July 23

1632  Three hundred colonists bound for New France depart from Dieppe, France.

1847  Founding of Salt Lake City by Mormons.

1864  The USS Wyoming docked for extensive repairs.

1874  George Custer climbs Inyan Kara Mountain in the Black Hills of Wyoming and carves his name there.

1888  Construction commenced on the State Penitentiary in Rawlins. 

1890   The official celebration of Wyoming statehood held in Cheyenne.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1890  Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show opened in Berlin, Germany.

1903  The Ford Motor Company sold its first car.

1923 Monday, July 23, 1923. Disasters. First ascent of Clyde Peak. French Foreign Legion failure. Squamish Nation, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw amalgamation. Sigsbee funeral.

I'm often amazed, particularly in regard to weather disasters, how often headlines from 1923 read like those from 2023.

That't not to draw a conclusion that I do not intend to suggest, I m'just noting it.

Clyde Peak, left, Blackfoot Mountain, right in 1925.

Norman Clyde became the first man to climb Clyde Peak in Glacier National Park.

Clyde Peak, now. By Owen Jones - File:Red Eagle Lake.jpg, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109050999

1929  Cheyenne Frontier Days commenced for 1929.  

1973   Old Faithful Inn was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Attribution:  On This Day.

1989  The Lake DeSmet portion, Stinking Water Gulch segment and Ross segment of the Bozeman Trail added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1989  The Powder River Crossing at Kaycee added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1989  Trabing Station in Johnson County added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1989  Antelope Crossing at Ross added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1989  Sage Creek Station in Converse County added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1993  A magnitude 3.7 earthquake occurred about 80 miles from Laramie.

July 22

1890  A marble quarry opened near Rawlins.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1894   The first ever motorized racing event is held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen.

1897   The Hole In The Wall Fight between ruslters and ranchers happened near the Hole In The Wall.

1916  In San Francisco, a bomb at a Preparedness Day parade on Market Street kills ten people and wounds forty.

This item is particularly notable on this date in this current year, 2012 (when first posted), as we've just seen somewhat similar casualties in an act of violence in Denver Colorado.  In the 1916 event, the attack was no doubt politically motivated, but clearly by a person who had a complete disregard for human life.  In the Colorado act the disregard for human life is likewise evident, but it lacks even the cover of a political motivation which, at least, would provide the thin camouflage of deluded justification for such an act.

Now, in the US, there will be, and indeed already are, endless efforts to try to deduce the cause of the senseless act.  Was the perpetrator insane?  Was he motivated by some warped political or social goal? Was it the implements, and not the man, that was the cause.

None of this will serve in the end to reveal anything.  And next to none of it, if any of it, will address a simple fact which, in the modern world, is a fact that cannot be stated.

That fact is is that Evil is in the world, and some people are motivated by Evil.

That Evil is in the world should be self evident.  Hitler, Himmler, Stalin and a host of similar tyrants were not insane.  They were servants of evil.  Likewise, thousands of people in this era are simply evil.  Evil people have always been around. What hasn't always been around, however, is a denial that evil exists. And we're paying for it, and will continue to do so, until we realize that evil is an antiquated concept, but a reality.

1967  Cpt. William B. Graves shot down while piloting a OV-1C in Vietnam.

1922 Mount Moran ascended for the first time.  the climb was made by LeGrand Hardy, Bennet McNulty and Ben C. Rich of the Chicago Mountaineering Club via the Skillet Glacier route.

1937 The Senate rejected President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court.

1942 US initiates gasoline rationing 

1950 The Department of the Army asked reserve officers to volunteer for active duty due to the Korean War.

1966  Six people were injured when a category two tornado struck Gillette.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1967   Capt. William B. Graves of Douglas is killed when his OV 1-C  Mohawk aircraft crashes in Vietnam.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

July 21

1860  Fenimore Chatterton, born in Oswego County, New York. He was a businessman, politician and lawyer who had relocated to Sheridan and then was elected Wyoming's Secretary of State in 1898, after having served in two terms of the legislature.  The death of Governor DeForest Richards made Chatterton governor in 1903, but he was not reelected in 1905.  He resumed the practice of law thereafter.

