November 30

1782 Britain recognizes US independence.

1803 Spain cedes Louisiana to France, including, of course, that part which is now Wyoming.

1810 Oliver Fisher Winchester born.

1856  Martin's Cove survivors arrive in Salt Lake City. 

This event, often sort of off hand stated as having happened in the dead of winter, actually, as this date attests, occurred much earlier and for a much briefer period of time than imagined. The handcart company was in fact detained at Martin's Cove for only five days.

Of course, saying "only five days" presents that, in part, from a modern view.  The handcart company was travelling shockingly late in the year.  Travelling by handcart was an arduous affair under any circumstances and was poorly provided for by this point in their journey. Wyoming is subject to blizzards much earlier than early November and Martin's Cove itself is fairly high altitude at approximately 6,000 feet.

The number of Mormon immigrants that died at Martin's Cove during their storm enforced delay is actually not know, but at least 145 members of the 500 person company died en route to Salt Lake, although not necessarily all of them in this singular event.

1869  Woman's suffrage bill sent to the Territorial House.

1914  International  Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union #322 chartered in Casper.

1916:   The Cheyenne Leader for November 30, 1916: A National Guard Casualty
 

Only meriting a small entry at the bottom of the page, we learn on this day that Wyoming National Guardsman Pvt. Frank J. Harzog, who enlisted from Sheridan, died in Deming of encephalitis.  He was to be buried at Ft. Bliss, so he wold never make it home.

Too often soldiers who die in peacetime are simply forgotten; their deaths not recognized as being in the service of the country. But they are.  Indeed, the year after I was in basic training a solider who was in my training platoon, a National Guardsman from Nebraska, died in training in a vehicle accident.  A Cold War death as sure as any other.

Thanksgiving Day, 1916
 

November 23 was Thanksgiving Day in 1916.  Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation to that effect on November 17, 1916.

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

It has long been the custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. The year that has elapsed since we last observed our day of thanksgiving has been rich in blessings to us as a people, but the whole face of the world has been darkened by war. In the midst of our peace and happiness, our thoughts dwell with painful disquiet upon the struggles and sufferings of the nations at war and of the peoples upon whom war has brought disaster without choice or possibility of escape on their part. We cannot think of our own happiness without thinking also of their pitiful distress.

Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do appoint Thursday, the thirtieth of November, as a day of National Thanksgiving and Prayer, and urge and advise the people to resort to their several places of worship on that day to render thanks to Almighty God for the blessings of peace and unbroken prosperity which He has bestowed upon our beloved country in such unstinted measure. And I also urge and suggest our duty in this our day of peace and abundance to think in deep sympathy of the stricken peoples of the world upon whom the curse and terror of war has so pitilessly fallen, and to contribute out of our abundant means to the relief of their suffering. Our people could in no better way show their real attitude towards the present struggle of the nations than by contributing out of their abundance to the relief of the suffering which war has brought in its train.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this seventeenth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and sixteen and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and forty-first.

It must have been a stressful one for a lot of people.  War was raging in Europe and a lot of Wyomingites were serving on the border with Mexico.  The local economy was booming, and there were a lot of changes going on in the towns, but due to the international conflict.

1918  November 30, 1918. Americans enter Germany for the first time, Villa threatens Juarez, Wyomingites get Reserve Plates, Teenage Bride Mildred Harris Chaplin rumored to be planning a visit home, No beer for New Years.

The first Americans to cross into Germany, November 30, 1918.  1st Division.  Wormeldauge Luxembourg to Winchrenger Germany.

On this date in 1918 the U.S. Army entered Germany from Luxembourg.

Gen. Campbell King, left, in Luxembourg on this date in 1918.  King was Harvard educated before attending becoming a lawyer in Georgia.  He entered  the Army in 1897 as a private and was commissioned an officer in 1898.  He was a Major entereing World War One and was breveted the rank of Brigadier General and served as Chief of Staff of the Third Army.  He retired as a Major General in 1932 and lived until 1953.  The officer on the right is an unidentified Marine Corps officer.  Note the much darker uniform and the different pattern of overseas cap, with that type being the type that would later become the service wide pattern after the war.

