November 6

1813  Congress of Chilpancingo declares Mexico independent of Spain.

1860 Abraham Lincoln elected President.

Lincoln is obviously one of the most significant Presidents in United States history.  In terms of direct impact on Wyoming, it should be noted that the Homestead Act and the initiation of the transcontinental railroad occured during his administration, amongst many other significant events.

1868  Red Cloud's War ends by treaty, although it had really been over for some months.

1886  George W. Baxter took the oath of office after being appointed as the sixth territorial governor of Wyoming.

1888     Benjamin Harrison was elected President.

1889  Wyoming's constitution adopted. The Wyoming constitution is unusual for a state constitution in that it has survived, albeit with amendments, since adoption.  Most U.S. States have replaced their original state constitutions.  The constitution was the first of a U.S. State to provide for female suffrage in the constitution.

1890  The last troops stationed at Fr. Bridger depart.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1891  Vincent Michael Carter, U.S. Representative for Wyoming from 1929-1935, born in St. Clair, Pennsylvania.  He was a graduate of Catholic University and a World War One Marine Corps officer.  He set up his law practice in Casper Wyoming in 1919, and then relocated it to Kemmerer Wyoming prior to becoming the Rupublican Congressman from Wyoming in 1929.

1900 A terrible train wreck occurred near Tie Siding in Albany County.

1900     President William B. McKinley was returned to office, defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan.  This go around Wyoming went with McKinley.  It's hard to say what caused Bryan to loose, when he'd done well before, in Wyoming, but it was also the case that Republican progressive Theodore Roosevelt, who was enormously popular in the West, was the the Vice Presidential candidate for the Republicans.  It would hav e been hard to find a figure more popular than Roosevelt at that time.  He's served as McKinley's Assistant Secretary of the Navy in McKinley's first term before resigning to serve as a volunteer cavalryman in the Spanish American War.

Theodore Roosevelt.

1906  Bryant B. Brooks elected Governor.  The Republican won in a four candidate race in which the Democrats were the major contenders, but the Populist People's Party and the Socialist Party also ran candidates, although they received very few votes.

1908  Robert LeRoy Parker, aka "Butch" Cassidy and Harry Alonzo Lonabaugh, aka "The Sundance Kid", are killed in a gun battle with Bolivian cavalry in San Vincete Boliva.  While Parker and Lonabaugh were regional criminals, they were headquartered in Johnson County's Hole In the Wall country for most of their US criminal career.

Harry Lonabaugh, seated, far left.  Robert LeRoy Parker, seated far right.

1916:   The Wyoming Tribune for November 6, 1916. The Nation's Hope, and Do You Want 5,000 Troops at Ft. Russell?
 

The Wyoming Tribune declared candidate Hughes the "nation's hope" the day prior to the General Election.  It also appealed to the business interest in Cheyenne, indicating that a vote for Hughes was a vote to put 5,000 troops at Ft. D. A. Russell, and their paychecks, of course, with them.

The Cheyenne State Leader for November 6, 1916
 

The day prior to the election readers of the leader had their attention directed to Mexico, including the war in Mexico and the relatively recent battle of Carrizal.

A late supposed scandal received attention from the paper as well, regarding a purchase of property by John B. Kendrick prior to his being Governor.  And, interestingly, the paper abbreviated the name of its base city as "Chian".

1918

Countdown on the Great War, November 6, 1918. Americans switch horses in the middle of the stream, Wyomingites vote to go dry, French and Americans take Sedan, the Kaiser urged to go.

1.  It happened the day prior, November 5, 1918, but on this day the news of the Republican landslide that swept the nation hit the press, including the Wyoming press, where GOP candidates swept the field.

The news was surprising in some ways.  Wilson had done nationally, as had the Democrats, in recent elections, following the Republican civil war that had caused the party to split.  But something about the war changed everything, as wars do, and even though Americans had solidly backed the war effort, or at least most Americans had, going into the peace they were rejecting the President and his party.

Even Robert Carey Jr. was benefiting from the Republican rise. Carey had been the subject of a lot of reporting in the Fall as Governor Houx had offered him the command of the Wyoming National Guard and he'd declined, and then belatedly accepted after that position had been filled (as it was, the Wyoming National Guard, like many Guard units, didn't not go to Europe as a single unit anyhow).  In an era in which people publicly shamed "shirkers" that Carey was able to politically survive this decision is really remarkable.  Indeed, as Carey was only forty years old in 1918, his declination is in fact somewhat inexcusable.  No matter, Houx went down in the election.

