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.

September 27

1821  Mexico obtains independence from Spain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jimmy Rodgers, "Waiting for a Train".

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

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

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

But where were they going?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

It was a horrific event.

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

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

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

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

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

1998  Google starts operation.

2001  A magnitude 4.3 earthquake occurred 80 miles from Lander. 

September 25

1066  Harold II of England defeats an invasion by Harald Hardrada of Norway, at Stamford Bridge near York.  Amongst the dead were King Harald, who had lead an adventurous Viking life, and Tostig, King Harold's brother who had sided with the Norwegians.  This battle is overshadowed by the Battle of Hastings, but in this battle, just a few weeks earlier, King Harold Godwinson defeated King Harald Haardaada, the King of Norway

King Harald was a tall man for the era, and when he asked King Harold "How much of England will you give me." Harold famously replied "Six feet, as you are bigger than other men.".  That's what he got.

What's this have to do with anything, you might ask?  Well, Harold's forced march to Stamford bridge with Saxon levies, followed by the battle, is sometimes cited as fatiguing his troops, who then had to turn around shortly thereafter and march to Hastings.  Some recent scholarship has questioned that, but that assertion has been made.  The Norman victory lead to the introduction of feudalism in England, which produced the Common Law as we know it, including the Common Law as used in Wyoming's courts.

1493     Christopher Columbus set sail from Cadiz, Spain, with a flotilla of 17 ships on his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere.

1789     The first United States Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. (Ten of the amendments became the Bill of Rights.)

1909  August Malchow, the "Wisconsin Kid", of Havre Montana defended his world welterweight crown at the Methany Hall in Thermopolis.  The fight was against "Kid Erne" of Lewistown.  In  his professional career Malchow would go on to fight three more bouts, two of them also in the Methany Hall, with both of those being victories (one being a technicality, as it was a draw).  He would go on to loose in Sheridan in 1910 and he died in 1915 at age 30.

1912  USS Wyoming, BB-32, commissioned.

1916   Wyoming Tribune for September 25, 1916: Villa seeking alibi for Columbus Raid. Guard to go to San Antonio.
 

A dramatic Monday newspaper.

Villa looking for an alibi for Columbus.

The Guard to go to San Antonio.

Austria was without bread, and prohibitionist were submitting a bill to the Legislature to deprive the populace of booze.

1918  The Flu shares pride of place with the Great War and Villa, September 25, 1918.

The Spanish Flu, which would kill more Americans in 1918/19 than combat in Europe would, was now sufficiently newsworthy that it was making the front page day after day.  On this day, readers of the Casper paper woke up to find that as many as 30,000 cases of the particularly deadly and virulent flu strain had run through Army camps.

They also learned that Villa had returned to full violence in his war against Carranza.

In more positive news, Germany appeared to be collapsing.

Cheyenne's readers had equally disturbing news, including a claim that the Germans had returned to worshiping pagan gods in their desperation, a rather extreme claim to say the least.

1933  Memorial to June Downey, important early professor with widely varying interests, unveiled at the University of Wyoming.  In addition to writing poetry, teaching English, later psychology, and being a department head, she wrote the schools Alma Mater.

 Where the western lights' long shadows
Over the boundless prairies fling
And the mountain winds are vocal
With thy dear name, Wyoming.
There it is brown and yellow
Floats in loving loyalty,
And the College throws its portals
Open wide to all men free.

Refrain:
And so our songs we bring.
Our Alma Mater sing,
To her our hearts shall cling,
Shall cling forever more.

Yonder we can see it standing,
Circled by purple hills,
While the flaming fire of sunset
Every Western window fills;
'Tis the College! Ah, we know it!
Shrine of many joys and tears,
And the rays that light upon it
Are prophetic of its years.

1956     The first trans-Atlantic telephone cable went into service.

1963  John F. Kennedy spoke at the University of Wyoming.  His address:

Senator McGee--my old colleague in the Senate, Gale McGee--Governor, Mr. President, Senator Mansfield, Senator Metcalf, Secretary Udall, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to express my appreciation to you for your warm welcome, to you, Governor, to the President of the University, to Senator McGee, and others. I am particularly glad to come on this conservation trip and have an opportunity to speak at this distinguished university, because what we are attempting to do is to develop the talents in our country which require, of course, education which will permit us in our time, when the conservation of our resources requires entirely different techniques than were required 50 years ago, when the great conservation movement began under Theodore Roosevelt--and these talents, scientific and social talents, must be developed at our universities.

