February 19

1864  William F. Cody joined the 7th Volunteer Kansas Cavalry.

1887  The final run of the Black Hills stage left  Cheyenne.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1901  A bill prohibiting gambling signed into law.

1915  The Governor signed to acts pertaining to improvements at the state capitol consisting of the addition of wings onto the capitol building.  One was to approve the construction, and another to authorize a property tax to pay for it.

1915  The Natrona County Tribune merges into the Wyoming Weekly Review.

1917  The State Highway Commission created by the signature of the Governor of an act approving it. 

It's odd to think of Wyoming lacking a Highway Department but up until this date in 1917, it did.  That was common at the time as most vehicular transportation remained strictly local.  However, that would begin to change with the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, which provided funds, for the first time, to state highway departments in one of the "progressive" policies of the Wilson Administration.

The activities of the Commission would be modest but growing throughout its early years.  Limited winter plowing commenced in 1923 and then it began in earnest in 1929.  In 1991 the highway department became the Wyoming Department of Transportation, which it remains.

 

Wyoming featured in a speedy automobile advertisement in 1923. 

 

1917   General Frederick Funston dies.

 

On this date in 1917 a shock happened to the nation.  The general who Woodrow Wilson already had in mind for an American expeditionary force in Europe, should the US enter the Great War, which was becoming increasingly likely, died.

And with his death, it truly seemed that an era had really passed.

 Gen. Frederick Funston, next to driver, in 1906.

Funston was a hero and a legend.  He'd risen to high command on the strength of his military achievements without being a West Point graduate.  He was truly an exception to the rules.

Funston was born in Ohio in 1865 and in some ways did not show early promise in life.  He was a very small and slight (at first) man, standing only 5'5" and weighing only 120 lbs upon reaching adulthood.  He aspired as a youth to the military, after growing up in Kansas, but he was rejected by West Point due to his small size.  He thereafter attended the University of Kansas for three years but did not graduate.  Following that he worked for awhile for the Santa Fe Railroad before becoming a reporter in Kansas City in 1890.

Only after a year he left reporting and went to work for the Department of Agriculture as a researcher in an era when that was an adventuresome occupation.  In 1896, however, Funston left that to join the Cuban insurrection against Spain in Cuba.

  Funston as a Cuban guerilla.

As most Americans spending any time in Cuba at the time experienced, he came down with malaria while serving the Cuban revolution.  Returning to United States weighing only 95 lbs he found himself back in the United States just in time to secure a commission with the 20th Kansas Infantry as it was raised to fight in the Spanish American War.  

"Funston's Fighting Kansans" in the Philippines.

The 20th Kansas didn't fight in Cuba, it fought in the Philippines.  Funston served there heroically and received the Medal of Honor, and found himself promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the Regular Army at age 35, a remarkable rise contrary to the usual story of military advancement and more reminiscent of the Civil War than anything thereafter.  Following his service in the Philippines, however, he fell into a period of controversy due to aggressively pro military action comments he made in the United States.

He was stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco upon his return to the United States and was there at the time of the 1906 earthquake.  He controversially declared martial law to attempt to combat the fire and looters and in fact authorized the shooting of looters.  Following that he was stationed again in the Philippines and Hawaii.  In 1914 he was placed in command of the Southern Department of the Army and was in command of the US forces in Vera Cruz and thereafter in Mexico under Pershing.

Funston and his family at the Presidio.

On this date in 1917 he was relaxing at the St. Anthony Hotel in San Antonio Texas when he suffered a massive stroke and died.  He was only 51 years of age but he had put on a tremendous amount of weight in recent years. Indeed, his weight had prevented him from active field service by the time of the Punitive Expedition, but the fact of his death in this fashion would suggest an undiagnosed high blood pressure condition, something that was commonly fatal in that era.

 

1917:  

The Laramie Boomerang for February 19, 1917: Two Wyoming Battalions To Leave Border as Cowboys cross it.

 

Two Battalions of the Wyoming Infantry were to be on their way home, the Boomerang reported.

And Theodore Roosevelt was planning to reprise his Spanish American War role if the US went to war with Germany.  Well. . . .Woodrow Wilson might have a say in that.

And the situation in Mexico was apparently getting complicated by a private body of cowboy militia crossing the border in reprisal for the recent death of their fellows.

