November 10

1833  Thomas Moonlight was born in Forfarshire, Scotland. He was appointed Territorial Governor of Wyoming in1886.

1835  Delegates gathered at San Felipe de Austin in Texas agreed to establish a provisional government for the region.

1882  Frank Aloysius Barrett was born in Omaha Nebraska.  He served in the Balloon Corps in World War One, and then moved to Lusk Wyoming in 1919.. He was a U.S. Representative, a U .S. Senator and the 21st Governor of Wyoming.

His son, James E. Barrett, was a senior judge of the United States Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Circuit and former judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review in Washington, D.C. who died on November 7, 2011.

1888  A pipeline for the conveyance of oil from Casper to Omaha Nebraska was proposed.

1907  Fire destroyed the area north of Big Horn Avenue in Worland.

1916   The Casper Weekly Tribune for November 10, 1916: Fine Wilson Sweep
 

1918  Countdown on the Great War, November 10, 1918: A Socialist Provisional Government forms in Germany, the Naval War continues on, and Mildred Harris weds.

American engineers constructing a bridge in a ruined French city.  November 10, 1918.

1.  The HMS Ascot, a minesweeper, was sunk by the UB-67 with the loss of 51 hands.  The HMT Renarro, a British Navy trawler hit a mine and sank as did the Italian 36PN torpedo boat.

2.  Romania, which earlier surrendered to Germany, came back into the war in order to retake territory it had lost in the peace to Bulgaria. Allied forces entered Svishtov and Nikopol in Bulgaria.

3.  The Council of the People's Deputies becomes the provisional government of Germany with the aim of negotiating a peace with the Allies.  It's membership is completely comprised of members of the Social Democratic Party and the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany, making it a highly left wing ruling body, which came about when the SDP, which had evolved into a much less radical party in recent years, co-opted some revolutionary councils the day prior after it found it could not stop them from pushing forward.  The inclusion of the USDP was a distasteful necessity at first, even though the SDP did not see eye to eye on most things.

This essentially meant that to a degree the aims of the German revolutionaries had been partially recognized and in fact a government partially installed by them was in power, although one that had, due to the SDP, much less radical aims than the USDP.  The government would sweep away Germany's tiered franchise and introduce many liberal reforms before yielding to the Reichstag in 1919, by which time the USDP had pulled out of the government and the SDP was ruling alone.   The SDP under Friedrich Ebert, it's leader, would find itself thereafter increasingly aligned with Germany's conservative elements and it even would rely upon the Freikorps to take on left wing revolutionaries during the German civil war.

4.  With the war winding down, even celebrity news, albeit local celebrity news, started to reappear on the front page of the papers.

The Cheyenne girl was Mildred Harris.  As we've reported on her before:

Mildred Harris.  Her entry in Today In  Wyoming's History:  

1901  Mildred Harris, movie actress, born in Cheyenne.  She was a significant actress in the silent film era, having gone from being a child actor to a major adult actress, but had difficulty making the transition to talking pictures.

Harris is also evidence that, in spite of my notation of changes in moral standards elsewhere, the lives of movie stars has often been as torrid as they are presently.  Harris married Charlie Chaplin in 1918, at which time she was 17 years old and the couple thought, incorrectly, that  she was pregnant.  She did later give birth during their brief marriage to a boy who was severely disabled, and who died only three days after being born.  The marriage was not a happy one.  They divorced after two years of marriage, and she would marry twice more and was married to former professional football player William P. Fleckenstein at the time of her death, a union that had lasted ten years.  Ironically, she appeared in three films in 1920, the year of her divorce, as Mildred Harris Chaplin, the only films in which she was billed under that name. While an actress probably mostly known to silent film buffs today, she lived in some ways a life that touched upon many remembered personalities of the era, and which was also somewhat stereotypically Hollywood.  She introduced Edward to Wallis Simpson.

She died in 1944 at age 42 of pneumonia following surgery.  She has a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  A significant number of her 134 films are lost or destroyed due to film deterioration.  Her appearances in the last eight years of her life were minor, and unaccredited, showing the decline of her star power in the talking era.

Stories like hers, however, demonstrate that the often held concept of great isolation of Wyomingites was never true.  Harris was one of at least three actors and actresses who were born in Wyoming and who had roles in the early silent screen era.  Of those, she was arguably the most famous having risen to the height of being a major actress by age 16.

