November 27

1868  Battle of Washita, Oklahoma occurs.  7th Cavalry under George Custer attacks Cheyenne camp of Chief Black Kettle.  The Cheyenne band attacked was not at war with the US, and Black Kettle, who was killed in the battle, had been the same unfortunate leader who had been attacked at Sand Creek some years earlier, when his band was likewise not at war with the United States.

1869  Suffrage bill introduced in, and passed in, the Territorial Senate.

1903  Casper's oldest bank declared bankrupt.  This was prior, of course, to the FDIC and the FSLIC, so the economic impact of a bank becoming insolvent could be truly devastating to those with accounts in the bank.  Attribution, Wyoming History Calendar.

1916 Laramie Daily Boomerang for November 27, 1916: ROTC established at the University of Wyoming
 

ROTC comes to UW, and the big water case advances.

1918  November 27, 1918. The Consumer Economy appears, and the Nation resumes a Peacetime Economy.

The Laramie Boomerang reported that the country was resuming a peacetime economy and cutting appropriations, which in fact was done very rapidly, and with a somewhat disastrous impact on the national economy and individual businesses. At the same time, the paper was reporting that a giant military commitment of 1,200,000 men would remain in Europe for the time being.

At UW, the campus military training detachment was standing down.  Mass military training at UW came to an end.

The Casper newspaper, however, was focused on Thanksgiving, which in 1918 occurred on November 28.

To my surprise, Thanksgiving was clearly already associated with shopping, giving evidence to that phenomenon having existed much earlier than I would have supposed.  Indeed, an occasional topic of historical focus in some areas of historical focus is when the consumer economy first appeared.  Whenever that was (and its generally regarded as having its origins prior to World War One, it was clearly before 1918 as the stores in Cheyenne were going to be open to 9:00 this evening.

1923 (linked in for the Casper item) Tuesday, November 27, 1923. Oklahoma Senate Approves Ban On Mask, Oil Filters, Odd feats of strength.

No, not that kind of mask you might see in a headline today, but rather the costume of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Wiggins shoe store mentioned in this article was still open in the 1990s, and maybe the 2000s.  It no longer is. By that time, it was one of two shoe repair shops still operating downtown.

Now there are none.

The modern oil filter was patented by George H. Greenhalgh. Prior to this, automobiles simply used a screen, which would partially account for the short engine life early automobiles had.

The Purolator oil filter is essentially what most vehicles use today, and is still in production.

The Purolator original design featured the cardboard filter which was inserted into a fixed housing.  I've worked on vehicles that retained this filter design exactly, and it is essentially the same as a modern filter except now the housing comes with the filter, and you replace the entire thing.  I've also worked on cars that used this sort of filter for their fuel filter.

While a revolutionary design, it did not become immediately widespread.  It wasn't until the 1950s, apparently, when they became universal, although my 1946 CJ2A, which I sold long ago, had one.  A 1954 Chevrolet Sedan I once had also had one.

1924  A schoolhouse was dedicated in Salt Creek.  Salt Creek was, and remains, one of Natrona County's earliest oilfields.

1941     Joint Army-Navy signal to Hawaii states, "This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.  Negotiations with Japan looking toward stabilization of conditions in the Pacific have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days. The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organization of naval task forces indicates an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines, Thai or Kra Peninsula or possibly Borneo. Execute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL46. Inform District and Army authorities. A similar warning is being sent by War Department. Spenavo inform British. Continental districts, Guam, Samoa directed take appropriate measures against sabotage".

November 25

1867  Fifty three cans of cranberries reported stored at Fort Bridger.  Attribution, Wyoming State Historical Association calendar.

1876.  The Dull Knife Battle.  Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie, 4th U.S. Cavalry, in command of Company K, 2nd U.S. Cavalry, Company H and K, 3rd U.S. Cavalry, Company B, D, E, F, I, and M, 4th U.S. Cavalry, Company H and L, 5th U.S. Cavalry and accompanied by a large contingent of Pawnees, together Arapaho and even Lakota scouts, surprises the Big Horn mountain camp of Cheyennes under Dull Knife.  Sometimes regarded as a somewhat unwarranted attack, Dull Knife's band had been at war with the US during the proceeding summer, and they had recently attacked and defeated a band of Shoshone.  Mackenzie's attack did not succeed in taking the camp whole, but it did succeed in eventually driving the Cheyenne out of it, who lost a great number of villagers in the frozen retreat thereafter.  A large number of the ultimate dead were the old and very young.  The attack is remarkable for having occurred in horrific climatic conditions..  That is, below 0 weather, snow, and high winds.  

