had gone to the Mexican boarder as infantry. . . 
 

and they'd been mobilized in 1917 as such as well.

But they wouldn't be going to France as infantry.

Today the news hit that the unit was being disbanded and reformed into artillery, machinegun, and ammunition train units.

I'm  not sure what happened to the machinegun and ammunition train elements, or if those actually happened. They likely did.  I do know, however, that the artillery unit was in fact formed and is strongly associated with the Wyoming Guard during the Great War.

This was not uncommon.  As the Army grew, the Army would be taking a lot of smaller units such as this and reconstituting them as something else. Both Regular Army and Guard units experienced this.

It's hard to know what the men thought of this.  A lot, but not all, had served and trained as infantry just the prior year along the border.  Did they have a strong attachment to it?  Hard to know.  Were some relieved, perhaps, that their role, in some instances, wouldn't involve serving as infantrymen in the trenches?  We don't know that either.

1918   A victory against the Turks . . . and the Flu spreads. Casper Daily Tribune, September 21, 1918.
 

1920  A  committee of Dubois businessmen was formed to support road and other improvement efforts. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Dubois in 1920

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.

September 11

Today is Patriot Day

1842   Mexico sent 12,000 troops to capture San Antonio from Texas, which it refused to recognize as an independent nation.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1890  First election in Wyoming to elect state office holders.  Francis E. Warren elected Governor.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1902  Future Wyoming Governor William Bradford Ross married future Wyoming Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross in Omaha, Nebraska.

1908  Lovell and Kane hit by tornado.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1916

The Sheridan Enterprise for September 11, 1916

 

And in Sheridan too, the Quebec bridge disaster was front page news.

News was traveling fast.

The headline writer for the Sheridan paper had some fun with Greece, noting that it was "being clubbed into love for Entente Allies", which is pretty much correct.

The Sheridan paper had a big article on the Punitive Expedition which noted the American foray into Santa Clara Canyon.  General Pershing was quoted, which he had not been for some time. Quite obviously, in spite of the type of stalemate that was going on in Mexico, the US Army was still operating far afield from its supply base, as the article notes.

The Laramie Republican for September 11, 1916

The Quebec bridge disaster was also reported the day it occurred in Laramie, testament to how quickly news was now able to be reported.

Also in that news was a report of the ongoing failure to capture or corral Pancho Villa.

And the founding of what would become Tie Siding, outside of Laramie, a tie treatment plant and later a major environmental clean up location, was also in the news.  And the crisis in Greece over World War One made front page news in the Gem City.

The Wyoming Tribune for September 11, 1916
 

The bridge disaster in Quebec managed to make the front page the very day it happened, which is truly remarkable.  The big news for Wyoming, however, was the failure of the Stock Raising Homestead Act to pass to pass on its first attempt.  The act, a modification of the series of Homestead Acts dating back to the 1860s, was important for those in Wyoming agriculture and therefore extremely big news.  Particularly as the entire West was in the midst of a homesteading boom at this time.

Something was also going on with a "border patrol", which wouldn't mean the agency we think of when we hear those terms, as it did not yet exist. 

The Quebec Bridge Collapse. September 11, 1916
 

LOC Caption:  Photograph shows the Quebec Bridge across the lower St. Lawrence River. After a collapse of the original design a second design was constructed the center span of the second design collapsed as it was being raised into position on September 11, 1916 killing eighteen workers. (Source: Flickr Commons project)

1918  I'm sure that would have been an illegal order. . .

but at least one order quite similar to that was in fact issued by the American high command during the war, although it wasn't quite what this notes, but it was quite near it.

And trouble was breaking out in the German ranks. . . .