1867 Ft. D. A. Russell established outside of Cheyenne on  Crow Creek.  It survives as an active duty military post today, now as Warren Air Force Base.

Veterinary Hospital at F. E. Warren.

1885  Owen Wister was in Medicine Bow again, this time spending the night in the corner of a store.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1890  H. G. Welch demonstrated that strawberries could be raised on the Laramie Plains, which are generally at least 7,000 feet in elevation. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1941  President Roosevelt asks Congress to extend the draft period from one year to 30 months and to make similar increases in the terms of service for the National Guard.

So much for the lyrics of one of the then popular songs:

GOODBYE DEAR, I'LL BE BACK IN A YEAR

Goodbye Dear, I'll be back in a year
'Cause I'm in the army now
They took my number right out of the hat
And there's nothing a guy can do about that

But when you get back you'll be all tanned and brown
Say, couldn't we buy that cottage right outside of town

Goodbye Dear, I'll be back in a year
Don't forget that I love you

Don't fear, Dear, I'll be here in a year
'Cause I'm true to the Army now
Ah, what a soldier, you wait and see
Why, I'll be a big gun in the artillery

Now honey, be sure and keep cozy and warm
Gee, you look cute in that new uniform:
Oh, goodbye Dear, I'll be back in a year
Don't forget that I love you

Goodbye Dear, well I'm here for a year
I'm in the Army now
But don't you worry, the General and I
Are the greatest of pals

Now, Ronnie, don't you lie
Well, he fixed it up so I could have breakfast in bed
Well, why are you peeling potatoes instead?
Oh, he's just kidding me
Good bye dear, I'll be back in a year
Don't forget that I

Don't forget that I
BOTH: Don't forget that I love you

Another versions (multiple versions in one year were common at the time):

Goodbye Dear, I'll be back in a year
'Cause I'm in the army now
They took my number out of the hat
And there's nothing a guy can do about that

But when I get back, I'll be all tanned and brown
And we'll buy that cottage just outside of town
So, goodbye Dear, I'll be back in a year
Don't forget that I love you

Goodbye Dear, I'll be back in a year
'Cause I'm in the army now
Don't I look handsome dressed up like this
Stop your cryin' and give your soldier a kiss

They may send me out to the old Philippines
But, Sweetheart, you'll still be the girl of my dreams
So, goodbye Dear, I'll be back in a year
Don't forget that I love you

1942  Big Horn County's Fair cancelled.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1952 John Barrasso born in Reading Pennsylvania.  He was appointed to the U.S. Senate after the death of Craig Thomas in 2007 and has been serving in that office since that date.

1974  The Campbell County Rockpile Museum opened.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1987  The most powerful tornado in Wyoming's history,  the Teton–Yellowstone tornado,an F4, touched down in Yellowstone National Park and left a path of destruction 1 to 2 miles wide, and 24 miles long while leveling 15,000 acres of mature pine forest.

2010  The State Code adopted by the Legislature.

Wyoming, like most states has a set of state symbols.  I think I've listed them all over time, including now this one, the most recent to be adopted.

I've generally abstained from commenting on the symbols, even though a few of them strike me as a bit odd. For example, we have a State Insect, which I don't know that we need.  But so be it.

Here, however, I can't help but comment.

The State Code I guess, is okay enough.  Here's the statute that sets it out:

 8-3-123. State code.

(a) The code of the west, as derived from the book Cowboy Ethics by James P. Owen, and summarized as follows  is the official state code of Wyoming. The code includes:

(i) Live each day with courage;

(ii) Take pride in your work;

(iii) Always finish what you start;

(iv) Do what has to be done;

(v) Be tough, but fair;

(vi) When you make a promise, keep it; 

(vii) Ride for the brand; 

(viii) Talk less, say more; 

(ix) Remember that some things are not for sale; 

(x) Know where to draw the line.

There's nothing in here in particular that I disagree with, although that "ride for the brand" item doesn't really reflect a lot of Wyoming's history very accurately.  The central conflict in the state from the 1876 to 1900 time frame really centered around individuals who started out riding for one brand, and then acquired their own brand and quit riding for the Brand No. 1.  Indeed, it might justifiably be argued that Individuals, rather than Ride For The Brand, is the true mark of a Wyomingite.