And this would matter in the upcoming effort to secure a peace. Wilson had outlined his vision in his Fourteen Points.  Would a GOP Congress support it?  As would be seen, it wouldn't.

And that wasn't the only big election news.

Wyomingites also voted to go dry, voting two to one in favor of the Constitutional amendment to bring in Prohibition.

2.  The leader of the Reichstag urged Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate, in favor of a new monarch, seeing the only alternative to be the success of a socialist revolution.

3.  The American and French armies took Sedan and the surrounding territory.  The French army too Rethel and Vervins. The Canadian army entered Belgium.  Foch assigns the American Army to advance into Lorraine.

4.  The Polish Soviet of Delegates, obviously styling themselves after the Soviets of the USSR, established the Provisional People's Government with Ignacy Daszynski as Prime Minister. As a body, it would exist only an additional week until it turned over its duties to Jozef Pilsudski, famous Polish revolutionary leader, who was newly freed from German imprisonment.  On the same day, polish peasants led by Communist Tomasz Dabal took control of Tarnobrzeg Galicia and proclaimed it an independent republic.

5. The Dutch cargo ship Bernisse struck a mine and sank.

6. The Kiel rebellion begins to spread wildly to various German cities. 

1919  November 6, 1919. Congress offers citizenship to Native American veterans.

American Indian soldier on sentry duty in Europe, World War One.

On this day in 1919 Congress passed legislation allowing the approximately 9,000 American Indians who served in the Armed Forces during World War One and who had obtained an honorable discharged to apply for citizenship.

BE IT ENACTED . . . that every American Indian who served in the Military or Naval Establishments of the United States during the war against the Imperial German Government, and who has received or who shall hereafter receive an honorable discharge, if not now a citizen and if he so desires, shall, on proof of such discharge and after proper identification before a court of competent jurisdiction, and without other examination except as prescribed by said court, be granted full citizenship with all the privileges pertaining thereto, without in any manner impairing or otherwise affecting the property rights, individuals or tribal, of any such Indian or his interest in tribal or other Indian property.

Few of them actually applied.

This is a bit of a confusing story in that some Indians already were citizens, and had been for decades, but the means by which they became citizens is not clear.  As a basic rule of thumb, Indians in the East tended to be regarded as citizens and this was all the more the case the greater their degree of assimilation.  Indians who came from reservations in the West were almost uniformly not American citizens.

This is one of those odd areas that tend to really shock people as the basic assumption is that American Indians were always citizens as they were Americans.  In fact, this wasn't the case and it still wasn't in 1919.  This gets into the topic of tribal sovereignty, which is somewhat complicated, but for our purposes here we'll simply note that on this date in 1919 Congress offered citizenship to those Indians who had served in the Great War and who wanted to apply for it. As noted, very few did.

Also on this day, Arthur Eddington made his presentation to the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society regarding his observations during a solar eclipse which confirmed Einstein's theories of special and general relativity.  Einstein would learn this while ill and bedridden due to wartime deprivation.  He was famous by the following day as a result of headlines around the world which announced the confirmation of his revolutionary theories.

Doc was seeking advice on whether to trade in a car or not. . . something that we're debating here a century later at the present time.

1920  U.S. Air Mail pilot John P. Woodward was killed when he flew into a snowstorm near Tie Siding, on his way from Utah to Cheyenne.  His plane crashed near Laramie, a few miles away.

The 26  year old Woodward was flying a DH4 when the crash killed him.  He as last sighted over Laramie itself.  In his honor, Woodward Field was named after him at 22nd West and North Temple in Salt Lake City, the city which he had last departed from at 11:30 that morning.  He was to have landed in Laramie at 3:00 and nearly in fact made it.

Woodard Field is now the Salt Lake International Airport.

1928     Republican Herbert Hoover was elected president over Democrat Alfred E. Smith.

 President Hoover

Hoover won by a landslide that year.  Wyoming was no exception, as Wyoming's voters gave Hoover 64% of the vote.

