Lex Anteinternet: The rise and fall of the Standard Oil Refinery in ...

Lex Anteinternet: The rise and fall of the Standard Oil Refinery in ...:  The Standard Oil Refinery at its peak. Recently I posted this item on our website dedicated to memorials, even though I was admitte...

2015 In Review

It hasn't been my habit here to do end of the year reviews, and indeed there are no doubt more items on Medieval history on this site than there are on the year 2015.  So, this is an exception and departure from the norm.  Perhaps it will become the custom, or perhaps not.  We will see.

This year I'm doing one, however, as this year has really been an exceptional year for Wyoming, and not at all in a good way, but in a way that has been somewhat predictable.  We entered an oil crash.

Early Wyoming oil field.

Now, oil crashes aren't new to Wyoming, but this one may prove to be unique and a watershed.  Only time will tell, but the evidence sort of eerily suggests that it might be.

Our prior oil crashes, to the extent I'm aware of them, came in 1919, 1946, 1964 or so, 1981 or 82, with a mini crash in 2008. 2008 gets tossed around a lot in reference to this, but it was actually a fairly small downturn. A lot of Wyomingites truly did not notice it at all or just viewed it as background noise to the larger Great Recession which was threatening to take the country into a Depression for the first time since the 1930s.

The 1919 crash was caused by the end of World War One, which caused almost all of Wyoming's industries to enter into a downturn.  Likewise, the 1946 downturn followed the end of World War Two.  I'm not sure what caused  the downturn of the 1960s, although I do know that from the way my folks spoke of it, things were tight.  The 1981 crash was simply a cyclical crash in the industry following the overheated 1970s, which had been overheated due to the real arrival of OPEC as an industry force.

Every time these things happen there's a lot of introspection and regret, and we ponder "diversifying" the economy.  But we never actually do.  And while we tried to do that some in the 1980s and 1990s, once oil came back on strong again, brought about by high prices and huge advances in drilling technology, we forgot about that.  Now, maybe, we're set to pay the price.

The number of rigs operating in Wyoming fell last year from 60 in 2014 to a present 10.  That's a stunning drop off.  There have been a lot of oil industry layoffs nationwide.  The price at the pump has dramatically fallen. Yesterday I saw gasoline for sale in Casper for $1.68, and diesel for sale at $2.09.  It drops a little almost every day.  Oil is at $37.00 bbl.

All of this has been brought about by Saudi Arabia taking the stops off of Saudi production and not allowing OPEC limits to be set.  There's some debate as to their intent, but it now seems clear that the goal was to crush increasing North American production.  North American production had increased so much that, with other things added in, the US once again became an energy exporter.  Beyond that, however, there's the question as to why Saudi Arabia would so desire to do that.  It only makes sense, really, if they have a definitive goal in mind, which would seem to be to dominate production for the next twenty years.  If that's the case, that's because they themselves figure that they'll either be out of the market in that time or that petroleum will no longer be the global transportation fuel it now is.  My guess is that they've calculated the latter, and therefore they need to maximize their return until they can shift their economy to something new.  They are working on that.

However, they aren't actually crushing North American production.  Rather, they're crushing new exploration.  American production, oddly enough, hasn't dropped at all.  It's keeping on keeping on.  And that means that Saudi Arabia is now in giant game of chicken.

Nobody quite expected this, or the remainder of the things that seem to go along with it.  Production hasn't declined.  Prices are dropping.  Consumption isn't rising.  It may simply be that the new world arrived sooner than anyone anticipated.

And as part of that new world, Coal is in the ICU, and the prognosis isn't good.  If petroleum is in trouble right now, coal look like it's just checking out entirely.  Ironically, one of Wyoming's other principal extractive industries, natural gas, is largely responsible for that.  If people would get over their entirely irrational fear of nuclear power, uranium would undoubtedly show up for the coup de grace.

 

Coal truck in a static display in Wright Wyoming.

So what, exactly, is going on?  Well, it would seem that we're in a new era in terms of fossil fuel demand.  Coal is out of favor, and even though Wyoming has continued to hope for a "clean coal" technology that would change that it appears unlikely that this is going to occur any time soon.  Indeed, concerns over global warming have all but put coal on the terminal list.

