Ross in 1938 at her Maryland tobacco farm.
Nellie Tayloe Ross Day is a state holiday in Wyoming, although it is little observed.
1847 Missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and 15 others are killed by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians in what is today southeastern Washington, causing the Cayuse War. The Whitmans conducted the first Protestant religious service in Wyoming.
1864 Sand Creek Massacre in which Colorado militia attack Black Kettle's Cheyenne band in Colorado. Black Kettle was at peace, and the attack was unwarranted. The unit would muster out shortly thereafter. The attack would drive many Cheyenne north into Wyoming and western Nebraska, where they would link up with Sioux who were already trending towards hostility with the United States. This would result in ongoing unbroken armed conflict between these tribes and the United States up through the conclusion of Red Cloud's War.
Today the Cheyenne trek north is memorialized in the Sand Creek Massacre Trail, a highway designation for the combination Interstate Highways and State highways that lead to the Wind River Indian Reservation. The Wind River is not a Cheyenne Reservation, but it is an Arapaho and Shoshone reservation, and the Arapahos were allied to the Cheyenne and Sioux in this period.
Black Kettle had the added misfortune of having his camp attacked later by the 7th Cavalry, under Custer, at Washita, in 1868. He was killed in that attack, which likewise was a surprise and found his band at peace with the US, although others in the area were not.
Cheyenne prisoners, in artist's depiction, following Washita.
1873 Laramie County Stockgrowers Association forms in Cheyenne.The organization was one of the precursors of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.
1876 Nellie Tayloe Ross born in Missouri.
1888 Territorial Governor Moonlight proclaimed the day one of Thanksgiving, Prayer and Praise.
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.
1908 Major Harry Coupland Benson appointed acting Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park.
1916: The Wyoming Tribune for November 29, 1916: Villa in the headlines
Scary headlines in the Tribune, which reported that Juarez, on the Mexican border, might be Villa's next target.
The Leader made the curious assumption that Villa taking Chihuahua would cause Carranza to agree tot he draft protocol with the US that was designed to bring about an American withdrawal.
Now, why would that be the case? Carranza had been opposed to American intervention, but as it was, the American expeditionary force amounted to a large block of troops in Villas way if he really intended to move north.
A curious assumption.
And the US acting on behalf of besieged Belgium was also in the news.
1917 Thanksgiving 1917
Given the news of the day, it couldn't have been a cheery one.
President Wilson issued a proclamation, as was the custom:
President Wilson issued a proclamation, as was the custom:
By the President of the United States of AmericaThe news, overall, was pretty grim:
A Proclamation
It has long been the honored custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. That custom we can follow now even in the midst of the tragedy of a world shaken by war and immeasurable disaster, in the midst of sorrow and great peril, because even amidst the darkness that has gathered about us we can see the great blessings God has bestowed upon us, blessings that are better than mere peace of mind and prosperity of enterprise.
We have been given the opportunity to serve mankind as we once served ourselves in the great day of our Declaration of Independence, by taking up arms against a tyranny that threatened to master and debase men everywhere and joining with other free peoples in demanding for all the nations of the world what we then demanded and obtained for ourselves. In this day of the revelation of our duty not only to defend our own rights as nation but to defend also the rights of free men throughout the world, there has been vouchsafed us in full and inspiring measure the resolution and spirit of united action. We have been brought to one mind and purpose. A new vigor of common counsel and common action has been revealed in us. We should especially thank God that in such circumstances, in the midst of the greatest enterprise the spirits of men have ever entered upon, we have, if we but observe a reasonable and practicable economy, abundance with which to supply the needs of those associated with us as well as our own. A new light shines about us. The great duties of a new day awaken a new and greater national spirit in us. We shall never again be divided or wonder what stuff we are made of.
And while we render thanks for these things let us pray Almighty God that in all humbleness of spirit we may look always to Him for guidance; that we may be kept constant in the spirit and purpose of service; that by His grace our minds may be directed and our hands strengthened; and that in His good time liberty and security and peace and the comradeship of a common justice may be vouchsafed all the nations of the earth.
Wherefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday, the twenty-ninth day of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and invite the people throughout the land to cease upon that day from their ordinary occupations and in their several homes and places of worship to render thanks to God, the great ruler of nations.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done in the District of Columbia this 7th day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seventeen and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-second.
WOODROW WILSON
The concern of what was going on with Russia, as can be seen, was mounting.
So what was Thanksgiving like in 1917 for average Americans? This item from A Hundred Years Ago gives us a glimpse/ This ran on A Hundred Years Ago prior to the 2017 Thanksgiving. I'm linking it in now, as the 1917 Thanksgiving was on this day, rather than the slightly earlier day in November we now celebrate it on. An interesting look at earlier Thanksgivings:
Interesting that goose was the meat of choice.Grandma’s 1914 Thanksgiving
1919 A four week coal strike causes as serious coal shortage in Cokeville, Wyoming. Attribution, Wyoming Historical Society. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.
1931 An Oregon Trail marker was dedicated at Torrington. The decade of the 1930s saw an increased interest in Wyoming in marking the state's early history which was coincident with the pioneer generation passing away.
1942 Coffee
Smiling soldier. I think he's drinking coffee. I may have had to
volunteer for service (which I likely would have done anyway) just in
order to get a cup of coffee.
I would not have liked that. Coffee roasters were already restricted to
75% of their war time prior average. This resulted not due to fewer
beans being produced during the war. Not hardly. Rather, it resulted
from the fact that this import crop is shipped to the continental United
States
I think that's something that we tend not to ponder much. Coffee is a
huge American drink, just like tea is a huge British drink, but in
neither case do these consuming nations produce the elemental crop
locally. Given that, it's really amazing that either drink has such a
hold in the consuming nation. Indeed, by and large, with some slight
exception, its not even grown in the Norther Hemisphere. Kona coffee,
grown in Hawaii, is the only coffee actually grown in the United States,
in so far as I'm aware.
Just consider it for a moment. The bean that is roasted to produce the
crop is grown thousands of miles from the continental United States,
roasted (often) in the US, and then packaged for sale here. It's pretty
amazing that there's more than a couple of varieties of it, frankly, or
that its even affordable.
The Coffee Bearer, by John Frederick Lewis, Orientalist painter. The
same figure was a figure in his painting The Armenian Lady, whose
servant she is portrayed as being.
As an aside, the second biggest coffee bean producer in the world (the first is Brazil) is. . . . Vietnam.
One more reason that not having prevailed in the Vietnam War is unfortunate, to say the least.
Well, anyhow, it's not cheap, as any coffee drinker will tell you. But it's not terribly pricey either.
And
somehow, it's gone from a few basic brands to a wide variety of
specialty brands and brews of every imaginable type and variety.
Coffee varieties have of course always existed. Interestingly, one of
the contenders for oldest coffee brand sold in the United States is Lion
Brand which is Kona coffee. Lion was first sold in the United States,
as green coffee beans, in 1864. Pretty darned early. Hawaii wasn't an
American territory at the time. Folgers has them beat, however, dating
back to 1850. Hills Brothers dates to 1878. Maxwell House to 1892.
Arbuckle Coffee, for some reason, was a huge item in the West in the
late 1800s, showing how brands come and go. I've never seen Arbuckles
sold today, although it apparently still exists. The owners of the
company, John and Charles Arbuckle, owned a ranch near Cheyenne,
although I don't know if that explains the connection with the West, or
if perhaps that connection worked the other way around.
Now there's a zillion brands of coffee, many of which I don't recognize,
and many which have pretensions towards coffee greatness. This seems
to have come about due to the rise of coffee houses, lead in a major way
by Starbucks. There's a Starbucks on every street corner now, it
seems. I'll be frank that I don't like their coffee much at all. Too
strong, and I like strong coffee. Anyhow, the many specialty brews that
Starbucks makes has spawned many various specialty coffees, or at least
different coffees, to the extent to which a person can hardly keep
track of it. Over the weekend I was in City Brew, one of the local
coffee houses, as well as Albertsons, where a Starbucks is located, and
they both had "Christmas Blends". How can there be a Christmas blend of
coffee?