Mackenzie is a figure who tends to be much less remembered, in the popular imagination, than other Indian War Army commanders, but he was actually one of the most effective, and consistently so.  He was the son of a career U.S. Navy officer who had risen to the rank of Commodore and his family was very well connected in the military and in politics.  Ranald Mackenzie graduated from West Point in 1862 and immediately entered into an Army career with, of course, the Civil War raging at that time.  During the war he rose to the rank of Brigadier General.  He was briefly mustered out of the service at the end of the Civil War but brought back in during Reconstruction as a Major General.  He thereafter reverted to his permanent rank of Captain.  During the Indian Wars he demonstrated tactical and field command brilliance, commanding both infantry and cavalry, as well as black and white troops.  During this period he rose back up the rank of Brigadier General.

Unfortunately, he began to decline mentally by the 1870s which was manifesting itself as early as the campaign which featured the Dull Knife battle. A poor horseman, he took to the field in terrible conditions with his troops, but in camp he was already demonstrating signs of mental instability and severe depression.  He was ultimately discharged for insanity in 1884, just three years after he had purchased a ranch in Texas and had become engaged.  He died in 1889 at just 48 years of age.  The source of his mental decline is not really known, and remains somewhat debated today, with a possible head injury being one of the suspected causes.

Ranald S. Mackenzie.

The following Congressional Medal of Honor would be awarded for action at The Dull Knife fight:

FORSYTH, THOMAS H:   First Sergeant, Company M, 4th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Powder River, Wyo., 25 November 1876.  Citation: Though dangerously wounded, he maintained his ground with a small party against a largely superior force after his commanding officer had been shot down during a sudden attack and rescued that officer and a comrade from the enemy.

Forsyth was an unusual enlisted man in that he was from a wealthy family and was somewhat a man of means, an unusual circumstance for an enlisted man, let alone a career enlisted man.  He left the service in 1891, the same year he finally received his Congressional Medal of Honor, at which time he had served in the Army for 25 years.  The retirement period for an Army pension at this time was 30 years, go he left earlier than the norm for a full retirement, and I suspect that it may have been a medical retirement, which would also have resulted in a pension.  He held the rank of First Sergeant at the time.  He died in 1908 at age 65.

1889  Scarlet fever caused the public school in Rawlins to be closed.  Courtesy of the Wyoming History Calendar.

1909  Governor B. B. Brooks declared the day to be one of Thanksgiving and Praise.

1916   The Wyoming Tribune for November 25, 1916: Accord reached with Mexico?
 

An accord was signed with Mexico. . . but that might not quite mean what it seems. . . .

The Cheyenne Leader for November 25, 1916: Peace breaking out with Mexico?

 

Big news indeed.  The joint commission with Mexico had reached an agreement which should soon see U.S. troops withdrawn from Mexico.

But, before we assume too much, look for the followup post on this topic.

Inez Milholland Boissevain, Suffragist, lawyer, dies on this day in 1916

 

Inez Milholland Boissevain, a truly remarkable personality, died on this day in 1916.  She had campaigned in Cheyenne during the election only shortly before.

Milholland was thirty years old at the time of her death.  She was born into a wealthy family in which her father had been involved in many progressive causes of the era.  She graduated from Vassar in 1909 with the intent to pursue a career in law, which she did do. Receiving rejections from many of the schools she applied to, she graduated from New York University School of Law in 1912.  She was admitted to the bar in 1912 and went to work for Osborne, Lamb, and Garvan where she handled criminal and divorce cases.

She was involved in many of the causes of the era, including obtaining the vote for women and the cause of African Americans.  A pacifist, she traveled to Italy early in World War One to report on the war but was not allowed to travel to the front.

She married Eugen Jan Boissevain in 1913, after knowing him for only a month. The marriage cost her citizenship as Boissevain was Dutch and the law at the time attributed a woman's citizenship to her spouse.  She nonetheless campaigned for the right of women to vote in the United States. She fell ill on a speaking tour in 1916 and died on this day of pernicious anemia.

1918  Pershing and Villa share headlines again. November 25, 1918.

Probably not since the Punitive Expedition wrapped up had John J. Pershing and Francisco "Pancho" Villa appeared on the front page in headlines.

Pershing, still in command of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe, which was going into occupation duty in Germany, showed up as Ohio Republicans were imagining him as a candidate for the 1920 Presidential Election.