My greater problem, or perhaps irritation, with the State Code is, I suppose, similar to my comments regarding "state" authors, in that in supposedly finding a "code" that identifies us, we had to copy it from a Wall Street figure and not a Wyomingite.  The code comes from a book that Owens wrote in which he identified what he though were "Cowboy Ethics" and argued that this simple Code of the West could teach the nation something.  I'm not arguing that it couldn't, but I tend to doubt that a Wall Street figures is really capable of capturing the ethics of a class and group so very foreign to his own.

Again, as noted, having been around a lot of cowboys and rural workers, one thing I think is totally missing is that they all tend to have a high degree of independence and its not unusual at all to find actual working cowboys who switch employers a lot.  Perhaps they "ride for the brand", but often only briefly.  The "talk less, say more" item is a nice toss to a certain Gary Cooper view of the cowboy (and Gary Cooper was raised on a Montana ranch) but truth be told, being an isolated group, quite a few cowhands like to talk quite a bit, if given the opportunity to.  One Wyoming politician, the former Senator Simpson, is widely celebrated in Wyoming for his gift of gab at that, which has occasionally gotten him into trouble.  But the general list is not a bad one.  I only think it a bit sad that in order to define what our ethics are, we had to borrow them from a Wall Street figure who wrote what he thinks ours our.  It would seem that we could have defined them ourselves.

2022.  Wyoming Attorney General Bridget hill informed the Governor that nothing precluded Wyoming's "trigger law" prohibiting most abortions from going into effect following the Dobbs decision.

July 20

1862  Ft. Halleck, near Elk Mountain, established.   It patrolled a section of the overland trails.  Attribution  On This Day.

1866  A wagon train was attacked on Crazy Woman Creek by the Sioux and Cheyenne..  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1874   Monday, July 20, 1874. Custer enters Wyoming.

Obviously posed photograph of George adn Libby Custer in their Ft. Abraham Lincoln quarters in 1874.  Custer, wearing his dress uniform, still sports his famously long hair in this photograph.

The 7th Cavalry under Lt. Col George Armstrong Custer crossed into Wyoming Territory from Montana Territory.

1881 Sitting Bull surrendered at Ft. Buford, North Dakota.

1885 Trial of Louis Riel for treason begins at Regina, the capital of the North-West Territories; Riel wishes to plead not guilty, but his lawyers enter an insanity plea over his objections.

1886  Lusk town lots went on sale.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1889 Ellen Watson and Jim Averell hung by area ranchers in the region of the Sweetwater River.  This event has been one of the most enduring controversial in Wyoming's history, with many different variants of it having been written.  There are now so many variants, that sorting out the true reasons that Ellen "Cattle Kate" Watson and Jim Averell is now nearly impossible.  It can't even be fully determined if Watson and Averell were married, which they might have been (they did take out a marriage license) or if Watson was a prostitute who took payment in cattle, which she might have been.

The murder is often placed in the context of the Johnson County War, where it doesn't properly belong.

It should be noted that this event is probably subject to more interpretation, evolution, and revision than any other single event in  Wyoming's history, much of it quite recent.  For much of the 20th Century Ellen Watson and Jim Averell were regarded as victims of an unwarranted extrajudicial lynching, but not as totally innocent characters.  The generally accepted view, for many decades (and I believe the one that is recounted in the the excellent "War On Powder River", is that Watson was a prostitute (which does not preclude her being married to Averell) and that she took payment in cattle, if no other currency was available.  This got her into trouble with area ranchers, this thesis maintains, as the cattle were often stolen by the cowhands who paid for her services. Averell, according to this view, lost his life essentially for living with her and benefiting from her activities.

More recently, however, there have been serious, and not always entirely grounded, efforts to revive her reputation and there have even been those who have viewed her as an early feminist businesswoman, with a wholly legitimate business activity, who was murdered simply for being a self assertive woman.  Frankly, that doesn't wash, and independent Frontier women were not really novel.  A more serious revisionist view holds that Averell and Watson were small time homesteaders who were trespassing on the lands that were controlled by rancher Albert Bothwell.  It may be that there is some truth to this view, which might also explain why the marriage, or lack thereof, of Averell was either not completed (a serious crime at that time) or kept secret, as it would have allowed both Averll and Watson to file separate homesteads.