While that's been occurring, natural gas has been on the rise, but there's a lot of it. So, not only is it a cleaner fuel than coal, and perhaps just an easier one to use in general, its very abundant.  This has depressed the cost here and indeed gas remains so abundant that the state continues to allow it to be flared, which is something that the state may come to regret at some point in the future.

Gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel are, of course, all transportation fuels, which coal has long since ceased to be.  But here, even though they are now in surplus and the price has dropped production isn't decreasing and demand isn't rising. That's the first time that's every occurred.  And it appears to be occurring as Americans have sort of moved on from being real fans of automobiles.  They're switching to other means of transportation and they're comfortable with automobiles that are fueled by other means.  So, the Petroleum Age may actually be on the way out.

Of course, as I write this, Saudi Arabia has severed relations with Iran, so we may be on the cusp of a big fuel price jump, and the state's worries will be partially over. We'll see.  Having said that, on the first business day of the crisis, the price of oil went down, not up.

The decline of fossil fuel production here puts the state's workforce really in jeopardy.  The fact that things haven't gotten any worse than they have, and that the state's economy has basically remained stable during this period, is due to two other primary industries in the state doing well last year, with those industries being construction and agriculture. Things are not as well situated, however, for 2016.

Large scale construction has kept on keeping on as there were some huge projects that were funded earlier, and begun earlier, that are keeping the construction industry going.  Massive school construction, often started as much as three years ago, keeps on keeping on, and will for the next couple of years.  After that, however, it will drop off on its own and, beyond that, as its funded by coal severance taxes the means of starting new projects is severely imperiled. 

Highway construction has also been going on, and at least that is funded in part by the Federal Government, as is Abandoned Mine recovery.  So some of that will at least continue.

The irony of all of that, of course can't help but be noted as Wyoming has never been a state that has been very keen on the government boosting the economy through projects, but that sort of thing kept our economy from collapsing last year.  Therefore, we're in the ironic situation of having a sort of New Deal type of economy going on here, even though we'd be loath to intentionally cause that to occur. This is something that the legislature should ponder in the upcoming budget session for a number of reasons. For one thing, it's been a major factor in keeping the state's economy from collapsing. Secondly, since Wyoming no longer funds school construction locally, and perhaps can't given the Wyoming Supreme Court's decisions on school equality over the past couple of decades, some other source of school income is going to have to be found.

Agriculture and tourism were the other elements of our economy that kept the state afloat last year.  High cattle prices for most of the year combined with lower fuel prices boosted agricultural income in the state. And tourism did well as well.

Indeed, I tend to think of tourism and agriculture as part of the same land based section of the economy.  I don't know that they fully appreciate that they're part and parcel of the same larger section of the economy, but they really are.  Without the type of agriculture we have, the state would be much less attractive to tourist.  And people who come in to hunt and fish wouldn't to the same degree.  This is something that should be kept in mind by those in the legislature who boost land "reversal" schemes against the Federal government.

 

Agriculture did well in 2015, but whether this continues on into 2016, with cattle prices very much fallen, is an open question.

Speaking (or reading) of the legislature, that body is about to go into its biannual budget session and it has a lot on its hands.  Indeed, all governmental bodies presently do.  The state appears set to dip into the "rainy day fund" for the first time ever, in spite of a reduced budget.  A  hiring freeze in on in state government.  The counties are hurting, and the City of Casper is running a deficit.  Things will have to be addressed.

Part of what will ultimately have to be addressed is where money is going to come from in the future.  Coal does not appear to be set to return, so severance taxes appear to be a poor future bet for school funding.  The state's resistant to any sort of personal taxation.  Something is going to have to give on the money raising, or money spending, end, and new ways to generate revenue are ultimately going to have to be explored.

If there's a positive legislative side to this, what it would appear to be so far is that people appear to be fairly realistic, and extreme positions such as those backed by some recent libertarian groups do not seem to be getting much traction so far in advance of the upcoming sessions.  Bold ideas to get the Federal government out of this or that no longer appear to matter much.  It's clear that its the Saudi government, not the US government, that's impacting the price of oil and the ship has sailed on the concept that but for the Federal government coal would be doing fine, so we need to get the government out of this our that.  People are more worried about just working.