The speculation would not prove to be idle. While Pershing would see a major promotion on the horizon elevating him in 1919 to the rank of General of the Armies of the United States, a rank higher than that occupied by any other U.S. officer during his own lifetime, Pershing did somewhat entertain the move.  He later announced that he would not campaign for the office, but he wouldn't decline it if offered either, sort of splitting the Shermanesque position that is so famously quoted. As luck would have it, however, Gen. Leonard Wood, well regarded in Republican circles, and not beholden for career success to a Democratic President, as Pershing was, would be the martial early favorite before his campaigned flamed out in favor of Warren G. Harding.

The presence of Villa on the front page should give the reader now, and should have then, some pause in regard to the Pershing boosterism.  How successful of a general was he really?  He's come down in history as a major American military success but the record is frankly rather thin on that.  Prior to the Great War he had been a very successful combat officer in the Philippines, but he wasn't the only one and that was, after all, an ongoing, embarrassing, low grade guerrilla war.  That doesn't mean that Pershing was bad at it, but guerrilla wars aren't usually major conflicts, and the Philippine Insurrection, while it started off as one from the American prospective, really wasn't by the end.

That wasn't Pershing's first combat command, indeed he saw service in the late stages of the Indian Wars and he'd commended troops in the field in Cuba during the Spanish American War.  But none of those events had really raised him to prominence.  It would take the Punitive Expedition to do that.  But how well did he do, really?

Well, a person can debate it.  He kept the American effort going and it didn't cost a lot of American lives.  It also did not capture Villa, or put him out of commission, which had been its singular goal.  Late in the expedition he made recommendations that would have undoubtedly have caused a major escalation of the war which would have almost certainly converted it from a border conflict into a full blown war with Mexico.  We could have won that, surely, but it would have put us in the position of occupying a hostile revolutionary Mexico which was proving difficult for its own successive governments to manage.  That effort would have likely have been so taxing on the United States that our later participation in World War One may very well not have occurred, which in turn may very well have meant that Germany's 1917 and 1918 efforts would have paid off and Imperial Germany emerged the victor.

Pershing can't be faulted for not seeing that far forward, but he can be for not realizing that a small police action shouldn't risk being expanded into a full blown war.  And in regard to his suitability for national leadership, that's important.

Of course those boosting Pershing were thinking of his hero status that came about due to the Great War.  But here too, real questions can be raised.  Americans have believed since the very onset that Pershing was absolutely correct in keeping the U.S. Army out of action until it could be committed as a singular large command, but the evidence shows that this is somewhat of a myth and, moreover, the AEF was not really well commanded in some regards.  In reality American troops started to go into action under French and British control both in order to get combat experience and because the German 1918 Spring Offensive required the deployment of American troops in defense actions. They did well but when counterattacks began American troops took horrendous casualties in part because they were so green but in part because the American military steadfastly refused to accept lessons from the French and the British regarding the circumstances of 1918 European combat.  American military efforts were successful, but at huge and at least partially unnecessary cost and at least one American offensive, the St. Mihel Offensive, was unnecessary yet conducted at American insistence.  When the Germans began to break in 1918 they were impressed with the recklessness of American operations and the individual American fighting man, but at the same time its notable that the French and the British were advancing with less loss.  Moreover, Pershing was one of the generals, although certainly not the only one, who insisted that combat continue right up until the last minute of the war, something which at least now appears to be not only a miscalculation but perhaps a bit more than that.

All in all, retrospectively, Pershing's record is pretty mixed and open to question.  Nothing really existed to suggest that he would have been a good President.  In the end, the GOP didn't decide to run him.

November 23

1888 The Casper Weekly Mail newspaper established.

1903  Colorado Gov. Peabody calls up the Colorado National Guard and sends them to Cripple Creek on strike breaking duty, one of the duties most detested by the National Guard of this era.

1914  The last of U.S. forces withdraw from Veracruz, occupied seven months earlier in response to the Tampico Affair.  The crisis in Mexico would continue, and spill over the border early the following year, an event which would cause the Federalization of the National Guard, including Wyoming's.

1918  November 23, 1918. Marching into turmoil

American troops entering Metz by truck.

American troops marching into Thionville on foot.

Opening of  an American Red Cross canteen in Paris.

Army Air Service School, Rockwell Field, San Diego.  Trained pilots who wouldn't be going to Europe.