Finally, the  Boomerang reported the situation with Germany as "hopeful". 

 

1917

The Wyoming Tribune for February 19, 1917: Colorado and Wyoming National Guard headed for Ft. D. A. Russell for Demobilization

 

News came on this Monday (in 1917) that indeed, Wyoming and Colorado state troops were headed home, or at least to Ft. D. A. Russell.

A general with a Cheyenne connection, John J. Pershing, now a national hero and the recent commander of the Punitive Expedition, came out for universal military training.  That was  big movement, of course, at the time.

And John B. Kendrick was on his way to the U.S. Senate, finishing up his time as Governor by signing the bills  that had passed the recent legislative session.

Miss Elanor Eakin Carr's engagement to Howard P. Okie, son of J. B. Okie of Lost Cabin, the legendary sheepman of the Lost Cabin area.  He'd take over his father's mercantile interest that year, but the marriage would not be a  long one.  He died in 1920

 

1921  Sixteenth state legislature adjourned.

1927  Nineteenth state legislature adjourned.

1942 Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas "as deemed necessary or desirable."  This would lead to internment camps, including Heart Mountain near Cody.

 Map showing interment camps and other aspects of the exclusion of ethnic Japanese from the Pacific Coast during World War Two.

1945 The US government imposes a midnight curfew on all places of entertainment.

1986  Vice President George Bush addressed the legislature.

1990  Budget session of fiftieth state legislature convened.

1996  Budget session of the fifty third state legislature convened.

February 18

Today is Presidents Day for 2013.

The holiday originally commemorated George Washington's birthday, but was expanded later to honor all Presidents.  It is a Federal Holiday.

1861  The Treaty of Ft. Wise, Kansas is signed by the Arapaho and Cheyenne, in which they gave up territory in Colorado between the North Platte and Arkansas Rivers in exchange for a reservation between the Arkansas and Sand Creek, Colorado.

1862   U.S. Congress approved an act entitled "An Act to grant lands to Dakota, Montana, Arizona, Idaho and Wyoming for university purposes.":  Attribution:  On This Day.

1906  John B. Stetson in Florida died at age 75.  He was the founder of the famous hat manufacturing company.

1911 An act providing that each county would have legislative representation was signed into law by Governor Carey. Attribution:  On This Day.

1913         Gen. Victoriano Huerta becomes leader of the Mexican government, a step on the way to the Mexican Civil War.

1917   The Cheyenne State Leader for February 18, 1917: Villa gone to Japan?
 

A rumor was published of Pancho Villa going East. . . .way East.

He didn't.

The cowboy victims of border violence were buried. And Cuban revolutionaries were reportedly holding Santiago.

And of course, U-boots were taking headlines.

1918  Laramie Boomerang, February 18, 1918. Exact same weather report a century prior.

Today's weather report could have been a repeat of the one in this issue of the Laramie Boomerang from February 18, 1918.

Two draft evaders headed for Mexico?  Seems like a poor move.

Austro Hungarian troops on the offensive.

The Central Powers, having determined that Trotsky's "neither war nor peace" was, in fact, war from their prospective, launched Operation Faustschlag on this Monday of 1918.  The Offensive captured massive amounts of former Imperial Russian territory but it also tied up resources and a combined 16 divisions sorely needed elsewhere.

German troops in Kiev. . .where their presence was considerably better behaved than it would be 23 years later.

The offensive did succeed in taking Russia out of the war in short order.

1919  February 18, 1919. Changing maps, stopping by the Red Cross, Maintaining the Headquarters, Tragic news at Bates Hole, Pilot County Crisis, Turkish wives.

Political cartoon that ran on February 18, 1919.

 British serviceman, left and American servicemen, right, entering a Red Cross canteen on this day in 1919.  Note the unit patches on the uniforms of the American soldiers, which were really a post World War One item.

British serviceman on left, American on right.  Note the unit patch.

The work of the Red Cross carried on.

Headquarters troops, Southern Department, Ft. Sam Houston, February 18, 1919.  Throughout the war, not only training occurred in Texas, but the Army continued to patrol a tense border with a country still in revolution.

Meanwhile, revolution or no (and in spite of the Allies actually requiring, for the time being, the Germans to keep troops in the Baltic's as a hedge against the Red Army, a new armistice limited the Germans to 25,000 troops.

