August 10

1821  Missouri admitted to the Union.  As part of this event,  most of Wyoming becomes part of unorganized U.S. territory.

1867  Cheyenne's first municipal election.  On the same day, in the same town, the post office at the corner of Ferguson (Carey Avenue) and Seventeenth streets opened. Attribution:  On This Day.

1886  Cavalry arrived at Yellowstone to police the park.

1896  William H. Harrison born in Terra Haute, Indiana.  He was Wyoming's Congressman from 1951 to 1956, from 1961 to 1965 and 1967 to 1969.  The Indiana born lawyer had been in Indiana's legislature in the 1920s, before moving to Wyoming where he first entered politics by being a Representative to the state legislature from Sheridan County.  He came from a family with long political roots, with his great-great-great grandfather Benjamin Harrison V being a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence,  his great-great grandfather William Henry Harrison being the 9th U.S. President and his grandfather Benjamin Harrison being the 23rd U.S. President.  In his retirement he relocated to Florida.

1912  Congress appropriated $45,000 for the purchase of lands and maintenance of a winter elk refuge in Jackson Hole where ranchers, and then the State, had been undertaking feeding the elk during winter.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1916   The Cheyenne State Leader for August 10, 1916. One battalion to be ordered to the border.
 

One battalion of the Wyoming National Guard looked to be deployed.  The Guard was nearly one soldier short, however, due to an elopement, one of quite a few that these papers reported on.

And, the World War One homesteading boom was really on.

1916   The local weather, August 10, 1916
 

Because its in keeping with the focus of this blog, and because I just realized another way to find it.

Lander, WY 

High of 69.1°F and low of 28.9°F.

Cheyenne, WY
High of 73°F and low of 51.1°F.

Sheridan, WY
High of 75°F and low of 48°F.

Nice temperatures during the day,and in Lander and Sheridan, cool temperatures at night. 

1917   The Food and Fuel Control Act of 1917 (Lever Act) becomes law
 

On this date in 1917 the controversial Food and Fuel Control Act became law.  Popularly known as the Lever Act, the law created two wartime agencies, the United States Food Administration and the United States Fuel Administration.

 

United States Fuel Administration poster.

Both agencies were provided with the ability to regulate prices and attempt to control supply in an effort to make sure that adequate stocks of these vital items were available to citizens and industry.

 Poster aimed at immigrants by the United States Food Administration.

The United States Food Administration was headed by Herbert Hoover who was appointed by Woodrow Wilson.  Remembered commonly now only for his unsuccessful Presidency, Hoover was a very capable businessman and civil servant.

Herbert Hoover in 1917.

Harry A. Garfield, the son of James Garfield, a lawyer and academic was appointed head of the Fuel Administration.  It's interesting to note that Hoover may have seemed the more logical candidate for this post, as he was a geologist.

Harry A. Garfield as Fuel Administration chief.

The Fuel Administration was organized on a state by state basis.  By January 1918, in spite of its efforts, fuel supplies were short enough that "Idle Mondays" were ordered for non essential industries.  The crisis in supply was not immediately alleviated by the wars end, and the agency continued to operate until 1922 when it was deemed no longer needed and passed out of existence.

 

Hoovers Food Administration performed a similar role in regards to the food supply.  A special grain purchasing agent, the United States Grain Corporation, was formed and operated under it specifically to purchase and regulate the supply of grain.  The agency largely passed into a new entity, the American Relief Administration, with the war's end, although the United States Grain Corporation continued on with some functions, including supplying relief wheat to Russia, until it was eliminated in 1927.

 

Like the Fuel Administration, the Food Administration took towards having "less" days, such as meathless, wheatless and porkless days.  As I've mentioned on prior posts, this must have seemed like an added burden for Catholic and Orthodox Americans, who already had fast days that included at least two out of the three of these.

 

People were also urged to garden at home (something already widely done), to eat fish instead of meat, and to use oats and corn where possible, rather than wheat.

 

The approach of both agencies was considerably different than that adopted by the later Democratic Administration of World War Two, which frankly might be telling in some ways.  Rationing was never enacted on a national level, although at least one state, Montana, did enact it on a state level, so perhaps that shows it proved its efficiency in another way.

Both agencies resulted in a large number of dramatic well done posters, from what must be regarded as the golden age of American posters, and to the extent they're remembered today, that tends to be why.  But both were major entities during the Great War and controversial ones at that.  Their existence shows the extent to which Americans of that era were willing to depart from normal concepts of business and economy during the war, and the extent to which resources were truly very tight at that time and people lived closer to the margins on a wider scale.

1918  Huns Retreat. Lonely Hearts at D. A. Russell. Doggerel in the Oil Patch. The news of August 10, 1918.

All the news fit to print, and then some.