1921  An earthquake shook Sheridan County.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

Wednesday, November 23, 1921. Geology in Sheridan County, Welfare in the United States, Murder in Ukraine

Charles Russell illustrated letter of today's date.

On this date, we're reminded that Wyoming is tectonically active:

Today In Wyoming's History: November 23, 1921:

1921  An earthquake shook Sheridan County.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

Earthquakes in Wyoming are not at all uncommon.

The Sheppard-Towner Act, which we dealt with earlier, that provided funding for maternity and child care, as signed into law by Republican President, Warren G. Harding.

Harding knew a little about childcare. At this point his illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth Ann Britton was a little over two years old.  She was not acknowledged, and the public had no idea.

In Bazar, Ukraine, the Red Army executed 359 Ukrainian soldiers who had surrendered to them.

1925   The USS Wyoming commences an overhaul at the New York Navy Yard.

1934  Moderate earthquake felt in Lander, Atlantic City, Riverton and Rock Springs.

1936  Work began on Wheatland Reservoir #1.  Dam construction was a popular Depression Era activity across the Western United States not only because of the work it provided, and the benefit to agriculture, but because of a belief that projects of this type would help directly beneficially impact the climate.

1939  President Franklin Roosevelt carved the turkey at Warm Springs in the first of several Thanksgivings that were celebrated on two separate dates, this date being a week earlier than the traditional date. It had been moved up to increase the shopping time between Thanksgiving and Christmas in the hopes of boosting sales during the Depression.  The move was unpopular and Congress restored the traditional date in 1941.

1945     World War Two meat and butter rationing ends in US.

1947   The southwestern portion of Montana was struck by a magnitude 6 1/4 earthquake whcih was also felt in northwestern Wyoming.

2000 Buffalo records its coldest Thanksgiving Day Temperature, 12F.  It's been colder than that this year (2011), so perhaps we'll break the record.

November 22

1542  New laws passed in Spain giving protection against the enslavement of Indians in America.

1813  One of the two dates of death given for John Colter.  Colter was a member of the Corps of Discovery.  Following his early discharge in 1806 in North Dakota, before the expedition had fully returned, he joined a party of trappers as a guide and famously was the first American to describe thermal activity in the Yellowstone country.  He fought in Nathan Boone's Rangers in the War of 1812, and spent the final years of his life as a farmer in Missouri.

1858  Denver, Colorado is founded as Denver City.  It was named for Kansas Territorial Governor James W. Denver and was in the Territory of Kansas at the time.

1877  Governor Thayer approved a memorandum to Congress protesting against a proposed division of the Wyoming Territory.

As evident from the various discussions of territorial boundaries found on this site, the boundaries and governmental entities applicable to what is now the State of Wyoming were remarkably fluid up until at least the 1870s.

1889  A fire damaged the state Capitol.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1892  Burlington Northern rails reach Sheridan.

1963  President John F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, TX.

Friday, November 22, 1963. The assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 22: 1963  President John F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, TX.

President Kennedy was a very popular President in a very difficult time.  A lot of my comments about his presidency here have not been terribly charitable, but he was a hero to many, and some of his calls here have unfairly not been noted.  For instance, he exercised restraint during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which almost resulted in a Third World War, and he likewise kept the separation of Berlin from escalating into the same, even though his comments caused that crisis to come about.

In spite of repeated speculation about it, it's clear that the assassination was carried out as a lone, bizarre act by Lee Harvey Oswald.  Indeed, the lone actor aspect of that has fueled the conspiracy theories surrounding the event, as people basically don't want to accept that a lone actor can have such a massive and unforeseen impact.

I was alive at the time, but of course I don't remember this as I was only a few months old.  In my father's effects, I'd note, was a Kennedy Mass Card that he'd kept. No doubt, Masses were said around the country for the first Catholic President.

Often unnoticed about this event, Oswald probably had made an earlier attempt on the life of former Army Gen. Edwin Walker, who ironically was a radical right wing opponent of Kennedy's.  That attempt had occured in April. And Oswald killed Texas law enforcement officer J. D. Tippit shortly after killing Kennedy.  Oswald's initial arrest was for his murder of Tippit.

It's fair to speculate on how different history might have been had Kennedy lived.  Kennedy's actions had taken the US up to the brink of war with the Soviet Union twice, but in both instances, when the crisis occured, he steered the country out of it, and indeed his thinking was often better in those instances than his advisers. Under Kennedy the US had become increasingly involved in the Vietnam War, but there's at least some reason to believe that he was approaching the point of backing off in Vietnam, and it seems unlikely that the US would have engaged in the war full scale as it did under Lyndon Johnson.  If that's correct, the corrosive effect the war had on US society, felt until this day, might have been avoided.