1928  Vincent Michael Carter elected Congressman from Wyoming on his birthday.

1930   J.B. Okie, a giant in the sheep industry, and a relocated wealthy Easterner, died while duck hunting near Lost Cabin, his Wyoming home.  Okie's life reads somewhat like a soap opera.  Economically, his small start in the sheep industry turned into a giant regional industry centered around Fremont and Natrona Counties, with a large headquarters in Lost Cabin, a railhead in Lysite and stores elsewhere.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1934  Joseph C. O'Mahoney elected to the Senate from Wyoming.  He was an incumbant as he was serving out the term of John B. Kendrick, who had died in office the prior year.  The Democrat held the office until 1953.

1934  Paul R. Greever elected to Congress from Wyoming.

Former Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross and Congressman Paul R. Greever at a Wyoming Day event.

1947  First broadcast of Meet The Press.

1956  President Eisenhower wins a second term in office.  Not surprisingly, Wyoming liked Ike for a second term.

1962  Milward Simpson elected Senator from Wyoming.

1962  Clifford Hanson elected Governor.

Hanson's election ended a period in which both of Wyoming's Senators were Democrats.

1981  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that a black footed ferret, an animal presumed extinct, had been discovered in Wyoming.

1990  Governor Michael Sullivan defeats contender Mary Mead in the Gubernatorial election.

2012  Election Day for 2012.  President Barack Obama reelected.  Wyoming's electoral vote went to challenger Mitt Romney.  Sitting Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis reelected, as was sitting Senator John Barasso.

2018   Mark Gordon elected Governor of Wyoming in an election that also saw Edward Buchanan elected as Secretary of State and Melissa Racines elected as Auditor.  Senator Barrasso and Congressman Cheney were reelected to their offices.

November 3

St. Hubert's Day.

Today is St. Hubert's Day.  That is, the day on the Catholic calendar honoring this Saint.

St. Hubert encounters the deer.

St. Hubert lived more recently, post Roman Empire, having been born in 656 and living until 727.  He was born in what is now southern France into a noble family, but was sent north to Paris at an early age.  Due to political turmoil, he was one of many who ended up it Metz as sort of a noble refugee and we need to keep in mind that France, as a solid political entity, didn't exist at the time. Anyhow, he married one Floribanne, daughter of Dagobert, Count of Leuven, and the couple had a son, Floribert, later the Bishop of Liege.  In this fluid political time, therefore, fate had taken Huber from Toulouse to Liège in an onward northern migration.

Hubert was not a religious man and that condition was amplified when his wife died giving birth to Floribert, a not uncommon fate for women at the time.  After that, Hubert took entirely to hunting in the Ardennes, living a solitary hunting life.  On a Good Friday, however when the faithful were gathering in Church in honor of that day (which is not a Holy Day of Obligation) he encountered a great stag and the it turned on him, cross between its horns, and spoke, saying:

Hubert, unless thou turn to the Lord, and lead a holy life, you shall quickly go down into hell.

It's hard to ignore a thing like that, to say the least, and Hubert dismounted from his horse and immediately, according to tradition, replied; "Lord, what would You have me do?", to which the reply came "Go and seek Lambert, and he will instruct you."  Hubert entered the priesthood and rose to the rank of Bishop of Liege, which he occupied until his death, at which point his priest son took over that position.  Both are saints.

According to the legend of his encounter, the deer also lectured St. Hubert on having higher regard for animals and engaging in human hunting practices, including taking old stags beyond their prime breeding years, and also to take sick or injured animals even if it meant passing up on a shot at atrophy.  There's more to it, but St. Hubert is accordingly still  held in high regard in Germany, Austria and France among hunters and ethical hunting principals taught in European hunting societies are attributed to him.

St. Hubert is the patron Saint of Hunters and is still celebrated in Northern Europe, where he is the patron of hunting associations.  In Germany, hunters celebrated this day as Hubertustag, pausing in the hunting season to honor St. Hubert.

As we had just referenced him in the post noted above, and we're further noting this day ourselves.

Seems like an appropriate thing to note in Wyoming.

1762         Spain acquired Louisiana from France.  So, as of this date, a small part of Wyoming that was previously French Louisiana, was Spanish Louisiana.  But not for long.