Of course, it may be that both the earlier accepted version of events or the standard revisionist views are correct.  Watson and Averell were homestead entrants and that may have seriously irritated Bothwell and his companions, and Watson might also have been a prostitute.  The vast expanse of time that has gone by since this 1889 event effectively means that the truth will never be really known now.  What is undoubted is that Watson was the only woman ever lynched in Wyoming, and none of the perpetrators of the act made any effort to keep the deed secret.  One even rode into Casper shortly after the news broke on the story, admitted his role, and was basically left alone.

Ellen Watson.

1903  The Ford Motor Company shipped its first car.

1917 The U.S. World War I draft lottery began.

As can be seen, the papers published the name of the men selected right on the front page.

In some counties, however, the draft proved unnecessary as the counties had already filled their quotas, which were apparently on a county by county basis, through volunteers.

1948 President Harry S. Truman institutes a military draft with a proclamation calling for nearly 10 million men to register for military service within the next two months. My father is one of those to register under the 1948 law.

1969 Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.

July 19

1814         Samuel Colt, firearms inventor, born.

1864  The USS Wyoming returned to a U.S. port after extended service in the Far East, which she would soon see again.

1867.  The Army commences construction of Ft. Fetterman.  The fort is located on a windy bluff overlooking the Platte River.  The site requires those detailed to walk some distance to water, and for a period of time the post would have the highest insanity rate in the Army.

1877  .Union Pacific employees wrote Yale paleontologist William Carlin about the discovery of fossils at Como Bluff.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1885  Owen Wister takes his legendary snooze on the counter of the general store at Medicine Bow, while waiting for a train.  The Philadelphia born Wister, was very well educated and had hoped for a career in music, but instead obtained a law degree from Harvard due to the urging of his father.  He practiced law in Philadelphia.  During that period he commenced vacationing in the West, with his first trip to Wyoming being this one, in 1885.  It would lead to his legendary book, The Virginian. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1890  Laramie granted a franchise for a street railway.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1907  Isabel Jewell born in Shoshoni.  Jewell was a successful Broadway and screen actress in the 1930s and 1940s.

1918  The headline says it all. Laramie Boomerang, July 19, 1918.

1922 Cheyenne's mayor banned the sale of firearms during a railroad strike.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1923 Wednesday, July 18, 1923. Special Session Ends.

The Special Session of the Legislature was already over.

Bet it wouldn't be that quick now.

And the shocking murder trial resulting from the shooting of a woman in a car which would not dim its lights, at the hands of law enforcement, was set for September.

1924  Stan Hathaway born in Osceola, Nebraska.  He was raised by an aunt and uncle in Hunley Wyoming after his mother died when he was two, and was the valedictorian of Huntley High School in 1941.  He served in the Army Air Corps in World War Two, became a lawyer after the war, and was elected governor in 1967.  He was briefly the Secretary of the Interior under President Gerald Ford.

1925  A collection of farm and ranch photographs was taken.

1964  The Swan Land and Cattle Company Headquarters was designated a National Historic Landmark.  Attribution:  On This Day.

2012  W. N. "Neil" McMurry, a giant in Wyoming's heavy construction industry for many years, and a significant figure in the oil and gas industry in his later years, died.  His activities in these fields were particularly noticeable in Casper, where foundations related to his activities had a significant impact on the area.

July 18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Battle of Soissons.

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

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

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

U.S. Artillery at Château-Thierry.

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

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

1977  John Hinckely interviewed Milward Simpson.

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

July 17

1866 Sioux warriors drove off a herd of livestock (175 horses and mules of the 18th Infantry Regiment) at Ft. Phil Kearney, with soldiers giving pursuit, resulting in some soldiers being killed and others wounded.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1876   The battle of Warbonnet Creek occured in which Col. Wesley Merritt and his 5th Cavalry, out of Fort Robinson, Nebraska, attack the Cheyenne in the vicinity of Fort Robinson.  The battle launches Buffalo Bill Cody into fame.