Headquarters for the occupation force remained, on this day, in Luxembourg itself.

Cheyenne residents read Gen. Pershing's address to his troops and the Governor was demobilizing the Home Guard.

And Wyoming was introducing its coveted "reserve plates" for motor vehicles, in which you could get the same license plate number every year (at a time in which you received new plates every year. . . which was the case at least into the 1970s).

In the other Cheyenne paper readers learned that yes, Villa was threatening Juarez again. So he'd returned from near defeat back to threatening and was back on the very top of the front page yet again. . . just as he had been prior to World War One.

Mildred Harris Chaplain at approximately this time. Her stardom was in ascendancy at the time but her life was is in turmoil.  She's married much older Charlie Chaplain at only age 16, something that would have wrecked both of their careers in and of itself in the present age, under the false belief that she was pregnant.

Cheyenne was hoping for a visit, we also learned, from Mildred Harris, now Mrs. Mildred Chaplin, who had turned 17 years old only the day prior.

In Casper the headline, like on many other papers, dealt with Woodrow Wilson's decision to lead the American peace delegation, something that was not a popular decision with Congress.  Casperites also read of the terrible massacre of the Jews in Lemberg (Lvov) by the Poles.

Casperites also were reading of the disbandment of UW's military training unit.

Casperites also read, in the other paper, Pereshing's Thanksgiving day address.

They also read that the Kaiser was that no longer.

And suds for New Years would be no longer as well. The committee that had suspended brewing as of the first of the year declined to rescind its order now that there was peace.

Boxing match in Archangel Russia between enlisted U.S. and French servicemen, November 30, 1918.

1920  Bureau of Reclamation commences construction of electric power plant at Buffalo Bill Dam.

1927   First day of Fremont County Turkey Show in Lander.  Attribution, Wyoming Historical Association.

1943  The price of coal from Rock Springs was raised $.20 per ton, a fairly substantial climb in that era.  Coal was an extremely vital source of fuel in this time period, although petroleum oil was supplanting it in many ways.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1946  Barbara Cubin, Congresswoman from Wyoming, born in Salinas California.

2012  Wyoming Whiskey releases the first batches of its bourbon whiskey.  The product is the first legally distilled whiskey to be made in Wyoming.  It's not the first whiskey to be distilled in Wyoming, however, as Kemmerer was a center of illegally distilled whiskey during Prohibition.

November 29

Today is Nellie Tayloe Ross Day

 Ross in 1938 at her Maryland tobacco farm.

Nellie Tayloe Ross Day is a state holiday in Wyoming, although it is little observed. 

1847   Missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and 15 others are killed by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians in what is today southeastern Washington, causing the Cayuse War.  The Whitmans conducted the first Protestant religious service in Wyoming.

1864         Sand Creek Massacre in which Colorado militia attack Black Kettle's Cheyenne band in Colorado.  Black Kettle was at peace, and the attack was unwarranted.  The unit would muster out shortly thereafter.  The attack would drive many Cheyenne north into Wyoming and western Nebraska, where they would link up with Sioux who were already trending towards hostility with the United States.  This would result in ongoing unbroken armed conflict between these tribes and the United States up through the conclusion of Red Cloud's War.

Today the Cheyenne trek north is memorialized in the Sand Creek Massacre Trail, a highway designation for the combination Interstate Highways and State highways that lead to the Wind River Indian Reservation. The Wind River is not a Cheyenne Reservation, but it is an Arapaho and Shoshone reservation, and the Arapahos were allied to the Cheyenne and Sioux in this period. 

Black Kettle had the added misfortune of having his camp attacked later by the 7th Cavalry, under Custer, at Washita, in 1868.  He was killed in that attack, which likewise was a surprise and found his band at peace with the US, although others in the area were not.

 Cheyenne prisoners, in artist's depiction, following Washita.

1873  Laramie County Stockgrowers Association forms in Cheyenne.The organization was one of the precursors of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.

1876  Nellie Tayloe Ross born in Missouri.

1888  Territorial Governor Moonlight proclaimed the day one of Thanksgiving, Prayer and Praise.

1901  Mildred Harris, movie actress, born in Cheyenne.  She was a significant actress in the silent film era, having gone from being a child actor to a major adult actress, but had difficulty making the transition to talking pictures.