1988  First snows in Yellowstone National Park began to dampen the huge forest fire going on there since July.

2001  The United States is attacked by Al Queda terrorist in an airborne assault in which four aircraft are hijacked. Two are crashed into the World Trade Towers in New York City, causing great loss of life.  A third is crashed into the Pentagon, whose massive construction absorbed a surprising amount of the damage.  Oddly, September 11 was the 60th anniversary of the groundbreaking for the Pentagon.  The passengers of the fourth aircraft learned of the terrorist attacks while in flight, overpowered the hijackers, and the plane crashed in the ensuing struggle.

Contrary to some common assumptions, the Al Queda attack was not the first attack on the United States made by the organization.  It earlier had attacked the US ship the USS Cole, an American Embassy in Kenya, and had attempted to destroy the World Trade Towers through explosives before. This attacked differed in its scale, and that it caused the United States to regard itself as being at war with the organization, although the organization had been engaged in a campaign against the US dating back to the first Gulf War, during which it's leader, Osama  Bin Laden, had become angered over the presence of US forces in the Arabian Peninsula.  Al Queda mistakenly believed that the structures were critical to the US economy and that their destruction would cripple it. 

The resulting military efforts of the US and its Allies have, as a result, been greatly reduced in effectiveness and its leader, Osama Bin Laden, died in a US strike this past year.
 

August 13

1806  John Colter honorably discharged from the U.S. Army two months early in order to allow him to depart the Corps of Discovery and lead two trappers back up the Upper Missouri.

1868  Alonzo M. Clark, Wyoming's Governor from 1931 to 1933,  born in Flint, Indiana.  He was a teacher by profession and was Secretary of State at the time of Frank Emerson's death, which caused him to assuem the role of Governor.   Attribution:  On This Day.

1869  First Republican Party Convention in the state held at Point of Rocks. First Democratic Party Convention held at Rawlins.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1896  The Wild Bunch rob a bank in Montpelier Idaho, the first crime attributed to them.

1898  Colorado and Wyoming volunteer infantry raise the US flag for the first time over Manila.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1916:  Cheyenne Sunday Leader, August 13,1916: Deutschland Sunk?, Guard to the border, Wyoming Guard sure it will go.
 

Lots of sobering news in this Sunday edition of the Leader.  Guard to deploy, French and Russian gains in Europe, and the Deutschland reported potentially sunk. She wasn't and would survive the war.

The weather was going to be partly cloudy with a chance of rain, much like our weather today, a century later. 

 Sheridan State Enterprise, August 13, 1916. All National Guardsmen to deploy to the border.

 

All Guardsmen were ordered deployed to the border, and the situation with Mexico appeared to be getting a bit more tense again.

Meanwhile, the Russians and French were reported gaining in the war in Europe, and a front page cartoon worried that Japan was taking US trade while the US focused on war production for Europe.

The Basin Republican for August 13, 1916. "Great Scott Woodrow! I've been Up in the Air Almost Four Years!"

 

As we'll see with the two following posts, the Basin Republican was one of the local papers that must not have subscribed to a wire service, and therefore published almost all local news.  It did, however, in this election year run an add directed at Woodrow Wilson, captioned "Great Scott Woodrow!  I've been Up in the Air Almost Four Years!"

1919  August 13, 1919. Rawlins to the Red Desert.

If the diarist had found the prior day a bleak one, he most definitely did today.

The roads in Wyoming were, simply put, bad and the Lincoln Highway at this time made wide use of an an abandoned Union Pacific railroad bed, that being, undoubtedly, the bed of the original transcontinental rail line which is visible throughout its old course, both in the form of the bed itself and on the ash path on either side of it.  So going was slow, and at one point a very wide detour had to be made.

At the end of the day, for the first time on the trip, the convoy camped out in an unoccupied area with no nearby towns or cities.  This is probably the camp at which Dwight Eisenhower famously told the party to expect an Indian attack as a joke.

In other military endeavors, ammunition ships that were started before the war continued to be finished.

Man-o-War, the racehorse named after a type of ship, was defeated for the first time on this day in 1919 by a horse named, appropriately enough, Upset

1922  Sunday, August 12, 1922. The news.

Quite the news day, really.

