Casper College Western History Center: Archival Needs Assessment Report

 Casper College Western History Center:Archival Needs Assessment Report

Blog Mirror: Casper College's Western History Center 'in disarray,' consultant finds

 

Casper College's Western History Center 'in disarray,' consultant finds

Blog Mirror: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (1941)

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming (1941)

City of Casper starts Black History Project

An article in the Tribune indicates that the City of Casper, partially through grant funding, is starting a black history project.

Funding for the project starts at $10,000, which isn't large, but will be used to hire an archeologist as part of the project.  The project is designed to fill gaps in the history of Casper and will partially rely on volunteers.

Updates for May and June, 2021

 

May 12, 2021.  Congressman Cheney removed from leadership position.

May 15, 1921.  Great Solar Strom of 1921.

June 13, 2021.  Mills marks 100 years.

June 24, 1921.  Congressman Mondell visited President Harding.

Lex Anteinternet: Juneteenth. What the new Federal Holiday Commemorates

Lex Anteinternet: Juneteenth. What the new Federal Holiday Commemor...: 

Juneteenth. What the new Federal Holiday Commemorates

Today is a Federal Holiday.  And for the first time.

Emancipation Day celebration, Richmond Virginia, 1905.

The holiday is Juneteenth.

The creation of the holiday is certainly proof that the Federal Government can in fact act quickly.  The bills on this were very recently introduced and this just passed Congress earlier this week and was signed into law yesterday, giving Federal employees the day off today. On Monday, they weren't expecting a day off.

So what is it?

The day basically celebrates the end of slavery, but in a bit of an unusual way. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on September 22, 1862.  Juneteenth, however, marks the calendar date of June 19, 1865, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, after the end of the war, and issued proclamations voiding acts of the Texas legislature during the war and proclaiming the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation.  His General Order No. 3 was read aloud in the streets. Hence, June 19 became recognized, regionally, as the day that the Emancipation Proclamation reached the most distant outposts of the slave states, bringing slavery finally to an end.

Band for Texas Emancipation Day celebration, 1900.

Celebration of the day in Texas started almost immediately, being first observed just one year later, by the state's freed African American population.  Interestingly, the day was generally known as Emancipation Day.  However, the revival of segregation in the South in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century caused the day to suffer a decline, until it began to be revived in the 1950s.  Upon revival, the name Juneteenth began to apply to it.  It was made a state holiday in Texas in 1979.  The day received recognition in 47 of the states since then, with North and South Dakota and Hawaii being the only ones that had not up until now.

Talk of making it a Federal holiday has existed at least since the 1980s.  Generally there's been very broad support for the move, but it obviously has taken years to accomplish, if we regard 1979 as the onset.  It's interestingly been an example of states largely being out in front of the Federal Government on a holiday, and not surprisingly the various ways that states have recognized it have not been consistent.

Gen. Gordon, who brought news to African Americans in Texas that they'd been freed two years prior.

There's been next to no opposition to the holiday being created which is interesting, in part, as the current times have been very oddly polarized in all sorts of ways.  The measure had bipartisan support, although fourteen Republican members of Congress voted against it.  One interestingly voted against it as he thought the official name confusing, Juneteenth National Independence Day, which in fact it somewhat is.  That individual wanted to use the original name, Emancipation Day, which is a view I somewhat sympathize with.

It'll be interesting to see what the public reaction is given that this happened seemingly so quickly.  By and large people who are aware of it seem pleased, although Candace Owens, the African American conservative columnists and quasi gadfly, predictably wasn't.  It'll probably be next year until there's widespread national recognition of the day.

In very real ways, what it commemorates is the suffering of one of the most American of all American demographics, the African Americans, who have been in the country since its founding, but who still were the victims of legal discrimination all the way into the 1960s and whose economic plight remains marked.

Lex Anteinternet: Juneteenth

Lex Anteinternet: Juneteenth: 

Juneteenth

This passed Congress earlier this week, and was signed into law today.  Unusually, the impact is truly immediate.

For those who might not know, Juneteenth commemorates the news of the Emancipation Proclamation reaching Texas, which would have been the Confederacies most distant territorial assertion. 

Governor Gordon Responds to Federal Recognition of Juneteenth Holiday

 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Today, President Biden signed a law creating a federal holiday recognizing Juneteenth. Governor Gordon has also signed a proclamation recognizing the significance of the day, which commemorates the end of slavery, while encouraging self-development and respect for all cultures. Wyoming has recognized the Juneteenth holiday since 2003, when the state legislature passed a bill establishing the holiday on the third Saturday of the month.