Indeed it might be a time that the state could actually look towards the two sections of our economy that are working and ponder if some state intervention in that category might be warranted.  We've been loath to follow the Depression Era examples of North and South Dakota, which started state owned flour and cement mills, but the fact remains that we don't do anything to do produce our raw products.  We have no packing houses, woolen mills, etc.  Perhaps the state ought to consider the example of North Dakota Mill (which actually started in 1922, prior to the Great Depression but in a farm depression) and see if there's a way to recapture some of that processing money.

So much for the grim economic news of 2015.

Other things did happen, of course.  

Casper endured a big fire just outside of town.

 

New state officials took office, following a quite contentious election in 2014.  That election saw libertarian elements, which seriously challenged the GOP establishment, do poorly.  The extremely controversial Cindy Hill failed in her bid to unseat Governor Mead in the primaries and a new head of State Education took her place, leaving that office in a state of present low controversy.

One Federal office holder, the recently widowed Cynthia Loomis, announced that she was stepping down at the end of term as Congressman.  

A couple of interesting things happened in the Courts.  One is that Federal District Court Judge Skavdahl held that the 10th Circuit's ruling anticipating the Supreme Court's ruling on same gender marriage was the law in Wyoming.  His opinion struck at least me as harsh in some respects and he drew some criticism on the opinion.  The Federal judiciary nationwide has not had a good year in my opinion, as its most notable opinion was so blatently devoid of a sustainable concept of legal reasoning, no matter what you think of the issue at hand, so this fits into that mix, a mix which seems to have created an increased degree of contempt for the Federal Government.

Locally, the charade of a CLE being part of the Uniform Bar Exam was dropped and the State Bar's total surrender to any element of Wyoming law as part of the process of being admitted to practice law in the state was complete.  Over the year, as predicated, out of state admissions increased steadily in a trend that does not bode well for the state's lawyers or its population.  So here too we suffer an economic detriment.  Law, which was long a career option for Wyomingites who had been dropped out of the mineral industry while young, or who had no place on the family ranch, or who were from a Wyoming town or city and they desired to stay here, will  no longer be as much of a realistic option.  The new "Wyoming" lawyers are increasingly located in Denver Colorado, so while the mineral industry sustains an economic disaster due to Saudi Arabia, law starts to suffer an economic downturn due to the Wyoming Supreme Court's insistence on adopting the UBE.

Where all of this leaves us, of course, is unknown.  Human beings are notoriously unable to predict the future.  But to take a stab at it, it appears that the Petroleum Age may have entered a new phase, and combined with the demise of coal, we may have entered a new economic age in Wyoming.  That age might feature somewhat of a return of agriculture to center stage.  What that means in the towns and cities is yet to be determined, but a long term gravitational pull of Denver and Salt Lake City is becoming stronger due to modern economic forces and, in the case of the law, the push of the state's bar south.

2016 should be interesting.

October 18

1854 Reciprocity Treaty between the US and Canada comes into effect.

1868 Vigilantes hanged three members of the Asa Moore Gang in Bosler, where some of the gang members owned a bar. One of the gang members, Big Steve Long, asked to leave his boots on, stating:  "My mother always said I'd die with my boots on".  He was lynched with his boots off.

1871  A gunpowder explosion on the Colorado Central saw 600 kegs of powder explode, but with no injuries.

1919  Robert Russin's statute of Lincoln on the Interstate Highway between Laramie and Cheyenne dedicated.  That route was part of the Lincoln Highway at the time, hence the dedication.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1929   The Historical Landmark Commission of Wyoming set up an advisory committee to explore acquiring  the grounds of Ft. Laramie. Attribution:  On This Day.

1931  A Pony Express Historical marker was dedicated at Independence Rock.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1969  The football game between the University of Wyoming and BYU that sparked the protest of the Black 14 occurred.  Wyoming won the game.

1973  Thursday, October 18, 1973. Creeping embargo.

The IDF recrossing the Suez Canal.  The artillery pieces are M107's, a heavy US artillery piece much loved by the IDF. Amos1947, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Saudi Arabia cut its oil production by 10% and threatened to halt all of its oil shipments to the United States unless the US halt aid to Israel.  The United Arab Emirates completely stopped shipments to the U.S.

1984  A 5.5 earthquake occurred about 50 miles from Casper, WY.

1989  The Contract to build  SSBN 742, an Ohio Class nuclear submarine, was awarded to General Dynamic's Electric Boat Division.