1812  The Robert Stuart party build a cabin in the Narrows, Bessemer Bend, region of what is now Natrona County. This primitive structure is generally regarded as the first European American cabin in Wyoming.  A monument to the cabin was until very recently located along the highway in the appropriate spot, but it was recently removed for road construction.  A later wooden sign, common for historical markers in Wyoming, once existed but was removed many years ago. That marker noted the cabin as the "first white man's cabin" and I've sometimes wondered if the verbiage was regarded as politically incorrect in later years.

The Stuart party did not occupy the cabin long as they found themselves on the boundary of a dispute between Indian tribes and the location was dangerous. They there decamped and relocated over 100 miles distant.

Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society and Some Gave All.

1868 Ulysses S. Grant won the presidential election over Horatio Seymour.

1890  The U.S. District  Court for the District of Wyoming went into session for the first time.

1890  Clarence Don Clark elected as Wyoming's first Congressman.

The nearly forgotten Clark was a New York born lawyer who had relocated to Wyoming in 1881.  The Republican from Evanston served two terms as Congresman and later served in the Senate.

1892  Henry Coffeen, Democrat from Sheridan, elected to Congress.  He would serve one term.

1896 William McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency.

President McKinley.

This was the second Presidential election in which Wyoming's voters had a part.  Consistent with their populist swing in the prior 1892 election, Wyomingites gave the majority of their votes to the Democratic populist, William Jennings Bryan, who took 51% of the vote.  The Prohibition Party candidate that year only took .75% of the vote, with McKinley taking the rest.  Like the prior election of 1892, this Presidential election was showing the influence of major swings and upset within both parties.

 Willam Jennings Bryan.  

Bryan didn't ever succeed in being elected President, but he did become the Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson and was briefly a Congressman from Nebraska.

1896  Democratic Governor John E. Osborne elected to Congress from Wyoming.  He would serve a single term.

1908 William Howard Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan, handing Bryan another defeat.

By 1908 Williams Jennings Bryan was not only a fading star nationally, but also in Wyoming.  Taft had been the Vice President of Theodore Roosevelt, a wildly popular figure in Wyoming, and he took 55% of the vote.  Eugene Debs, the Socialist party candidate took 4.5% of the vote, with Bryan taking the balance.

1911  Chevrolet enters the automobile market.

1933 John B. Kendrick, U.S. Senator from Wyoming, and sponsor of the Kendrick Irrigation Project in Natrona County, died.  Prior to being elected Senator, he had served as Governor.

1936 Franklin D. Roosevelt re-elected in a landslide over Alfred M. ''Alf'' Landon.

Franklin Roosevelt took 60% of the Wyoming vote in 1936, up from 56% in 1932.

1936  Henry H. Schwartz, Democrat from Casper, elected to the U.S. Senate.  Schwartz served one term and was defeated in his reelection bid.  The Ohio born lawyer practiced law in Casper.

Henry H. Schwartz

1942.  Lester Hunt, DDS, the sitting Wyoming Secretary of State and a Democrat narrowly defeated Governor Nels H. Smith.

Lester C. Hunt.

Hunt would serve as Governor for two terms before going on to becoming Wyoming's Senator.  He killed himself in 1954 after Washington D. C. policy picked up his son in 1953 for soliciting a male prostitute.  The scandal was kept quiet for awhile, but political opponents threatened to use it against him as a threat to keep him from engaging in a 1954 bid for office.

In the Senate Hunt had been an opponent of Joe McCarthy.

In the same year that Wyoming went from Republican to Democrat for the Governor's mansion, the state went in the opposite direction for the Senate.  Edward V. Robinson defeated incumbant Harry Schwartz.

Robinson.

Robinson's election was part of a nationwide treand that year that saw a Republican increase.  He's serve only one term and lose a bid for reelection.  He was Welsh and had served in the British Army in the Boer War and is little remembered as a Wyoming politician.

1958  Gale McGee was elected to the U.S. Senate.  He was the first, and so far the only, University of Wyoming instructor to be elected to the U.S. Senate.   He was a Democrat.