I hope that all of you who are students here will recognize the great opportunity that lies before you in this decade, and in the decades to come, to be of service to our country. The Greeks once defined happiness as full use of your powers along lines of excellence, and I can assure you that there is no area of life where you will have an opportunity to use whatever powers you have, and to use them along more excellent lines, bringing ultimately, I think, happiness to you and those whom you serve.

What I think we must realize is that the problems which now face us and their solution are far more complex, far more difficult, far more subtle, require a far greater skill and discretion of judgment, than any of the problems that this country has faced in its comparatively short history, or any, really, that the world has faced in its long history. The fact is that almost in the last 30 years the world of knowledge has exploded. You remember that Robert Oppenheimer said that 8 or 9 out of 10 of all the scientists who ever lived, live today. This last generation has produced nearly all of the scientific breakthroughs, at least relatively, that this world of ours has ever experienced. We are alive, all of us, while this tremendous explosion of knowledge, which has expanded the horizon of our experience, so far has all taken 'place in the last 30 years.

If you realize that when Queen Victoria sent for Robert Peel to be Prime Minister-he was in Rome--the journey which he took from Rome to London took him the same amount of time, to the day, that it had taken the Emperor Hadrian to go from Rome to England nearly 1900 years before. There had been comparatively little progress made in almost 1900 years in the field of knowledge. Now, suddenly, in the last 100 years, but most particularly in the last 30 years, all that is changed, and all of this knowledge is brought to bear, and can be brought to bear, in improving our lives and making the life of our people more happy, or destroying them. And that problem is the one, of course, which this generation of Americans and the next must face: how to use that knowledge, how to make a social discipline out of it.

There is really not much use in having science and its knowledge confined to the laboratory unless it comes out into the mainstream of American and world life, and only those who are trained and educated to handle knowledge and the disciplines of knowledge can be expected to play a significant part in the life of their country. So, quite obviously, this university is not maintained by the people of Wyoming merely to help all of the graduates enjoy a prosperous life. That may come, that may be a byproduct, but the people of Wyoming contribute their taxes to the maintenance of this school in order that the graduates of this school may, themselves, return to the society which helped develop them some of the talents which that society has made available, and what is true in this State is true across the United States.

The reason why, at the height of the Civil War, when the preservation of the Union was in doubt, Abraham Lincoln signed the Land Grant College Act, which has built up the most extraordinary educational system in the world, was because he knew that a nation could not exist and be ignorant and free; and what was true 100 years ago is more true today. So what we have to decide is how we are going to manage the complicated social and economic and world problems which come across our desks-my desk, as President of the United States; the desk of the Senators, as representatives of the States; the Members of the House, as representatives of the people.

But most importantly, as the final power is held by a majority of the people, how the majority of the people are going to make their judgment on the wise use of our resources, on the correct monetary and fiscal policy, what steps we should take in space, what steps we should take to develop the resources of the ocean, what steps we should take to manage our balance of payments, what we should do in the Congo or Viet-Nam, or in Latin America, all these areas which come to rest upon the United States as the leading great power of the world, with the determination and the understanding to recognize what is at stake in the world--all these are problems far more complicated than any group of citizens ever had to deal with in the history of the world, or any group of Members of Congress had to deal with.

If you feel that the Members of Congress were more talented 100 years ago, and certainly the Senators in the years before the Civil War included the brightest figures, probably, that ever sat in the Senate--Benton, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and all the rest-they talked, and at least three of them stayed in the Congress 40 years--they talked for 40 years about four or five things: tariffs and the development of the West, land, the rights of the States and slavery, Mexico. Now we talk about problems in one summer which dwarf in complexity all of those matters, and we must deal with them or we will perish.

So I think the chance for an educated graduate of this school to serve his State and country is bright. I can assure you that you are needed.

This trip that I have taken is now about 24 hours old, but it is a rewarding 24 hours because there is nothing more encouraging than for those of us to leave the rather artificial city of Washington and come and travel across the United States and realize what is here, the beauty, the diversity, the wealth, and the vigor of the people.

