Lex Anteinternet: Happy Centenary! Things or rather places, that ar...

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New Mexicans In Wyoming

 

 The oldest house in the United States, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  New Mexico very much has its own distinct cultures that have been in the region for a very long time.

This blog has a sidebar entitled Hispanics In Wyoming.  It's one of several that deal with important Wyoming ethnicities.

One of the nice things about blogs is that you can correct and expand on topics as you learn about errors or omissions, and that's what we're doing here, thanks to a recently issue of the Annals of Wyoming. We really missed the important story of New Mexicans in Wyoming.

It was a huge omission.

I don't know that we can really fully correct it, quite frankly, as our omission was so vast, but we'll at least mention it here in hopes of getting this part of the story inserted here.  We'd first note, however, that finding a copy of the issue and reading it is highly recommended, even if a couple of the articles in it fit into social theory that's really outside of the main theme of the issue, which deals with Hispanics in Wyoming.

One of the things the issue really focuses on in is the story of New Mexicans in Wyoming, which I only knew a little about.  It was fascinating.  

What that story reveals is that Wyoming once had a vibrant New Mexican population that maintained direct links to Hispanic New Mexico.  Largely made up of men with experience in sheep tending, they came up to work on Wyoming's sheep ranches and then ultimately went into available blue collar jobs, mostly in southern Wyoming.  For a long time these communities traveled back and forth between Wyoming and New Mexico, but they stopped doing that around World War Two and permanently located in Wyoming, mostly in southern Wyoming.  They were a significant minority community all along the Union Pacific, and their presence as a community that lived in Wyoming but had immediate roots in New Mexico continued well into the mid 20th Century.  Indeed, I know one retired fellow whose parents, it turned out, lived this very story.

I didn't deal much with this in my earlier sidebar, and indeed I really haven't dealt with it much here.  But it is important to recall that a term like "Hispanic" is a very broad one and it may be used unfairly in an overly broad fashion.  New Mexicans in Wyoming, while Hispanics, have their own story.  I missed that.  That story remains, but it's slowly being lost as the New Mexican community, now well into its third and fourth generation here, and now removed from its original distinct occupations, is less identifiable as that than it was when it first located here.  Indeed, the article referenced above credited the Catholic Church with allowing the identify to go forward, given that they were Catholic, an aspect of Hispanic culture I did mention previously.

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Blog Mirror: The Aerodrome: You Can't Fly There From Here

From The Aerodrome:

October 27, 2017

You can't fly there from here.

 

 Over the Laramie Range.

Unfortunate news from the Casper Star Tribune . . .

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Lex Anteinternet: The View from the San Jacinto Monument: A live webcam, right on the harbor.

Some Gave All: The Sundance, Wyoming Rest Stop Memorials.

Some Gave All: The Sundance, Wyoming Rest Stop Memorials.: 

 Memorials at the Sundance Wyoming Rest Stop.

I usually don't put a bunch of memorials, even at one single spot, in one single post.  Each, I generally feel, deserves its own post as each is its own topic, in terms of what it commemorates.

 Black Hills Sign at the Sundance Wyoming Rest Stop.

I'm making an exception here, however, as these are grouped so nicely, they seem to require a singular treatment. 

The first item we address is the Black Hills sign. This sign discusses the Black Hills, which straddle the Wyoming/South Dakota border.

 Crook County sign.

The second sign discusses Crook County, named after Gen. George Crook, and in which Sundance is situated.

The sign oddly doesn't really go into Crook himself, but then its a memorial for the county, not the general.  Still a controversial general, Crook came into this region in the summer campaign of 1876 which saw him go as far north as southern Montana before meeting the Sioux and Cheyenne at Rosebud several days prior to Custer encountering them at Little Big Horn.  Crook engaged the native forces and then withdrew in a move that's still both praised and condemned.  At the time of the formation of Crook County in 1888 he was sufficiently admired that the county was named after him, at a time at which he was still living.

 Custer Expedition Memorial.

Finally, the Rest Stop is the location of an old monument noting the passage of Custer's 1874 expedition into the Black Hills, which is generally regarded as the precursor of the European American invasion of the Black Hills and the Powder River Expedition of 1876.  Obviously, it's more complicated than that, but its safe to say that the discovery of gold in 1874 gave way to a gold rush which, in turn, made conflict with the Sioux, who had taken over the Black Hills (by force) from the Crow, inevitable.

This memorial is interesting in the super heated atmosphere of today given that the historical view has really changed since 1940, when this roadside monument was dedicated (surprisingly late, I'd note, compared to similar Wyoming monuments). In 1940 Custer was still regarded as a hero.  By the 1970s, however, he was regarded in the opposite fashion, by and large, at least in terms of his popular portrays are concerned.  The 1874 expedition into the Black Hills is not favorably recalled in history now at all.

I have to wonder, however, in terms of the history if this expedition changed history the way it is recalled.  The Black Hills always seem to be an attractant.  They attracted the Sioux who took them (in living memory in 1874) from the Crows and it seems highly likely that they would would have attracted European Americans as well.  Certainly they continued to even after the hopes of gold seekers were dashed.

Lex Anteinternet: Berlin Air Lift Rates

Lex Anteinternet: Berlin Air Lift Rates:

Berlin Air Lift Rates

One plane every minute.

C-54 during the Berlin Air Lift

That was the highest rate achieved for the Berlin Air Lift in 1949.

Today, for the eclipse, the rate is predicted to be one plane every two minutes.

Will that actually occur?

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Some Gave All: The Powder River Country, Braodus Montana

Some Gave All: The Powder River Country, Braodus Montana:

A lot of history in this region of Montana, and in the adjoining part of Wyoming.

Blog Mirror: MeredithinWyoming; August 2, 1867 The Wagon Box Fight on the Bozeman Trail.

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Como Bluffs: Dinosaur Graveyard and Train Robberies

These two historic markers are located at Como Bluffs, between Rock River and Medicine Bow Wyoming. I'm sure I've stopped at them before, but it's probably been over thirty years and I've never photographed the markers before, or if I did it would have been that long ago.

The first marker is for the fossil fields nearby.  The sign tells the story.  I'd only note as an aside that my father told me that back in the 1940s he stopped at the fossil cabin with his father and the owner of hit gave him a fossilized dinosaur egg from the nearby fossil beds.  Unfortunately, it's long since been lost.

The train robberies sign also speaks for itself.  The first robbery noted is a famous one by The Whole In The Wall Gang, famously depicted in the film Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.  The other details the life of Bill Carlisle, the "Gentleman Bandit". 

Structures at this site are depicted in these two photographs, including the famous "fossil cabin".  A nearby sign notes that it was featured in "Ripley's Believe It Or Not".

Some Gave All: Wyoming Veterans Museum: World War One Display

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Lex Anteinternet: Baseball's Only Double No Hitter, May 2, 1917

And yes, it's off topic

Lex Anteinternet: Baseball's Only Double No Hitter, May 2, 1917:

On this day.

 Winning pitcher Toney.

The Reds v The Cubs.  Ten innings.  One run.  Victory to the Reds.

 Hippo Vaughn.

Fred Toney v. Hippo Vaughn.  They both pitched the entire game.

When the run came in, and the Cubs lost, Cubs owner Charlie Weeghman stuck his head into the Cubs clubhouse and yelled at the team, “You’re all a bunch of asses!

 Charlie Weeghman, far left, in 1914.