Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Jim Bridger Trail

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Jim Bridger Trail: In 1862, gold was discovered in Virginia City, Montana Territory. Gold seekers, businessmen, thieves and get rich schemers quickly followed...

Lex Anteinternet: Who makes up the legislature

Lex Anteinternet: Who makes up the legislature: Joan Barrons of the Casper Star Tribune wrote a very interesting article that was published in last Sunday's CST regarding the makeup of...

Churches of the West: Blog Mirror: This Day In Wyoming History: Dedicat...

Churches of the West: Blog Mirror: This Day In Wyoming History: Dedicat...: Today marks the 100th anniversary of the dedication of Wyoming’s first synagogue – Mt. Sinai in Cheyenne.

Lex Anteinternet: The City of Casper Smoking Ballot Issue

Lex Anteinternet: The City of Casper Smoking Ballot Issue: REFERENDUM BALLOT PROPOSITION ON ORDINANCE NO. 15-13:   AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CERTAIN SECTIONS OF CHAPTER 8.16 OF THE CASPER MUNI...

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: 5 Periods of Wyoming History

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: 5 Periods of Wyoming History: Wyoming historians divide the history of the state into five periods. Thought it might be fun to take those five periods and try to list my...

Painted Bricks: Casper's Iris to become a civic auditorium.

Painted Bricks: Casper's Iris to become a civic auditorium.:   The Iris, a recently closed Casper downtown movie theater. The association that's been backing a civil auditorium announced yes...

Lex Anteinternet: Trimming $200,000,000

(This item was also added as an update to the October 7 entry here).



Lex Anteinternet: Trimming $200,000,000:   Rainy Day in Cheyenne . Yesterday Governor Mead announced that he intends to trim $200,000,000 from next year's budget.  That&#3

...

Lex Anteinternet: The disappearnce of the bridging company and the r...

Lex Anteinternet: The disappearnce of the bridging company and the r...: Yesterday a spokesman for the Wyoming Army National Guard announced that the 1041st Multi-Role Bridge Company will soon cease to exist. Th...

Lex Anteinternet: Lawyer population growth

Lex Anteinternet: Lawyer population growth: The ABA reports: The ABA chart generally measures the population of both active and resident lawyers as of Dec. 31, 2014. It shows the ...

Lex Anteinternet: Airmail & Airway Beacons in Wyoming

Lex Anteinternet: Airmail & Airway Beacons in Wyoming

Painted Bricks: The Mysterious Monumental Architecture in Cheyenne...

Painted Bricks: The Mysterious Monumental Architecture in Cheyenne...: I go to Cheyenne a fair amount but it's only recently that I've noticed some interesting monumental architecture in the town, and so...

Some Gave All: Cheyenne Wyoming's Buffalo Soldier Monument, Verno...

Some Gave All: Cheyenne Wyoming's Buffalo Soldier Monument, Verno...: These are photographs of a small park in  Cheyenne Wyoming, just off of F. E. Warren Air Force Base, which was formerly Ft. F. E. Warren...

Some Gave All: Frank Wenger Holliday Memorial, Cheyenne Wyoming.

Does anyone here know the story behind this memorial?

Frank Wenger Holliday Memorial, Cheyenne Wyoming.

This is an unusual private memorial on a small, traffic island, park in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  I had thought it might be a war memorial, but it is instead a memorial to the thirteen year old son, Frank, of Cal and Rudolphia Holliday.  Cal Holliday was a Cheyenne businessman and mayor in the city's early days. What happened to the Holliday's young son I do not know.

This unusual memorial is just off of the downtown business district of Cheyenne in its historic district.  This post is clearly off topic.

Some Gave All: Horseshoe Creek Station, Wyoming

Horseshoe Creek Station, Wyoming

Another Wyoming highway marker that's on the old highway, rather than the Interstate Highway. This marker is south of Glendo Wyoming.

Some Gave All: Cheyenne, Ft. Laramie, Deadwood Trail, 1868-1887

Cheyenne, Ft. Laramie, Deadwood Trail, 1868-1887

This post is somewhat off topic here, but this is a marker for the Cheyenne, Ft. Laramie, Deadwood Trail.  The marker is on the old state  highway, but is visible in terms of its location from the present
Interstate Highway.  It's north of Cheyenne.