1891  An explosion at the Union Pacific's No. 6 mine killed five and was felt in Rock Springs. Attribution:  On This Day.

1915  An unseasonable snowstorm occurred in Hartville.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1920  The USS Wyoming given her hull designation as the BB-32.

1921   Burnu Acquanetta, actress, born near Cheyenne. She was an Arapaho and a minor movie actress.

1975  A plaque was presented to the Commissioner of Reclamation at Pathfinder Dam.

July 16

1863  The United States wins its first naval victory over Japan when the USS Wyoming prevailed in the Battle of Shimonoseki Straits.

1866  A discussion occurs between Col. Carrington and Cheyennes at Ft. Phil Kearny resulting in a Cheyenne pledge of peace.

1872  The cornerstone was laid at the Territorial Prison in Laramie.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1916   The Legislature approved of an act of Congress "to provide that the United States shall aid the states in the construction of rural post road."  Attribution:  On This Day.

1923  Monday, July 16, 1923. Summer session.

Wyoming's second, in its history up to that point, special legislative session convened in Cheyenne to address its state farm loan provisions.

1938  Ft. Laramie declared a National Monument.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

July 15

1215  King John assents to the Magna Carta, one of the primary documents of the English legal system, and by extension, the legal system of the United States.

1863  USS Wyoming victorious at Shimonoseki Straits in an action against a Japanese local power (warlord).

1866 The site for Ft. Phil Kearney chosen.   

1872  Cornerstone laid for the Territorial Prison in Laramie.

1918  The Kaiserschlacht Ends. July 15, 1918. Operation Friedensturm

Not very cheery news for a Monday.  Wyoming State Tribune for Monday, July 15, 1918.

Monday, July 15, 1918, brought discouraging, if not unexpected, news.

 

The map one final time, with the final German fifth drive.  This time the Germans attempted to exploit the earlier success of their drive on Paris with a new front to the east.  Over two days the effort gained ground, but the effort was rapidly halted and by this point the French were able to regain the initiative and counter.  The Germans were effectively blocked and gave up offensive efforts on August 7.

On July 15 the Germans resumed offensive operations, but not the Operation Hagen that was designed to be a final blow. Rather, they launched Friedensturm to exploit the earlier  Blücher–Yorck gains. While the offensive, like every other German offensive in this series of operations gained ground, the French were able to ultimately counterattack successfully and the German offensive operations came to an end on August 7.

Laramie residents not only read about the fierce fighting in France. . . they also got to read about how coal shortages were looking to bring an end to beer.

The final effort would see, as with the earlier efforts, some hard fighting.  The Second Battle of the Marne was part of the offensive, which would run from this day until August 6.  The Fourth Battle of Champaigne also started on this day. Both were launched against the French Fourth Army, the Germans having switched attention to them, of which the US 42nd Division was a part.  The 42nd was a division made up of National Guardsmen.  The French forces, moreover, were rapidly reinforced by British and American troops.  The US 3d Division would be back in action on this day and earn the nickname "The Rock of the Marine".  By the battles end eight American divisions would participate and the US would sustain 12,000 casualties.  The number of divisions contributed to the defense would be twice that of the British, with American divisions being twice as large, but even embattled Italy contributed two divisions and sustained 9,000 casualties.  Forty-four French divisions would fight in the battle and fifty-two German divisions. 

Allied battlefield loses would be roughly equal to German ones in the campaign, but by this point the Germans did not have the troops to lose.

1894  Butch Cassidy and Al Hainer sent to the Wyoming State Penitentiary for extortion.  They'd been running a protection racket aimed at ranchers.

1920  Casper made the headquarters for a division of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1992 ML Ranch in Big Horn County added to the National Register of Historic Places.

July 14

1860  Owen Wister, the author of The Virginian born in Philadelphia.  It is sometimes claimed that The Virginian was the first Western novel, which it is not, but it was probably the first serious one.Wister's novel is completely set in Wyoming and is loosely based on the events that gave rise to The Johnson County War, although it takes the large cattleman's side, which most works of fiction have not. The novel itself has been used as the inspiration for numerous other works, including quite a few movies, but usually works based on it also reverse the protagonists. Wister's novel followed a visit to Wyoming, and the locations mentioned on it describe places he'd actually visited.