A tragedy occurred locally at Bates Hole, an area I'm well familiar with, when news arrived that a soldier from the ranching reaching who had served in France had been killed in the war..  

It's funny how things work as there's a selection of names that I associate with Bates Hole, and Galehouse isn't one of them.  Time moves on and names are lost.

Pilot County, which never occurred, was still much in the news.

And a Cheyenne paper reported that merchant sailors who had been interned by the Turks during the war were returning with a lot of "beautiful" wives.

1931  Governor Frank C. Emerson died in office at age 48.

1931  Alonzo M. Clark became Governor of Wyoming due to the death of Governor Emerson.

1933   Gov. Miller signed an act repealing enforcement of prohibition by Wyoming.The repeal was actually only partial at first, and it took a period of many months before there was a complete repeal.

1937  A shell exploded on the USS Wyoming during exercises killing six Marines and injuring eleven others.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1943  Converse County woman collected furs to be used for vests for merchant marines.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1987  Cuttthroat Trout declared to be State Fish.

February 17

1870  Esther Hobart Morris officially appointed Justice of the Peace. As noted, she was approved for this position several days prior.

 Ester Hobart Morris statute on the Wyoming State Capitol Grounds.

1917  Fourteenth state legislature adjourns.

1917   The Cheyenne State Leader for February 17, 1917: Border watched, Guard coming home.
 

The Wyoming Tribune for February 17, 1917: National Guardsmen coming home.
 

With the U.S. Army back over the border, Woodrow Wilson apparently decided that the Guard no longer needed to be Federalized, so they were getting ready to deactivate them.

This makes sense, in context, but on the other hand its a bit difficult to grasp why Wilson, who was leading a country that rocketing towards war and he was letting the Guard stand down.  In hindsight, it would have really made a bit more sense to retain them as mustered in anticipation of war.  Indeed, in World War Two the Guard, and what little Reserve there was, was called into service in 1940 in anticipation of the looming war.

The Legislature was also set to come home, something that every citizen holds their breath for . . .
1923  Seventeenth state legislature adjourns.

1933 Craig Thomas born in Cody.  Thomas served as Congressman from 1989 to 1995 and Senator from Wyoming from 1995 until his death in 2007.

1933 The Blaine Act ends Prohibition at the Federal level.  Contrary to popular imagination, it didn't necessarily end it everywhere in the US, as many states, including Wyoming, had separate and additional Prohibition statutes.

1945  Max Maxfield, State Auditor from 1999 to 2007, and then was elected Secretary of State in 2006, born in Beloit Wisconsin.

1968 2nd Lt. Richard W. Pershing, 502nd Infanty, grandson of John J. Pershing and great grandson of F. E. Warren killed in action in Vietnam.

1986  Budget session of the forty eighth legislature convened.

February 16

1878  The silver dollar become legal tender in the U.S.

1890   Robert C. Morris suggested the "Equality State" as a state motto.  Morris was the son of Esther Hobart Morris, and she lived with him in his house in Cheyenne in her later years.  He was a legislator in the early 20th Century, and served as the Clerk of the Wyoming Supreme Court.

1895  Third State Legislature concludes.

1901  Governor Richards signed an act that required county commissions to raise taxes for the purpose of building a residence for the governor.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1901  Sixth State Legislature concludes.

1907  Ninth State Legislature concludes.

1908  The Atlas Theatre opened in Cheyenne.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1917   America Here's My Boy
 

In a clear sign how things were beginning to go, and an early introduction to what would be a massive movement in the American public supporting the Great War and shaming those who didn't, the song America Here's My Boy was copyrighted on  this day and very soon released:

This came, of course, just before the US entered the war, but it would end up being an early World War One American hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UJn9dHkD0E

I wouldn't rate it as great, but then music of this era. . . .

Anyhow, it was a bit of a reaction to I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHEqjMf7Ojo

Band sound similar to the one above?

It's the same one.

At any rate, I doubt America Here's My Boy "expressed the sentiment of every American mother." I learned the year prior to my own mother's death that she worried that war would break out the entire time I was in the National Guard.

The Cheyenne Leader for February 16, 1917. Three Americans Captured by Mexicans Found Slain

 

More bad news from the Mexican border. . . and elsewhere.