On this Saturday morning in sunny Wyoming, 1918, readers around the state were reading of the huge change in fortunes for the Allies, who were now advancing rapidly towards the German frontier.  But other news crowded and shoved onto the front pages of the state's various newspapers as well.

In Casper, Casperites were greeted with the news that the local Home Guard was going to complete the issuance of rifles.

At Cheyenne's Ft. D. A. Russell readers learned that a lonely soldier was seeking a girl measuring 5 to 5.5 feet who was not a drunkard.  The publishing suitor noted that he measured 5 feet 4.5 inches high and had well to do parents, and was seeking a Cheyenne girl to marry.

A less chivalrous character in Virginia testified at trial that he wouldn't serve in the war even if the Turks landed on our shores and carried our women off to bondage.  My goodness.

In grimmer news, a medical officer who was formerly stationed at Ft. D. A. Russell was found dead in San Antonio, shot in the head.

Wyoming Oil World, a newspaper rather obviously dedicated to the petroleum industry, found itself moved to verse on this day in 1918, although not very good verse.  The subject was the dread Powder River, Let'r Buck war cry of Wyomingites.

1919  August 10, 1919. The Motor Transport Convoy rests in Laramie.

The Motor Transport Convoy spent their Sunday in Laramie on this day in 1919.

The weather was "fair and cool", which would be a good description of most summer days in high altitude Laramie, which has some of the nicest summer weather in Wyoming.  Wind and rain in the late afternoon is a typical feature of the summer weather there.

1950   The Plymouth Oiler baseball team from Sinton, Texas played the Worland, Wyoming, Indians in the first no-hit, no-run game in National Baseball Congress history.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1954  The Can-A-Pop beverage company of Sheridan announced it was moving to Denver.

1956  A contract was signed for the construction of the first uranium processing mill in Wyoming.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1988    President Ronald Reagan signed a bill providing reparations Japanese-Americans interred by the U.S. government during World War II.  One of the interment camps was at Hart Mountain, Wyoming, which is near Cody.

July 18

1877  Cantonment Reno, then Ft. McKinney on the Powder River,  moved to the north bank of Clear Creek.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1882  William Hale appointed Territorial Governor of Wyoming.  Hale was an Iowa attorney active in Republican politics, and was a Presidential Elector.  He occupied the position until his death in 1885.

1890  Laramie granted a streetcar franchise.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1901. Tom Horn murders Willie Nickell, for which he is later hung. In part, Horn is relatively rapidly identified due to leaving an expended .30-30 cartridge at the site, that being a rifle cartridge he was associated with.  At the time, the .30-30 was regarded as a long range high velocity cartridge and it was a relatively new cartridge as well.  The murder was almost certainly a mistake, as Horn was very likely waiting for Willie's father.  Willie was a big kid, albeit only age 14, and was wearing his father's coat on the day of the murder.

It's interesting to note that Horn was born in Missouri and grew up on a large family farm, although he left home as an early teen. His 1860 birth date would have caused him to grow up in the Missouri of the 1860s and 1870s, which were particularly lawless, and produced a variety of notorious gunmen.  He served as a civilian scout in the Army under the legendary Al Sieber and saw service on both sides of the border.  He picked up a knowledge of the Apache language during this period..

In the period leading up to this infamous act, he seems to have been employed as an enforcer for certain cattle interests that were continuing to contest along the lines of the Johnson County War as well as the ongoing sheep war.  He first took up hiring out as a gunman in the Southwest, after his service to the Army.  His role in Wyoming was often as a "stock detective", which gave a degree of legality to some of his activities.

His arrest and conviction is one of two instances in the first decade of the 20th Century in Wyoming in which the gunman was rapidly identified due to a cartridge preference, the other being the 1909 Spring Creek Raid, which was the last raid of Wyoming's long running sheep wars. In that event, one of the assailants was armed with a semi automatic Remington 1908 in .25 Remington, his rifle being the only one of that type in the region.

Horn has remained an oddly popular and well known figure in Wyoming's history and has his apologists.  The reasons for this are not entirely clear.  There are those who claim even to the present day that he was not guilty of the murder and was framed by those who had formerly employed him, citing to the efforts of Joe Lefors, who was critical in tracking him down and supplying testimony against him. But the apologists arguments do not stand up to scrutiny.   Looked at objectively, Horn was a late Frontier era figure who became ensnared in the violence of the period at the same time at which it was winding down.  The same decade of his arrest would see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid conclude their criminal activities in the state (also with Lefors playing a part in that) and the end of the Sheep Wars due to the arrival of effective law enforcement and unbiased juries.  Perhaps Horns role as a fin de siecle play a role in the ongoing fascination with him.

1912  A prison riot resulted in twelve prisoners of the penitentiary escaping, one of which killed a Rawlins resident. Attribution:  On This Day.