Because of the President's action, Friday June 18, 2021 is a holiday for most federal employees per the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. In Wyoming the Legislature has set State Holidays. While tomorrow will not be a state holiday, the Governor will work with lawmakers to consider this option for future years. 

“Freedom is always a cause for celebration and this is a momentous day in our nation’s history. I encourage people to observe this commemoration of the full enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation, which embodies the values of all Americans,” Governor Gordon said.

--END--

Lex Anteinternet: Debating History

Lex Anteinternet: Debating History: The "old" Natrona County Courthouse (actually the second county courthouse) built during the 1930s as a Federally funded project, ...

Casper College's Western History Center Eliminates Its Archivist Position.

 

The Western History Center is now without a full-time archivist. Local historians aren't happy about it.

So reads a headline in the Tribune from the Sunday, May 30, edition.

The Casper College Western History Center is an excellent resource with a fine collection of materials.  The college emphasizes that it is not closing it, but rather combining the position with another one in its library, so that two positions will be held by one employee, more or less.  Or, put another way, the positions are merged and the archivist loses his job.

That archivist has done an excellent job, to the extent that I know him, which isn't well.  Others in the local history community do know him well, however, and rallied to back an effort to try to save his position.  The college said it just couldn't afford it.

And so one history position lost.

I wish I could comment more intelligently on this, but I can't.  I understand the need to balance budgets, to be sure, but this is a real treasure that I fear will now suffer.  And on a more personal note, the archivist has a Juris Doctorate, as do I, and therefore fits into that category of history loving lawyers, although unlike me, he was employed in the field.  I feel badly for him.

Indeed, even now, I hope this can be reversed, even though I know that it won't be, at least in the near term.

Lex Anteinternet: Sportsmen, Market Hunters & Game Hogs: Early Years of Wildlife Conservation in Park County by Brian Beauvais

Lex Anteinternet: Sportsmen, Market Hunters & Game Hogs: Early Year...: 

Sportsmen, Market Hunters & Game Hogs: Early Years of Wildlife Conservation in Park County by Brian Beauvais.

An extremely interesting article appears in the Autumn/Winter issue of the Annals of Wyoming (which I just received) on the history of wildlife conservation and hunting in Wyoming.  The articles is by Brian Beauvais, and is entitled Sportsmen, Market Hunters & Game Hogs:  Early Years of Wildlife Conservation in Park County.

As the title indicates, the article focuses on one Wyoming county, but in a fairly broad manner, and it does something I've never seen any other article do, which is to take into account the story of subsistence and quasi market hunters in the state during the period of time when wildlife conservation was really coming in.

Los of articles and books deal with the conservationist campaign against market hunting that came about at the turn of the prior century.  I've never read one, however, that dealt with the views of the local yeomanry in any fashion, to whom conservation efforts didn't come easily as it directly impacted their table.  The role of the wealthy in the effort, and the role of the more or less poor in opposition to it, and how they respectively viewed things, is fresh to the story, at least for me.  

Added to that, the role of private pay game wardens, and the role of other agencies in enforcing Wyoming's game laws, which came in early but which had nobody to enforce them, is something I was also unaware of.  And even some of the early history of the Wyoming Game & Fish is included.  Here too, for example, I was unaware that the hunting area concept wasn't brought into Wyoming's laws until 1947.

While by and large Wyoming's hunters came around to really supporting the Wyoming system, which is sometimes regarded as the crown jewel of wildlife conservation, some of these fights never fully went away and some of the stresses remain.  You can see the views of those whose pocketbooks depend on out of state sportsmen vs. the locals reflected back over a century ago.  This work is a really valuable look into the history of wildlife conservation in general and is very much worth reading.

Reviewing the Wounded Knee Medals of Honor.

Sgt. Toy receiving the Medal of Honor in 1891.  Sgt. Toy was cited for "bravery while shooting Indians" at Wounded Knee.  He is known to have shot two during the engagement, which is about all that his citations and the supporting material relates.

 Tribes Want Medals Awarded for Wounded Knee Revoked.

While this isn't a Wyoming item per se, the Battle of Wounded Knee has been noted here before, as its a regional one.