McGee fit into another era in Wyoming's politics in that he was able to be elected as a Democrat and, perhaps even more surprisingly, the Class 2 Senator position was occupied by a Democrat at the time that McGee was elected, making both of Wyoming's Senators Democrats.  He served from 1959 until 1977.  That he was elected in the late 1950s is surprising to recall, because his somewhat flashy sartorial style really fit in with the early 1970s.  Nonetheless his service stretched all the way back to 1959 and he was sworn in as  Senator by Vice President Richard Nixon.  After being defeated for a reelection bid in 1976, a campaign which he was largely absent in, he was appointed by President Carter as the Ambassador to the Organization of American States.

Politically McGee was slightly liberal, but remained a popular Wyoming politician.  His defeat in 1976 was attributed by the national media to his opposition to the Vietnam War which was almost certainly incorrect.  McGee did oppose the war, but his seat remained safe throughout it.  There has been some speculation that by 1976 he no longer wanted to remain in the Senate but for one reason or another ran anyhow.  That would be more consistent with his campaign that year against Malcolm Wallop in which Wallop was allowed to run a nearly unopposed campaign.  McGee was the last Senator from Wyoming to be a member of the Democratic Party.

The Post Office in Laramie is named after Senator McGee.

1964  Lydon Johnson elected President.

 Johnson was the last Democratic Presidential candidate to receive the majority vote in Wyoming, receiving 56% of Wyoming's vote that year.

1964  Teno Roncolio, a Democratic lawyer originally from Rock Springs, but living in Cheyenne at the time, elected to Congress.

Roncolio would only serve one term from his 1964 election, and then attempt a run for the Senate.  His Senatorial run was unsuccessful and he would regain his position in the House in 1970.

Roncolio's 1964 election meant that two out of the three members of Congress (House and Senate) from Wyoming were Democrats, an event which would be almost inconceivable today.

Roncolio received the Silver Star while serving in the U.S. Army during World War Two for heroism in the invasion of Normandy, and he was one of the sources interviewed by Cornelius Ryan for his Book "The Longest Day."  Roncolio was the last member of the Democratic Party to be elected to Congress from Wyoming.

1999  Aaron McKinney convicted of the murder of Matthew Shepard the year prior.  Attribution:  On This Day.

2016  Buffalo (Bison) were returned to the Wind River Reservation by the Eastern Shoshone tribe. The introduced buffalo were ten in number.

2020  Joe Biden was elected President, defeating incumbent Donald Trump, although in a race that could not be officially called for days due to it being so close. The election also featured an enormous vote tally, exceeding any prior election.  Kamala Harris was elected Vice President, becoming the first female Vice President in U.S. history.

Joe Biden as Vice President.

In Wyoming, Cynthia Lummis was elected to the office of Senator, becoming the first female Wyoming Senator.  Liz Cheney was reelected to Congress.  The race was remarkable in that all the major candidates for Congress were women for the first time in the state's history, with Cheney facing female challenger and Native American Lynette Grey Bull and Lummis facing University of Wyoming professor Marev Ben David.

Cynthia Lummis.

The race also saw a Libertarian elected to the state's legislature, the first time a member of a third party has been elected to a Wyoming state office for a century.

October 24

1859  Residents of what are now parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas voted to form the Territory of Jefferson.  The extralegal putative territory would have included some of Wyoming, but also would have included parts of what are now the neighboring states including nearly all of Colorado.  It was never afforded recognition by the United States although, amazingly, it did elect a government and legislature.  Admission of Kansas, and more particularly Colorado, into the Union ended it.

1861 The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent from California to President Abraham Lincoln.

1861  The Pony Express was terminated.

Contrary to widespread popular belief, they weren't all orphans. Nor were they all young, as at least one rider was in his 40s.

The hard riding part, however, is correct.

1861 West Virginia seceded from Virginia.  This rather obviously has nothing directly to do with the history of Wyoming, but it's included here to note what was otherwise going on, on this momentous day in 1861.  The Pony Express ended, cross continental telegraph communications began, and the Civil War was ripping the country apart.  In some ways, the closer future and the disparate present was particularly prominent on this day.

1877  Famous suffragette Susan B. Anthony visited Cheyenne.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1902  A jury, having gone out the day before for deliberation, found Tom Horn guilty of the murder of Willie Nickell.

1929 Black Thursday—the first day of the stock market crash which began the Great Depression.  A significant recession, however, had been going on in Wyoming, following the economic declines following World War One, in Wyoming since 1919.