1918  And one day later. . . the Battle of Soissons. July 18-22, 1918.

Yesterday we posted our item about the practical end of the 1918 German Spring Offensive.

American 155mm guns which participated in the Battle of Soissons.

Amazingly, today we're posting about a French Offensive.

Or, more accurately a Franco American Offensive.  Or indeed, a Franco American Offensive supported by the British.

The Battle of Soissons.

Tactically, Soissons was a French effort, but even at that, it had a heavily international flavor to it. Designed to push back the bulge in the French line created by the third phase of the German 1918 Spring Offensive, the carefully designed attack featured an initial line made up heavily of "Moroccan" French troops, who reality were not only Moroccan, but were recruited from all over the globe. Some of the troops had in fact been pre war French Legionnaires.  Next to them were two American Divisions, the 1st and the 2nd, with the 2nd launching out of Belleau Wood and Château-Thierry France (which would result in the Battle of Château-Thierry, fought on this date).  Over all command was French.

The launching of the fifth and final phase of the 1918 Spring Offensive caused some to sugget postponing this effort, but Foch was confident the German effort would fail and there was no reason to delay. The decision was risky, but proved warranted.  From 18 to 22 July the French and American forces pushed the line back to where it had been before the 1918 Spring Offensive had begun. American troops proved themselves again in a large scale effort.  American efforts to form a full American Army were supported by the results. . . and the German reversal of fortunes in 1918 had begun.

Like most offensive operations in large wars, the offensive itself is remembered by some not for the particular offensive, but for battles within it.  One such battle was the aforementioned Battle of Château-Thierry, which is a well remembered Franco American battle that took place on this day.  That effort was an aspect of the first day of the offensive and was notable, as was day one of the offensive in general, for the lack of a preparatory artillery bombardment, which aided in achieving surprise.

U.S. Artillery at Château-Thierry.

1930  Gillette's  Dr. Sayles built small hospital at his home.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1940 The Democratic National Convention in Chicago nominated President Franklin D. Roosevelt for a third term in office.

1977  John Hinckely interviewed Milward Simpson.

2008  A Federal plan to delist the Northern Rockey Mountain Gray Wolf from the Endangered Species List was struck down by the Federal District Court of the D. C. Circuit.  Attribution:  On This Day.

July 10

Today is Wyoming Statehood Day

1863  Territory of Idaho created.

1866  The War Department issued orders to establish a fort south of Laramie.  It was initially named Fort John Buford but was renamed Fort Sanders on September 5, 1866.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1890  Wyoming admitted to the Union.

1933  As noted on this thread at  Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Long Cavalry Maneuvers.  Col Roche S. Mentzer, Commanding Officer of the 115th Cavalry became ill at Fox Park, in the Snowy Range, and died.  That year, annual training had consisted of a protracted mounted march which took the mustered unit from Cheyenne to northern Colorado, and then back into the Snowy Range.

Col. Mentzer, in civilian life, was a lawyer in Cheyenne.

2012  A terrible vehicle v wagon accident occurs following the Central Wyoming Fair & Rodeo parade.  See:  One woman remains in hospital after horse-drawn vehicle accident in Casper

2018   The Lions' Last Roar. The ongoing decline of service organizations.
 

I read in the paper earlier this week that the Lions Club is giving up sponsoring the local fair and rodeo parade, which its done for a decade.  This year is its last year.  The parade was held yesterday (July 10, 2018)

Of course, they drew that last parade in an election year, which must have been a pain.  I didn't watch but a few minutes of the parade, and that from an office window, but even at that I could tell it featured all the running politicians.

The reason the Lions are giving the parade up is a simple one. It takes about thirty people to do the parade, they reported. They're down to ten members.  As the Tribune reported, in an interview of the club's leader;

We looked at our membership. It takes an awful lot of people to put that parade on. Most service clubs have declining membership and ours has declined to the point we didn’t feel we could do it adequately. We notified the fair board officially in January but they knew it was coming. On a regular basis, we have about 10 members and it takes at least 30 people to start that parade, so we’ve taken advantage of our children and our wives and husbands.

Wow.

I've written about the decline in fraternal organizations before.  The Lions aren't really that, however. Their a service organization.  My prior posts probably somewhat confused the two and frankly most fraternal organizations have a service element to them.  Probably in the modern context they darned near all do.  But some organizations are expressly service organizations.  The Lions are one of them.

The Lions were founded in 1916 in Chicago.  It has 1.4 million members worldwide.  So it's still around and still relatively big.  But around here, it's not.  And that's common.

The Rotary Club, which seems to be doing much better, will be taking over.  Rotary International is a little older, having been formed in 1905.  I've known quite a few people who have been Rotarians, but I've also known a few Lions. The Lions I've known have been frank over the years that they were worried about the local clubs (there were at least two, maybe there still are) future. At some point, I'd think, you'd tip over a scale where the weight would be really against you.