1943  An explosion at the Sinclair Refinery in Sinclair insured five.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1945  Heart Mountain interment center closed.

1969  Judge Ewing T. Kerr heard testimony in the action brought in support of the Black 14.  The Court took the matter under advisement.

1978  Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail was established.

1997  The Wyoming Air National Guard commenced operations in Operation Tempest Rapid No. 1, a firefighting mission to Indonesia.  Flying until December 5, the unit would fly 250 missions in the U.S. Air Force's first overseas firefighting mission.

October 28

1835  Texas forces fought Mexican forces at the battle of Concepción.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1897  The Congregational Church in Sheridan became the first church in Northern Wyoming to be heated with a furnace.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1919  Lex Anteinternet: Today in History. October 28, 1919: The Volstead Act goes into effect. Booze, banned. The movement to ban alcohol had really been around for a good twenty or so years, and...

Oh, the shame of it all.

Wyoming had actually been "dry" since July 1, showing the strength of the growing movement.  Ironically, Wyoming would be quite non-compliant with Prohibition, in spite of having voted for it locally and nationally, during the national Prohibition.

 Poster expressing the sentiments of the dry movement.

Wyoming's Senator F. E. Warren was instrumental in the passage of the Volstead Act, which he supported, having cast the deciding vote in its passage.

1921  Eula Kendrick, the wife of Wyoming Senator John B. Kendrick, was photographed on the street in Washington D. C. on this day.

Mrs. Kendrick had been born in Round Rock, Texas in 1872 and was fifteen years Mr. Kendrick's junior.  Kendrick was also from Texas, and raised in a ranching family, Mrs. Kendrick, née Wulfjen, indicates that at the time of their marriage Greeley Colorado was her home.

The couple had two children and it was really Mrs. Kendrick who was the primary mansion of their famous Sheridan home, "Trail's End".  Mr. Kendrick's political career took off shortly after it was built, and he accordingly resided in it very little.

She far outlived her husband, dying in San Antonio in 1961.

The couple's daughter Rosa-Maye was also photographed at the same time.

She was sixteen years old on the day the family moved into Trail's End, and she would ultimately marry Hubert R. Harmon, an Army officer who courted her for five years prior to their marriage.  Harmon was an Army aviator and rose to the rank of Lt. General, making the switch to the U.S. Air Force when that service was separated.  She would publish a book of letters from London after she and her husband lived there, during which time he was posted there as a military attaché.  

Gen. Harmon was instrumental in the establishment of the United States Air Force Academy.  He was interned there following his death as was she, when she passed away in 1979.

1926  The Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody formed.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1928   Rancher N. K. Boswell of Albany County organized a "Vigilance Committee" to deal with the "unruly element" in Laramie.  Apparently several lynchings occurred.  The Albany County town of Boswell is named for him.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1933  The Wyoming Highway Patrol announced that its cards would be painted black and white.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1982  Ronald Reagan spoke at a rally for Senator Malcolm Wallop in Casper.  Attribution:  On This Day.

2011  This blog was created, and the first entry was made.

The blog has evolved a fair amount since 2011, with many more entries on a daily basis.  The very first idea was simply to note interesting items when they came up, but that concept quickly changed.  The next plan was to get one full year in, which was done as of yesterday, but for at least now the plan is to update the old entries daily, adding new items as they are discovered, and in a fashion that will keep the old comments so that they are not lost.

When the blog was started it was hoped that not only would this blog serve as a daily record of events in the state, but it would also spark commentary on items, and that people might come in and add others they were aware of. It has only been partially successful in these regards. While there are a fair number of comments on various anniversaries, there are no added dates posted by somebody who happened to stop in.  I hope that changes a bit over time.

I also hope that people continue to enjoy the blog.  I know that people do stop in, although it can't be said that this blog is "viral" by any extent.

October 27

 Today is Navy Day

1817  Fransisco Xavier Mina's force defeated at Venadito, Mexico, by Spanish forces.  Attribution:   On This Day.

1858 Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, North Dakota rancher, and hunter in Wyoming was born in New York City.