Wister would become a lawyer by education, but his practice period was brief as he had no real affinity for the occupation.  He is principally remembered today for his novel, but he wrote on other topics as well, including on philosophy and politics.  A close friend of Theodore Roosevelt, he can be identified politically with the Progressive movement.

1920  A horse and rider were struck and killed near Powder River.

July 13

1863  

1866 Construction of Ft. Phil Kearny began.

1890 John C. Fremont died.

1916 Guardsmen of the 4th South Dakota Infantry prepare to leave for San Benito, Texas, to take up their station on the Mexican border where it will be placed into the First Separate Brigade along with the 22nd U.S. Infantry, the 1st Louisiana and 1st Oklahoma infantry regiments.

1917   July 13, 1917. Columbus in the News Again, Conscription, and something going on at Fatima
 

I quit doing daily newspaper updates some time ago, but given the interesting news here, and as I've done on occasion, I'm posting a "100 Years Ago Today" type entry here regarding July 13, 1917.

As noted yesterday, in one of the largest criminal acts of its type, industrial vigilantism of a type that we no longer see (thankfully) broke out in Bisbee Arizona.  Mining interest operated to illegally arrest and "deport" IWW members from Bisbee to New Mexico, entraining the victims and shipping them off to hapless southern New Mexico.

The IWW, to be sure, was one of the most radical unions going, in an era in which unions were pretty radical.  This was an era in which, for a combination of reasons, radical Socialism, of the type stirring up all sorts of foment in collapsing Russia, was on the rise everywhere and indeed had its presence in American unions.  The IWW, with its concept of "one big union", was one of the most radical of the bunch.

From the June 30, 1917 issue of Solidarity, the Industrial Workers of the World magazine.  One Big Union.

Frankly, in my view, the IWW was really darned goofy, and the concept of "one big union" totally unworkable.  Its no surprise that the IWW, which still exists, never succeeded it reaching its goals.  But the teens and the twenties were its era in the sun, and in Bisbee Arizona it had its moment.

Bibee in 1916.

The reason was simple enough.  Conditions at the Phelps Dodge mine there were bad and the union that had the membership there, the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW) wasn't doing much.  Some 800 or so workers turned to the IWW.

And the mining interest reacted, gathering up the IWW members and shipping them out of Bisbee.

Where they ended up in poor Columbus.

A humanitarian disaster was in the works, the US had to intervene and did.  Ultimately, while the Federal government determined the act was criminal, what with its scale, and what with all that was going on, nobody was prosecuted for this shocking act.

Amongst the shocks the nations was receiving, we'd note, it became clearer and clearer every day that the draft was going to be big. Really big.  Early registration had somewhat mixed results but was mostly successful.  The Guard was going into  official Federal service, conscripted actually due to an odd view of the US Attorney General that Federalized Guardsmen could not serve overseas, in August.  The big draw of average male citizens was hitting the news.  Even with the big numbers being claimed in the Press at the time, the actual numbers would be much larger.

There's be a lot more than two.  July 12, 1917 cover of Leslie's

Regarding fighting, the second of a series of mysterious events, which had not yet hit the international news but which would start to, occurred on this day.  Three Portuguese peasant children claimed to receive a visit from a mysterious otherworldly lady who then, they claimed, gave them a momentary but vivid glimpse of Hell.  Following that, she gave them a message, which included, but was not limited to, requests for penitential prayers and a prediction that the Great War would soon end, but if penance was not performed, Russia would fall into grave error, spread those errors around the world, nations would be destroyed, and a second war greater than the first would occur in the reign of a Pope who was named but who was not at that time the sitting Pope.  While nobody, including Catholics, are obligated to believe in a private revelation, this series of events, which would end, as the visitor claimed, in October 1917 with a final spectacular event, is hard to discount given that the contents of the messages proved to be true.  And so went the second, July 13, 1917 apparition of the Virgin Mary at Fatima.

1918  Oh my, I an only imagine what this headline would create locally in 2018. . . "Booze or Coal Is Choice For This Country": July 13, 2018 Cheyenne State Leader.