Which is a shame, but then I myself have never been in a service or fraternal organization and don't really have any interest in joining one either.  But that's a feature of my character.  I wouldn't have been in one if this was 1968, or 1918.  It's just not me.  I'm glad its been somebody, however.

Comment:

Yesterday the State Historical Society posted this query to their Facebook page:

July 10, 1890, Wyoming became the 44th state. How does your community celebrate?

 The answer here would be not much.  Does your community do anything?

May 19

1848   Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo acknowledging the acquisition of Texas and New Mexico by the United States, which included a small portion of Wyoming, via Texas.

1846  resident Polk approved an act that provided for a line of military posts along the Oregon Trail.  In some ways, this has to be regarded as a major development in the history of the United States and the U.S. Army, as the expansion of the Army on to the Western Frontier dominated much of its character for the next century, even continuing to have an influence into its nature well after the Frontier had closed.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1866  Colonel Carrington left Fort Kearny for Fort Laramie where he received instructions from General Pope to name two new outpost along Bozeman Road Fort Philip Kearny and Fort C.F. Smith.  The widely spaced forts were to form more northerly bastions to guard the Bozeman Trail, the southernmost post, Ft. Reno, having already been established during the Civil War by Patrick Connor.  Carrington was one of a group of officers who remained in the Army following the Civil War when Congress established the policy of making room for some wartime officers who had not come from pre war military service or West Point.  Alfred Terry was another, with both men having been lawyers prior to the Civil War.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1869  Territorial government was formally in effect.  Territorial Supreme Court took the oath of office.

1871  Robert H. Milroy takes office as U.S. Marshall.

1887  Sheridan Post established.

1902  The first Carnegie Library in the United States, the Laramie County Library, opened.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1915  Dr. Amos Barber, Wyoming's second governor after statehood, whose governorship was marred by the Johnson County War and his general ineffective reaction to it, died.  Barber had a successful career as an Army surgeon before entering private practice, and he followed up on that with service again during the Spanish American War, but his having participated through acts of omission in the large cattleman's invasion of central Wyoming is principally what he is remembered for.

1919  May 19, 1919. Laramie to get a refinery, Daniels comes home, Ataturk in Samsun

Big news in Wyoming, and most particularly in Laramie, was that the Midwest Oil Company, which was very active in Natrona County, had determined to build a refinery in Laramie.

People in Laramie today may be surprised to know that this was even considered, let alone that it was actually built, which it was later that year, although the remnants of the refinery remain there.  Indeed, oddly enough, discussion has been going on for several years on how to clean the remnants of the refinery up, a project that has been ongoing, and on May 5 of this present year a legal notice regarding the final work on it was published.

The refinery operated from 1919 to 1932, making it a plant that closed during the height of the Great Depression.  The same location was later operated for a few years as a Yttrium plant, although most of the refining equipment had been removed in the 1930s.  Clean up of the site is nearly complete.

1938  Niobrara County Wyoming becomes the first county in the United States to have all of its mail for a day delivered via airmail.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1941  Fire destroyed three Union Pacific shop buildings in Cheyenne.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1987  The U.S. Post Office in Basin Wyoming, the U.S. Post Office in Buffalo the U.S. Post Office in Evanston, the U.S. Post Office and Federal Courthouse in Lander, the U.S. Post Office in Yellowstone National Park, the U.S. Post Office in Newcastle, the U.S. Post Office in Kemmerer, the U.S. Post Office in Thermopolis, the U.S. Post Office in Torrington, added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1996  A  4.2 magnitude earthquake, which your correspondent experienced, occurred 22 miles from Casper.

May 3

1836  Wyoming Illinois founded. 

1881  Grounds of Camp Stambaugh transferred to the Department of the Interior.

1885 Post hospital opens at Ft. Fetterman.

1898  All of the Wyoming units mustered for service in the Philippines assembled in Laramie County.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1917  

The Casper Daily Tribune for May 3, 1917: Lazy men and soldiering, and the start of a Casper landmark

There are a couple of items in this May 3, 1917 issue of the Casper Daily Tribune that are relevant for later eras.

For one thing, the boom in the town was now reflecting itself in the new professional appearance of the newspaper.  Gone was the small town appearance of purely local news.  Casper, for the first time, now had a paper that was starting to rival the big established papers in other regions of the state.  This paper doesn't even resemble the appearance of the Casper papers of just a couple of months ago.

Secondly, we learn in this paper that the Presbyterian community had purchased the lot where the First Presbyterian Church in Casper now stands:

The church, as can be seen above, is of substantial size and that also points to the change in Casper's economic fortunes in this period. 