1862  Captain Peter Van Winkle, 6th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, reported that he had 28 men on station, had completed quarters and had completed construction of a stable, at Platte Bridge Station.  The location was not an entirely new one, as it was the location of Guinards Bridge on the Oregon Trail and had periodically been occupied by the Army previously.  His construction efforts, which essentially completed the original post, were new, however.  He also reported that he had sufficient stores of food to last until April, although the size of his command would double by the end of the week.

1867  Troops from Ft. D. A. Russell destroyed squatters shanties on the Union Pacific line near Cheyenne.

1873 Joseph F. Glidden applied for a patent on barbed wire. Barbed wire would have a huge impact on the western range.

1880 Theodore Roosevelt married Alice Lee.

1918  Ed Herschler born in Kemmerer. He was governor from 1975 to 1987.

1922  The Schwartz Brothers Haberdashers store opened in Cheyenne.   Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1933 Ernest Hemingway's collection of short stories "Winner Take Nothing", including "Wine of Wyoming", was published.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1943   1,281 people in Lusk registered for Ration Book IV.  The Big Piney Examiner published the application form in its newspaper for the same several days earlier and many newspaper around the country ran articles in their papers about the application dates for the new ration book, such as the Tulia Herald in Texas. 

This book replaced No. 3, an example of which is below:

1947     "You Bet Your Life," starring Groucho Marx, premiered on ABC Radio.

2009  A funeral service for former Governor Clifford Hanson was held in Jackson's St. John's Episcopal Church.

 

October 21

1803  The Senate authorized President Jefferson to take possession of the Louisiana Territory and establish a temporary military government for the territory.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1822  The first chartered bank west of the Mississippi, and the first in territory that included a part of Wyoming, was established inn San Antonio, Texas by Mexican Governor José Félix Trespalacios. Attribution:  On This Day.

1866 Fort Philip Kearny completed.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1872  Construction at the Territorial Prison in Laramie completed.

1873  Wyoming, Iowa, incorporated.

1909  The cornerstone for Jireh College, in Jireh was laid. Jireh College was a Protestant College that no longer exists.  The town likewise no longer exists.  It's history was relatively short, but it featured a combined effort to create a Christian school with a farming community.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1941  It was reported on this day that 53 Wyoming public school teachers were called to military service, a significant number given the population of the state.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1995  State hit by a statewide blizzard.

October 9

Today is Leif Erikson Day

Leif Erikson Day has been federally recognized since 1964, but the day is merely a recognition, not a holiday.  The October 9 date was chosen as it was the date on which the Restauration, a ship carrying Norwegian immigrants to the United States, entered New York Harbor in 1825. That wasn't the first ship carrying Scandinavian immigrants to enter U.S. waters, but it was an early one in what became a significant migration.  Erikson's landing in North America, on what is now Labrador or thereabouts, occurred approximately on this date in 1002, however.

1835    Texans occupy Goliad.

1892  A natural gas deposit was discovered near the brewery in Buffalo. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1906  Joseph F. Glidden, inventor of barbed wire, died.

1916   A game so long it didn't even make the afternoon edition. The Wyoming Tribune for October 9, 1916
 

Yesterday's (i.e., October 8, 1916) spectacularly long and spectacular fourteen inning, one score, World Series game apparently ran to long to make the 3:30 edition of the Wyoming Tribune, which had to accordingly report it the following day.

Also on that day we learn that a Cheyenne girl was on a ship torpedoed at sea, and that the Tribune felt that Wilson's game was up.

1916   Holscher's Hub: Utah State Capitol. Inaugurated on this day in 1916.
 

Holscher's Hub: Utah State Capitol:

The Utah State Capitol was inaugurated on this day in 1916.

When you are a business traveler, you see things when you see them. Early morning photo of the Utah State Capitol building.  Taken with an Iphone.

1918  Countdown on the Great War. October 9, 1918. Cambrai Falls, Lost Battalion Rescued, UW Closes.

Private Thomas M. Holmes of the 82nd Division, East Aurora New York, receives chocolate from Lt. Burgess of the American Red Cross Field Hospital No. 328.  October 9, 1918.

1.  Cambrai Falls to Allies.

2.  The Lost Battalion rescued.

3.  UW closes its doors due to the flu.

4.  Landgrave Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse took a late war job opportunity to become the elected King of Finland. He'd occupy that role, designed to cement Finland to Imperial Germany, only until December 14 when the position ended in light of the end of Imperial Germany.  He never actually made it to Finland while he was King.