Last Friday I spoke to delegates from all over the world at the United Nations. It is an unfortunate fact that nearly every delegate comes to the United States from all around the world and they make a judgment on the United States based on an experience in New York or Washington; and rarely do they come West beyond the Mississippi, and rarely do they go to California, or to Hawaii, or to Alaska. Therefore, they do not understand the United States, and those of us who stay only in Washington sometimes lose our comprehension of the national problems which require a national solution.

This country has become rich because nature was good to us, and because the people who came from Europe, predominantly, also were among the most vigorous. The basic resources were used skillfully and economically, and because of the wise work done by Theodore Roosevelt and others, significant progress was made in conserving these resources.
The problem, of course, now is that the whole concept of conservation must change in the 1960's if we are going to pass on to the 350 million Americans who will live in this country in 40 years where 180 million Americans now live--if we are going to pass on a country which is even richer.

The fact of the matter is that the management of our natural resources instead of being primarily a problem of conserving them, of saving them, now requires the scientific application of knowledge to develop new resources. We have come to. realize to a large extent that resources are not passive. Resources are not merely something that was here, put by nature. Research tells us that previously valueless materials, which 10 years ago were useless, now can be among the most valuable natural resources of the United States. And that is the most significant fact in conservation now since the early 1900's when Theodore Roosevelt started his work. A conservationist's first reaction in those days was to preserve, to hoard, to protect every non-renewable resource. It was the fear of resource exhaustion which caused the great conservation movement of the 1900's. And this fear was reflected in the speeches and attitudes of our political leaders and their writers.

This is not surprising in the light of the technology of that time, but today that approach is out of date, and I think this is an important fact for the State of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain States. It is both too pessimistic and too optimistic. We need no longer fear that our resources and energy supplies are a fixed quantity that can be exhausted in accordance with a particular rate of consumption. On the other hand, it is not enough to put barbed wire around a forest or a lake, or put in stockpiles of minerals, or restrictive laws and regulations on the exploitation of resources. That was the old way of doing it.

Our primary task now is to increase our understanding of our environment to a point where we can enjoy it without defacing it, use its bounty without detracting permanently from its value, and, above all, maintain a living balance between man's actions and nature's reactions, for this Nation's great resources are as elastic and productive as our ingenuity can make them. For example, soda ash is a multimillion dollar industry in this State. A few years ago there was no use for it. It was wasted. People were unaware of it. And even if it had been sought, it could not be found--not because it wasn't here, but because effective prospecting techniques had not been developed. Now soda ash is a necessary ingredient in the production of glass, steel, and other products. As a result of a series of experiments, of a harnessing of science to the use of man, this great new industry has opened up. In short, conservation is no longer protection and conserving and restricting. The balance between our needs and the availability of our resources, between our aspirations and our environment, is constantly changing.

One of the great resources which we are going to find in the next 40 years is not going to be the land; it will be the ocean. We are going to find untold wealth in the oceans of the world which will be used to make a better life for our people. Science is changing all of our natural environment. It can change it for good; it can change it for bad. We are pursuing, for example, new opportunities in coal, which have been largely neglected--examining the feasibility of transporting coal by water through pipelines, of gasification at the mines, of liquefaction of coal into gasoline, and of transmitting electric power directly from the mouth of the mine. The economic feasibility of some of these techniques has not been determined, but it will be in the next decade. At the same time, we are engaged in active research on better means of using low grade coal, to meet the tremendous increase in the demand for coal we are going to find in the rest of this century. This is, in effect, using science to increase our supply of a resource of which the people of the United States were totally unaware 50 years ago.

Another research undertaking of special concern to this Nation and this State is the continuing effort to develop practical and feasible techniques of converting oil shale into usable petroleum fuels. The higher grade deposits in Wyoming alone are equivalent to 30 billion barrels of oil, and 200 billion barrels in the case of lower grade development. This could not be used, there was nothing to conserve, and now science is going to make it possible.

