A glass of Mishap! Brewing Company's dark double IPA in a Seward Alaska
Brewing Company glass. A Wyoming beer in an Alaskan glass, sort of a
small scale Distributist brewing triumph on National Beer Day.
Today, as it turns out, is National Beer Day.
National Beer Day?
Yes, it's National Beer Day.
According to Time magazine, this day came about as it was the day when
the first step out of Prohibition, the Cullen-Harrison Act, came into
effect. As time notes, about that act, and the day.
National Beer Day’s origins go as far back as 1919, when Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the sale, transportation, and production of alcohol in the U.S. This marked the start of the Prohibition era, which made many Americans turn to creative ways to enjoy their illicit beverages.
And so, the day is celebrated on April 7, the first day you could pour a glass of amber goodness into a glass, legally, for fourteen years.But 14 years later, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office, Americans were in for a change when he signed into action the Cullen-Harrison Act, which once again made selling and consuming low-alcohol beverages like beer and wine legal in the U.S.
The Volstead Act and the supporting Constitutional amendment, as noted, came in during 1919, so we're almost at the centennial of that. That certainly has its lessons, not all of them obvious, but here on National Beer Day we might note that Prohibition was arguably a byproduct of World War One, although there'd been a strong movement in that direction for decades. The war, however, pushed Prohibition over the top for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that there was a strong fear that American troops would come back from the war exposed to all sorts of terrible things, such as death, violence, French women, and wine. There wasn't much that could be done about death, violence and French women, but there was something that could be done about wine and everything alcoholic, so Prohibition got a bit boost.
Added to that, beer was associated, somewhat unfairly, with enemies of the Allies, most particularly the Germans, but also Irish nationalist. Everything German was really getting dumped on during the Great War, and only Irish resilience and the fact that the Irish were clearly fighting with the Allies even if some were fighting against the British kept that from occurring to them. And the fact that the United States was going through a grain conservation mania also weighed in. So, beer, along with every other form of alcohol, became a casualty of the war, although it was taking hits before.
But beer would be the first back, and nearly everywhere, as Prohibition started getting stepped back out following the election of Franklin Roosevelt. Nonetheless, it was pretty wounded. Piles of regional and local breweries died with Prohibition came in, their brews, and the jobs they'd provided to brew them, gone with the Volstead Act. American beer, which didn't have the greatest reputation in the world anyhow, but which had developed some strong regional brews of quality, really took a pounding and when it came back out of Prohibition there was much less variety. Indeed, American beer wouldn't be much to write about until the local micro brew boom of the 1980s, a good fifty years after it became legal to brew it once again.
Now, of course, the story is radically changed and the United States is the center of beer experimentation. Weird brews take their place along side every variety of traditional European brews including a good many the average European has no doubt never tried.
So, here's to the revival of American beer. Better than it ever was.
529 The first draft of the Corpus Juris Civilis is issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I. The compilation of Roman Law is the father of the later Code Napoleon and one of the foundations of European law.
1805 The Corps of Discovery breaks camp among the Mandans and resumes its journey west along the Missouri River.
1836 Skirmish between Texans and Mexican troops at San Felipe Ford.
1869 John Campbell sworn in as Wyoming's first Territorial Governor. Campbell had been a brevet Brigadier General in the Union Army during the Civil War, serving on Gen. John M. Shofield's staff. He would later serve in the office of the US Secretary of State and as American Counsel at Basel Switzerland before dying in 1880 at age 44.
1870 Residents of Miners Delight, lead by Captain (from the Civil War) Herman G. Nickerson, attacked a band of Arapaho lead by Black Bear, killing 14. The raid had intended to intercept and attack a party of Arapaho under Little Shield who had a attacked two residents of Miners Delight the day prior. Tension between locals and Arapahos on the Wind River Reservation had been high for several months. Black Bear's band, however, had merely been on its way to Camp Brown to trade.
1892 Dissension came to a head in the Johnson County Invasion resulting in Frank Wolcott resigning command of the expedition and ceding it to Tom Smith and Frank Canton, with Smith "commanding" the Texans. To add to their difficulties, a heavy snowstorm broke out.. The party broke into two groups with some men becoming lost in the process, including Wolcott who spent the night in a haystack as a result.
1916 Casper Weekly Press: April 7, 1916
The Casper Weekly Press was apparently the Friday edition of the paper.
1917 The Casper Daily Tribune for April 7, 1917. No panic here.
The Casper Daily Tribune is almost a shock compared to other papers in
the state this week. It didn't seem that worked up about the war.
It was starting off with the bold declaration that Casper, in the midst
of the World War One oil boom, was "the city wonderful". It predicated a
population of 15,000 in the next few years, which may or may not have
been a pleasant thought to long term residents, but as things would play
out, it's prediction was in fact lower than that which the city would
rise up to in the near future. The refinery depicted in the photo on
the bottom of the front page was much of the reason why. Already, as
the paper noted, residents who were returning to the town after an
absence were shocked to see how much it had changed.
Major Ormsby, that was his name, not his rank, was interviewed in the
paper about radios. Ormsby was a local rancher who is remembered today
for a road north of Casper that takes people to a rural subdivision,
although it might be more recalled by some as it goes past the oldest of
Casper's two strip joints (shades of what 1917 would bring in there).
At the time, however, that was all rural land and apparently Ormsby had a
radio set there. He was interviewed due to a rumor that his radio was
going to be taken over by the Navy, although the article notes he'd
heard no such rumor. He also hadn't listed to his radio for a long
time, apparently. The paper noted that the nearest commercial station
was in Denver, which was true, that being the very early predecessor to
KOA, which is still in business.
As the US plunged into war, the Leader was proclaiming that Wyoming could furnish the finest cavalry horses obtainable anywhere.
Actually, it already was.
Wyoming, in addition to experiencing a petroleum boom, was also experiencing a horse boom as horse ranchers, quite a few of them with English connections, had been been supplying the British, as well as the French, with horses for the war for years. Starting with the Punitive Expedition, it'd started doing the same for the United States. Not all of these horses were "finished" by any means, indeed most of them were not, something that came as a shock to their European users who were surprised by how green these horses were.
Added to his, of course, Wyoming had a major Remount station in Sheridan Wyoming, right in the heart of Wyoming's horse country, which would continue on through World War Two.
In that other boom, the oil boom, that had become so significant that the Leader was quoting the prices from the Casper exchange now on a daily basis.
1922 Ground broken for the town of Parco. Parco still exists, but it is now known as Sinclair, and is the site of the Sinclair Refinery. At the time of its founding, it was the location of a very nice hotel on the Lincoln Highway. The hotel's buildings still exist, but the hotel itself is long closed. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.
1922 U.S. Secretary of Interior leased Naval Reserve #3, "Teapot Dome," in Wyoming to Harry F. Sinclair.
1933 Prohibition repealed for beer of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight.
1943. On this day, the sale of coffee was banned in Cheyenne and Casper due to violations of wartime rationing restrictions.
1947 United States v. Wyoming, 311 U.S. 440 (1947) argued in front of the United States Supreme Court. The topic was the ownership of school sections, and the suit had been brought by the US against Wyoming due to a controversy regarding oil royalties.
1994 A 5.2 magnitude earthquake occurred 90 miles from Evanston, WY.