1919  The first fatal airplane crash in Wyoming's history occurred when Lt. Edwin Wales's plane crashed in a snowstorm near Elk Mountain.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Oberg Pass. The Site of the first aircraft fatality in Wyoming.

Which occurred as part of the 1919 Air Derby.

This crash, discussed elsewhere, is usually referenced as occurring "west of Cheyenne".  It is west of Cheyenne, but the pilot was following the Union Pacific Railroad and a much better description would have been north west of Laramie, or even south of Medicine Bow.

Blog Mirror: Small planes, big mountains: Retracing the 1919 ‘Air derby’

Small planes, big mountains: Retracing the 1919 ‘Air derby’

October 9, 1919. The Reds Win A Tainted Series, Air Racers Already in State, and a Tragedy

Lefty Williams, the White Sox starting pitcher for the final game of the 1919 World Series. His performance was so bad that he was taken out of the game after one inning and replaced by Big Bill James, who was not in on the plot, but who performed badly all on his own.

And so it came to an end, at least for now.

The headlines seemed to say it all.  But as a win goes, it will forever be remembered as a false victory.  One obtained because certain members of the Red Sox not to win, but rather to accept money in payment for losing.

The loss was pathetic.  Rumors started nearly immediately that the game had been thrown and one noted sports reporter write a column that no World Series should ever be played again.

In less than a year, the cover of the plot would be off.

As the series ended, news of the air race started to dominate the local papers.  The speed of the new mode of transportation was evident. The race had just started and planes were already over Wyoming.

Airco DH-4

Not reported in these editions, one of the planes had gone down in Wyoming, killing the pilot.  It was the first fatal air crash in Wyoming's history.  It occurred when Lt. Edwin Wales DH-4 would go down in a snowstorm near Coad Peak (near Elk Mountain).  Specifically it went down over Oberg Pass.  His observer, Lt. William C. Goldsborough, survived the crash and walked into an area ranch for help.

Hard to discern in this photograph of the old rail bed of the Union Pacific, you can see Kenneday Peak, Pennock Mountain and Coad Peak.  The pilots had been following the Union Pacific and were diverting to what looks like low ground to the right, Oberg Pass.

Oberg Pass is the low ground between Pennock Mountain and Coad Peak.  In decent weather they would have been fine, but flying in 1919, in a snowstorm, they likely iced up right away. They no doubt knew they were in big trouble pretty quickly and the plane went down in rugged ground.

Elk Mountain as viewed from Shirley Basin.  This was to the north of the where they went down and they were trying to go to the south of the substantial peak.

This crash is often inaccurately noted as having occurred "west of Cheyenne".  It was "west" of Cheyenne, but west a long ways west of Cheyenne.  It was northwest of Laramie and the closest substantial town was that of Medicine Bow, if you consider Medicine Bow a substantial town.  The destination was Wolcott Junction, which doesn't have an airfield today.  Of course, the DH-4 didn't take much of a run way of any kind to land on.  Going through the pass would have shaved miles off the trip and avoided a big curve around the substantial Elk Mountain.

The Air Derby had already proved to be a fatal adventure, and it would continue to be so.  Lt. Goldsborough would carry on after recovering however, by which we mean carrying on in the Air Corps.  He lived until age 73 and retired to Redondo Beach, California.  He went to Hawaii with the Air Corps in 1923 and therefore was a very early aviator there.  

Not surprisingly, given the infancy of aviation, Goldsborough would go on to endure other incidents. As a Captain he ground looped a Boeing P-12 C in 1937. In 1938 he'd be involved in another airborne tragedy, as a Major, when he was the pilot of a plane that left Langley Field for a flight to Jacksonville Florida and weather conditions so obscured the ground that he could not land.  Both he and a civilian government employee passenger were forced to bail out of the aircraft as it ran out of gas. The passenger's parachute failed to open and he was killed.  The then Major Goldsborough successfully landed.  The incident ended up in a lawsuit against an insurance company.  He must have still been in the Air Corps when World War Two started, but at that point, I've lost track of him.  At age 46, and a Major, he would have then been a fairly senior officer.

1919  The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series, but soon it would be evident that some members of the Chicago White Sox had taken bribes to thrown the series, sparking an enduring scandal in American sports.