The Herald started off with the harrowing news of trains marooned in the Southwest, due to ongoing labor problems.

 

We're reminded by the page below that there was once an elected position of "County Surveyor". This has obviously gone by the wayside, which raises the question of what other elective offices are really obsolete as elective offices today.

Rules were changing for football.

And airplane rides were for the offering.

I'd forgotten there was once a town called "Teapot".

The Herald wanted to keep the Union Pacific brand off of the range.  

Recently, of course, the state had an opportunity to buy the checkerboard from the UP's successor in interest and blew it.

A Colorado newspaper was happy with something Governor Carey had done, but what it was, I really don't know.

A restaurant was holding a contest for a name.

Charles Winter was running for office.  His son, who lived to nearly be 100, worked in my office building nearly up to that very age.

The train situation, we'd note, wasn't only in the Herald.

1927  Tim McCoy began filming the movie "Wyoming".  He moved to Wyoming after college, and was briefly the AG of the Wyoming National Guard. Attribution:  On This Day.

August 10

1821  Missouri admitted to the Union.  As part of this event,  most of Wyoming becomes part of unorganized U.S. territory.

1867  Cheyenne's first municipal election.  On the same day, in the same town, the post office at the corner of Ferguson (Carey Avenue) and Seventeenth streets opened. Attribution:  On This Day.

1886  Cavalry arrived at Yellowstone to police the park.

1896  William H. Harrison born in Terra Haute, Indiana.  He was Wyoming's Congressman from 1951 to 1956, from 1961 to 1965 and 1967 to 1969.  The Indiana born lawyer had been in Indiana's legislature in the 1920s, before moving to Wyoming where he first entered politics by being a Representative to the state legislature from Sheridan County.  He came from a family with long political roots, with his great-great-great grandfather Benjamin Harrison V being a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence,  his great-great grandfather William Henry Harrison being the 9th U.S. President and his grandfather Benjamin Harrison being the 23rd U.S. President.  In his retirement he relocated to Florida.

1912  Congress appropriated $45,000 for the purchase of lands and maintenance of a winter elk refuge in Jackson Hole where ranchers, and then the State, had been undertaking feeding the elk during winter.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1916   The Cheyenne State Leader for August 10, 1916. One battalion to be ordered to the border.
 

One battalion of the Wyoming National Guard looked to be deployed.  The Guard was nearly one soldier short, however, due to an elopement, one of quite a few that these papers reported on.

And, the World War One homesteading boom was really on.

1916   The local weather, August 10, 1916
 

Because its in keeping with the focus of this blog, and because I just realized another way to find it.

Lander, WY 

High of 69.1°F and low of 28.9°F.

Cheyenne, WY
High of 73°F and low of 51.1°F.

Sheridan, WY
High of 75°F and low of 48°F.

Nice temperatures during the day,and in Lander and Sheridan, cool temperatures at night. 

1917   The Food and Fuel Control Act of 1917 (Lever Act) becomes law
 

On this date in 1917 the controversial Food and Fuel Control Act became law.  Popularly known as the Lever Act, the law created two wartime agencies, the United States Food Administration and the United States Fuel Administration.

 

United States Fuel Administration poster.

Both agencies were provided with the ability to regulate prices and attempt to control supply in an effort to make sure that adequate stocks of these vital items were available to citizens and industry.

 Poster aimed at immigrants by the United States Food Administration.

The United States Food Administration was headed by Herbert Hoover who was appointed by Woodrow Wilson.  Remembered commonly now only for his unsuccessful Presidency, Hoover was a very capable businessman and civil servant.

Herbert Hoover in 1917.

Harry A. Garfield, the son of James Garfield, a lawyer and academic was appointed head of the Fuel Administration.  It's interesting to note that Hoover may have seemed the more logical candidate for this post, as he was a geologist.

Harry A. Garfield as Fuel Administration chief.