All of which is not to engage in the hagiography often engaged in considering Kennedy.  To the general public, the James Dean Effect seems to apply to Kennedy, as he died relatively young.  Catholics nearly worshiped him as one of their own.  In reality, Kennedy had a really icky personal life and was hardly a living saint.  His hawkishness in a time of real global strife, moreover, produced at least one tragic result, and nearly caused others.

1982  President Reagan informed Congress of his intent to deploy MX missles to hardened silos under the command of F. E. Warren AFB.

2010  Gov. Matt Mead announced that Greg Phillips would take over as Wyoming's Attorney General under his administration.

2012  Today was Thanksgiving Day for 2012.

November 21

1842  Alfred Packer, Colorado cannibal, born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. 

1860  Tom Horn born in Scotland County Missouri.

1865  Platte Bridge Station renamed Ft. Caspar in honor of the late Caspar Collins, who had lost his life at the Battle of Platte Bridge Station earlier that year.

1877     Inventor Thomas A. Edison unveiled the phonograph.

1887  The Wyoming Central Railway opened its line between Douglas and Glenrock, thereby extending its rail service to the state line.

1895  The Federal District Court, sitting in Cheyenne, held that the Treaty of 1868 exempted Indians from the State's game laws.  The decision would later be reversed.

1910  August Malchow defeated by Peter Jensen of Omaha, the "Battling Dane", in a fight at the Kirby Opera House in Sheridan.  See September 25 for more on Malchow.

1913  Nathaniel Burt, author, born in Moose.

1919  Chasing Carlisle. November 21, 1919

The Hole In the Wall Country, November 2019.

On this day in 1919, the newspapers were reporting that Bill Carlisle was headed for a location that was the archtype of destination for regional bands. . . some twenty years prior.

The Hole In the Wall.

After all, where would a Wyoming train robber on the lam go, other than to the same place that Butch and Sundance had?

Scene from the Red Wall Country, November 2019.

Well, it was a romantic notion.  Wyoming in 1919 wasn't the Wyoming of 1899, or even 1909, no matter how much the thought of a wild flight to the Hole In The Wall might have been fancied the imagination of a people for whom that region had been an impenetrable criminal fortress only a couple of decades prior.

In 1919, the territory was still wild in many ways.  Indeed, the first decade of the 20th Century saw an ongoing range war in the form of a cattlemen v. sheepmen killings.  As late as the latter part of the first decade of the 20th Century a criminal escapee simply disappeared forever.

But by the same token, by 1919 the criminal sanctuary no longer was one. There was no more Hole In The Wall Gang.  Most of the former members of that group were dead, in prison, or reformed.  Following the Tipton train robbery by The Wild Bunch, the authorities were no longer willing to tolerate the lack of law enforcement that allowed it to continue to exist and were willing to expend the resources necessary to penetrate it.  Prior to that happening, the badmen dispersed. Some would return, and as late as the 00s, but they weren't hitting trains.

Carlisle was.

Buffalo Creek Canyon, December 2019.

Indeed, part of the appeal of the Carlisle story is that he was already an anachronism, in his own time.  In 1919, the year after the Great War had ended, a war which had featured aircraft and submarines and mass violence on a mass scale, Carlisle was out on his own, in the vast countryside, raiding trains, badly.

People were sort of rooting for him.

Even as they knew, he'd be caught.

1940  Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn were married in Cheyenne.  The wedding took place at the Union Pacific Depot dining room.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1943  Goshen Vounty's harvest declared a success due to the efforts of immigrant Mexican laborers and Prisoners of War.  Attribution.  Wyoming Historical Society's history calendar.

1950  A DC3 (C-47) airplane crashed into Mount Moran, killing all 21 persons on board.  The plane was flying in poor weather.

1957  The Department of Defense announced that F.E. Warren AFB would be the nation's first ICBM base.

1975  Dick Cheney assumes the position of White House Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford.

November 20

1837  Republic of Texas Secretary of State Robert A. Irion recommended that Texas grant copyrights.Attribution:  On This Day.

1866     First national convention of the Grand Army of the Republic.  The GAR would be represented by local chapters throughout the US, including Wyoming, leaving memorials in at least Casper and Basin, Wyoming.