October 12

October 12 is National Farmers Day in the United States.

Irrigated Wyoming hay field.

1869  First Territorial Legislature convened.

1876  Cantonment Reno established.

 Where Ft. Reno was, today.

1918  Countdown on the Great War: The Flu Marches On, The German Navy Quits the Air but not the Sea, The British start Demobilizing in the Desert. October 12, 1918.

Women marching in a Liberty Loan Campaign.

1. General Pershing relieves himself as commander of the 1st Army and turns command of it over to Gen. Hunter Liggett. This occurred as the 2nd Army had been formed on October 10 and Pershing was the overall commander of the AEF, which had now grown to two armies.

Scene at advanced first aid station of the 325th Inf. Wounded arriving on stretchers, while in the background a German munitions dump is burning at Marcq. American Red Cross north of Fleville, Ardennes, France

2.  The Imperial German Navy flew its last airship mission of World War One.  The German navy commanded the Zepplin fleet that had been used to bomb targets in Great Britain.

3.  The Imperial German Navy remained active in the Atlantic, however and damaged the USAT Amphion and sank the Norwegian cargo ship Laila and the Italian ship Tripoli II.  The Swedish ship Ohio collided with another ship in a British escorted convoy and also sank.

4.  Shipping wise, the RMS Niagra docked in New Zeland brining the Spanish Flu with it.

5.   Fire ignited by railroad sparks destroyed Cloquest Minnesota and resulted in the deaths of 453 people.

6.  While there was no official talk of there being a Central Powers collapse, the British began to demobilize its forces in the Middle East in light of the Otttoman collapse there.

6th Australian light-horse regiment leaving Jerusalem for demobilization camp. Oct. 12th, 1918.

7.  Flu deaths were now undeniably rising.

1944  Ground was broken for St. Paul’s Memorial Hospital in Evanston.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1964  President Lyndon Johnson delivered a speech in Casper.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

In his speech, he stated:

Senator McGee; Teno Roncalio; my old friend, former Senator Joe Hickey; my dose and able assistant, Mike Manatos, from Rock Springs; ladies and gentlemen; boys and girls:
This looks to me like it is Democratic country. I know now how we are going to win the West--right here.
I have come out here today to discuss our economy and to satisfy my wife.
She came out here last month--and she hasn't stopped talking about it ever since.
But Wyoming is familiar territory. As Gale told you, I visited here 6 years ago. I asked you to give us your help, give us your hand, give us your heart, send a young man to Washington that was young enough to do the job and able enough to get it done. You did it. I want you to send him back.
Today Gale McGee holds 6 years' seniority on the most powerful committee in the Congress, the Appropriations Committee. And I don't believe you people want to change horses after you have one that is reliable, you have one that gets the job done, you have one that loves your State, and you have one that your President needs to help him keep peace in the world.
Today Gale McGee holds a place as my trusted friend and confidant.
Today Gale McGee is one of the most able Senators in Washington.
When beef prices went into a slump, we had a drought all over the country, our cattle prices started going down, Gale McGee went into action. Instead of just beefing about it, and being a crybaby, he did something for beef.
He started the biggest promotion of beef ever done in this country, and he has not only done it in this country, he has done it all over the world where we are now shipping some of our cattle. Yes, he pushed beef exports. He got us to buy more beef for our soldiers, more for our schools and more for our people in need.
He started to work reducing imports. We set up a Presidential commission to study the marketing practices of food chains, and he is a member of that commission and a very able one.
Today, for the first time in 2 years, imports are down and prices of fat beef are going up. This rising trend will reach the feeder cattle people and we do not intend to stop until it does. I am proud of what Gale McGee has done to help the cowmen of America.
This is the kind of responsible government your President believes in.
Responsible government means prudent government. And that is why, as your President, I have waged an all-out attack against waste in government. That is why the first day I went in as your President, I said I will say to the taxpayers of this country I am going to give you a dollar's value for every dollar spent. That means spending your tax dollars only where they need to be spent.
Some people laughed when I started saving on light bulbs around the White House and turning out a few lights and chandeliers. But they quit laughing at me when the Defense Department savings reached $2,800 million. They didn't laugh at me.
They quit laughing when other departments managed to save more than $400 million this year, and the year is not over yet. They didn't laugh so hard when we cut this year's budget nearly $1 billion under last year's budget.
They didn't laugh so much when this July we had 25,000 fewer employees working for the Federal Government than we had July a year ago.
So prudent government, careful government, businessman government has tightened its belt. We have streamlined its operations. We have begun to do a better job for less money.
But responsibility means more than that. And that is why Gale McGee and I have been working to build Wyoming's prosperity.
We passed the wilderness bill to help preserve nature's wealth in Wyoming and the West.
You know how Gale McGee voted, and you know how my opponent voted. My opponent voted "no."
We passed the biggest tax cut, a $12 billion tax cut, in the history of the Nation.
You know how Gale McGee voted, and you know how my opponent voted. He voted "no."
We passed a bill for higher education to help meet the needs of our children, needs which have doubled in the last 10 years.
You know how Gale McGee voted. You know how my opponent voted. Well, I guess you guessed it--he voted "no."
I believe this kind of spending that we have done has been responsible spending.
I think it was prudent when we spent $11 million during the last 3 1/2 years to help Wyoming's small businessmen, when we spent $975,000 to develop Jackson Hole as a great recreation center; when we spent $80 million, this past year alone, to help build Wyoming's highways.
And there is a final responsibility.
The war on waste has a third front. For the world's greatest waste would be the waste of human lives in a nuclear holocaust. I think that you know that as one of the products of Oak Ridge today we hold in our hand the most awesome, the mightiest, the most frightening power that was ever held in the hand of man.
I think that you know just a few months back when President Kennedy sat with his Security Council for 37 meetings when Mr. Khrushchev had brought his missiles into Cuba, I think you knew that your Commander in Chief, day and night, got the best advice that he could get in this Nation, and you had selected his thumb to be the thumb that went on the button if it had to go there.
But his caution and his care and his good judgment resulted in these two men looking at each other, eyeball to eyeball, and both of them deciding that it was not wise, that it was not just, that it was not right to put their thumb on that button and automatically wipe out the lives of 300 million people.
You have 3 weeks to make your choice of what thumb you want controlling that button. You will select one of two parties. You will select one of two persons. You will select one of two leaders to conduct the relations of America with other nations.
The most important single thing in your life is peace, peace at home, peace in the world. In the 10 months since I have been President, I have conferred with 85 of the world's leaders. I have tried to reason with them. I have tried to plan with them. I have tried to submit to them proposals for consideration that would bring about disarmament.
As long as I am your President, I am not going to rattle our rockets, I am not going to bluff with our bombs. I am going to keep our guard up at all times and our hand out.
But I am going to be willing to go anywhere, see anyone, talk any time to try to bring peace to this world so these mothers will not have to give up their boys and have them wiped out in a nuclear holocaust.
We are the mightiest nation in the world. We have more bombers, we have more missiles, we have well trained men. But if we do not have peace in the world, everything else fades into insignificance.
So I hope that you people will realize that in the next 3 weeks you are going to make a choice. You are going to make a selection, you are going to determine who you want to represent you in the next 4 years. You are going to determine what kind of an economic policy this country has, whether we go backwards or whether we go forward.
Today, wholesale prices are 1 percent down from what they were a year ago. Today 72 million men are working. Today corporations are making $12 billion more after taxes than they made 4 years ago when Mr. Kennedy came in. Today the workers of America are getting $60 billion more after taxes than they got in 1961. Today our farm income is $12 billion, and you pull down all of our programs and all of our plans and you will cut that income overnight the first year to $6 billion.
Well, you want to think that over. A fellow down in my country the other day said the traveling salesmen kept bothering him, coming in wanting to know who he would vote for, for President. He said he finally went out and got 15 Kennedy half dollars and put them in his britches pocket. He said every time one of them came in and asked him, he started rattling those half dollars and said, "This sounds pretty good to me. I like it the way it is."
The future of this Nation lies here in the West, but you must have leadership. You must have vision. You must have progressive men to carry forward your plans. You have that in Teno, if you send him to Congress; you have that in Gale, already with 6 years' experience in the United States Senate. I need them both. I plead with you to go out, in the next 3 weeks, and help elect them as representatives of the State of Wyoming.
I have been to Wyoming a number of times. I like your white-faced Herefords. I like your cowmen. I know your oilmen. I know something about the economy of this State and the problems of this State. I think I have been your friend and I just want to repeat to you today what I said that awesome afternoon when tragedy befell us and our great President was taken from us, and on a moment's notice I had to assume the awesome responsibilities of the Presidency.
I said then with God's help and with your help, and with your prayers, I would do the best I could. I have done the best I could. I have represented all the people of this Nation. I have been President of all the States.
If you think I should be turned out after 11 months, you have that privilege and that right, and that is your duty to do it November 3d.
But if you think we should go forward with a program of peace in the world, of trying to love thy neighbor as thyself, trying to live with other nations instead of destroying them, if you think we should continue to move this Nation forward, that we should have vision, we should have plans, we should have programs, we should have education for our children, we should have highways to transport our people, we should have a good, sound agricultural program, we should have business and labor trying to work together, instead of spending all their time fighting--in short, we ought to have peace in the world and peace at home--if you think that, I will appreciate your voting the Democratic ticket November 3d.
This has been a delightful day. We visited many States. We yet have to go to Denver and then to Boise, Idaho, and then into Washington tonight.
I want to thank all of you. Wyoming is one of the smaller States in the country. This is one of the largest crowds I have seen. I expect per capita-wise you have just about bested all the other States, and I want to tell you that I consider it a great tribute to your people. I am deeply thankful to you for coming out.
Goodby and God bless you.