Investigation is going on to assure at the same time an adequate water supply so that when we develop this great new industry we will be able to use it and have sufficient water. Resource development, therefore, requires not only the coordination of all branches of science, it requires the joint effort of scientists, government--State, national, and local--and members of other professional disciplines. For example, we are now examining in the United States today the mixed economic-technical question of whether very large-scale nuclear reactors can produce unexpected savings in the simultaneous desalinization of water and the generation of electricity. We will have, before this decade is out or sooner, a tremendous nuclear reactor which makes electricity and at the same time gets fresh water from salt water at a competitive price. What a difference this can make to the Western United States. And, indeed, not only the United States, but all around the globe where there are so many deserts on the ocean's edge.

It is in efforts, I think, such as this, where the National Government can play a significant role, where the scale of public investment or the nationwide scope of the problem, the national significance of the results are too great to ignore or which cannot always be carried out by private research. Federal funds and stimulation can help make the most imaginative and productive use of our manpower and facilities. The use of science and technology in these fields has gained understanding and support in the Congress. Senator Gale McGee has proposed an energetic study of the technology of electrometallurgy--the words are getting longer as the months go on, and more complicated-an area of considerable importance to the Rocky Mountains.

All this, I think, is going to change the life of Wyoming and going to change the life of the United States. What we regard now as relative well-being, 30 years from now will be regarded as poverty. When you realize that 30 years ago r out of 10 farms had electricity, and yet some farmers thought that they were living reasonably well, now for a farm not to have electricity, we regard them as living in the depths of poverty. That is how great a change has come in 30 years. In the short space of 18 years, really, or almost 20 years, the wealth of this country has gone up 300 percent.

In 1970, 1980, 1990, this country will be, can be, must be--if we make the proper decisions, if we manage our resources, both human and material, wisely, if we make wise decisions in the Nation, in the State, in the community, and individually, if we maintain a vigorous and hopeful 'pursuit of life and knowledge--the resources of this country are so unlimited and science is expanding them so greatly that all those people who thought 40 years ago that this country would be exhausted in the middle of the century have been proven wrong. It is going to be richer than ever, providing we make the wise decisions and we recognize that the future belongs to those who seize it.

Knowledge is power, a saying 500 years old, but knowledge is power today as never before, not only here in the United States, but the future of the free world depends in the final analysis upon the United States and upon our willingness to reach those decisions on these complicated matters which face us with courage and clarity. And the graduates of this school will, as they have in the past, play their proper role.

I express my thanks to you. This building which 15 years ago was just a matter of conversation is now a reality. So those things that we talk about today, which seem unreal, where so many people doubt that they can be done--the fact of the matter is, it has been true all through our history--they will be done, and Wyoming, in doing it, will play its proper role.

Thank you.

1997   Guernsey State Park designated a National Historic Landmark.  Attribution:  On This Day.

September 16

1620  September 16, 1620. The day the "Pilgrims" . . .

 set sail for the New World.

It was at sea for ten weeks, putting in near Cape Cod on November 11, 1620.

1810  Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costillo and several hundred of his parishioners seized the prison at Dolores, Mexico marking the beginning of the first significant Mexican rebellion against Spain.

1811 The  Astorians renamed Seeds-Kee-Dee-Agie (Praire Hen River) the Spanish River.  It would later be renamed the Green River. 

1875  J. C. Penney Jr, founder of J. C. Penny's, which first opened its doors in Kemmerer, born in Hamilton Missouri.

1920  While it didn't occur in Wyoming, and event which impacted the entire nation:

September 16, 1920. The Wall Street Bombing.

On this day, at 12:01 p.m., terrorist widely believed to be Galleanist anarchists, set off a bomb in New York's Wall Street district which killed thirty-eight people and injured hundreds more.

The bomb, designed to deploy shrapnel, killed mostly young workers in the district at a time at which young workers were very young.  It was left in a horse drawn wagon, with horse still attached, and went off at the busy noon hour.

The direct perpetrators of the act were never discovered.

On the same day, a Polish artillery regiment was destroyed, with some prisoners and wounded, by a Red Army cavalry unit that outnumbered it after it expended all of its ammunition during the Battle of Dytiatyn.  The Red Army unit was itself destroyed by Polish forces a few days latter.

The battle became a famous one for the Poles who established a military cemetery there.  That was later destroyed by the Soviets following World War Two and the location is now inside of Ukraine.