The Fuel Administration was organized on a state by state basis.  By January 1918, in spite of its efforts, fuel supplies were short enough that "Idle Mondays" were ordered for non essential industries.  The crisis in supply was not immediately alleviated by the wars end, and the agency continued to operate until 1922 when it was deemed no longer needed and passed out of existence.

 

Hoovers Food Administration performed a similar role in regards to the food supply.  A special grain purchasing agent, the United States Grain Corporation, was formed and operated under it specifically to purchase and regulate the supply of grain.  The agency largely passed into a new entity, the American Relief Administration, with the war's end, although the United States Grain Corporation continued on with some functions, including supplying relief wheat to Russia, until it was eliminated in 1927.

 

Like the Fuel Administration, the Food Administration took towards having "less" days, such as meathless, wheatless and porkless days.  As I've mentioned on prior posts, this must have seemed like an added burden for Catholic and Orthodox Americans, who already had fast days that included at least two out of the three of these.

 

People were also urged to garden at home (something already widely done), to eat fish instead of meat, and to use oats and corn where possible, rather than wheat.

 

The approach of both agencies was considerably different than that adopted by the later Democratic Administration of World War Two, which frankly might be telling in some ways.  Rationing was never enacted on a national level, although at least one state, Montana, did enact it on a state level, so perhaps that shows it proved its efficiency in another way.

Both agencies resulted in a large number of dramatic well done posters, from what must be regarded as the golden age of American posters, and to the extent they're remembered today, that tends to be why.  But both were major entities during the Great War and controversial ones at that.  Their existence shows the extent to which Americans of that era were willing to depart from normal concepts of business and economy during the war, and the extent to which resources were truly very tight at that time and people lived closer to the margins on a wider scale.

1918  Huns Retreat. Lonely Hearts at D. A. Russell. Doggerel in the Oil Patch. The news of August 10, 1918.

All the news fit to print, and then some.

On this Saturday morning in sunny Wyoming, 1918, readers around the state were reading of the huge change in fortunes for the Allies, who were now advancing rapidly towards the German frontier.  But other news crowded and shoved onto the front pages of the state's various newspapers as well.

In Casper, Casperites were greeted with the news that the local Home Guard was going to complete the issuance of rifles.

At Cheyenne's Ft. D. A. Russell readers learned that a lonely soldier was seeking a girl measuring 5 to 5.5 feet who was not a drunkard.  The publishing suitor noted that he measured 5 feet 4.5 inches high and had well to do parents, and was seeking a Cheyenne girl to marry.

A less chivalrous character in Virginia testified at trial that he wouldn't serve in the war even if the Turks landed on our shores and carried our women off to bondage.  My goodness.

In grimmer news, a medical officer who was formerly stationed at Ft. D. A. Russell was found dead in San Antonio, shot in the head.

Wyoming Oil World, a newspaper rather obviously dedicated to the petroleum industry, found itself moved to verse on this day in 1918, although not very good verse.  The subject was the dread Powder River, Let'r Buck war cry of Wyomingites.

1919  August 10, 1919. The Motor Transport Convoy rests in Laramie.

The Motor Transport Convoy spent their Sunday in Laramie on this day in 1919.

The weather was "fair and cool", which would be a good description of most summer days in high altitude Laramie, which has some of the nicest summer weather in Wyoming.  Wind and rain in the late afternoon is a typical feature of the summer weather there.

1950   The Plymouth Oiler baseball team from Sinton, Texas played the Worland, Wyoming, Indians in the first no-hit, no-run game in National Baseball Congress history.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1954  The Can-A-Pop beverage company of Sheridan announced it was moving to Denver.

1956  A contract was signed for the construction of the first uranium processing mill in Wyoming.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1988    President Ronald Reagan signed a bill providing reparations Japanese-Americans interred by the U.S. government during World War II.  One of the interment camps was at Hart Mountain, Wyoming, which is near Cody.