From:  http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=26595#axzz2hhsV7a2I

1973  Friday, October 12, 1973. President Nixon commences a transfer of military equipment that leads to a Wyoming oil boom.

Congressman Gerald Ford was nominated to be Vice President by Richard Nixon.

Also on that day President Nixon authorized Operation Nickel Grass, the airlift of weapons to Israel. 

 

M60 tank being loaded as part of Operation Nickel Grass

The operation revealed severe problems with the U.S. airlift capacity and would likely have not been possible without the assistance of Portugal, whose Azores facilities reduced the need for air-to-air refueling.  The transfer of equipment would also leave the United States dangerously short of some sorts of military equipment, including radios, something that was compounded by the fact that the U.S. was transferring a large volume of equipment to the Republic of Vietnam at the same time.

This would directly result in the Arab Oil Embargo, which had been threatened. The embargo commenced on October 17.  

U.S. oil production had peaked in 1970.  Oil imports rose by 52% between 1969 and 1972, an era when fuel efficiency was disregarded.  By 1972 the U.S. was importing 83% of its oil from the Middle East, but the real cost of petroleum had declined from the late 1950s.

The low cost of petroleum was a major factor in American post-war affluence from the mid 1940s through the 1960s.  The embargo resulted in a major expansion of Wyoming's oil and gas industry, and in some ways fundamentally completed a shift in the state's economy that had been slowly ongoing since World War One, replacing agriculture with hydrocarbon extraction as the predominant industry.

We often hear a lot of anecdotal information about this topic today.  

In this context, it's interesting to note that petroleum consumption is not much greater today in the U.S. than it was in 1973, but domestic production is the highest, by far, it's ever been.  Importation of petroleum is falling, but it's also higher than it was in 1973, but exportation of petroleum is the highest it's ever been, exceeding the amount produced in 1973.  If experts are balanced against imports, we're at an effective all-time low for importation.  In effect, presently, all we're doing with importation is balancing sources.

People hate this thought locally, but with renewable energy sources coming online, there's a real chance that petroleum consumption will fall for the first time since the 1970s, which would have the impact of reducing imports to irrelevancy.  Any way its looked at, the U.S. is no hostage to Middle Eastern oil any more.

It turned out that Europe wasn't hostage to Russian hydrocarbons either, so all of this reflects a fundamental shift in the world's economy.

Price has certainly changed over time.

Juan and Isabel Person were sworn into office as the elected president and vice president of Argentina

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.