Harris is also evidence that, in spite of my notation of changes in moral standards elsewhere, the lives of movie stars has often been as torrid as they are presently.  Harris married Charlie Chaplin in 1918, at which time she was 17 years old and the couple thought, incorrectly, that  she was pregnant.  She did later give birth during their brief marriage to a boy who was severely disabled, and who died only three days after being born.  The marriage was not a happy one.  They divorced after two years of marriage, and she would marry twice more and was married to former professional football player William P. Fleckenstein at the time of her death, a union that had lasted ten years.  Ironically, she appeared in three films in 1920, the year of her divorce, as Mildred Harris Chaplin, the only films in which she was billed under that name. While an actress probably mostly known to silent film buffs today, she lived in some ways a life that touched upon many remembered personalities of the era, and which was also somewhat stereotypically Hollywood.  She introduced Edward to Wallis Simpson.

She died in 1944 at age 42 of pneumonia following surgery.  She has a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  A significant number of her 134 films are lost or destroyed due to film deterioration.  Her appearances in the last eight years of her life were minor, and unaccredited, showing the decline of her star power in the talking era.

Stories like hers, however, demonstrate that the often held concept of great isolation of Wyomingites was never true.  Harris was one of at least three actors and actresses who were born in Wyoming and who had roles in the early silent screen era.  Of those, she was arguably the most famous having risen to the height of being a major actress by age 16.

1908   Major Harry Coupland Benson appointed acting Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park.

1916:   The Wyoming Tribune for November 29, 1916: Villa in the headlines
 

Scary headlines in the Tribune, which reported that Juarez, on the Mexican border, might be Villa's next target.

The Cheyenne State Leader for November 29, 1916: Chihuahua in Villa's hands = Carranza agreeing to Protocol?
 

The Leader made the curious assumption that Villa taking Chihuahua would cause Carranza to agree tot he draft protocol with the US that was designed to bring about an American withdrawal.

Now, why would that be the case? Carranza had been opposed to American intervention, but as it was, the American expeditionary force amounted to a large block of troops in Villas way if he really intended to move north.

A curious assumption.

And the US acting on behalf of besieged Belgium was also in the news.

1917   Thanksgiving 1917
 

Given the news of the day, it couldn't have been a cheery one.

President Wilson issued a proclamation, as was the custom:

 

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
 It has long been the honored custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. That custom we can follow now even in the midst of the tragedy of a world shaken by war and immeasurable disaster, in the midst of sorrow and great peril, because even amidst the darkness that has gathered about us we can see the great blessings God has bestowed upon us, blessings that are better than mere peace of mind and prosperity of enterprise.

We have been given the opportunity to serve mankind as we once served ourselves in the great day of our Declaration of Independence, by taking up arms against a tyranny that threatened to master and debase men everywhere and joining with other free peoples in demanding for all the nations of the world what we then demanded and obtained for ourselves. In this day of the revelation of our duty not only to defend our own rights as nation but to defend also the rights of free men throughout the world, there has been vouchsafed us in full and inspiring measure the resolution and spirit of united action. We have been brought to one mind and purpose. A new vigor of common counsel and common action has been revealed in us. We should especially thank God that in such circumstances, in the midst of the greatest enterprise the spirits of men have ever entered upon, we have, if we but observe a reasonable and practicable economy, abundance with which to supply the needs of those associated with us as well as our own. A new light shines about us. The great duties of a new day awaken a new and greater national spirit in us. We shall never again be divided or wonder what stuff we are made of.

And while we render thanks for these things let us pray Almighty God that in all humbleness of spirit we may look always to Him for guidance; that we may be kept constant in the spirit and purpose of service; that by His grace our minds may be directed and our hands strengthened; and that in His good time liberty and security and peace and the comradeship of a common justice may be vouchsafed all the nations of the earth.

Wherefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday, the twenty-ninth day of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and invite the people throughout the land to cease upon that day from their ordinary occupations and in their several homes and places of worship to render thanks to God, the great ruler of nations.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done in the District of Columbia this 7th day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seventeen and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-second.