Finally, from the various news articles I've seen, I've sort of taken it to be the case that Casper, which was a tiny town prior to 1917, did not have a National Guard unit up until this time.  I could be in error, however, as Casper's newspapers were of a fairly poor quality and they aren't all available by any means.  Douglas had one, however, and its small papers reported on that unit extensively.  Over the last couple of issues, however, its clear that the National Guard, which was actively recruiting for new units in the opening weeks of American participation in World War One, was recruiting for just such a unit to be formed in Casper.

Earlier we noted that 1917 was the year that really made Casper. This newspaper, in and of itself, provides some pretty good examples of how that is true.

1918  The News. May 3, 1918.

I don't point these papers out today for the war news, although there was plenty of it.  No, I'm pointing them out for the local goings on in Cheyenne and Casper.

Let's look at Cheyenne:

This issue is remarkably similar to an issue of this Cheyenne paper that ran a year ago.  We learn here that, once again, a bevy of Cheyenne high school beauties were the "sponsors" of the Annual Cadet Show, an even that no doubt took on more meaning in 1917 and 1918 than it ever had before.

And once again, oil prospects near Cheyenne were in the news.  Those prospects were real, but it wasn't until the 2010s that they'd be developed.  New technology made that possible.

A school nurse was recommending something that was fairly radical at the time. . . but as this came at the tail end of the Progressive Era, it was a somewhat radical age.

Around the state 167 men were called to the colors.  Elsewhere, a terrible military balloon tragedy had occurred.

And in Casper:

Casper's newspapers, now larger with a larger reading audience, continued to improve and at least this issue of the Casper Daily Press was real news. . . not all optimistic petroleum boosterism.

A real city improvement, sanitary and storm sewers were being put in. And that was big news.

William Ross, who would become governor. . . as would his wife, was rising in the Democratic ranks.

And the balloon tragedy also made the front page news in Casper.

1933   Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the Director of the Mints, an office she would hold until 1953.

1944  The Soviet Union decorated a Wyoming officer with the "Order of the Fatherland's War".  Such awards by the Soviets to Western servicemen were not uncommon.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1946         Military Tribunal in Tokyo begins war crimes trials.  One of the principal Japanese defendants was defended by Cheyenne lawyer George Guy.

1968   Colorado Air National Guard 120th Tactical Fighter Squadron, flying F-100Cs, becomes the first Air Guard unit to arrive in Vietnam.

1980  First Wyoming History Day.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Sidebar: The Irish in Wyoming

Just recently we posted our "green" edition of this blog with our St. Patrick's Day entry.  Given that, this is a good time to look at the Irish in Wyoming.

The Irish are a significant demographic, in terms of ancestry, in the United States in general, so a reader might be justifiably forgiven for thinking that the story of the Irish in Wyoming wouldn't be particularly unique, or perhaps even that such an entry must be contrived.  This would be far from the case, however, as the Irish were not only an identifiable element in European American settlement of the state, but a distinct one with a unique history.

 Bantry Bay, Ireland; where many of Wyoming's Irish came from.  This photo was taken between 1890 and 1900.

It may not be definitely possible to tell when the first Irishman or Irish American entered the state, but a pretty good guess would be that the very first son of Erin entered what would become the state in the service of the U.S. Army.  More particularly, it seems like that this would have been with the Corps of Discovery, that body of men commissioned by the Army to cross the continent from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean.  Sgt. Patrick Gass was definitely of Irish descent, although he himself came from Pennsylvania.  He's unique as he left the first literary work on the expedition.  George Shannon was of Irish Protestant descent and therefore, perhaps, arguably "Scots Irish," although his name would suggest otherwise.   The Corps, however, crossed the continent prior to the great migration caused by the Famine, and therefore its almost surprising that these men of Irish descent were on the expedition, as the Irish were a small demographic at the time.  Also revealing, at this time many, probably most, whose ancestors had come over from Ireland were of "Scots Irish" descent, those being descendant from the Scots population that the English had settled in Ireland to form a religious and ethnic barrier between themselves and the native inhabitants of the conquered country.

The fact that the first Irish Americans to enter the region, however, came in the form of soldiers was telling, as by the 1840s this was becoming coming common.  Up until that time the U. S. Army had been tiny and had very little presence on the Frontier at all.  The Mexican War, however, changed all of that and, at the same time, brought a flood of Irishmen into the enlisted ranks.  This was caused by the contemporaneous jump in immigration from Ireland at the time, which was coincident with a huge spike in German immigration as well.  There was a political element to both immigration waves, with the Irish being discontent with the United Kingdom, which disadvantaged them at law with statutes aimed against Catholics and with some German immigrants coming during the troubled times on the continent that would lead to European wide revolutions in the 1840s.  The Irish in particular, however, were also driven by extreme poverty and hunger as their disadvantaged state was further compounded by extreme crop failures in this period.  Taking leave to the United States or British Canada, many simply chose to get out of Ireland.  Upon arriving in the United States, still oppressed with poverty, and often just downright oppressed, many took a traditional employment route which was to enlist in military service.  Like their ethnic cousins the Scots, the Irish were not in actuality a particularly martial people, but standing armies provided an economic refuge for them.  In the United Kingdom this resulted in Irish and Scots regiments of the British Army.  In the United States, starting during the Mexican War, it resulted in a huge percentage of the enlisted ranks being made up of Irish volunteers.

