Lex Anteinternet: Dark Money

Lex Anteinternet: Dark Money: The Casper Star Tribune is running a series on "dark money", that being money of organizations that they can spend on political ca...

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Westward Ho the Wagons

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Westward Ho the Wagons: I can remember many years ago watching or listening to  various programs that ended with some form of the phrase – “and the rest is history...

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: I.S. Bartlett - History of Wyoming

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: I.S. Bartlett - History of Wyoming: One of the earliest attempts to write a history of Wyoming was by Hartville resident, I. S. Bartlett and published in 1918. Vol 1 of the ...

Lex Anteinternet: Active at the time and in the region. Frank A. Me...

Lex Anteinternet: Active at the time and in the region. Frank A. Me...: Frank A. Meanea is one of the most famous of the late 19th and early 20th Century saddlemakers.  Meanea started off his career by working ...

New Sidebar: Lex Anteinternet: The Wyoming National Guard and the Punitive Expedion

This post, which appears on one of companion blogs, has just been added here as a Sidebar (see the features off to the left hand margin of the blog).  We thought about posting it here as an original entry to this site, but it fits into the Punitive Expedition theme we're exploring on Lex Anteinternet.  We hope you enjoy it.

Lex Anteinternet: The Wyoming National Guard and the Punitive Expedi...: I'll confess, in making this post, that I have a soft spot for the National Guard.  In no small part that may be because I was in the A...

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Sign of the times? Casper Petro...

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Sign of the times? Casper Petro...: We ran this news recently: Lex Anteinternet: Sign of the times? Casper Petroleum Club to close... : Founded in 1949 with the purpose to “...

Today In Wyoming's History: September 27. Disasters and ships.

From Today In Wyoming's History: September 27:

1923  Thirty railroad passengers were killed when a CB&Q train
wrecked at the Cole Creek Bridge, which had been washed out due to a
flood, in Natrona County.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical
Society.

1944 USS Natrona, a Haskell class attack transport, launched.

There's something in the county memorializing the latter (the ship's wheel, in the old courthouse), but not the former.

Such an awful disaster, you'd think there might be.

Lex Anteinternet: Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. Sept...

Lex Anteinternet: Theodore Roosevelt and Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. Sept...

Lex Anteinternet: Cowboy Boots

Lex Anteinternet: Cowboy Boots: Title: An array of boots at the F.M. Light & Sons western-wear store in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.  Library of Congress photographs...

Some Gave All: Mormon Pioneer Memorial, Lyman Wyoming.

Some Gave All: Mormon Pioneer Memorial, Lyman Wyoming.:

This is a Mormon Pioneer Memorial at the rest stop in Lyman, Wyoming. 
It was obviously originally a private memorial and was likely moved to
its current location after the rest stop was built and Interstate 80
altered the original path of the Lincoln Highway.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: A Ride With The President

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: A Ride With The President: In late May of 1903 the president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt,  rode 50 miles from Laramie to Cheyenne. The story is well know...

Lex Anteinternet: First modern grocery store opens in Memphis, Tenne...

Lex Anteinternet: First modern grocery store opens in Memphis, Tenne...: It was a Piggly Wiggly.  The interior of the first Piggly Wiggly. It was unusual as shoppers found the food they were looking for the...

Holscher's Hub: Buffalo Bill Museum, Cody Wyoming

Holscher's Hub: Buffalo Bill Museum, Cody Wyoming: Study of a large bronze of Theodore Roosevelt as a Rough Rider. Modern Native American depiction of the Battle of the Little Big H...

Holscher's Hub: Cody Firearms Museum, Cody Wyoming

Holscher's Hub: Cody Firearms Museum, Cody Wyoming: Scenes from the Cody Firearms Museum in Cody Wyoming. A"rocket" pistol if I recall correctly, that fired small rockets ...

Lex Anteinternet: Sign of the times? Casper Petroleum Club to close...