The Wyoming Tribune for February 16, 1917. More troops being rushed to the border

 

More troops rushed to the border.

And the beginnings of JrROTC.

1918   The Cheyenne State Leader for February 16, 1918. Revolution in Mexico and Victory Pies
 

The Leader was correct, a new revolution had broken out in Mexico even as the contesting forces of Zapata and Villa continued their struggle against Carranza.

As the Mexican culture site puts it:

On February 16, 1918, soldiers loyal to the governor of the state of Guerrero, General Silvestre Mariscal, arrested Santiago Tlatelolco in the military prison, who took up arms to try to free his leader. Nearly 300 men who were under the command of Mariscal and had accompanied him to the Federal District took up arms in the Escuela de Tiro de San Lázaro, where they were quartered.

They were immediately repulsed by the law and order forces, under the command of General Miguel Madrigal, who defeated them and forced them to flee. Some escaped towards Peñón. Others, toward Tlalpan, where they tried to join the Zapatista armed forces that devastated the southern region of the Federal District.

So things really weren't settled south of the bordern.

North of the border restrictions on wheat were resulting in Victory Pies in restaurants.

Victory pies?

Well, what those apparently entailed is substituting out 1/3 of the flour substance for something other than wheat. 

Dancer turned aviator Vernon Castle was reported killed in an aviation accident in Texas.

Things were getting unsettled in Austria, which appeared to be teetering towards bowing out of the war.  Close to home, the war looked like it was bringing the Medical corps or cavalry back to Cheyenne. Cavalry had certainly had a presence there previously..

1919  The new Wyoming flag presented officially to Governor Robert D. Carey.

1929  Twentieth State Legislature concludes.

1935  Twenty Third State Legislature concludes.

1944  Wyoming's Senator Mahoney was reported as having said that victory in the Second World War was closer than most imagined, and the country should be prepared to rapidly convert to a peacetime economy.

The optimistic Mahoney was a Democrat who served four terms as a U.S. as  Wyoming's Senator, first from 1934 to 1953 and then again from 1954 to 1961.  Orginally from Massachusetts, he moved to Wyoming in 1916 as a writer for the Cheyenne State Leader, which was owned by John B. Kendrick. When Kendrick became Senator, he accompanied him there as a staff member, and graduated from Georgetown with a Bachelors of Law in 1920.  He was considered as a running mate in 1944.  He lost his seat when Dwight Eisenhower won the Presidential election in 1954, but regained a position of Senator upon the suicide of Lester Hunt.

1948 NBC-TV aired its first nightly newscast, "The Camel Newsreel Theatre," which consisted of Fox Movietone newsreels.

2011 Scott W. Skavdahl nominated the United States District Court Judge for the District of Wyoming, replacing the seat vacated by Judge William Downes.  Judge Skavdahl, like Judge Downes before him, occupies the Federal District Courthouse in Casper, a classic large Federal Courthouse built during the Great Depression.  Wyoming's other sitting Federal judges sit in Cheyenne.  Wyoming has quite an assortment of Federal Courthouses, but only two are in daily use.  Surprisingly, a number of Wyoming's Federal District Courthouses have been retired or even disposed of, even as the number of judges has grown.

February 15

1812   The Astorians reached the mouth of the Columbia River.  They traveled overland with one horse for each two men.

1869  Laramie's first school opened.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1879   President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the United States Supreme Court.

1887  Reports from Montana start to place the state's cattle deaths from this disastrous winter at 60%.

1898 The U.S.S Maine blew up in Havana Harbor.  This event would lead in short order to the Spanish American War, the first US war that Wyoming would participate in as a state.

 Wreckage of the USS Maine.

1909  Park County formed.

1917  The Natrona County Tribune for February 15, 1917: Casper Man Witnesses Return of Pershing's Expedition
 

An eyewitness Wyoming Guardsman reported on what he saw on the return of the Punitive Expedition from Mexico.

In other local news, a German-Hibernian bank was being formed.

The Cheyenne State Leader for February 15, 1917: Villistas threaten U.S. "Line".

 

Using terms now familiar to the readers to due the news on the Great War, Villistas were reported to be threatening the U.S. "line".

The news, in regards to Mexico, had nearly returned to the state of the year prior.

Otherwise, the news was much as noted in the paper below.  Gas leases, horse thieves, and the German U-boot campaign.