1922  A Sheridan man was sentenced to the Penitentiary for one year for "seduction".  This entry comes form the Wyoming Historical Society's calendar where there are no added details, but it should be noted that convictions of this type were not at all uncommon in North America.  Up until the mid 20th Century, a series of common law and criminal law provisions afforded criminal sanctions and civil relief for various morals offenses and offenses against the moral standards pertaining to the relationships between men and women, which were taken very seriously by the law.  These legal provisions, sometimes called the "heart balm statutes", were statutorily appealed in later years in Wyoming, but at the time they allowed parties to sue for, amongst other things, damages attached to illicit relationships. They also provided for criminal sanctions for intimate relationships outside of marriage, such as here.  Now regarded as quaint, the provisions afforded a degree of protection to society for the results of such conduct, and they discourage it in addition to providing legal recognition to the almost universally held moral standards of the day.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

July 12

1864  

1890  Lander incorporated.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1900 The first Elks Lodge to be chartered in Wyoming was chartered in Sheridan.  Up until after World War Two, fraternal lodges were a major feature of male life in most localities in the United States, with a very high percentage of American men belonging to some sort of fraternal organization.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1900 Basin saw a record high temperature for the state of 114F.  It is no longer the record high, as 115F was reached, in Basin, in 1983.

July 11

1862   The Postmaster General of the United States ordered mail carriers to forgo the trail over South Pass in favor of the Overland Trail due to the risk of Indian attacks.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1908  The USS Wyoming (BM-10) renamed the USS Cheyenne.  There's no doubt a real level of confusion on the 20th Century USS Wyoming surface vessels, which I've inadvertently contributed to, as there were two capitol ships by that name, which is very rarely noted in some sources. The first was a less substantial ship than the second.  That ship, the USS Wyoming BM-10 served under that name until 1908, when a larger class of battleships started coming in and the name was cleared for the USS Wyoming (BB-32).  I'll have to go back and correct entries on this ship, which is very frequently confused win the second battleship.  The first USS Wyoming became the USS Cheyenne, and was decommissioned twice, once putting in in the Washington Naval Militia.  It was converted to a submarine tender before World War One, which shows how much smaller this "monitor" was than the later battleships.  It was ultimately sold for scrap in 1939.

1912  There was flooding in Buffalo. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1918  The Casper Daily Tribune for July 11, 1918. Escaped Wheatland Felon Dies In Battle

Henry Sweeney had blown the safe at the Guernsey Mercantile and ended up in the Platte County Jail.  He broke out, aided by his friend Sullivan, and they both took off and enlisted in the Army.

Sweeney died in battle, and apparently he must have felt badly about his prior life of crime, as he had Sullivan write home about it.

Sweeney, in light of giving up his life for his country, had the charges dropped.

The article didn't say what Platte County's attitude was towards Sullivan . . .

1931   Electricity brought to Dayton and Ranchester.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1947  The USS Wyoming (BB-32) entered the Norfolk Naval Shipyard to begin decommissioning.  Attribution:  While this is a sad event, having caught my earlier error regarding the confusion of the BM-10 with the BB-32, I"d note that this ship's service life extended from May 21, 1911 until August 1, 1947.  Most of the entries on this site about the USS Wyoming are about this ship, but a few are on the earlier monitor, which I'll go back and correct.  On This Day.

July 10

Today is Wyoming Statehood Day

1863  Territory of Idaho created.

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

1890  Wyoming admitted to the Union.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wow.

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

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

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

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

Comment:

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

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

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

July 9, 2013: Central Wyoming Fair & Rodeo Parade Day.

Center Street, Casper Wyoming, 7:00 a.m.

Today is the Central Wyoming Fair & Rodeo Parade Day, in Casper Wyoming, for 2013.

A local holiday (although not every business takes it off) today features one of two annual big parades in Casper, the other being a parade that occurs just before Christmas.  People begin to take their places on the parade route as early as 5:00 a.m., and as this photos demonstrates, people have quite a few places staked out by 7:00 a.m., including the places immediately in front of the office building in which I work.  Those who work downtown on parade day always make an effort to park in their spots early, least they be taken and getting to work subsequently prove impossible.