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Some Gave All: James Bridger's Ferry...

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Some Gave All: James Bridger's Ferry...: I generally try not to post an entry on one of our (less published on) blogs entact here, save for courthouse and church photographic entri...

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming's Sheep Industry

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Wyoming's Sheep Industry: By the early 1880s, cattlemen were starting to see more and more sheep being brought into eastern Wyoming. Some accepted them but many, som...

Lex Anteinternet: Coming back to the past: Vince Crolla

Coming back to the past: Vince Crolla

An article on Vince Crolla, who took a different path than most law school graduates and is now the archivist at Casper College's Western History Center.

A very nice fellow, I met him when I gave a talk on my book up there.

I'd note that as archival material, old law books (those are in the CC collection), don't have much value any more, or at least that'd be my view. With everything on Westlaw and Lexus, the need to maintain a library of case books, which is what those are, has pretty much vanished.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Gannett Peak Wyoming

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Gannett Peak Wyoming: Gannett Peak, Wyoming’s highest mountain, reaches 13,785 feet. The Peak is more than 10,000 feet higher than Wyoming’s lowest point on ...

Lex Anteinternet: Is it smokey in here?

Lex Anteinternet: Is it smokey in here?: I ran this item last week, at the time that the Casper City Council reinstated a complete ban on smoking in public buildings, following...

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: September 8

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: September 8: Today In Wyoming's History: September 8 : 2015  In a controversial move, the Casper City Counsel reinstated a tavern and restau...

Lex Anteinternet: A few Labor Day observations.

Lex Anteinternet: A few Labor Day observations.: World War Two vintage Labor Day poster, produced by the Office of War Information. Labor Day was made a Federal holiday in 1886, when ...

Today In Wyoming's History: August 19

Today In Wyoming's History: August 19: 1854  Lt. John L. Grattan, 6th U.S. Infantry, and thirty of his men are killed by Sioux Indians at at location on the Oregon Trail not far f...

Update

2015   Lex Anteinternet: And the band played on. . .well maybe not so much

Earlier this week we ran this:

Lex Anteinternet: And the band played on:
In Saturday's Tribune an article appeared noting, again, the loss of over 3,000 oil industry jobs in Wyoming, and a 50% reduction i...

Yesterday (August 19), however, Governor Mead sang a different tune, and one that wasn't nearly so rosy.  We have to given him credit for that. Mead, in a press conference flaty stated that Wyoming is entering a "difficult period" and that the State may need to consider tapping into its "rainy day" funds. For those who might not be aware of what those are, they're funds that the state specifically puts aside for stressed times.

Governors do not, to my recollection, ever suggest this. That's truly a dramatic statement for a sitting Governor, indicating just how dire the state's condition may be.  That Mead would suggest considering it speaks very much in his favor, as this has tended to be something that simply isn't discussed.  Reactions to the Governor's speech have been generally favorable, although there's no present support for actually tapping into the funds.  Mead, of course, wasn't requesting to do so right now, only indicating that it might become necessary.

Today In Wyoming's History: August 18

Today In Wyoming's History: August 18: 1813         Battle of the Medina River at which Royalist forces defeat Mexican-American Republican Guetierrez-Magee Expedition south of Sa...

Updated:

2015  Casper's city counsel votes to allow chickens to be kept in the city, by a vote of seven to one.

The New (upcoming) $10.00 Bill and Esther Hobart Morris. What about Nellie Tayloe Ross

The new $10.00 bill, design yet to be announced, will feature the image of a woman on it for the first time since 1896.  If you've seen this reported, you've probably seen it stated that this will be the first time a woman has been featured on U.S. paper money, or even "U.S. currency", but that's wholly incorrect.  Martha Washington was on the $1.00 silver certificate briefly in the early 1890s, and allegorical women have been on bank notes of various kinds as well, perhaps even after that.  Susan B. Anthony was on the unpopular $1.00 coin from 1979 to 1981, and Sacajawea  has been in the $1.00 coin since 2000, so putting a woman on the $10.00 bill is not quite as novel as some apparently believe.

At any rate, there's a move afoot to have Esther Hobart Morris appear on the $10.00 bill.  Hobart, of course, appears here on several different entries:

February 17

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

 Ester Hobart Morris statute on the Wyoming State Capitol Grounds.