1922  A petition for rehearing was granted by the United States Supreme Court in Wyoming v. Colorado, a suit seeking to adjudicate the distribution of water from the Laramie River.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Charles Burke telegrammed Superintendent of the Wind River Reservation's Shoshone Agency R. P. Haas at Fort Washakie, giving him permission to work with actor Tim McCoy and film producers in the movie The Thundering Herd.

October 8

Today is Columbus Day for 2012, the date this entry was first posted.

At least in my part of the country, Columbus Day has declined to the point of being practically a non entity, as far as observed holidays are concerned.  Nothing happens to note it, other than that I think it is a Federal holiday and Federal services are halted.  Some state ones used to be, but I know that various state offices have, for many years, been given the option of omitting the holiday in exchange for taking the day after Thanksgiving off.

To our south, in Colorado, this day has sometimes been the source or real controversy, however, even in modern times, as American Indians have used it to make a counter observance noting the harm inflicted upon them by European Americans starting in 1492.

The day itself was first observed in Colorado as a state holiday staring in 1906, and became a Federal holiday in 1937.  It's a floating holiday that always occurs on the second Monday of October.

Today is also Canadian Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday in Canada since 1879.  Thanksgiving being a holiday centered on the harvest, the earlier Canadian date, as opposed to the later American date, makes sense.  The current floating holiday was established as the second Monday of October in 1957.

1821  James Long Texas forces surrendered to Mexican forces commanded by Colonel Juan Ignacio Pérez at La Bahía.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1835   John Allen Campbell, Governor of Wyoming Territory from 1869 to 1875, born in Salem Ohio.  As Territorial Governor,. Campbell was a career soldier up until his appointment as Governor, and later became a counsel to Switzerland.  He signed the bill granting Wyoming's women the right to vote.

1838   The Battle Creek Fight, also known as the Surveyor's Fight, occurred between surveyors and Indians at In Navarro County, Texas.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1867  John S. Casement, railroad contractor and Civil War era general, and post war chief engineer for the Union Pacific, appointed Territorial delegate to Congress.

1889  The brewery in Sheridan burned.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1915  The first oil well was drilled in the Elk Basin.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1917   First draft of Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est, October 8, 1917.
 

(A bit off subject here, but;) Today is the anniversary of the first known draft of Wilfred Owen's well known Great War poem, Dulce et Decorum Est.

Dulce et Decorum Est

By Wilfred Owen

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

I'll be Frank that Owen isn't my favorite Great War poet, in a war that oddly seemed to produce a lot of poets (or did the war just occur in a time when poetry was more common?).  And contrary to what is commonly believed, Owen's fame came posthumously after the war when his work was actually published, not during it. The sort of gloom and despair attributed found in Owen's poems, while not unique to him alone by any means, was also not a common view amongst English veterans of the Great War or even the UK itself until well after it.

1917:  The Second Liberty Loand Drive Commences. October 8, 1917.

Elyse Robert and Dorothy Kohn putting Second Liberty Loan posters on the side of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, October 8, 1917.

1918  Countdown on the Great War. October 8, 1918: Sgt. Alvin York and the Battle of Hill 223. The Second Battle of Cambrai. A Scout Gets Through. The Desert Mounted Corps Takes Beirut. The Spanish Flu Closes Everything.

1.  On this day in 1918 Sgt. Alvin York preformed the deeds that would make him a household name in the United States and the most famous American veteran of WWI other than, perhaps, Gen. Pershing.

York was a from the Tennessee hill country and one of eleven children of a very poor family.  With virtually no education at all, he had been supporting his family for some time because of his father's early death.  A devout Evangelical Christian, York was a reformed drinker and fighter who had grown up in a family that depended upon hunting to put food on the table.  He was an extremely skilled woodsman and marksman at the time he reluctantly entered the Army due to conscription. He was also seeking conscientious objector status at that time, but reconsidered his position due to the urging of his military superiors.  He proved to be a good soldier and was assigned to the 82nd Division, seeing combat first in the St. Mihel Offensive.