It would likely surprise most readers here that twenty Medals of Honor were awarded to soldiers who participated in the actions at Wounded Knee.  The odd thing is that I was under the impression that the Army had rescinded these medals long ago, and I'm not completely certain that they haven't.  Having said that, I can't find that they were, so my presumption must have been in error.

To put this in context, the medals that were rescinded, if any were, weren't rescinded because Wounded Knee was a massacre.  They were rescinded because they didn't meet the post April 1917 criteria for receiving the award.

The Medal of Honor was first authorized in 1861 by the Navy, not the Army, following the retirement of Gen. Winfield Scott, who was adamantly opposed to the awarding of medals to servicemen, which he regarded as a European practice, not an American one.  The award was authorized by Congress that year, at the Navy's request.  The Army followed in 1862 in the same fashion.  The medals actually vary by appearance, to this day, depending upon which service issues them, and they've varied somewhat in design over time.

During the Civil War the award was generally issued for extraordinary heroism, but not necessarily of the same degree for which it is today.  Because of this, a fairly large number of Medals of Honor were conferred after the Civil War to servicemen who retroactively sought them, so awards continued for Civil War service for decades following the war.  New awards were also issued, of course, for acts of heroism in the remaining decades of the 19th Century, with Army awards usually being related to service in the Indian Wars.  Navy awards, in contrast, tended to be issued for heroic acts in lifesaving, a non combat issuance of the award that could not occur today.  Indeed, a fairly large number were issued to sailors who went over the sides of ships to save the lives, or attempt to, of drowning individuals, often with tragic results to the sailors.

At any rate, the period following the war and the method by which it was retroactively issued may have acclimated the Army to issuing awards as there are a surprising number of them that were issued for frontier battles.  This does not mean that there were not genuine acts of heroism that took place in those battles, it's just surprising how many there were and its clear that the criteria was substantially lower than that which would apply for most of the 20th Century.

Indeed, in the 20th Century the Army began to significantly tighten up requirements to hold the medal. This came into full fruition during World War One during which the Army made it plain that it was only a combat medal, while the Navy continued to issue the medal for peacetime heroism.  In 1917 the Army took the position that the medal could only be issued for combat acts of heroism at the risk of life to the recipient, and in 1918 that change became official.  Prior to the 1918 change the Army commissioned a review board on past issuance of the medal and struck 911 instances of them having been issued.  I'd thought the Wounded Knee medals had been stricken, but my presumption must be in error.

Frontier era Medals of Honor, as well as those issued to Civil War era soldiers after the Civil War, tend to be remarkably lacking in information as to why they were conferred.  This has presented a problem for the Army looking back on them in general.

Indeed, the Wounded Knee medals have this character.  They don't say much, and what they do say isn't all that useful to really know much about what lead them to be awarded.  There is a peculiar aspect to them, however, in that they don't reflect what we generally know about the battle historically.  

Wikipedia has summarized the twenty awards and what they were awarded for, and this illustrates this problem.  The Wounded Knee Wikipedia page summarizes this as follows

·         Sergeant William Austin, cavalry, directed fire at Indians in ravine at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Mosheim Feaster, cavalry, extraordinary gallantry at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Mathew Hamilton, cavalry, bravery in action at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Joshua Hartzog, artillery, rescuing commanding officer who was wounded and carried him out of range of hostile guns at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Marvin Hillock, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant Bernhard Jetter, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee for "killing an Indian who was in the act of killing a wounded man of B Troop."

·         Sergeant George Loyd, cavalry, bravery, especially after having been severely wounded through the lung at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant Albert McMillain, cavalry, while engaged with Indians concealed in a ravine, he assisted the men on the skirmish line, directed their fire, encouraged them by example, and used every effort to dislodge the enemy at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Thomas Sullivan, cavalry, conspicuous bravery in action against Indians concealed in a ravine at Wounded Knee;

·         First Sergeant Jacob Trautman, cavalry, killed a hostile Indian at close quarters, and, although entitled to retirement from service, remained to close of the campaign at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant James Ward, cavalry, continued to fight after being severely wounded at Wounded Knee;

·         Corporal William Wilson, cavalry, bravery in Sioux Campaign, 1890;

·         Private Hermann Ziegner, cavalry, conspicuous bravery at Wounded Knee;

·         Musician John Clancy, artillery, twice voluntarily rescued wounded comrades under fire of the enemy;

·         Lieutenant Ernest Garlington, cavalry, distinguished gallantry;

·         First Lieutenant John Chowning Gresham, cavalry, voluntarily led a party into a ravine to dislodge Sioux Indians concealed therein. He was wounded during this action.

