Today In Wyoming's History: September 27. Disasters and ships.

From Today In Wyoming's History: September 27:

1923  Thirty railroad passengers were killed when a CB&Q train
wrecked at the Cole Creek Bridge, which had been washed out due to a
flood, in Natrona County.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical
Society.

1944 USS Natrona, a Haskell class attack transport, launched.

There's something in the county memorializing the latter (the ship's wheel, in the old courthouse), but not the former.

Such an awful disaster, you'd think there might be.

September 27

1821  Mexico obtains independence from Spain.

1886  Cornerstone of Old Main placed at the University of Wyoming.   Attribution:  On This Day.

1916   The Wyoming National Guard, what was it doing and where was it going?

I posted this item two years ago on the Mid Week at Work Thread.  It occurs to me that it may very well be appropriate for the Wyoming National Guard was going through in Cheyenne these few days, a century ago:

Mid-Week at Work: U.S. Troops in Mexico.

All around the water tank, waiting for a train
A thousand miles away from home, sleeping in the rain
I walked up to a brakeman just to give him a line of talk
He said "If you got money, boy, I'll see that you don't walk
I haven't got a nickel, not a penny can I show
"Get off, get off, you railroad bum" and slammed the boxcar door

He put me off in Texas, a state I dearly love
The wide open spaces all around me, the moon and the stars up above
Nobody seems to want me, or lend me a helping hand
I'm on my way from Frisco, going back to Dixieland
My pocket book is empty and my heart is full of pain
I'm a thousand miles away from home just waiting for a train.

Jimmy Rodgers, "Waiting for a Train".

As can be seen from my entry yesterday, there's some indication the Guard entrained on September 26, 1916.  And I've reported that elsewhere, years ago.  And maybe some did leave on September 26, but I now doubt it.

Rather, in looking at it more fully, the typical Army hurry up and wait seems to have been at work.  The Guard was supposed to entrain on September 26, but the cars didn't show up or didn't in adequate numbers.  It appears, also, that the Colorado National Guard was entraining at the same time, and that may have played a role in this.  Be that as it may, I now think the September 26 date that I have used, and others do use, in in error.

What seems to have happened is that most of the Guardsmen entrained on the night of September 27, late.

But where were they going?

That will play out here as well, but original reports in these papers said they were going to San Antonio. Then it was reported that nobody knew where they were going.

Well, they went to Deming New Mexico, which isn't far from where this all started off, in Columbus.

Rodgers didn't record Waiting For A Train until 1928, and he wasn't recording in 1916.  Too bad, this would have been a popular song with those troops.

The Cheyenne State Leader for September 27, 1916: Best laid plans?
 

The past couple of days the papers were reporting that the Guard would leave on September 26, but here the Cheyenne State Leader indicates that there's been some sort of delay, and the Guard was going to be leaving that day.

Did anyone leave?  Frankly, I"m not sure. The few sources I have aren't consistent.  Some report the first contingent did leave on September 26.  But this would suggest otherwise.

Elsewhere workers were discontent, and Greece appeared ready to enter World War One.

1918  The Meuse Argonne, the Sacrifice of Col. Cavendar and the Spanish Flu. The news of September 27, 1918.

Death in various forms had front and center position on the newspapers of September 27.

Of course, the big offensive on the Meuse Argonne, the second really major American offensive and the one that would carry the American effort through to the end of the war, took front and center position.  In that readers of the various major Wyoming newspapers learned that a Col. J. W. Cavendar, a Wyoming attorney in peacetime life, had been reported killed in action while leading the 148th Field Artillery, which was a unit made up of Wyoming National Guardsmen in part, together with other National Guardsmen from the Rocky Mountain Region.

Col Cavendar's loss also appeared on the front page of the Laramie Boomerang.

Manpower shortages also did with the news that the government wanted men out of jobs that women could do.

So much for the claim that Rosey the Riveter first appeared in World War Two.

The more sedate Cheyenne State Leader apparently didn't have the news about Col Cavendar when it went to press.  It featured the largest headline on the looming flu crisis, which really says something about it given that this was day two of the largest American offensive of the war.  The Leader also informed readers that if they died, they better not expect a fancy casket.

In Casper, readers of the Casper Daily Press received a lot of war news, and other news, on its busy front page, but it also learned that the flu was now in New Mexico's military camps, contrary to the news that generally had it only on the East Coast.  And it received the most prominent position on front page here as well.

The Casper Daily Tribune didn't worry about being sedate, and apparently it wasn't as worried as the other Casper paper about the flu.  The advance of the American effort, which in truth was already meeting with problems, brought out banner headlines.

Readers were also informed that Chile was getting into action against the Huns, rather late in the day frankly, which is how such things tend to go.  And the pipe dream of a return of the Russians to the Allied side also showed up in large form.

1923  Thirty railroad passengers were killed when a CB&Q train wrecked at the Cole Creek Bridge, which had been washed out due to a flood, in Natrona County.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

 

It was a horrific event.

Flooding had taken out the railroad bridge over Cole Creek near Casper, Wyoming, which was unknown to the railroad.   The night train to Denver approached the bridge on a blind curve, and the headlights detected its absence too late to stop the train.  Half of the people on the train were killed.

It's the worst disaster in Wyoming's railroad history.

1944 USS Natrona, a Haskell class attack transport, launched.

1954  The 300th AFA returned to State control, although the Wyoming Guardsmen had mostly returned quite some time ago, having served their full tour of duty.

1991   Quintin Blair House in Cody added to the National Register of Historic Places. Attribution:  On This Day.

1998  Google starts operation.

2001  A magnitude 4.3 earthquake occurred 80 miles from Lander. 

July 29

1776  Silvestre de Escalante and Francisco Dominguez, two Spanish Franciscan priests, leave Santa Fe for a journey through the Southwest.  Their journey would take them all the way to the Great Salt Lake and ultimately they would make a round trip of 1,700 miles in 159 days, although the journey would see them eating their horses in the end.

1872  First claimed assent of the Grand Teton.   Nathaniel P. Langford and James Stevenson made the claim, but it is disputed with some feeling that they reached a side peak.

1878  Thomas Edison and Henry Draper view a total eclipse of the sun from Rawlins.

1916   The Cheyenne Daily Leader for July 29, 1916. Hope on the border?
 

The Cheyenne Leader was reporting today that there appeared to be some hope that border difficulties might be mediated through a commission.  Of course, it can't help but be noted that Carranza, who appeared to be willing to do this, had not caused the original border difficulty in the first place and Villa wouldn't be participating.

Otherwise, Frontier Days was making the news, as was the Russian offensive on the Eastern Front.

1918  So it was Monday morning, July 29, 1918

And you picked up your morning paper and learned of the news from France. . . which seemed to reflect a turning of the tide.

1946  USS Natrona decommissioned.

1977 Cantonment Reno added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Elsewhere:  

1907    Sir Robert Baden-Powell forms the Boy Scout movement.

1932  The Bonus Army disperses and heads home.

1950 Lieutenant General Walton Walker, regarding the Pusan Perimeter,  issued his "stand or die" order to Eighth Army, declaring, "there will be no Dunkirk, there will be no Bataan."

1968  July 29, 1968. Humanae Vitae

2022  Pete Williams, Casper, Wyoming native, retired from his long time role as the Justice reporter for NBC news.

Williams had a very long career which stretched back to radio in Casper, starting off at KATI.  From there he went to KTWO radio and television.  In 1986, however, his career took a much different turn when he became a press spokesman and legislative assistant to then Congressman Dick Cheney.  He followed Cheney in that role into the Defense Department when he became Secretary of Defense.  He went to work for NBC in 1993.