On October 8 his battalion was assigned to capture Hill 223 north of  Chatel-Chéhéry, France.  During the battle Corporal York took on machinegun positions while the remainder of his party guarded captured prisoners.  York took those positions on first with his rifle, a M1917 Enfield, and then ended up killing six charging Germans with his M1911 pistol after his rifle was empty.  Ultimately a large party of Germans surrendered to York and York and seven other enlisted men marched to the rear with 132 German prisoners.  During the battle York killed 25 Germans.  His Medal of Honor citation reads:

After his platoon suffered heavy casualties and 3 other noncommissioned officers had become casualties, Cpl. York assumed command. Fearlessly leading seven men, he charged with great daring a machine gun nest which was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat the machine gun nest was taken, together with 4 officers and 128 men and several guns.

York would go on to be promoted to the rank of Sergeant before the war was over and he became the most decorated American soldier of World War One.  He was commissioned in the Signal Corps during World War Two and obtained the rank of Major, but his health had declined severely and he was used in a moral boosting role.  In spite of ill health he would remain in the Tennessee National Guard until 1951, retiring at the rank of Colonel.  He was famously the subject of a movie in which Gary Cooper portrayed him.

As noted, York was undoubtedly the most famous enlisted man of World War One, and he was truly heroic.  It's worth noting however that his accomplishments weren't entirely unique and there were several other instances of single American servicemen taking large numbers of prisoners under heroic circumstances, one of which we read about here just the other day.  In some ways the difference with York was that he was of very humble origin and not a career soldier, where as the actions by soldiers like Michael B. Ellis, whom we read about the other day, were accomplishments of men from the Regular Army.  These stories have a common aspect to them, however, in that they were undertaken by men who had extraordinary combat skill nearly singlehandedly, which was admirable but which also tends to show that the American Army was so green at the time that it proved to be necessary for extremely heroic men to undertake actions that were nearly suicidal in order to address the combat situation with which they were faced, rather than relying on coordinated unit actions.  In York's case, a lifetime in the woods had prepared him for battle in a unique way.

2.  On the same day that York's action earned the Medal of Honor, the same could be said of James Dozier.

Dozier started his military career in the South Carolina National Guard and had served on the Mexican boarder with that unit.  When it was called into service for World War One he was commissioned an officer and was a 1st Lieutenant on this day when he took over his company when its commander was wounded, even though he also was.  He commanded the unit over the next several hours, personally rushing one machinegun pit with the aid of a lieutenant.  The men under his command took 470 prisoners.

He stayed in the South Carolina National Guard becoming its AG in the 1920s and retired in 1959 as a Lieutenant General.

3.  On this day in 1918 British Empire forces launched a massive assault on the Germans near Cambrai.  In two days they captured the towns but the over matched Germans nonetheless slowed the advance to the point where it needed to be halted.

That says something about the tenacity of the Germans even at this late stage of the war.  The Germans had 180,000 men committed to the defense in this battle. The British Empire forces numbered 630,000. The British assault was a success, but the Germans none the less managed to require the British advance to halt.

Canadian troops on the Cambrai road, 1918.

4.  Pvt. Abraham Krotoshinsky made his way through enemy lines to inform the American Army of the situation concerning the "Lost Battalion".  He would lead troops back to the besieged soldiers.

Pvt. Krotoshinsky was a Polish Jew who had emigrated to the United States in 1912 to avoid service in the Imperial Russian Army. Following World War One he emigrated to Palestine but failed as a farmer and returned to the United States.  Like Michael Ellis, discussed the other day, he was rescued from unemployment by President Coolige who ordered that he be provided with a job in the United States Postal Service.

5.  The Desert Mounted Corps entered Beirut where they took 600 Ottoman troops without resistance.

6.  Laramie and Casper closed public meeting places of all types:

1919  October 8, 1919 The Sox Take Another, Aviators Take Off. And Wool.

On this day, the Sox won again, and with Cicotte pitching.

This caused real concern among the gamblers.  Prior to the series commencing the common thought that the Sox could win two Series games back to back simply by willing to do so, and now it appeared that was true. The Sox were back in the game and it looked like they might take the series.

As a result, Lefty Williams was visited by an enforcer of the gambler's that night and his family was threatened.  The order was that the Sox were to lose the next game.

While the Sox appeared to be rallying, news of the giant air race, with varied accounts as to the number of aircraft in it, started taking pride of place in the headlines.  The race had already been marred, however, by early loss of life.

Cities on the Lincoln Highway that had only recently hosted the Army Transcontinental Convoy now were getting set to look up and watch the air race.