Putting Mrs. Morris on the $10.00 bill would certainly given a serious sober look to our $10.00 bill, given her stern visage, but it's not going to happen.  Not that her 1870 territorial appointment as the first female Justice of the Peace in the United States wasn't a significant event, it was, but her eight difficult months in that role (she wasn't universally accepted by any means) just don't measure up enough in terms of a national presence to merit that sort of memorial, and it won't be happening.  Indeed, it's a bit odd that Wyoming would back this when we consider that the appointment was a very local one, and a Territorial one, as opposed to one that we did as a state.  For a Territorial figure to merit a presence on a $10.00 bill, she'd have to have real national renown.

Which Sacajawea does.  

I've always been a fan of the Sacagawea coin and, heck, maybe I'm just a fan of Sacajawea. But the Shoshone teenager was as tough as nails and representative, I think, of a lot of the things Wyomingites admire. She basically overcame kidnapping, involuntary servitude and the natural environment to rise to a a known figure in our nation.  And she undoubtedly has living relatives in the state to this day. She'd be my choice.

But the best choice would be Nellie Tayloe Ross.

For one thing, Ross has a real chance.  Morris doesn't have a ghost of a chance.

But moreover, Ross is the more significant figure, and we should be proud of her.

Morris is a real figure, and an admirable one, but as noted she was a Territorial figure.  She became Justice of the Peace in Sweetwater County when she applied for it, a Territorial District Court judge approved her application, and it was further approved by the Sweetwater County Commission by the vote of 2 to 1.  All good stuff, to be sure.

But Ross became Governor in 1925 when we elected her to that position. That is, the voters of the state did so.  That's a bigger deal.

And after her term in office was over (she was not re-elected, but then she supported Prohibition and she didn't campaign in either of her Gubernatorial races, and shoot Morris was only JP for eight months at that), she became Director of the United States Mint from 1933 to 1953.  Twenty years.  In other worlds she occupied that position, which is of course associated with currency, throughout the entire Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman administrations.  Her being on the $10.00 bill would not only honor the state, but makes sense.

So, while a shout out to Morris is no doubt merited, how about backing somebody who makes more sense?  Nellie Tayloe Ross

Clearing scandal, eh?

In the news today was that DNA confirms that President Warren G. Harding had an illegitimate child by Nan Britton, with whom he apparently had a long running affair. The rumor had long existed, in no small part because Ms. Britton, after his death (and likely in need of income) wrote a book about their affair, which various Harding adherents discredited.  Now it seems to be proven that she was telling the truth.

Harding has long been at best forgotten and at worst not viewed as a particularly good President.  Knowledge of at least one other infidelity seems established, so how much this changes our view of Harding I don't know.  In Wyoming, Harding might be best remembered for the Teapot Dome Scandal.

Harding was actually a really popular President while he was President, but his reputation sank thereafter, with Teapot Dome playing a prominent part in that.  News of his infidelity, of course, came after his death, and was ultimately widely contested.  Up until the news of the DNA test results, it still was contested.

Anyhow, it's not so much this news that causes me to post this item about Harding, as this odd statement that appeared in one of the news reports on this item:

And, secondly, he hopes the discovery will begin to clear the air around Harding’s scandalized reputation in history.

“This book really ruined Warren Harding’s reputation, and as a result the important lessons of his presidency have been lost,” Robenalt said, who points out that Harding argued for non-interventionist policies before World War I that continue to be relevant following the lessons of the war in Iraq.

Hmmm. . . .

It's true that Harding had some things to his credit, but it's hard to see how confirmation of his marital infidelity in this instance will serve to "clear the air around" his "scandalized reputation in history".

This is not to say that this wasn't worth investigating for the family, or worth reporting in the news.  Just the concept of this repairing a "scandalized reputation" is odd.

Painted Bricks: What is it? Granger Wyoming

Painted Bricks: What is it? Granger Wyoming: This is a fairly substantial structure in the small town of Granger, Wyoming. Granger is an old locality for Wyoming.  It was a P...

Railhead: Retired steam engine, Rawlins Wyoming

Railhead: Retired steam engine, Rawlins Wyoming

Dressed for Battle

Dressed for Battle

C-SPAN Cities Tour - Casper: John Davis "Wyoming Range War"