1869  First issue of the Wyoming Tribune published in Cheyenne.

1886  Thomas Moonlight appointed Territorial Governor of Wyoming.

 

1903  Tom Horn hanged for the murder of Willie Nickell.  He was actually hung with the rope he made, like the popular proverb, as he braided the rope while serving time waiting for his execution.

1920  An emergency landing strip was bladed near Laramie. This was not, however, Brees Field. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1945  Mindful of an industry that had become significant in the state even well before World War One, Gov. Lester Hunt urged western governors to cooperate in selling the West to tourists who would follow the end of World War Two.  Attribution. Wyoming History Calendar.

Elsewhere:

1868  Ft. Omaha founded in Nebraska.

1871  John and David McDougall become the first farmers in Alberta.

1910  Francico Madero declares a revolution in Mexico.  Madero's revolution was a success in that Diaz fled the country in 1911. He died in France in 1915, but Madero died well before him, as he was assassinated by those loyal to Gen. Huerta, who had no sympathy with Madero's views.

 

Diaz's long life was one that featured many interesting turns. He joined the Mexican army in the first instance in order to fight against the United States in the Mexican War. He lead guerrillas against Santa Ana upon his return to Mexico. He fought the French with Juarez but was an opponent, sometimes a revolutionary, against Juarez thereafter. He came to rule Mexico in 1877 by popular election, and ironically stepped down after one term having run on that platform. He ran again in 1884 and remained in power until the revolution. While he ultimately was toppled in a revolution, his authoritarian rule of Mexico was the first real period of peace in Mexico since the revolution against Spain, and the country generally prospered. Had he stepped down, as he had indicated he was willing to do, he would be well remembered today.

 

Heurta would die in El Paso Texas, in exile, in 1916, where he was under house arrest after having been detected negotiating with the Germans for arms in violation of the Neutrality Act.

 

Of note here, the involvement in the US in the Mexican Revolution proved to be almost inevitable. The border region was chosen by participants in both sides as a place of refuge, to include both the humble and the conspiratory. Madero, Villa, and Huerta all chose the US as a place of refuge, and a place to base themselves in the hope to return to Mexico and achieve power. Tensions on the US border started with the revolution being declared in 1910, and as early as the first day of the revolution Mexican authorities were assuring the US not to have worries. Tensions would last long after World War One, and the cross border action that started before the war would continue on briefly after the war.

The Wyoming National Guard, like that of every other state, would see border service in this period, first being mustered to serve on the border in 1915.  National Guard service involved nearly constant active duty from March 1915 through World War One.

1917   The Battle of Cambrai opens, and Villa back on the front page. November 20, 1917.
 

As Wyomingites were headed towards Thanksgiving this week, they learned that the giant surprise British attack at Cabrai had been launched. The battle would feature British tanks in a major way.

And Pancho Villa was back in the headlines for the success of his old occupation, as he battled Carranza near the US border.

1919  November 20, 1919. Rumors

Carlisle was being reported as sassy and successful on this day in 1919.  In fact, his attempt at robbing a Union Pacific passenger train near Medicine Bow failed due to his own scruples. . . he couldn't rob soldiers, and he'd been wounded disarming a passenger.

Rumors were circulating that he'd sent a bragging telegram.  I'm not that familiar with the details of this story, but I don't believe that he did.

He had been lost track of, that's true.

But I don't believe that he'd made it to Casper.

The press was giving him greater abilities than he had.

1920 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Woodrow Wilson.

1941  Thursday November 20, 1941. Thanksgiving Day.

 This was Thanksgiving Day in 1941. . . unless it wasn't.

The situation was pretty confused, it's easier to read about it here:

Thanksgiving in World War II

American Thanksgiving is a fairly late Thanksgiving to start with. As has been noted here on earlier posts, this holiday is much less unique to the US than Americans think it is.  Most nations do it earlier, however.

It has moved around in the US case.  The Library of Congress's "Wise Guy" posts, summarize it as follows:

Is it time to buy the turkey? In 1939, it would have been difficult to plan your Thanksgiving dinner for 12.

Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. But that was not always the case. When Abraham Lincoln was president in 1863, he proclaimed the last Thursday of November to be our national Thanksgiving Day. In 1865, Thanksgiving was celebrated the first Thursday of November, because of a proclamation by President Andrew Johnson, and, in 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant chose the third Thursday for Thanksgiving Day. In all other years, until 1939, Thanksgiving was celebrated as Lincoln had designated, the last Thursday in November.