And there was news of a woolen mill coming to the state, something that would well suit a state that, at that time, had millions of sheep.

The Gasoline Alley gang went golfing.

1944  200 Washakie County students let out of school to help with the wheat harvest in a war time measure.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

October 4

Today is Cinnamon roll day in Sweden.

1821  James Long captured the city of La Bahía.

1877 Nez Perce negotiate their surrender at the Bear Paw Mountains in Montana.

1889  Bids were requested for the construction of a public school in Casper.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1909  Upton voted for incorporation.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1998  A blizzard struck cut Converse and Niobrara counties taking out the power lines.

2005  Former governor Stan Hathaway passed away in Cheyenne.  

2013  Major blizzard shuts down central Wyoming.

2016  The Vatican announced that Bishop Etienne of Cheyenne was appointed to be the Archbishop of Anchorage, Alaska.

October 3

1842   Sam Houston ordered Alexander Somervell to organize the militia and invade Mexico.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1863  President Lincoln declared that the last Thursday of November would be recognized as Thanksgiving Day.

1866  The Regular Army arrives at Ft. Casper with  troops from Company E, 2nd U.S. Cavalry arriving as reinforcements.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1879  9th Cavalry reenforced Ute besieged infantry from Ft. Fred Steele, Wyoming and cavalry from Ft. D. A. Russell, Wyoming, at Milk Creek, Colorado.

1890  The US Secretary of the Interior approved the sum of $20,000 for the survey of public lands in  Wyoming.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1895  Uinta County's Sheriff John Ward arrested Bannock Indian Race Horse for "the unlawful and wanton killing of seven elk in said county on the first day of July, 1895." Race Horse was exonerated when the United States Circuit Court held that the "provisions of the state statute were inconsistent with the treaty" of July 3, 1868.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1900 Tom Horn shot rustler  Isom Dart in the head in an ambush at his gang's Routt County Colorado hideout.  Dart's companions retreated to their cabin and Horn mounted up and rode off.

1901  The Victor Talking Machine Company incorporated.

 A Victrola.

1918  Wool Shortages, the Germans retreat, the Flu is Everywhere and a Casper policeman runs amuck. The news of October 3, 1918.

Among the other grim news that Cheyenne readers of this paper learned is that wool was in such short supply, clothes were going to no longer be offered to civilians in it.

That, quite frankly, is nearly unimaginable for the time.  Most people, at least outside of the hot regions and the hot months, wore some wool everyday.

Readers of Laramie's Boomerang learned that Americans had advanced in the Argonne and the Spanish Flu had advanced into 36 states.

Or maybe it was 43 states.  It claimed, Cheyenne readers learned, a university student at Colorado State University.

One of the Casper papers had a more optimistic report on the flu.  It was wrong.

And in the other Casper paper, readers learned that a Casper policeman had gone berserk while drunk.

1941  The Wyoming Labor Journal advertised for skilled defense workers to work on Pacific Islands. . . probably not the best opportunity in retrospect.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

2014  I was remiss in timely noting it, but October 3 saw the 50th anniversary of the Oil Bowl. This Oil Bowl.(it's not the only one nationwide) is the cross town football match between rivals Natrona County High School and Kelly Walsh High School, both of which are undergoing massive renovation at the present time.

In this context, it's a very odd thing to realize that the last time I saw an Oil Bowl is while I was a student at NCHS, which would have been the 16th Oil Bowl.  I would have been a student there when the 17th Oil Bowl was held as well, but I didn't see that one.

 

 Photo from 16th Oil Bowl.

October 2

1835   The first battle of the Texas Revolution took place as Texans defeated a Mexican cavalry near the Guadalupe River.

1874  President Grant visited Cheyenne.

1909  It is announced that a coyote proof fence had been invented.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1919     President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.  He had only recently been in Cheyenne.

October 2, 1919. Woodrow Wilson suffers a severe stroke. Red Summer in the News. The White Sox throw, barely, a second game.

On this day, Woodrow Wilson, who had collapsed during a speech given in Pueblo Colorado as part of his grueling transcontinental speaking tour in support of the Versailles Treaty suffered a debilitating severe stroke.  This may have in fact simply been a followup stroke to one that had occurred in Pueblo, as his symptoms on the train ride back to Washington D. C. strongly suggest that in fact is what had occurred.