Lex Anteinternet: Sign of the times? Casper Petroleum Club to close...: Founded in 1949 with the purpose to “aid the industrial and productive interests of the State of Wyoming" the Casper Petroleum Club, a...

Lex Anteinternet: First air to air radio communication between aircr...

Lex Anteinternet: First air to air radio communication between aircr...: On this day, in 1916, the first air to air radio communication between aircraft took place.  The plane was U.S. Army's "No. 50&quo...

Lex Anteinternet: Sign of the times? Casper Petroleum Club to close...

Lex Anteinternet: Sign of the times? Casper Petroleum Club to close...: Founded in 1949 with the purpose to “aid the industrial and productive interests of the State of Wyoming" the Casper Petroleum Club, a...

Lex Anteinternet: Tracking the Local Races

Lex Anteinternet: Tracking the Local Races: Patrick Henry before the Virginia Legislature. . . probably not quite the way it really was. I haven't tried to do a thread track...

Lex Anteinternet: Tracking the Local Races

Lex Anteinternet: Tracking the Local Races: Patrick Henry before the Virginia Legislature. . . probably not quite the way it really was. I haven't tried to do a thread track...

Lex Anteinternet: The Migratory Bird Treaty entered into.

Lex Anteinternet: The Migratory Bird Treaty entered into.: The Migratory Bird Treaty, a major piece of international conservation and a great success, was entered into between the United States and C...

Some Gave All: Ft. Fred Steele, Carbon County Wyoming

Some Gave All: Ft. Fred Steele, Carbon County Wyoming:

In the past, I haven't tended to post fort entries here, but for net related technical reasons, I'm going to, even though these arguably belong on one of my other blogs.  I'll probably cross link this thread
in.

These are photographs of Ft. Fred Steele, a location that I've sometimes thought is the bleakest historical site in Wyoming.

One of the few remaining structures at Ft. Steele, the powder magazine.  It no doubt is still there as it is a stone structure.

The reason that the post was built, the Union Pacific, is still there.

Ft. Steele is what I'd regard as fitting into the Fourth Generation of Wyoming frontier forts, although I've never seen it described that way, or anyone other than me use that term.   By my way of defining them, the First Generation are those very early, pre Civil War, frontier post that very much predated the railroads, such as Ft. Laramie.  The Second Generation would be those established during the Civil War in an effort to protect the trail and telegraph system during that period during which the Regular Army was largely withdrawn from the Frontier and state units took over. The Third Generation would be those posts like Ft. Phil Kearney that were built immediately after the Civil War for the same purpose.  Contemporaneously with those were posts like Ft. Steele that were built to protect the Union Pacific Railroad.  As they were in rail contact with the rest of the United States they can't really be compared to posts like Ft. Phil Kearney, Ft. C. F. Smith or Ft. Caspar, as they were built for a different purpose and much less remote by their nature.

What the post was like, when it was active.

A number of well known Wyoming figures spent time at Ft. Saunders.

Ft. Sanders, after it was abandoned, remained a significant railhead and therefore the area became the center of a huge sheep industry. Quite a few markers at the post commemorate the ranching history of the area, rather than the military history.

One of the current denizens of the post.

Suttlers store, from a distance.

Union Pacific Bridge Tenders House at the post.

Current Union Pacific bridge.

Some structure from the post, but I don't know what it is.

The main part of the post's grounds.

Soldiers
from this post are most famously associated with an action against the
Utes in Utah, rather than an action in Wyoming.  This shows the high
mobility of the Frontier Army as Utah is quite a distance away, although
not so much by rail.

This
1914 vintage highway marker was on the old Lincoln Highway, which
apparently ran north of the tracks rather than considerably south of
them, like the current Interstate Highway does today.

About 88 people or so were buried at this post, however only 60 some graves were later relocated when the Army undertook to remove and consolidate frontier graves.  Logic would dictate, therefore, that some graves likely remain.

Unusual civilian headstone noting that this individual had served with a provisional Confederate unit at some point that had been raised in California.  I'm not aware of any such unit, although it must have existed.  The marker must be quite recent.