August 19

1854  Lt. John L. Grattan, 6th U.S. Infantry, and thirty of his men are killed by Sioux Indians at at location on the Oregon Trail not far from Ft. Laramie, WY.  The fight is regarded as sort of an early Western Plains Indian fight and an indication of things to come.  The entire episode was over a cow belonging to a Mormon Oregon Trail emigrant which had been taken by one of the Sioux and killed. The Sioux had offered reparations in the form of the emigrant's choice of a horse out of the Indian herd which had been refused.  Grattan, who had lead a detachment to the Sioux camp the following day, handled the matter very poorly and things got out of hand, whereupon a shots were fired by the soldiers and returned by the much more numerous Sioux.  Grattan's entire command of 30 soldiers was killed in the battle to the loss of one Sioux, Conquering Bear, who was the Sioux chief of the band in question, and who was likely killed with the very first shot of the battle.  The Sioux made a token pass at Ft. Laramie the following day and then dispersed. The Army recalled William S. Harney from Paris in order to send him to the field with the 2d Dragoons as a result, but they did not take the field until the following August, an entire year later, giving an idea of the slowness of events in the 19th Century.

One of the less noted, but very notable, aspects of this story:  Rather than retaliating, the U.S. Army declared that Grattan had exceeded his authority. An explosive situation was not allowed to escalate, but the seeds of distrust and future violence had been sewn.  Gratten had handled the entire situation very badly.  But the Army, in its follow-up, was wise to regard his actions as improper, in spite of the disaster it was to his men.

1878   Robert Widdowfield and Union Pacific detective Tip Vincent killed in the line of duty by Big Nose George Parrott's gang near Elk Mountain.  Widdowfield and Vincent were attempting to apprehend the gang which had attempted to rob a train.

1898  Iron Post office established.  Attribution:  Wyoming Places.

1941  The Wyoming Aircraft School won approval from Civil Aeronautics Authority.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1942  The Evacuette, a newpaper of the North Portland Assembly Area, ran as a headline story that Japanese internees, the newspaper's audience, would be going to Wyoming.

1950  300th AFA, Wyoming Army National Guard, Federalized for service in the Korean War.

1953  First letters sent out in an effort to organize a Wyoming State Historical Society. Letter sent out by Lola Homsher. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1998   The Manges Cabin in Grand Teton National Park, added to the National Registry of Historic Places.  Attribution:  On This Day.

2015   Lex Anteinternet: And the band played on. . .well maybe not so much

Earlier this week we ran this:

Lex Anteinternet: And the band played on: In Saturday's Tribune an article appeared noting, again, the loss of over 3,000 oil industry jobs in Wyoming, and a 50% reduction i...

Yesterday (August 19), however, Governor Mead sang a different tune, and one that wasn't nearly so rosy.  We have to given him credit for that.

Mead, in a press conference flaty stated that Wyoming is entering a "difficult period" and that the State may need to consider tapping into its "rainy day" funds. For those who might not be aware of what those are, they're funds that the state specifically puts aside for stressed times.

Governors do not, to my recollection, ever suggest this. That's truly a dramatic statement for a sitting Governor, indicating just how dire the state's condition may be.  That Mead would suggest considering it speaks very much in his favor, as this has tended to be something that simply isn't discussed.  Reactions to the Governor's speech have been generally favorable, although there's no present support for actually tapping into the funds.  Mead, of course, wasn't requesting to do so right now, only indicating that it might become necessary.

2017   Casper Eclipse Festival: August 19-21, 2017. And a note on the Eclipse in general.

 Newly opened Casper bar, The Gaslight Social.

As Casper was right in the center of the 2017 Solar Eclipse, it took advantage of the situation and had a three day festival to commemorate it.  The festival featured the openings, basically, of three new bars (or one bar/restaurant reopening, one new bar/restaurant and one new bar) and a new city feature, a downtown plaza.  It was well attended.

 Downtown revelers and a carriage.  Casper, unlike Fort Collins or even, occasionally, Denver, generally doesn't have horse drawn carriages downtown.

There were wildly varying predictions for the eclipse.  Frankly, I doubted some of them.  But maybe more of them came true than I would have guessed.

 Map showing where people had come from to view the eclipse.  Some of the locations were so surprising, I wonder if they were really true.

Over 1,000,000 people, according to the Star Tribune, entered the state during the eclipse.  Assuming that's correct, that means that the state's population tripled yesterday.  Having said that, it didn't appear to be the case that Casper's population more than doubled, as had been predicted.  I know that not all of the camping spots filled that had been predicted to, although perhaps many did.  I also know that people were camping right in the neighborhood, in front of people's houses that they knew.