1924  A coal mine explosion at Kemmerer kills 55.

1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history.

1940 President Franklin Roosevelt orders the Army to begin mobilizing the entire National Guard for one year’s training. The National Guard's horsed cavalry regiments, would go into Federal service for the last time. Horse mechanized units, such as Wyoming's 115th Cavalry Regiment (Horse-Mechanized) would go into service for the first and last time.

More on the last two items:

Today In Wyoming's History: September 16, 1940. Conscription starts and the National Guard mobilized.

Some of those conscripted men in 1945.

On this day in 1940, a couple of monumental events occurred in the history of the US and the state. These were:

Today In Wyoming's History: September 16: 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history.

1940 President Franklin Roosevelt orders the Army to begin mobilizing the entire National Guard for one year’s training. The National Guard's horsed cavalry regiments, would go into Federal service for the last time. Horse mechanized units, such as Wyoming's 115th Cavalry Regiment (Horse-Mechanized) would go into service for the first and last time.

The story is always told a little inaccurately, and even the way we posted it on our companion blog slightly is.  The 1940 Selective Training and Service Act, reviving a conscription process started during World War One, was the first "peacetime draft" only if we omit the story of state mandatory military service which had existed from the earliest colonial times (recognizing the colonies as precursors to the state) up until after the Civil War, when it petered out.  Indeed, this history is why the National Guard, not the Army or Navy, is the senior service, dating back to December 13, 1636.  People didn't "join" the militia, they, or rather men, were compelled to be in the militia.  Only when the Frontier period caused populations to be so transient did this really change and even today many states define all men of sixteen years to sixty to be in the militia.

But Federal conscription itself was an anomaly and had only existed twice before, once during the Civil War and then again during World War One.  It had never been in existence in peacetime. And for that matter, hardly any Americans in 1940 had a living memory of mandatory militia duty, although there would have been those had been alive when it still existed.

Also of huge significance was the mobilization of the National Guard.

The mobilization of the Guard in 1940 is well known, but underappreciated.  The U.S. Army would have been incapable of fighting World War One or World War Two without the National Guard. During the Great War the reorganized Guard, reorganized as its state determined peacetime branches did not all comport with the Army's needs for a largescale European war, constituted a large percentage of the actual fighting force throughout the war.  It's peacetime establishment was reorganized again in the 1920s to match needs upon mobilization and accordingly many of the Army units that fought in the Army's early campaigns, all the way into 1943, were made up of Guard units.  Indeed, to at least some extent the Army simply used up Guard units until it could deploy newly trained men.

The significant story of the National Guard in both world wars was downplayed by the Army as, in spite of its absolute reliance on the Guard, the Regular Army always looked down on it in this period and tended to ignore its contributions.  Those contributions were enormous, and the Army's treatment of the National Guard's history unfair, and the wartime treatment of its officers shameful.

Conscription would soon start a labor shortly and ultimately start a series of social crises, conflicts and changes that permanently changed the United States and its culture.  One year of service, as had originally been passed into law, would not have done that, but when that service extended into years and ultimately into the largest war fought in modern times, it certainly did.  World War One, coming in an era of more privative transpiration, even though it was only twenty years prior, had not resulted in the transcontinental mixing of races and cultures the way World War Two did, and of course the Great War was shorter.  Those conflicts certain arose, but many of them arose afterwards, as reflected in the Red Summer of 1919.  The Great War changed the country as well but those changes really bloomed during World War Two, for lasting good and lasting ill.  The Civil Rights movement that started with the integration of the Armed Forces in 1948 really had its roots in the war during which there was a lot of dissatisfaction on the part of segregated blacks in regard to segregation, both in the military and in society itself. By wars end that segregation was going to be on the way out, even if that wasn't appreciated at the time.

The war also started the process of dismantling the strong ethnic neighborhoods in the country's majority white population and to at least some degree turned the temperature up on the melting pot.  At the same time, the war encouraged a period of loose morals that would begin to reflect back on the country after the war, really starting off when Hugh Hefner took the wartime image of the town girl that had adorned American bomber after bomber and put her in glossy centerfolds.  Much of what the war brought is still being sorted out, and the full impact of it will likely take another half century or more to really appreciate.

And that process, for the United States, began today, eighty years ago.