·         Second Lieutenant Harry Hawthorne, artillery, distinguished conduct in battle with hostile Indians;

·         Private George Hobday, cavalry, conspicuous and gallant conduct in battle;

·         First Sergeant Frederick Toy, cavalry, bravery;

·         Corporal Paul Weinert, artillery, taking the place of his commanding officer who had fallen severely wounded, he gallantly served his piece, after each fire advancing it to a better position

For quite a few of these, we're left without a clue as to what the basis of the award was, at least based on this summation. But for some, it would suggest a pitched real battle.  A couple of the awards are for rescuing wounded comrades under fire.  Others are for combat actions that we can recognize.

Indeed, one historian that I know, and probably only because I know him, has noted the citations in support for "it was a real battle", taking the controversial, albeit private, position that Wounded Knee was a real, pitched, engagement, not simply a slaughter.  This isn't the popular view at all, of course, and its frankly not all that well supported by the evidence either.  But what of that evidence.

A popular thesis that's sometimes presented is that Wounded Knee was the 7th Cavalry's revenge for the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  Perhaps this is so, but if it is so, it's would be somewhat odd in that it would presume an institutional desire for revenge rather than a personal one, for the most part.  Wounded Knee was twenty four years after Little Big Horn and most of the men who had served at Little Big Horn were long since out of the service.  Indeed, some of the men who received awards would have been two young for service in 1890, and while I haven't looked up all of their biographies, some of them were not likely to have even been born at the time.  Maybe revenge was it, but if that's the case, it would demonstrate a 19th Century retention of institutional memories that vastly exceed the 20th and 21st Century ones.  Of course, the 7th Cavalry remains famous to this day for Little Big Horn, so perhaps that indeed is it.

Or perhaps what it reflects is that things went badly wrong at Wounded Knee and the massacre became a massively one sided battle featuring a slaughter, something that the Sioux on location would have been well within their rights to engage in. That is, once the things went wrong and the Army overreacted, as it certainly is well established that it did, the Sioux with recourse to arms would have been justified in acting in self defense.  That there were some actions in self defense which would have had the character of combat doesn't mean it wasn't combat.

And that raises the sticky moral issues of the Congressional efforts to rescind the medals.  Some of these medals are so poorly supported that the Army could likely simply rescind them on their own, as they have many others, and indeed, I thought they had.  Some seem quite unlikely to meet the modern criteria for the medal no matter what, and therefore under the practices established in 1917, they could be rescinded even if they were regarded as heroic at the time.  Cpl. Weinert's for example, unless there was more to it, would probably just merit a letter of commendation today.

Indeed, save for two examples that reference rescuing wounded comrades, I don't know that any of these would meet the modern criteria. They don't appear to.  So once again, most of these would appear to be subject to proper unilateral Army downgrading or rescission all on their own with no Congressional action.

But what of Congressional action, which has been proposed. The Army hasn't rescinded these awards and they certainly stand out as awards that should receive attention.  If Congress is to act, the best act likely would be to require the Army to review overall its pre 1917 awards once again.  If over 900 were weeded out the first time, at least a few would be today, and I suspect all of these would.

To simply rescind them, however, is problematic, as it will tend to be based neither on the criteria for award today, or the criteria of the award in 1890, but on the gigantic moral problem that is the Battle of Wounded Knee itself.  That is, these awards are proposed to be removed as we regard Wounded Knee as a genocidal act over all, which it does indeed appear to be.

The problem with that is that even if it is a genocidal act in chief, individual acts during it may or may not be. So, rushing forwards to rescue a wounded comrade might truly be heroic, even if done in the middle of an act of barbarism.  Other acts, such as simply shooting somebody, would seem to be participating in that barbarism, but here too you still have the situation of individual soldiers suddenly committed to action and not, in every instance, knowing what is going on.  It's now too late to know in most cases.  Were they acting like William Calley or just as a regular confused soldier?

Indeed, if medals can be stricken because we now abhor what they were fighting for (and in regard to Wounded Knee, it was questioned nearly immediately, which may be why the Army felt compelled to issue medals to those participating in it, to suggest it was a battle more than it was), what do we do with other problematic wars?