This doesn't do this map justice.  There were visitors, according to the map, from Greenland, Ascension Island, and North Korea.  All quite surprising, if true.

Europe seemed pretty well represented.  I met one Irish visitor who had just left the Wonder Bar, which has a nice restaurant.  Apparently he hadn't realized that as he asked me and my son for directions to "a pub" so he could get something to eat.  He was surprised when I directed him back to the Wonder Bar.

 New downtown plaza.  I was skeptical that this would be complete on time.

It's not everyday you see a municipal judge on the guitar.

New downtown Rotary sidewalk clock.

 Picking up my trailer, which I had loaned out to friends

I'm included amongst those that had camping visitors.  Some good friends of mine were in town for the eclipse. They'd planned on staying in Gillette and driving down, but I loaned them my camp trailer and let them camp near our garden land. That became three couples by the time of the eclipse.  This land has never had residents, although the neighboring land does and has for quite some time, so I suppose its population increased from 0 to six.

Another old friend of mine drove up from Salt Lake to Riverton, where they also experienced an influx.  And I guess the Jackson Hole Airport received a huge  corporate jet boost.

Interesting event.

July 6

1836   Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding at the 1836 Rendezvous
 

This entry more likely belongs at our Today In Wyoming's History blog, as it isn't so much of a church item (well maybe it is) as a history item.  Note how particularly early this Oregon Trail event was, 1836.  Well before the big flood of travelers starting going over the trail in the late 1840s.

1863  John Bozeman leaves Ft. Laramie to scout a trail to the Yellowstone Valley. The trail would become the Bozeman Trail.

1876  The Army commences to inform the widows of the Little Big Horn Battle of the loss of their husbands at Ft. Abraham Lincoln.

1890  The streetcar line in Cheyenne running from Capitol Ave. to Lake Minnehaha completed.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1899  The Wyoming Battalion received its orders in the Philippines to return to the U.S. Attribution:  On This Day.

1918  Because the Germans doing it seemed like such a good idea? Now the Allies opt for intervening in Russia.

And Woodrow Wilson decided that the U.S. would participate in it, over the objections of Army which advised against it.

Everything about Russia during World War One has a certain pipe dream quality to it.  The Western Allies had hoped from day one that the giant nation would prove to be a vital and decisive ally. It did turn out to be a handful for the Germans, who ultimately defeated it, but the German hopes for what they had defeated and their greed meant that the fruits of that victory were never realized.

Following Russia's collapse into civil war the Allies hoped that the situation could be restored and a new republican government would rejoin the war, a hope that was folly at best.  Ultimately that hope lead to the decision to intervene in Russian affairs, putting the Allies into the extraordinary position of fielding expeditionary forces that would deploy direction into a civil war when, at that very time, the Allies were on the verge of loosing the war themselves on the Western Front.

Perhaps it is somewhat understandable, but only somewhat.  There was really no earthly way that Russia was coming back into World War One.  Moreover, the force needed to insure a quick White Victory, which is what would have been necessary to achieve that result, just wasn't there. . . which suggests that the Allies thought the Reds weren't really as powerful in 1918 as they were.  Not that they were not challenged, to be sure.  The Whites were also powerful at that time and the Communist government had seen an uprising on July 6 and 7 from the left, in the form of an attempted seizure of the government by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.  Russia was a mess.

But the Allies, in the midst of the largest war since the Napoleonic Wars, weren't going to be able to reverse that.

Indeed, in the American Army's case, they weren't even going to be given a clear mission.

1922 Seven gamblers were arrested in Yoder, in the garage of a deputy sheriff.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1922.  Thursday, July 6, 1922. Casper and Oil

The big news in Casper was that the Texas Company, generally referred to as Texaco, was coming to Casper.  It would build a refinery on the edge of what became Evansville, referred to in these articles as the lands belonging to the Evans Holding Company.

The refinery was one of three in operation here when I was young, including the giant Standard Oil Refinery and the Sinclair Refinery, the latter of which had been built originally by Husky Petroleum.  Only the Sinclair Refinery remains in operation.  The Texaco refinery closed in 1982.  The Standard Oil Refinery closed for good in 1991.

1976  Frederic Hutchinson Porter, an architect responsible for the design of several important buildings in Cheyenne and a Cheyenne resident, died.