And Cuba again.

The Wyoming Tribune for February 15, 1917: Five Americans Shot by Mexican Raiders.
 

The border with Mexico was fully back on headlines, recalling the year prior, with news of a deadly Mexican raid into the US.

In other news, the crisis with Germany loomed large, but so did the capture of horse thieves.

1918    German Greed and Trotsky Goofs. . . and the Allies

Horseless Age, volume 43, number 4, February 15, 1918, page 50.

Four horse transport at No.4 Remount Depot in Boulogne, 15 February, 1918

Kipling, February 15, 1918.

If you will allow me, 1 will tell you a story.

1919  February 15, 1919. Wyoming passes its own Prohibition Act. . .

which would take effect on June 30 of 1919.

And for no good reason either.

You've read all about it, leading up to this date, but on this date.  It was signed into law.

New Governor Robert Carey signed the bill with three pens, which he then gave to the Friends Of Dry Wyoming.  The bill featured an unusual Saturday morning singing.

The Wyoming Star Tribune reported, in noting it, that; "The prohibition question is a closed question in Wyoming."

1919  A selection of non career U.S. Army officers serving in France were assembled, under the orders of Gen. Pershing, to work on the formation of an organization that would become the American Legion.

1921 Teton County formed.

1921  Sublette County formed.

1925  Fire in Shoshoni destroyed twelve buildings.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1933     President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami but which claimed the life of Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak.

The attempted assassin in this matter was Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian veteran of World War One who was fairly clearly in poor health and increasingly suffering from delusions to some extent.  The wounded Mayor Cermak survived until March 6, 1933.  By that time, Zangara had already been sentenced for four counts of attempted murder, and was given 20 years for each count.

That is, he had been sentenced in less than a month.

He was charged with homicide on March 8, 1933, due to Cermak's death.  He plead guilty and was executed on March 20, 1933.

Cermak never contested his responsibility for the crimes.  He was increasingly ill and suffering from delusions, but his statements made it fairly clear that he conceived of his actions as some sort of radical anti-capitalist action.  What strikes me as amazing, however, is that he went from arrest to execution in a little over a month.  Indeed, he went from arrest for homicide to execution in 14 days.

I am not noting this in order to make a comment about the death penalty.  That's an entirely different topic and frankly addressing it in the context of 2012 in comparison to 1933 isn't really even possible.  But what is really striking is that the criminal process played itself out so very rapidly.  Now I would have expected a process of examination to determine if Zangara was sane or even competent to make a confession, and there's no way on earth that the process would have occurred so very rapidly.

1955 "Wyoming" adopted as the official song of Wyoming.

The lyrics are:

In the far and mighty West, Where the crimson sun seeks rest, There's a growing splendid State that lies above, On the breast of this great land; Where the massive Rockies stand, There's Wyoming young and strong, the State I love!

Chorus:  Wyoming, Wyoming! Land of the sunlight clear! Wyoming, Wyoming! Land that we hold so dear! Wyoming, Wyoming! Precious art thou and thine! Wyoming, Wyoming! Beloved State of mine!

In the flowers wild and sweet, Colors rare and perfumes meet; There's the columbine so pure, the daisy too, Wild the rose and red it springs, White the button and its rings, Thou art loyal for they're red and white and blue,

Where thy peaks with crowned head, Rising till the sky they wed, Sit like snow queens ruling wood and stream and plain; 'Neath thy granite bases deep, 'Neath thy bosom's broadened sweep, Lie the riches that have gained and brought thee fame.

Other treasures thou dost hold, Men and women thou dost mould, True and earnest are the lives that thou dost raise, Strengthen thy children though dost teach, Nature's truth thou givest to each, Free and noble are thy workings and thy ways.

In the nation's banner free There's one star that has for me A radiance pure and splendor like the sun; Mine it is, Wyoming's star, Home it leads me near or far; O Wyoming! All my heart and love you've won!

1961  Laramie County Sheriff Norbert E. Tuck was killed in a railroad crossing accident in Iowa while returning a prisoner to Wyoming.

2006  Cheyenne's Union Pacific depot declared a National Historic Landmark.

February 14

Today is St. Valentine's Day

270  St. Valentine martyred. There seems to be no strong actual connection between the martyr (there are actually three martyrs by this name) and the Romantic popular holiday celebrated on this day.