WOODROW WILSON

 The news, overall, was pretty grim:

The concern of what was going on with Russia, as can be seen, was mounting.

So what was Thanksgiving like in 1917 for average Americans?  This item from A Hundred Years Ago gives us a glimpse/  This ran on A Hundred Years Ago prior to the 2017 Thanksgiving.  I'm linking it in now, as the 1917 Thanksgiving was on this day, rather than the slightly earlier day in November we now celebrate it on.  An interesting look at earlier Thanksgivings:

Grandma’s 1914 Thanksgiving

Interesting that goose was the meat of choice.

1919  A four week coal strike causes as serious coal shortage in Cokeville, Wyoming. Attribution, Wyoming Historical Society.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1931  An Oregon Trail marker was dedicated at Torrington. The decade of the 1930s saw an increased interest in Wyoming in marking the state's early history which was coincident with the pioneer generation passing away.

1942   Coffee
 

Coffee rationing began in on this day in 1942.

Smiling soldier.  I think he's drinking coffee.  I may have had to volunteer for service (which I likely would have done anyway) just in order to get a cup of coffee.

I would not have liked that.  Coffee roasters were already restricted to 75% of their war time prior average.  This resulted not due to fewer beans being produced during the war.  Not hardly. Rather, it resulted from the fact that this import crop is shipped to the continental United States

I think that's something that we tend not to ponder much. Coffee is a huge American drink, just like tea is a huge British drink, but in neither case do these consuming nations produce the elemental crop locally.  Given that, it's really amazing that either drink has such a hold in the consuming nation.  Indeed, by and large, with some slight exception, its not even grown in the Norther Hemisphere.  Kona coffee, grown in Hawaii, is the only coffee actually grown in the United States, in so far as I'm aware.

Just consider it for a moment.  The bean that is roasted to produce the crop is grown thousands of miles from the continental United States, roasted (often) in the US, and then packaged for sale here.  It's pretty amazing that there's more than a couple of varieties of it, frankly, or that its even affordable.

The Coffee Bearer, by John Frederick Lewis, Orientalist painter.  The same figure was a figure in his painting The Armenian Lady, whose servant she is portrayed as being.

As an aside, the second biggest coffee bean producer in the world (the first is Brazil) is. . . . Vietnam.

One more reason that not having prevailed in the Vietnam War is unfortunate, to say the least.

Well, anyhow, it's not cheap, as any coffee drinker will tell you. But it's not terribly pricey either.

And somehow, it's gone from a few basic brands to a wide variety of specialty brands and brews of every imaginable type and variety.

Coffee varieties have of course always existed.  Interestingly, one of the contenders for oldest coffee brand sold in the United States is Lion Brand which is Kona coffee.  Lion was first sold in the United States, as green coffee beans, in 1864.  Pretty darned early.  Hawaii wasn't an American territory at the time.  Folgers has them beat, however, dating back to 1850.  Hills Brothers dates to 1878.  Maxwell House to 1892.

Arbuckle Coffee, for some reason, was a huge item in the West in the late 1800s, showing how brands come and go.  I've never seen Arbuckles sold today, although it apparently still exists.  The owners of the company, John and Charles Arbuckle, owned a ranch near Cheyenne, although I don't know if that explains the connection with the West, or if perhaps that connection worked the other way around.

Now there's a zillion brands of coffee, many of which I don't recognize, and many which have pretensions towards coffee greatness.  This seems to have come about due to the rise of coffee houses, lead in a major way by Starbucks.  There's a Starbucks on every street corner now, it seems.  I'll be frank that I don't like their coffee much at all.  Too strong, and I like strong coffee.  Anyhow, the many specialty brews that Starbucks makes has spawned many various specialty coffees, or at least different coffees, to the extent to which a person can hardly keep track of it.  Over the weekend I was in City Brew, one of the local coffee houses, as well as Albertsons, where a Starbucks is located, and they both had "Christmas Blends".  How can there be a Christmas blend of coffee?

Chock full o' Nuts, a brand that, as the can indicates, has been around since 1932.  That was the date the company founder changed his nut shops into lunch counters, figuring that they were a better bet during the Great Depression.  I used to drink Chock full o' Nuts when I was in college but stopped as it seemed to have way too much caffeine.