Somewhat ironically, Wilson was a  hypochondriac, but one whose health fears turned out to be somewhat correct. The stroke wasn't Wilson's first.  He'd first suffered a stroke in 1896.  That stroke was "mild" and his doctor didn't regard the matter as a serious one even though he did not regain the use of his right hand for four months.  In 1906 he suffered a second serious stroke that nearly left him blind in his left eye.  Prescribed rest by his physicians, he returned to work after a trip to Europe.  He was afflicted again in 1913.  In 1915 he was finally diagnosed with high blood pressure and was at that time likely warned that his condition was serious.

In 1914 Woodrow Wilson's first wife, Ellen, died of Bright's Disease in the White House.  Woodrow Wilson remarried the following year to Edith Galt, with that wedding occurring in December (they'd met in May).  She was fifteen years younger than he was.

Woodrow Wilson with Edith Wilson in the President's first official photograph following his stroke on this day.  This photograph was taken in June, 1920, and what it portrays is quite accurate.  Edith is overlooking his shoulder and guiding his actions.

Following the stroke Edith Wilson and Woodrow Wilson's doctors at first kept his condition secret from his cabinet and himself, although Wilson had experience with strokes and was likely aware of his situation soon enough.  Quite soon the President's inner cabinet conspired to keep it a secret from anyone but themselves and Edith took over routine details of the Presidency making her the nation's first, if unofficial, female chief executive.  Edith also acted to control access and communications with the President.  She would later assert that she never made any decisions on her own, although she certainly influenced decision making, and termed her role of that of "steward".

In spite of the secrecy, some news of the President's general condition was leaking out and it was generally not good. Therefore, while the public never knew how grave the President's condition was, it had reason to suspect he wasn't doing well, even as early as this very day.

The Casper Herald, a morning newspaper, which reported that the President had not rested well the night prior on its front page.

Woodrow Wilson never did recover from his stroke fully and in the current age he likely would have been removed from office under that special constitutional provision allow for that to occur in certain emergencies. That provision did not exist at the time.  The nation proved to be lucky that Edith Wilson was a capable steward, whatever that may have meant, as a less capable one would have caused a disaster and a Constitutional Crisis.  Nonetheless there's good reason to believe that a better result would have been for Wilson to have resigned and Vice President Thomas Marshall to have taken over.  Marshall already had experience running the government due to Wilson's absence from the country during the Paris Peace Treaty sessions and he would have been more likely at that point to have brought the country into the Versailles Treaty, which Wilson's stroke doomed.

Edith Wilson lived until December 1961, long outliving her husband who would die three years following his stroke.  Marshall died in 1925 at age 71.

The news on October 2 was dominated by the results of the second game of the fixed World Series and race riots, both the ones in Arkansas that had started yesterday and the ones in Omaha which were now over.  

In terms of race riots, the papers were tending to take a position to blacks in a way that's not only biased, but shocking.  Blacks had to feel that they were under siege everywhere in the U.S. in 1919, and indeed they were.

In the second game of the World Series the fix brought about the insider anticipated results.

A problem was setting in, however, in that Cicotte was the only conspirator who had been paid to date.  In the second game, the players in the conspiracy carried on with the plot, but the White Sox pitcher Lefty Williams actually pitched a fairly good game.  The game was not a runaway.  Partial payment came after the game, but full payment was yet to come.

Of course, as always, other things were going on elsewhere.

Great Falls, Va., site of historic mill built by George Washington.  October 2, 1919

Rheims France, October 2, 1919.

Coal and Oil, San Juan, Puerto Rico.  October 2, 1919.

Life Magazine, in its issue that came out on this day, ran a cartoon that's hardly intelligible to us a century later:

"Sensations of the young man who thought "quite informal" meant a dinner coat"

1924  Governor William B. Ross died while in office .  His wife, Nellie Tayloe Ross, would become the US's first women governor the month thereafter when she won in a special election in spite of not campaigning.  She would serve only until 1926, however, when she would loose a subsequent election.

1937         David McCullough, historian, biographer born.   One of his fine biographies is Mornings On Horseback, which deals with the early years of Theodore Roosevelt.

1950     The comic strip "Peanuts" by Charles M. Schulz was first published.

1998  Major General Dennis K. Jackson becomes Chief of Ordinance for the Army.  He is a University of Wyoming graduate.