Eighty six men, for example, received the Medal of Honor for the Philippine Insurrection.  In retrospect, that was a pure colonial war we'd not condone in any fashion today, and it was controversial at the time.  Theodore Roosevelt very belatedly received the Medal of Honor for leading the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry up Kettle Hill during the Spanish American War, and he no doubt met the modern criterial, but the Spanish American War itself is morally dubious at best.  

Of course, none of these awards are associated with an act of genocide, which takes us back to Wounded Knee.  As noted above, maybe so many awards were issued there as the Army wanted to to convert a massacre into a battle, and conferring awards for bravery was a way to attempt to do that.

Certainly the number of awards for Wounded Knee is very outsized.  It's been noted that as many awards have been issued for heroism at Wounded Knee as have been for some gigantic Civil War battles.  Was the Army really more heroic at Wounded Knee than Antietam?  That seems unlikely.

Anyway a person looks at it, this is one of those topics that it seems clear would be best served by Army action.  The Army has looked at the topic of pre 1917 awards before, and it removed a fair number of them.  There's no reason that it can't do so again. It was regarded as harsh the last time it occurred, and some will complain now as well, but the Army simply did it last time.   That would honor the medal and acknowledge the history, and it really shouldn't be confined to just Wounded Knee.

Dead men and horses at Wounded Knee following the conflict.

Lex Anteinternet: Subscribe by email "gadget" going away.

Lex Anteinternet: Subscribe by email "gadget" going away.: Google seems pretty intent on destroying the Blogger format, which means that for people like me, who have blogged on blogger, we have a cho...

Updates for April, 2021

April 8:  Girls high school softball comes to Casper.
 

Updates for March, 2021

March 11:  1941, information on Lend Lease Act added.
 

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music. Beaches Of Cheyenne (Live)

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music. Beaches Of Cheyenne (Live): 

Wyoming Music. Beaches Of Cheyenne (Live)

Another Cheyenne themed song, this one centered on a tragedy at Frontier Days.

Blog Mirror: Lex Anteinternet: Get Along Little Doggies (Whoopie Ti Yi Yo).

Lex Anteinternet: Get Along Little Doggies (Whoopie Ti Yi Yo).: 

Get Along Little Doggies (Whoopie Ti Yi Yo).

Whoopie Ti Yi Yo is a classic genuine Cowboy song. The song is an old one and like a lot of genuine Western music, it is a European folk ballad that was reset in a Western location.  The original song was an Irish ballad about an old man being rocked in a rocking chair.

The first reference to this song of any kind was in Owen Wister's The Virginian.  He'd no doubt heard it in Wyoming when he'd toured it prior to writing his novel which was published in 1893.  The song was referenced by musicologist John Lomax in his 1910 work Cowboy Song and Other Frontier Ballads.  It was first recorded in 1929.

In putting this up here, I had a variety of recordings I could have chosen, but I yielded to popular pressure and put up the Chris Ledoux variant as Ledoux remains very popular with Wyomingites.  I'm the odd man out on that as I find Ledoux's voice rough and I'm generally not a fan.

Lex Anteinternet: University of Wyoming Marching Band Performs Ragtime Cowboy Joe

Lex Anteinternet: University of Wyoming Marching Band Performs 

University of Wyoming Marching Band Performs Ragtime Cowboy Joe

Lex Anteinternet: Ragtime Cowboy Joe

Lex Anteinternet: Ragtime Cowboy Joe: 

Ragtime Cowboy Joe

Ragtime Cowboy Joe has long been used by the University of Wyoming as its fight song.  The use isn't exclusive, as the University of Arizona also does, and many of the commercially recorded variants of the song make reference to Arizona, not Wyoming.

The tune was, of course, a popular song before being adopted by the University, which likely happened soon after it was recorded in 1912.

Lex Anteinternet: Get the vaccination.

Lex Anteinternet: Get the vaccination.: 

Get the vaccination.

I don't have a photo of a shot record to post, but I received my first COVID 19 vaccination shot on Monday. I'll be looking forward to the second. Over the years, I've been vaccinated for every virus common and rare known to man (I've been vaccinated for small pox three times, twice after the disease was extinct) and the reaction to the vaccine was mild in comparison to to some prior vaccinations I've had (yellow fever was the worst one). Since the pandemic started one lawyer I've worked with and against died of COVID 19, the father of another one I know, and a court reporter that had reported in court for me before. I'm glad, for more than one reason, to have received the shot.