Due to some confusion on which particular St. Valentine this day originally commemorated, it is no longer on the Western church calendar. This is instead the day that commemorates Saints Cyril and Methodius, the Apostles to the Slavs. In the Eastern Church calendar, Saint Valentine the Presbyter is celebrated on July 6,and Hieromartyr Saint Valentine is celebrated on July 30. Notwithstanding that, conventionally, members of the Greek Orthodox Church named Valentinos (male) or Valentina (female) celebrate their name on February 14.

None the less, the day remains very widely observed and very popular in Western nations, and even sees an expression in school in the United States.

1841   Henry Asa Coffeen, Congressman from March 4, 1893 to March 3 1895, was born ear Gallipolis, Ohio.  He was a teacher by profession and moved to Sheridan Wyoming, his home for the rest of his life, in 1884.  He was not reelected after his single term in office.

1862  The contest for the west during the Civil War takes a new turn when the Confederate States designated New Mexico and Arizona as Confederate territories.

1870  The Sweetwater County Board of Commissioners in a vote of two to one approved Ester Hobart Morris' application for Justice of the Peace.  This made her the first woman Justice of the Peace in the United States. She served for just about nine months.  She served the full length of her term but could not secure a renomination from either political party in Sweetwater County.  Of the cases she precised over which were appealed, not one was reversed.  She lived until 1902 and is buried in Cheyenne.

1871  James Edwards born in Ohio.  Edwards would become a prosperous black rancher in Niobrara County in an era when black ranchers were fairly rare.  He filed his original homestead in 1913, after having worked since 1903 in Niobrara County for other ranchers.

1911 Niobrara County created.

1917   The Laramie Boomerang for February 14, 1917: Germans to blame for trouble in Cuba and Mexico
 

The Laramie Boomerang ran an article blaming the trouble in Cuba and Mexico on Germany. The same story had the English about to land at Tampico, Mexico, to guard Mexican oilfields, upon which the British were in fact dependent.

And the city manager form of government, which would later become common in Wyoming, didn't pass the bar in 1917.

The Cheyenne State Leader for February 14, 1917. Trouble on the border.

 

Here we learn more about what happened on the border.  Mexican forces of some sort had crossed into the US and murdered three on American soil.  Ironically, the murdered men were Hispanics, but then that likely didn't mean much to the raiders.  An abduction also occurred.

It was rumored that the leader of the expedition that had just returned from Mexico, John J. Pershing, was about to marry. That would prove not  to be the case. While he'd come close on occasion, Gen. Pershing never married again and remained a widow for the balance of his life.

The Wyoming Tribune for February 14, 1917. US Cavalry back across the border.

 

Some regard this day as the last day of the Punitive Expedition.

Perhaps that's because US cavalry again crossed the border on this day, seeking to find three American cowboys who were taken by force into Mexico.  So, American forces were back in Mexico on this day, or maybe it was just being reported on, on this day.

In other news, American ships were going down, the German Ambassador was leaving, somebody had insulted the Legislature and authorities had had enough of bears dancing in saloons in Lincoln County.

And, having just gotten out of Mexico we were now thinking of getting into Cuba.

Major Leroy Eltinge delivered a speech on the use of cavalry.
 

Major Leroy Eltinge delivered a speech on the use of cavalry on this day, in 1917.

Major Eltinge had commanded an element of the 8th Cavalry in Mexico, so this speech was delivered hard on the heels of his recent experiences.  He was a career Army officer, in the service since 1896 who would go on to rise to the brevet rank of Brigadier General as Deputy Chief of Staff of the AEF during World War One before reverting to his permanent rank of Major following the war.  He'd re-obtain the rank of Brigadier General in 1924 and died while still a serving officer during World War Two.

A ship that served in World War Two was named in his honor.

1919  St. Valentine's Day, 1919. The Polish Soviet War commenced, Quixotic Portuguese Monarchist fail, Blizzard shuts things down, League of Nations floated, Novel spellings.

Heroic late war Polish poster.

The Polish Soviet War commenced on this date in 1914 when Polish troops were allowed to occupy a town in current day Belarus by the Germans, as part of the German withdrawal from the region, and were soon thereafter attacked by the Red Army.

The war would go on until March, 1921.