 World War One vintage recruiting poster for "The Fighting 69th", a New York National Guard regiment legendary for being recruited, even as late as World War One, principally from Irish immigrants and and Irish Americans. At least one Canadian unit of the same period, the Irish Canadian Rangers, was specifically aimed at Montreal Irish.

The Irish, and the Germans, were at first resented in the service, even if their enlistments were accepted, and they were very much looked down upon by Southern born officers, who made up a disproportionate percentage of the Army's office class.  This had, in part, sparked a high desertion rate during the Mexican War and had even contributed to the formation of a unit in the Mexican Army made up of Irish and German desertions, the San Patricio's.  The Army, however, in what may be the first instance of a long U. S. Army tradition of adapting to social change ahead of the general population, made peace with the Irish enlisted men by war's end and they soon became an enduring feature of the Army.  By the time of the Civil War things had changed so much that there were now Irish American and Irish born officers in the Regular Army, such as Irish American Philip Sheridan, after whom Sheridan Wyoming and Sheridan County Wyoming are named. 

 "Little Phil" Sheridan, far left.  Sheridan was born to Irish immigrant parents, but his ties with Ireland were so strong that it is sometimes erroneously claimed he was born in Ireland.  The Irish American Cavalryman was honored in Wyoming with a town and county being named after him.  Oddly enough, in later years a 20th Century Catholic priest who was a relative of his would also serve in Wyoming.

This change started to take place almost as soon as the Mexican War was over, and was well established by the time the Civil War broke out.  Already by that time many rank and file members of the Army were Irish born and there were Irish American officers of note.  The controversial Patrick Connor provides one such example, with Connor having a major campaigning role in Wyoming during the Civil War period.  After the war ended, the post Civil War U. S. Army was full of Irish and German volunteers.  The list of the dead, for example, at Little Big Horn reads like an Irish town roster, so heavy was the concentration of the Irish born in its ranks.  Indeed, the Irish in the 7th Cavalry, and other U.S. Army units, had a permanent impact on American military music during the period, contributing such martial tunes as Garryowen and The Girl I Left Behind Me to the American military music book.

The controversial Patrick E. Connor, who campaigned in Wyoming, not always widely, but very aggressively, during the Civil War.

Irish born and raised 7th Cavalry officer, and former Swiss Guard, Myles Keogh.

After Irish soldiers came the Irish railroad workers, who arrived with the construction crews of the Union Pacific.  The role of Irishmen in the construction of the railway is well known. Along with other ethnic minorities, the Irish were strongly represented in the crews that made their way through the state in the late 1860s.  As towns came up along the rail line, some of these men would inevitably leave the employment of the railroad and take up residence in other occupations.  Cheyenne, Laramie, Medicine Bow, Rawlins, Green River, Rock Springs, and Evanston all share this Union Pacific source of origin.

Former railroad station in Medicine Bow, with the Virginian Hotel to the far left.

After the railways started to come in, cattle did as well. Rail lines were, in fact, a critical element of the conversion of the United States from a pork consuming to a beef consuming country, as rail was needed in order to ship cattle to packing houses in the Mid West.  Rail expanded into Wyoming at exactly that point in time at which the greatly expanded herds in Texas started to be driving out of that state.  Prior to that time, while beef was certainly consumed, it tended to be a local product and pig production provided the primary meat source in the United States, along with poultry, foul and wild game.  Texas' cattle had been raised primarily for their hides not their beef.  The Civil War, however, had seen an uncontrolled herd expansion which, with the war's end, became a nearly free resource, if a way of sending the cattle to central markets could be found.  The expansion of the rail lines soon provided that, and the long trail drive era was born..  And with the cattle, came some Irish cowhands, and ultimately Irish ranchers.

Ireland itself was nearly completely dominated by agriculture in the 19th Century, and indeed it was for most of the 20th Century.  Agriculture was the largest sector of the Irish economy as late as the 1990s.  In the 19th Century, as with every century before that, most Irish were rural and agricultural.  Looked at that way, employment in non agricultural activities really meant that most of the Irishmen taking them up were leaving their natural born employments for something else.