1947  BB-32, the USS Wyoming, stricken from the Navy rolls.

1950  War Memorial Stadium opened.   Attribution:  On This Day.

1988 Casper native Tom Browning, Cincinnati Reds pitcher, pitched a perfect game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

September 14

1890  Newcastle's waterworks completed.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1901     President William B. McKinley died in Buffalo, N.Y., of gunshot wounds inflicted by an assassin eight days earlier. Theodore Roosevelt, age 42, was sworn in,thereby becoming the youngest president in U.S. history.

1919  Game Warden Buxton was shot in the course of his duties.

Violence against Wyoming Game Wardens has been incredibly rare and very, very few have lost their lives in the performance of their duties.  Buxton was one of them.  He responded to reports of gunshots near Rock Springs, encountered two  individuals, and after informing them, Joe Omeye, that the hunting season confiscated a rifle from him. The day being a Sunday, Buxton reported to the incident with his wife.

While putting the rifle in his car he was called by Omeye who shot him with a pistol that he'd been carrying concealed.  The shot wounded Buxton who called for his wife to give him his gun.  Omeye then shot at Buxton's wife but missed, and she fled for help.  Help arrived too late and Buxton died on the way to the hospital. 

Omeye was convicted of Murder in the Second Degree and served time in the Wyoming State Penitentiary to twenty years in the penitentiary.

He initially served only four years before being paroled, providing proof that the common perception of serving being light only in modern times is wrong.  He violated his parole, however, and was returned to prison to be released again in 1931.

Omeye's companion, John Kolman, was not arrested and must not have been regarded as implicated in what occurred in any fashion.  An Austrian immigrant, he died in Rock Springs at age 93 in 1968.

1950   President Truman signed a bill merging most of Jackson Hole National Monument into Grand Teton National Park.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1950  The Act of September 14, 1950  prohibited the extension or establishment of any National Monument in Wyoming without the express authorization of Congress.

1960  The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was founded on this day at the Baghdad Conference of 1960.

1987  Anderson Lodge in the Absaroka Mountains east of Meeteetse,  added to the National Register of Historic Places.  Attribution:  On This Day.

2001  President Bush declared a national emergency.

2019  The Black 14 were belatedly issued University of Wyoming letter jackets at a UW football game.  See yesterday's entry.

September 13

1816  José Manuel de Herrera proclaimed Galveston a port of the Mexican republic and raised the rebel Mexican flag. Attribution:  On This Day.

1860.  John J. Pershing born near Laclede Missouri.  He graduated local high school in 1878 and went to work as a teacher.  He entered the North Missouri Normal School in 1880.  He entered West Point in 1882, graduating in 1886, which would have made him an old West Point graduate by today's standards.  He considered asking for a delay in his commissioning so he could attend law school, but determined not to do that. He later obtained a law degree from the University of Nebraska while posted there, obtaining that degree in 1893.  He married Helen Frances Warren, daughter of Wyoming's Senator Warren, in 1905.  Mrs. Pershing and three of the four Pershing children died in a fire at the Presidio in 1915.

1868  The first Episcopal service is held in Laramie at the Laramie Hall. This was 19 years before the creation of the Episcopal diocese for Wyoming, which was originally headquartered in Laramie.  The Cathedral remains in Laramie, but today the offices are in Casper.

1942  Responding to calls from the commander of the Army Air Corps' Casper Air Base commander, city officials took steps to close the Sandbar, Casper's infamous red light district.  Almost remembered in a nostalgic, semi charming, manner today, the Sandbar had been a concentration of vice for Natrona County since the 1920s where criminal activity was openly conducted.  In spite of the World War Two effort, the Sandbar remained a center for the conduct of vice until the 1970s, at which point it was attacked by an urban renewal project that effectively destroyed its infrastructure.

1953  Neil McNeice discovers Uranium in the Gas Hills, which will lead ultimately to mining in that district.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1984  The First State Bank of Baggs added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

2019  The University of Wyoming issued a formal apology to the Black 14, those University of Wyoming football players dismissed from the football team in 1969 by Coach Eaton for wanting to discuss wearing black armbands in protest at an upcoming game.

September 9

1776   The term "United States" was adopted by the second Continental Congress to be used instead of the "United Colonies."