1939. Nylon stockings sold publicly for the first time.

1940 The 40-hour work week went into effect in the United States under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Interesting to note that this happened right before WWII, which would temporarily suspend it.

1969  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, released.

The iconic Western movie, of course.

It's a movie that I haven't reviewed yet (I guess this will have to suffice for the review), in spite of an effort here to catch movies of interest that are "period pieces", if you will, which all non fantasy movies set in the past are.

The 1969 movie is one of the best loved and best remembered western movies.  It took a much different tone in regard to Western criminals than the other major Western of the same year, The Wild Bunch.  I frankly prefer The Wild Bunch, which as I earlier noted is a guilty pleasure of mine, but I love this film as well.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a romanticized and fictionalized version of the story of the two Wyoming centered Western criminals who ranged over the entire state and into the neighboring ones.  In the film, which is set in the very early 1900s before they fled to Boliva, and which follows them into Bolivia, the two, portrayed by film giants Paul Newman (Butch) and Robert Redford (Cassidy), come across as lovable rogues, and barely rogues at that.  The film had a major impact at the box office and came in an era in which the frequently predicted "end of the Western movies" had already come.

The Hole In The Wall Gang, lead by (Robert LeRoy Parker) Butch Cassidy, far right, and Harry Lonabaugh (the Sundance Kid). This photograph was a stupid move and lead to their downfall.

So how accurate is it?

Well, pretty mixed.

Even the Pinkerton Detective Agency allows that they are the two romanticized Western criminals, and there are quite a few romanticized Western criminals, are closest to their public image. They were intelligent men and got away with their depredations in part as there were locals who liked them well enough not to cooperate with authorities, although that was also true of much less likable Western criminals.  And the vast majority of characters in the film represent real figures who filled the roles that they are portrayed as having in the film.  So in that sense, its surprisingly accurate.

Where it really fails, of course, is in glossing over the fact that they were in fact violent criminals.  And as outlaws their history is both violent and odd for the era.  The Wild Bunch, the criminal gang with which they are most associated, was extremely loosely created, and people came and went, rather than there being just one single group of outlaws.  The Wild Bunch itself generally took refuge, when it needed to, in Johnson County's Hole in the Wall region (their cabin exists to this day) and perhaps because of this or because of several of them being associated with the Bassett sisters, the daughters of a local small rancher, their activities oddly crossed back and forth between pure criminality and association with the small rancher side of the conflict that lead to the Johnson County War.  This latter fact, once again, may have contributed to their image as lovable criminals, even though they themselves were not in the category of individuals like Nate Champion who were actual small cattlemen who were branded as criminals by larger cattle interest. The gang was, rather, made up of actual criminals.

So the depiction of them simply attacking the evil (in the film) Union Pacific is off the mark. They were thieves.  Just less despicable thieves than most.

They did go to Bolivia and their lives did end there, according to the best evidence.  The film accurately portrays their demise coming in the South American country even if it grossly exaggerates that end, persistent rumors of at least Butch's survival aside.

Material detail wise the film is so so.  This late 1960s movie came at a time at which a high degree in material details, a bar set by Lonesome Dove, hadn't yet arrived, so the appearance of things reflects the movie styles of the late 1960s more than the actual appearance of things in the early 1900s.  Arms, however, are correct as in this movie making era the tendency to try to stand out by showing unique items in use hadn't arrived.

All things being considered, it is a great Western and well worth seeing.  It belied the belief that the era of Westerns was over, and in some ways it recalls earlier sweet treatment of Western criminals who were supposed to be just wild boys at heart.  Nobody gets killed in the film until Butch and Sundance do at the bitter end, which contributes to that.  In reality, The Wild Bunch is likely a more realistic portray of Western criminals, but this is a great film.

1989   Brooklyn Lake Lodge added to the National Register of Historic Places.  Attribution:  On This Day.

2008  "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history.

2014   Long time Wyoming Federal Judge Clarence Brimmer passed away.

Judge Brimmer was a Rawlins native who went on to law school following World War Two, during which he had entered the Army Air Corps late war.  He served as the Attorney General for the State of Wyoming in the early 1970s and then was briefly U.S. Attorney for Wyoming before being appointed to the Federal bench in 1975 by Gerald Ford..