The results of the war are surprisingly disputed.  By most measures it would have to be regarded as a Polish victory given that they held off the Red Army even to the point of defending Warsaw against a Soviet offensive.  Moreover, the first Red Army attack had been given a name that suggested Warsaw was its goal.

Soviet propaganda poster showing the Red Army as liberators.

On the other hand, the initial Polish counteroffensives had been enormously successful and the Polish Army had been able to maintain that stance for quite some time during the war, advancing into territory they disputed in Russia and Ukraine.  The reversals in fortune were enormous and the Poles nearly retreated to the German border in the late stages of the war.  Still, Red Army losses during the Battle of Warsaw late in the war were so severe that the Poles were given a border that closely approximated that of the 1772 partition and therefore granted them most of the territory they were seeking,including the debatable Lithuanian town of Vilnius.  By and large, the Poles gained the territory they were seeking, although less than that which Pilsudski would have wanted for a greater Poland.

Polish propaganda poster showing Polish cavalry, which in fact there was a lot of, fighting bestial troops of the Red Army.

The war at least arguably put an end to the Trotsky vision of marching through Poland and on into Germany and likely cemented a growing rift between Stalin who wished thereafter to build Communism in what remained of the Russian Empire as opposed to Trotsky who argued for an immediate global revolution.

Polish solders with captured Soviet battle flags.  The Red Army may have been a new people's army in theory, but in the field it kept the trappings of earlier armies in having battle flags.

Poland, it might be noted, founds itself in substantial wars from the very first moment of the "Peace" of November 1918.  It's amazing it survived as a state.  It fought all of its neighbors to some degree in one way or another.

Meanwhile, in Portugal, a quixotic effort to restore the Portuguese monarchy, which had never received the endorsement of the former Portuguese royal family, ended and with it the self declared Portuguese Monarchy Of The North.

Portuguese monarchist who fought for a monarchy whose former leaders didn't endorse it.

It's flat out bizarre to contemplate a rebel movement to restore a monarchy occurring in 1919 when in many other nations rebels had successfully operated to depose their nation's monarchies.  Yet, in Portugal, such an attempt was oddly made.  It's hard to figure really, but it is perhaps best understood in the context of it being an ultra conservative revolution with no place to go.

Well, closer to home, sort of . . . .

The Tribune had a headline that today would cause people to recall its occasional nickname, the "Casper Red Star", what with its reference to a "World Constitution".  This referred, of course, to a stout League of Nations.

Rumors were afloat about bribery being a factor on a bill for a new county and a "dry" rally was being planned.

And news of a big blizzard was being reported everywhere in the state.

Hopefully that blizzard wouldn't delay the return of the returning Guardsmen of the 116th Ammunition Train which were anticipated to be home within a week.

The Cheyenne paper remembered it was Valentine's Day.

The second Cheyenne paper noted that communications with the East hung on by a thread, due to the blizzard.

Interestingly, but also without details, that paper also reported that "Dean Huston", a Cheyenne clergyman, would be choosing between two parishes for his new assignment back east.  No other substantial details were provided, but it's likely that he was an Episcopal churchman as the Episcopal Church used that title and that would make sense in context.

And finally the pressed for space Laramie Boomerang resorted to Rooseveltian phonetic spelling, as Wyoming papers in this era occasionally did, for their headline, changing Cheyenne to Chian.  

Theodore Roosevelt, who in spite of his genius was somewhat spealling challenged, had advocated for this movement which would have altered the somewhat bizarre spellings common in English to phonetic ones at large and tried writing that way himself for awhile, but like everyone else, he gave it up. For a brief time, however, Wyoming newspapers would resort to it if headlines seemingly required it, as here.

1971  A campaign was commenced to save the Ivinson Mansion in Laramie.   It is now the Laramie Plains Museum.  The substantial building had been built by the Ivinson family, early significant figures in Laramie, and belonged to the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming at the time, which was considering selling it due to the costs involved in keeping it.  The Ivinson's, immigrants from the Virgin Islands, were originally British citizens and were members of the Episcopal Church.  The impressive structure is familiar to anyone who has spent any time in Laramie.

Blog Mirror: Lex Anteinternet: The 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic

Lex Anteinternet: The 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic: Its flu season in the Unites States, and this one is a bad one.  The worst that I remember for many years, maybe the worst ever during m...