1845   The arrival of the potato blight in Ireland is reported in the Dublin Evening Post.  This would, of course, be seemingly unrelated to the theme of this blog, but the Potato Blight would result in the commencement of the great Irish immigration to the United States, and to what would ultimately become a significant Irish immigrant population in Wyoming.

1850   Territories of New Mexico and Utah were created.

1876  The second day of the Battle of Slim Buttes, South Dakota, sees the first day's fighting.  The 3d Cavalry had surrounded a Sioux village undetected the night prior and charged this morning.  American Horse was mortally wounded.  Indian survivors fled to the neighboring Cheyenne and Sioux village.  In he meantime, elements of additional cavalry and infantry units arrived at the occupied village.

Sioux and Cheyenne under Crazy Horse to counter attacked but were surprised by the numbers of soldiers then in the occupied camp.  They did open fire and Crook, in command, formed defensive positions, and then sent forward skirmishers.  This was effective in driving the Sioux and Cheyenne away.  110 Indian ponies were seized in the village, along with  a supply of dried meat, a 7th Cavalry guidon from Company I, the bloody gauntlets of Capt. Myles Keogh, government-issued guns and ammunition, and other related items.

This concluded the first day's fighting.

1885  Additional U.S. troops arrive in Wyoming due to the Rock Springs Massacre. They escort Chinese workers, against their desires, back to Rock Springs.

1886   Construction commenced on the Wyoming State Capitol although the cornerstone would not be laid until the following year.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1918  Monday, September 9, 1918. The news in Casper. Old Indian Fighter back in town. . . Debs goes on trial. . . French cavalry on the move. . . State Guard assembles in town. . .Corn crop low. . . and Ruth hits a triple to give the Sox the World Series.

A lot was going on in this paper.  Battles new and old, and on the baseball diamond.

1920  Cheyenne's airport saw its first airmail flight.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1925   Sheridan area rancher, Oliver Wallop, became Earl of Portsmouth upon death of brother.  O. H. Wallop was English born and a member of the titled class.  The Wallop family was part of a significant English ranching community that was centered in the Sheridan area, but not limited to it. British ranching operations entered Wyoming as early as 1876 and continued on well into the 20th Century.  Montana likewise saw a significant community of English ranchers.  Some were family owned operations, such as this, but others were British corporate owned operations, such as the Natrona  County headquartered VR (Victoria Regina) Ranch.

Wallop had served in the Wyoming legislature and was a naturalized U.S. citizen.  In order to take his place in the House of Lords he had to renounce his U.S. citizenship.

1945  The term "computer bug" was first used by LT Grace Murray Hopper while she was on Navy active duty in 1945. It was found in the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator at Harvard University. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, where it still resides, with the entry: "First actual case of bug being found." They "debugged" the computer, first introducing the term.

In honor of this disturbing event, I propose that this day henceforth be known in the computer age as "Grace Murray Hopper Day".

1951  FCC filings were completed for a public television station at the University of Wyoming.

September 6

1844  John C. Fremont arrives at the shores of the Great Salt Lake.

1857   John Benjamin Kendrick, Governor from 1915 to 1917, and U.S. Senator from 1917 to 1933, was born in Cherokee County, TX.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1870  Laramie's Eliza A. Swain became the first woman to legally cast of vote in the United States.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1887  The University of Wyoming opened.  It had, at the time, 42 students and 5 faculty members. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1918.   Wyoming Labor Journal, September 6, 1918.

Another item we're running this week in observation of Labor Day, this past Monday, and of course in keeping with our recent 1918 theme, the Wyoming Labor Journal.

This is the issue of September 6, 1918 and followed the recent Labor Day observance in 1918.  While various unions that exist in Wyoming do publish trade journals today, as far as I'm aware there is no longer a general labor newspaper such as this.

Labor was in an odd position in the Great War as it was continually somewhat at odds with the administration while also supporting the war effort.  From the patriotic front page of the paper, you wouldn't necessary know that from the Journal.

Elsewhere: 

 

1936.  President Roosevelt delivered a fireside chat.

2018.  An increasingly embattled Donald Trump went to Billings, Montana to campaign for Matt Rosendale against incumbent U.S. Senator John Testor.