Not that I'm complaining.  I frankly like the vast variety in coffee. And while I'm not inclined to buy something like Starbucks Free Range Easter Island Coffee Licked Gently By Baby Yaks, I will buy peculiar roasts just because the sound interesting. And I tend towards those dark roasts even if I sometimes wish I'd gotten something milder.

And it is interesting to see how coffee houses, following in Starbuck's wake, have popped up everywhere.  Just the other day I bought a sack of Boyer's coffee in the grocery store.  I was aware of Boyers, as they're a Denver brand with a Denver coffee house, but I wasn't aware that you could buy it up here.  Quasi local, as it were.  A great Denver coffee, with some good coffee houses is Dazbog, which plays up the Russian origin of the founders.  One of the independent local coffee houses here sells Dazbog, and its good stuff.  City Brew has outlets here in town, and apparently they're originally from Montana, which they play up with some of their roasts, even though we all know coffee isn't grown in Montana.  I'm told that Blue Ridge Coffee, another local coffee house that sells sacked coffee, is purely local.

And that doesn't cover every coffee house in town.  Quite the evolution when just a decade or so ago you'd have had to go to a conventional cafe and just have ordered the house coffee, whatever that was.  No special roasts or blends.  Just a up of joe.

And I prefer to buy from the locals as well.  Subsidarity in action, I suppose.  Indeed, I'm not told that I can buy Mystic Monk sacked coffee at the Parish Office, and I likely will.

In the grocery store, for the most part, you bought the major brands.  Most of those are still around,  but now you can buy any number of major and minor brands.  I even have a coffee grinder, although that certainly isn't a new invention, although most of the time I buy pre ground coffee.  Indeed, I got the grinder as I bought whole bean coffee by mistake, which I've done from time to time, and I don't want to waste it.

Using coffee grinders, of course, is an odd return to the past. Everything old is new again, sort of.  But the huge variety, of course, is wholly new.

Industrial strength coffee grinder.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Related threads:

Coffee

The Science Behind Coffee and Why it's Actually Good for Your Health

Blog Mirror. A Hundred Years Ago: Keep Coffee Warm with a Thermos

National Coffee Day.

The Joy of Field Rations: Roasting Coffee in the Field

Today In Wyoming's History: Blog Mirror: Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving

Today In Wyoming's History: Blog Mirror: Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving: Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving : Today, November 22, is the Thanksgiving Holiday for 2012.  Thanksgiving remains one of the two really big h...

November 28

Today is Thanksgiving Day for 2013.

1872  The Diamond Hoax of 1872 exposed by geologist Clarence King, who issued his opinion that a diamond prospect that had been securing prominent national interest had been salted.

Clarence King

Many wealthy and prominent Americans had been fooled by the scheme and had invested funds to purchase what was thought to be a significant diamond strike. The 1872 date of this event shows the significance that geology had in the state's history from the very onset of the state's history.

1890  The McKinney Strip contest settled in favor of Buffalo.  This was a land contest of some sort, but I can't remember the details.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1912  Governor Carey declared the day to a day of Public Thanksgiving and Praise to Our Lord.

1914  New Your Stock Exchange reopens for the first time since July, when the crises leading up to World War One caused its closer.

1916:  The Cheyenne State Leader for November 28, 1916: Villa captures Chihuahua and moves north.
 

Villa was appearing quite resurgent, grim news for those hoping for a resolution to the border situation.

And a sugar plant was going in at Worland. . . where one still exists.  Elsewhere, the State Engineer was arguing for aid to settlers in an early economic development effort.

And the state's water contest against Colorado was making daily news.
1916  William F. Cody granted a patent for a design for a bit.

1917  Cornerstone laid for the Platte County Library.

I'm not completely certain, but I think that the old library is still there, attached to a much larger more recent structure. That sort of library update is fairly common. The Natrona County Library is the same way.

Libraries have fallen on somewhat hard times in recent years, but they remain a vital part of any community.  Most, indeed nearly any significant library, have updated their services over the years and offer a variety of them, although competing with the home computer is pretty tough.