Then, in 1939, responding to pressure from the National Retail Dry Goods Association to extend the Christmas shopping season, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday back a week, to the next-to-last Thursday of the month. The association had made a similar request in 1933, but at that time, Roosevelt thought the change might cause too much confusion. As it turns out, waiting to make the change in 1939 didn't avoid any confusion.

At the time, the president's 1939 proclamation only directly applied to the District of Columbia and federal employees. While governors usually followed the president's lead with state proclamations for the same day, on this year, 23 of the 48 states observed Thanksgiving Day on November 23, 23 states celebrated on November 30, and Texas and Colorado declared both Thursdays to be holidays. Football coaches scrambled to reschedule games set for November 30, families didn't know when to have their holiday meals, calendars were inaccurate in half of the country, and people weren't sure when to start their Christmas shopping.

After two years of confusion and complaint, President Roosevelt signed legislation establishing Thanksgiving Day as the fourth Thursday in November. Roosevelt, recognizing the problems caused by his 1939 decree, had announced a plan to return to the traditional Thanksgiving date in 1942. But Congress introduced the legislation to ensure that future presidential proclamations could not affect the scheduling of the holiday. Their plan to designate the fourth Thursday of the month allowed Thanksgiving Day to fall on the last Thursday in five out of seven years.

This was the last  year of the confusion, and the split dates.  Sarah Sundin, on her blog, noted:

This was a hugely unpopular decision. While 32 states adopted the earlier date, 16 refused to. In 1939, 1940, and 1941, two dates were celebrated, depending on the state. The later original date was nicknamed “Republican Thanksgiving” and the new early date “Democrat Thanksgiving” or “Franksgiving.”

By mid-1941, Roosevelt admitted the earlier date had no effect on retail sales figures. On October 6, 1941, the House of Representatives voted to move Thanksgiving back to the last Thursday of November. The Senate amended the bill on December 9, 1941 (despite the previous day’s declaration of war on Japan) to make the holiday fall on the fourth Thursday, an accommodation for five-Thursday Novembers. The president signed the legislation on December 26, 1941.

So what about Wyoming in 1941?  Did we do Democratic Thanksgiving or Republican Thanksgiving this year?

Today.

Indeed, it's a little surprising, at least in a modern context, but Wyoming recognized today as the Thanksgiving Holiday for 1941. While Wyoming had a Republican legislature, and a Republican Governor, Nels H. Smith, serving his single term, it followed the Federal lead.

Lots of Americans were having their second military Thanksgiving.

Troops training in the field gathered around cook who is cooking turkey's with a M1937 field range.

Holidays in large wartime militaries, and while the US was not fully at war yet, this really was a wartime military, are a different deal by definition. The service does observe holidays and makes a pretty good effort at making them festive, but with lots of people away from home without wanting to be, they're going to be a bit odd.  Some troops, additionally, are going to be on duty, training, or deployed in far off locations.

As noted above, we've included a wartime photo of a cook in what is undoubtedly a staged photo cooking two turkeys in a M1937 field range, a gasoline powered stove.

They continued to be used through the Vietnam War.

Holiday or not, talks resumed in final earnest between the United States and Japan, with Japanese representatives presenting this proposal to the United States

1. Both the Governments of Japan and the United States undertake not to make any armed advancement into any of the regions in the South?eastern Asia and the Southern Pacific area excepting the part of French Indo-China where the Japanese troops are stationed at present.

2. The Japanese Government undertakes to withdraw its troops now stationed in French Indo-China upon either the restoration of peace between Japan and China or the establishment of an equitable peace in the Pacific area.

In the meantime the Government of Japan declares that it is prepared to remove its troops now stationed in the southern part of French Indo-China to the northern part of the said territory upon the conclusion of the present arrangement which shall later be embodied in the final agreement.

3. The Government of Japan and the United States shall co-operate with a view to securing the acquisition of those goods and commodities which the two countries need in Netherlands East Indies.

4. The Governments of Japan and the United States mutually undertake to restore their commercial relations to those prevailing prior to the freezing of the assets.

The Government of the United States shall supply Japan a required quantity of oil.

5. The Government of the United States undertakes to refrain from such measures and actions as will be prejudicial to the endeavors for the restoration of general peace between Japan and China.

The Germans captured Rostov on the Don in Russia and slowed the British advance in North Africa.