October 20

1803  Louisiana Purchase ratified.

1889  Oil discovered near Douglas.

1906  Southeast Wyoming hit by a three day blizzard.

1913  The Burlington Northern arrived in Casper.

1917   Louis Senften  was murdered near Leo.  This resulted in his neighbor, John Leibig, who was the only one to witness the death, being accused of murder.

The accusations against Leibig seem to have been motivated, at least in part, by his being of German origin.  Senften had just purchased his ranch after a long effort to do so but there were details concerning that purchased that may have caused Leibig's neighbors to wish him gone.  Be that as it may, he was acquitted of murder but was also held on an additional eleven counts of espionage, a fairly absurd accusation against somebody who lived in such a remote location.  Leibig, perhaps wanting to simply get past the matter, entered a guilty plea to those charges as part of a plea bargain.  He was accordingly sentenced to a year and a half in a Federal Penitentiary, but President Wilson commuted the sentence to one year.  The short length of the sentence would suggest that both the Court and the President doubted the espionage claims' veracity.

Wyoming's U.S. Attorney continued Quixotic efforts to strip Leibig of his citizenship until 1922, although he had in fact lost it by operation of his sentence.  He ultimately would relocate to Colorado after being released from the Federal Penitentiary at Ft. Leavenworth Kansas.

More can be read about his trial on the WyomingHistory.org webiste.

1918  Countdown on the Great War. Sunday, October 20, 1918. The Allied advance keeps on keeping on, New American Divisions keep on forming, German Submarines and mines keep on sinking ship, and the Spanish Flu is still on a rampage.

American troops getting newspapers from the back of an American Red Cross truck.

1.  The British occupied Roubaix and Tourcoing.

2.  The U.S. 96th Division came into being, showing how the Army had grown and was continuing to grow.  It never left the states.

3.  The British schooner Emily Millington was sunk by a surfaced submarine without loss of life.   The British mointor HMS M21 hit a mine and sank in the English channel.

4.  The Spanish Flu was on a "rampage":

1958  Northeast Wyoming and Southeast Montana hit by a severe blizzard.

2009  Clifford Hanson, former Governor of Wyoming and Senator from Wyoming, died.

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 10

1872  The newspaper the "Evanston Age" established in Uinta County. Attribution:  On This Day.

1877  A West Point funeral was held for George A. Custer.

1890  A mine explosion at Almy kills one. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1902  Tom Horn tried for the murder of Willie Nickell.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1916   Douglas Enterprise for October 10, 1916. A letter from a Guardsman
 

1919  October 10, 1919. The Air Race

The 1919 Air Derby was the big news, already displacing the Red Sox's victory over what would become to be known as the Black Sox in the 1919 World Series.

The race in Wyoming, however, was marred by the news that a pilot had gone down near Elk Mountain, or more accurately sought of Elk Mountain over Oberg Pass.

The aviators were actually flying near Coad Peak, but the result was just as deadly.

Death would also be visiting a 16 year old in the state. . sentenced for murder.

And Casper was getting into the aviation world as well with plans to become the aviation center of the state.

It would in fact achieve that goal, but not for some years.  Cheyenne, in fact, would become that first, and then lose that position given its close proximity, in air miles, to Denver.

Naval base, Hampton Roads, Virginia.  October 10, 1919.

1922:   Lowell O'Bryan Memorial, University of Wyoming, Laramie Wyoming.
 

This is the monument to Lowell O'Bryan at the University of Wyoming.  O'Bryan was a University of Wyoming student who was topping off horses that were to be used in a celebration to greet incoming University President Arthur G. Crane when one of the horses broke and headed towards a fence and a group of students.  O'Bryan, an experienced rider, went to dismount the horse and turn it while it was breaking, which was experienced at doing, but the saddle slipped and he was thrown under the horse, receiving fatal injuries as a result.  O'Bryan's 1922 death was memorialized by this feature, which is a drinking fountain of an unusual design.

O'Bryan might also be commemorated in the murals that were formerly in the student lounge and which are now in the west ballroom of the Student Union, although that is not clear.  Several different figures in the murals may depict O'Bryan.

The lamps shown here are near the fountain are not part of its design, but rather were placed in that location in front of Old Main in 1911.

1926  This photo of a wrecker recovering a wrecked car taken.
1992  A 4.0 earthquake occurred outside of Riverton.