In smaller communities, they also provide vital meeting room services.  Indeed, I was trying to remember if I've ever been in the Platte County Library.  I don't think so, but the reason I was trying to recall that is because I took a deposition in a southeastern Wyoming library years and years ago.  I'm pretty sure, however, that was the Goshen County Library.  Nonetheless, in smaller towns, finding a space in which to do something like that can be hard, and libraries can fit the bill. By the same token, I've taken a deposition in the Yale Oklahoma library, and there clearly would have been no other place in which to do that.

Anyhow, today is the centennial of the Platte County Library's cornerstone being fixed.

1918  Thanksgiving Day, 1918

The first Thanksgiving of the peace (keeping in mind that the United States only went through one wartime Thanksgiving in which it was a combatant), occurred on this day, in 1918.

I posted an item on this yesterday in that one of the Cheyenne newspapers ran an article about things being closed in Cheyenne today, and there having been late shopping last night, a century ago. Sounds a lot like today, eh?  In today's Casper Daily Press you can tell that they sent the employees home (keeping in mind that newspapers are put together the prior evening, if they're morning papers) so there'd be no paper on Friday.

That was so that people could enjoy the holidays on an American holiday that has remained much like it has always been, which is a refreshing thing to realize.

One of the things about Thanksgiving, which we've also already posted on, is a big gathering.  I've also posted on that here as well, in this entry:

Blog Mirror: Hundred-year-old Thanksgiving Menus

From A Hundred Years Ago:

Hundred-year-old Thanksgiving Menus

It's interesting to note what's on the menu not only for what's on it, but what isn't.  The authors of these menus didn't necessarily think that you had to have turkey.  Indeed, turkey is only on one of the menus.  "Roast fowl" is on two of them. But what sort of fowl were they thinking of? Any fowl?  Pheasant?

And wine isn't on the menu at all.  I note that as if you spend any time watching the endless Thanksgiving shows that will now be appearing on the Food Channel, or whatever, they're all going to have a part, or at least some surely will, where somebody talks about pairing wine with turkey (as they're all going to feature turkey. . . which is okay as I like turkey).

They're all going to have pumpkin pie as well. . . which only one of these does.  One of these, for that matter, has Maple Parfait. What's that?

Interesting stuff.

One of the things I didn't note in that entry, but which I should have, is that there was no "local food movement" at the time as all food was local.  Indeed, the most recent comment on this blog made me realize there's an element of that I'm not aware of, and as that's the purpose of this blog, exploring such topics, I'll be posting a query thread on that soon.  Anyhow, when I noted that some of these menus had "fowl" on them, it should have occurred to me that obtaining a fresh turkey probably presented greater or lesser difficulties (especially in 1918) for the cook depending upon where you lived.  Most folks probably could go to the butcher and obtain a turkey, and almost certainly some local farmer, even in Wyoming localities, raised them for the Holidays specifically.  Still, some hosts probably had menus that featured freshly obtained game, such as pheasant or, in Wyoming, ducks, geese or even sage chickens, all of which I find pretty darned tasty.

Of course, a lot of Americans were eating Thanksgiving Day dinners overseas in a mess hall of some sort in 1918.  What sort of menu did they find in the offering?  The authors of the excellent Roads to the Great War blog have that one covered:

Roads to the Great War: Thanksgiving Day 1918: Happy Thanksgiving from the Roads Editorial Team Much of the American Expeditionary Force found itself stuck in France after the Armis...

I don't know what "Dardanelle Turkey" is, unless that was the menu author's play on words Turkey keeping in mind that the recently defeated Ottoman Empire controlled the Dardanelles.  Perhaps.  But "White Fish" also on the menu. . .?  That one surprised me.

As it probably surprised some folks that Thanksgiving Day in 1918 was on November 28.  But as readers here will recall, the current calendar position of the holiday is a recent one, as this holiday used to move a fair bit around the month of November.

Any way you look at it, for most people this was likely a happier holiday than the one in 1917 had been. . . although for thousands of others, it was likely a profoundly sad one.