Chock full o' Nuts, a brand that, as the can indicates, has been around
since 1932. That was the date the company founder changed his nut shops
into lunch counters, figuring that they were a better bet during the
Great Depression. I used to drink Chock full o' Nuts when I was in
college but stopped as it seemed to have way too much caffeine.
Not that I'm complaining. I frankly like the vast variety in coffee.
And while I'm not inclined to buy something like Starbucks Free Range
Easter Island Coffee Licked Gently By Baby Yaks, I will buy peculiar
roasts just because the sound interesting. And I tend towards those dark
roasts even if I sometimes wish I'd gotten something milder.
And it is interesting to see how coffee houses, following in Starbuck's wake, have popped up everywhere. Just the other day I bought a sack of Boyer's coffee in the grocery store. I was aware of Boyers, as they're a Denver brand with a Denver coffee house, but I wasn't aware that you could buy it up here. Quasi local, as it were. A great Denver coffee, with some good coffee houses is Dazbog, which plays up the Russian origin of the founders. One of the independent local coffee houses here sells Dazbog, and its good stuff. City Brew has outlets here in town, and apparently they're originally from Montana, which they play up with some of their roasts, even though we all know coffee isn't grown in Montana. I'm told that Blue Ridge Coffee, another local coffee house that sells sacked coffee, is purely local.
And that doesn't cover every coffee house in town. Quite the evolution when just a decade or so ago you'd have had to go to a conventional cafe and just have ordered the house coffee, whatever that was. No special roasts or blends. Just a up of joe.
And I prefer to buy from the locals as well. Subsidarity in action, I suppose. Indeed, I'm not told that I can buy Mystic Monk sacked coffee at the Parish Office, and I likely will.
In the grocery store, for the most part, you bought the major brands. Most of those are still around, but now you can buy any number of major and minor brands. I even have a coffee grinder, although that certainly isn't a new invention, although most of the time I buy pre ground coffee. Indeed, I got the grinder as I bought whole bean coffee by mistake, which I've done from time to time, and I don't want to waste it.
Using coffee grinders, of course, is an odd return to the past. Everything old is new again, sort of. But the huge variety, of course, is wholly new.
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Related threads:
Coffee
And it is interesting to see how coffee houses, following in Starbuck's wake, have popped up everywhere. Just the other day I bought a sack of Boyer's coffee in the grocery store. I was aware of Boyers, as they're a Denver brand with a Denver coffee house, but I wasn't aware that you could buy it up here. Quasi local, as it were. A great Denver coffee, with some good coffee houses is Dazbog, which plays up the Russian origin of the founders. One of the independent local coffee houses here sells Dazbog, and its good stuff. City Brew has outlets here in town, and apparently they're originally from Montana, which they play up with some of their roasts, even though we all know coffee isn't grown in Montana. I'm told that Blue Ridge Coffee, another local coffee house that sells sacked coffee, is purely local.
And that doesn't cover every coffee house in town. Quite the evolution when just a decade or so ago you'd have had to go to a conventional cafe and just have ordered the house coffee, whatever that was. No special roasts or blends. Just a up of joe.
And I prefer to buy from the locals as well. Subsidarity in action, I suppose. Indeed, I'm not told that I can buy Mystic Monk sacked coffee at the Parish Office, and I likely will.
In the grocery store, for the most part, you bought the major brands. Most of those are still around, but now you can buy any number of major and minor brands. I even have a coffee grinder, although that certainly isn't a new invention, although most of the time I buy pre ground coffee. Indeed, I got the grinder as I bought whole bean coffee by mistake, which I've done from time to time, and I don't want to waste it.
Using coffee grinders, of course, is an odd return to the past. Everything old is new again, sort of. But the huge variety, of course, is wholly new.
Industrial strength coffee grinder.
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Related threads:
Coffee