Moreover, while we today tend to think of Ireland exclusively in terms of potatoes, due to the horror of the famine, in reality the Irish have a very long association with horses and cattle.  In pre Christian Ireland, stealing cattle was virtually a national sport, and the great Irish epic work, the Cattle Raid of Cooley (Táin Bó Cúailnge)  concerns that activity.  In later years, during English occupation, potatoes became an Irish staple because Irish farmers tended to grow them for themselves, by necessity, while still often working production crops on English owned lands.  Even as late as the famine Ireland exported wheat to the United Kingdom.  Cattle raising never stopped, and indeed by World War One Ireland was a significant beef exporter to the Great Britain.  The same is also true of sheep, which were raised all over Ireland for their wool and meat, and giving rise to the idea that all Irish are clad in tweed at all time, a concept that also applies to the sheep raising Scots.

 The dramatic protagonist of the Cattle Raid of Cooley.

Horses, for their part, were and remain an Irish national obsession.  Unlike the English and Scots, whose routine farmers had little interest in riding stock, the Irish developed an early love of horse riding and everything associated with it. The Steeple Chase was and is an Irish national sport, followed intensively even now, and in earlier eras widely engaged in.  A person has to wonder, therefore, if the heavy Irish representation in cavalry formations in the U.S. Army of the 19th Century reflected that fact.  It certainly did in the English Army, which had at least one Irish cavalry regiment up until Irish independence.

All of this made the Irish a people that was particularly inclined to go into animal husbandry.  Other agricultural Europeans, except perhaps the Scots, had less exposure to this sort of agriculture than the Irish did.  It's no wonder therefore, that the Irish were well represented amongst 19th Century cowboys and, ultimately, amongst small scale 19th Century and 20th Century ranchers.  Indeed, in more than one occasion, Irish immigrant ranchers were able to convert humble beginnings into enormous agricultural enterprises.  One such example was that of Patrick J. Sullivan, an Irish immigrant who started ranching sheep near Rawlins. As his ranch grew, he moved to Casper and became a wealthy man from sheep ranching, which then translated into politics as he became Mayor of Casper, and ultimately a U.S. Senator upon the death of Francis Warren.  Sullivan had come a long way from his humble beginnings in Bantry Bay.  His Irish roots were reflected in the balcony of the large house he built in Casper, which featured a shamrock on the banister of the widow's walk, although that feature is now gone.

No story about the Irish in the United States would be complete without noting the role that Irish born clerics played, as the Irish were always closely identified with the Catholic Church, a fact which ultimately was pivitol in Ireland's independence following World War One.  In Wyoming, the presence of the Irish guaranteed the presence of the Catholic Church, and in many areas, but not all, Irish born parishioners and Irish American parishioners were the largest segment of any one congregation (although, again, this is not true everywhere in Wyoming).  Because the church was essentially a missionary church in Wyoming, the Church relied for decades on Irish priests.  The first Bishop of the Diocese of Cheyenne was the Irish born Maurice Burke, who served from 1887 until 1893, and who had to defend his Diocese from hostility from nativist elements, which were strong at the time.  He was succeeded by Thomas Lenihan, who was also Irish born.  Irish born priests continued to be very common well into the 20th Century and it only came to a slow close after World War Two, although at least one Irish born retired priest in residence remains at St. Patrick's in Casper.

In a state where they were fairly strongly represented, it's perhaps not surprising that the Irish were able to have some success in politics in the state even though there remained a strong anti Catholic prejudice in much of the United States prior to World War One.  Indeed, at least according to one source, some early Irish businessmen and politicians in the State made efforts not to make their Catholicism generally well known and were muted about their faith, being aware of the prejudice that existed against ti.  None the less, as the example of Patrick Sullivan provides, there were successful Irish born and Irish American politicians in the state fairly early.  Sullivan may provide the best early example, but others are provided by mid 20th Century politicians Joseph O'Mahoney and Frank Barrett.

An identifiable Irish presence in the state remained through most of the 20th Century, but by the last decade of the 20th Century it began to fade, as Irish immigrants aged and began to pass on.  Some still remain, but the era of Irish immigration to Wyoming is over.  Like most of the United States, a residual Irish influence lingers on in subtle ways, and in the memories of Irish descendants, many of whom, perhaps most of whom, can also claim ancestry from other lands by now.  But the impact of the Irish on the state, while not as open and apparent as it once was, continues on, and always will, given their significant role in the the 19th and 20th Century history of the state.