1942 NHL abolishes regular season overtime until World War II is over.

November 16

534   A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus is published.   Compiling Roman law proved to be a difficult chore due to the many different versions of it in regards to any one particular topic.  While Roman law provides comparatively little basis for modern American law, outside of Louisiana, it was not wholly without influence to some degree.  The codification of the Roman law in Roman times provided the basis, later for the codification of French law under Napoleon.

1887  Legendary photographer of Wyoming, Charles Belden, born in California.

 

1878  The Commissary at Fort Fetterman listed the supplies on hand as being: 195 lbs. of turkey, 140 of codfish, and 11 lbs. of cherries. Date: Attribution:  Wyoming Historical Calendar.

 

1917   November 16, 1917: All the Distressing News. US Back in Mexico, in Combat in Europe, flag shaming in Lander, and Temptation in Philadelphia

The Laramie Boomerang correctly noted that the United States had crossed back into Mexico, but just right across the border.  This was something that the US would end up doing in a worried fashion for years, showing that while the Punitive Expedition might be over, armed intervention, to a degree, in Mexico, was not.

At the same time, the press was really overemphasizing US combat action in Europe. The US wouldn't really be fighting much for weeks and weeks.

And the on again, off again, hope that the Japanese would commit to ground action was back on again.

Meanwhile, in Lander, things were getting really ugly.  "German sympathizers" were being made to kiss the flag.

That probably didn't boost their loyalty any.

Villas expanding plans were also being noted. And, also, The Temptation Rag, a film, was being reported on, on the front page, something that takes a true scandal to occur now.

1942   Wyoming Senator Harry H. Schwartz introduced bill to protect Western stockmen from wartime eminent domain losses. 

 

1945  USS Laramie decommissioned. 

 

1973     President Richard M. Nixon signed the Alaska Pipeline measure into law.

 

1982  The Jahnke murder occurred in Cheyenne, in which Richard Janke Jr., aided by his sister, killed his abusive father. The murder was later the basis of a television movie entitled Right to Kill.

 

1993  A magnitude 3.5 earthquake occurred about 65 miles from Sheridan. 

 

2002  Tom Farris, who had been born in Casper Wyoming, and who had played football for three years in the National Football League following World War Two, died.

 

2015  In keeping with a request from President Obama, Governor Mead ordered flags in the state to fly at half mast until sundown, November 19, in honor of the dead of the recent terrorist attack in Paris.

November 15

1835  Troops under George Fisher and José Antonio Mexía attacked the Mexican garrison at Tampico.  The assault was not a success.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1907 J. P. Hehn stepped down as Warden of the State Penitentiary and Fred Hillenbrand became the warden.
1912  The Bishop Randall Hospital was officially opened in Lander, Wyoming.

1916:   The Cheyenne Leader for November 15, 1916: Mexicans repudiate pact for joint border control, train robbed in Missouri, trouble in a synagogue.
 

Some interesting news for November 15, 1916.

An attempt at a pact on the Mexican border appeared to fall through, to the frustration of the U.S. delegates.

A train was robbed in Kansas City, Missouri. The paper referenced Bill Carlisle, the famous Wyoming train robber who is usually credited with the last train robbery in the US.  This story would obviously cast doubt on that claim.

In Cheyenne there was dissension on the rabbi that had been serving there.

1917   November 15, 2017. Siberian rumors and Border battles.
 

Residents of Cheyenne were reading today about a rumored, and totally false, revival of the fortunes of Czar Nicolas II.  The Czar, they read, was crowned Czar. . . again. . . . in Siberia.

Not so much.

Russia was descending into complete chaos however. That was real enough.

And so was Villa's revival right on the border with Texas.  His troops had in fact taken Ojinaga.

Having gone from desperate in March 2015, to pursued the rest of 2015 and 2016, he was back in top form and contesting for control of northern Mexico, to American consternation and concern, once again.  And now while we had a major war on our hands.

1919.  William Carlyle, train robber, escaped from the Wyoming State Penitentiary.

1921  A truck used by John J. Pershing in the Great War was donated to the Wyoming State Museum.

1926     The National Broadcasting Co. debuted nationwide with a radio network of 24 stations.

1937   The first US Congressional session in air-conditioned chambers took place.

1940     The first 75,000 men were called to armed forces duty under peacetime conscription. This wast the first time in U.S. history in which there had been a peacetime draft, excluding annual militia musters.

1943  Harmonica player Larry Adler played at the University of Wyoming.  Adler was a well known harmonica player.