1919  November 28, 1919. The Union Pacific Gives Up, Mexico erupts, Ships launched and Heroines

The Union Pacific declared that it was giving up the search for Bill Carlisle on this post Thanksgiving Day (prior to it being Black Friday) and it was blaming Wyomingites for that.  It held that they were too sympathetic to the train robber and lambasted the state's residents for that in no uncertain terms.

1924  An earthquake occurred near Lander.

1927  William R. Coe made a substantial donation to the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1942  Coffee rationing goes into effect in the United States.

1954  Edward D. Crippa completed his term as appointed Senator from Wyoming, filling out the balance of Lester C. Hunt's term until an elected replacement could be seated.

1960  Hugo Gerhard Janssen, early Wyoming photographer, died in Lovell Wyoming.

1989  The Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News wins the contract to build the SSN 773, USS Cheyenne.

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 26

1835  Texas forces defeated Mexican forces in the Grass Fight near San Antonio.

1863   President Abraham Lincoln proclaims November 26th as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday of November (since 1941, on the fourth Thursday).

1916   The Cheyenne Leader for November 26, 1916 (but with a date error): U.S. Ready to Ratify Protocol With Mexico
 

We need to note here that the Leader made an error on its date on page 1.  To show that, we've uploaded page 2 as well.  This was the November 26 paper, note the November 25 paper.

Woodrow Wilson, the Leader reported, was ready to ratify the protocol with Mexico. But was Carranza ready?  The battle appeared to be turning for Carranza's enemy, Villa, in Chihuahua.

In Washington, John E. Osborne, former Wyoming Governor, appeared to be pondering leaving his Assistant Secretary of State position in the Wilson administration in order to head back to Wyoming. 

And sad news was reported regarding the death if Inez Milholland Bossevain, who had been in Cheyenne during the Presidential campaign.

And the Governor put out a Thanksgiving message for the upcoming holiday. 

1918  November 26, 1918. Letters home with scruffy photos. News photographs with polish appearance. Wyoming for Pershing? The murder of the Jews of Lvov, Rumors of War between Peru and Chile.

Post card home of Harold A. Stivers, 311th Infantry, 78th Division.  Stivers refers to his dress, which he regarded as a little rough.  It is interesting.  He's wearing the by then standard overseas cap and a leather jerkin.  American troops wore the jerkin much less often than the British, with whom it had become standard late in the war.  He notes that his puttees aren't wrapped correctly.  Puttees, used by the British and the French during the war, were adopted by the Americans but they didn't completely replace leggings.  After the war, the American Army quickly went back to leggings.

The contrasting photograph of Gen. Leroy S. Upton, commander of the 57th Bde, 29th Division, who presents a much more polished appearance. Gen. Upton is wearing private purchase lace up, and thick soled, riding boots with speed laces. . . a much preferable piece of footgear for actual field conditions than the standard field boots of the time.

One of the Cheyenne newspapers was declaring that Wyoming would support drafting Pershing for a 1920 Presidential run, or otherwise supporting him in that effort.

No doubt, the news was not in error.  Pershing was the son in law of Francis E. Warren, Wyoming's Senator, and very well remembered there.

And the tax on automobiles was coming off.

The other Cheyenne paper was reporting about the looming war between Chile and Peru, and on the horror of ethnic genocide in Lvov.  And there was fighting, of a different type, in the streets of New York City.

1919  USS Laramie, a fleet replenishment oiler,  launched.

1926  Utah's John M. Browning died.  Browning is regarded as the most successful firearms designer of all time.

1934  Charles E. Richardson, publisher of the Rock Springs Daily Rocket-Miner from 1974 to 2005 born in Newcastle Wyoming.

1942  Lusk announces they will forgo outdoor Christmas lights in accordance with a request from the War Production Board.  Attribution.  Wyoming History Calendar.

1948  Former Governor Frank E. Lucas died in  Buffalo, Wyoming.  He had been Wyoming's Secretary of State from 1923 to 1927, and Governor in 1925 after the death of Governor Ross.  He left office in 1927 and spent the rest of his life as the editor and publisher of the Buffalo Bulletin.

1984  Big Nose George Parrott's remains given to the Carbon County Museum.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

2004  The Snake River Ranch added to the National Registry of Historic Places. 

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.