February 8

1893  Confusion over the design for the state seal lead the legislature to adopt more specific language, providing:

A pedestal showing on the front thereof an eagle resting upon a shield, said shield to have engraven thereon a star and the figures '44,' being the number of Wyoming in the order of admission to statehood. Standing upon the pedestal shall be the draped figure of a woman, modeled after the statue of the 'Victory' in the Louvre, from whose wrists shall hang links of a broken chain, and holding in her right hand a staff, from the top of which shall float a banner with the words 'Equal Rights' thereon, all suggesting the political position of woman in this state. On either side of the pedestal, and standing at the base thereof, shall be male figures typifying the live stock and mining industries of Wyoming. Behind the pedestal, and in the background, shall be two pillars, each supporting a lighted lamp, signifying the light of knowledge. Around each pillar shall be a scroll with the following words thereon: On the right of the central figure the words 'Live Stock' and 'Grain.' and on the left the words 'Alines' and 'Oil.' At the base of the pedestal, and in front shall appear the figures '1869-1890," the former date signifying the organization of the Territory of Wyoming, and the latter the date of its admission to statehood. A facsimile of the above described seal is here represented and is made a part of this act.

Wyoming State Seal on shield device on U.S. Army beret, as worn by the Wyoming Army National Guard.

The entire controversy was recently detailed in an article in Annals of Wyoming, the journal of the Wyoming Historical Society. A truly fascinating, if bizarre, event, the original approved design was substituted by the legislator who carried the seal design to Governor Barber, for his own, which had not won approval. That design featured a woman bereft of clothing in the design.  When the Governor learned of the switch, he commissioned a drawing of the correct seal, but by that time the matter had become such a controversy that it was kept secret and not used.  Ultimately money printed with Wyoming's seal in this period, and there were notes printed with the seals of every state at this time, used a modified territorial seal. 

1910  Boy Scouts incorporated.

1918  Oral arguments heard in the United States Supreme Court in Wyoming v. Colorado.  The controversy surrounded appropriations on the Laramie River.

1919  Edwin Keith Thomson born in Newcastle.  Thomson had risen spectacularly young, graduating from the University of Wyoming College of Law in 1941 at which time he was only 22 years old.  He entered the service thereafter and became the youngest battalion commander in the Army during World War Two, reaching that position at age 24.  He was still in his 20s when discharged as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1946.  He became the Congressman from Wyoming in 1955.  He was elected to the Senate in 1960, but died of a heart attack at age 41 before assuming his office.  His widow, Thyra Thomson, served as Wyoming's Secretary of State for 24 years.

1919  February 2, 1919. Beating the high cost of living, Wyoming troops returning home. Senate passes land bill for soldiers. Donuts.

The Wyoming Tribune advised on this Saturday, February 2, 1919 that with a good cow, a flock of hens and a small garden, you could beat old "Mr. H.C.L.", that being the high cost of living.

It's an interesting and possibly accurate observation in some context.

And men from the 41st and 91st Divisions would be back in the U.S. shortly.

The U.S. Senate was anticipating that some of those returning me would want to become agriculturalist, which was in fact correct.

In light of that fact, the Senate's bill did something to give homesteading returning servicemen an advantage, although I frankly don't know what that was.  The various homestead acts were still in existence, so they could have homesteaded anyhow.  The impact of the law, however, was a real one as I know of at least two instances of individuals who took advantage of this provision and I knew one of them.  By reports, this was a fairly popular option for returning World War One servicemen, but a similar effort to reopen the homestead act, on a limited basis, for returning World War Two servicemen, on certain designated grounds (at least some of which were Indian Lands) would not be.

Returning soldiers were celebrated on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, depicting a soon to vanish means of transportation in use by somebody who is probably supposed to be an aged farmer.

Leslie's, on the other hand, was looking back to World War One still and celebrating the Red Cross donut girl, although having said that the efforts of the Red Cross were still in full swing in Europe, although a lot of those women were now returning home.

If that illustration looks familiar, it's because it was from an actual photograph.  And if you have a hankering for trying Great War donuts, here's your chance with the recipe.

The donut girl was one Stella Young, serving in France.

I don't know anything else about here, but I'd note that, while a person isn't supposed to make such observations, she has a classically English appearance and my guess is that was her nationality.

1921  Mike Zavor of Acme, and late of Poland, received a patent for a plow.

1922 Douglas chapter of the Kiwanas formed.

1924  President Coolidge signed a resolution ordering the Doheny and Sinclair petroleum leases to be nullified due to the Teapot Dome scandal.

And also:

1929  A train hits and kills 61 head of sheep.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1938  Alcova Dam completed.  Dam's were recently discussed here in a Blog Mirror item.  Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1941  Willis Van Devanter died.  Van Devanter has been discussed elsewhere on this site and achieved a lasting position in U.S. history due to his elevation to the United States Supreme Court, the only member of the Wyoming State Bar to achieve that honor.  He had retired in 1937, after Congress granted full pay to Justices over 70 years of age who retired.  He stayed in Washington D. C., where he is buried.

1943  A B-25 landed on a highway near Douglas due to low fuel. Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.