Lex Anteinternet: Johnny Cash - I've Been Everywhere

Lex Anteinternet: Johnny Cash - I've Been Everywhere: 

Johnny Cash - I've Been Everywhere

This Johnny Cash song is more debatable.  The lyrics reference a "Glen Rock" or Glenrock".  It is Glenrock Wyoming?  Well, Glenrock Wyoming is the only Glenrock that I know of, but I probably don't know every place that might be called that.

As Cash did reference Cheyenne, Wyoming in the other city song we referenced yesterday, Wanted Man, we'll assume some knowledge of Wyoming's geography and include this one in the list.

Lex Anteinternet: Johnny Cash - Wanted Man - Live at San Quentin

Lex Anteinternet: Johnny Cash - Wanted Man - Live at San Quentin: 

Johnny Cash - Wanted Man - Live at San Quentin

Johnny Cash's Wanted Man, which has also been effectively covered by Bob Dylan, mentions Cheyenne in the lyrics, so we're doing a second Cheyenne reference song in two days.

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music and Mid Week At Work: Lights of Cheyenne

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music and Mid Week At Work: Lights of Che...: 

Wyoming Music and Mid Week At Work: Lights of Cheyenne

This song is, to put it bluntly, grim, but it captures a real slice of Wyoming.  It's nearly the flipside of Crossland's Bosler.

The characters in this song are so familiar to me from legal work that it isn't funny.  It's accordingly hard to believe that McMurtry, the son of the famous novelist, isn't a Wyomingite.  The central placement of the Interstate Highway (Cheyenne is at the junction of two of them), the truck stop as a place of employment, the line about antelope, are all right on.  Even the the surprising line at the end that reveals the protagonists feelings about Cheyenne are something that you'd expect from a native.

I recently sent a link to this performance to a friend from back East who was somewhat mystified by the lyrics, including the one "She's got a cowboy problem".  This again, shows how accurate this song is, as that lyric makes perfect sense to a local.

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music: Jalan Crossland - Bosler

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music: Jalan Crossland - Bosler: 

Wyoming Music: Jalan Crossland - Bosler

Jalan Crossland is a local artist whom a lot of people follow.  Bosler is a small town north of Laramie, or at least it was.

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Wyoming a few people still lived there, and a second hand appliance store did a pretty good business with students.  By law school that was already changing, although somebody had taken up residence in the old, probably 1920s vintage, school that was there, having converted it pretty clear to coal fired heat. 

Now it's really past even that state of decline.  I'm not sure if anyone lives there any longer, although my guess is that the answer is probably yes.  

Bosler once figured fairly significantly as an Albany County town. In the early 20th Century it was a going concern, and also nearly lawless.

Crossland, in this song, works in multiple layers of satire.  The town is satirized, but so is the person who dreams of it as a refuge.  Urbanites dreaming of Wyoming that way are not uncommon, and indeed land just outside of the windswept Bosler was marketed to out of states at one time who no doubt didn't realize that its 7,000 feet in elevation, exposed to the wind, and cold in the winter.

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music: Belle of Natrona County

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music: Belle of Natrona County: 

Wyoming Music: Belle of Natrona County

I'm completely clueless about how this folk song titled after Natrona County, or rather a Natrona County beauty came about, but given as I've been married to a Natrona County beauty for over a quarter century, I like the tune.

This is the category of "Folk Music", and of the type that gave rise to "Country" music before it was categorized as Country & Western by music companies.  While I do not like Country & Western music as a rule, I do like this sort of folk music.

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music: Song of Wyoming

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music: Song of Wyoming: 

Wyoming Music: Song of Wyoming

I'll be frank that I'm not a John Denver fan, but being a fan of the music isn't required to appear in this series.

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music and Friday Farming: Leavin' Cheyenn...

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Music and Friday Farming: Leavin' Cheyenn...: 

Wyoming Music and Friday Farming: Leavin' Cheyenne (Goodbye Old Paint).

This old cowboy ballad is a classic, and this is my favorite version of it.  It was written by black cowboy Charlie Willis, and was first included in musical indices in 1921.  It's regarded as one of the top 100 Western songs of all times.

Concerning the song, it's a true example of a "Western" song, a genera that's all but disappeared, having been absorbed by Country & Western music.

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming songs: State Anthem.

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming songs: State Anthem.: 

Wyoming songs: State Anthem.

This is the one I had to learn in grade school.  It's still the state anthem, but you never hear it anymore.  When my kids went through grade school they weren't taught it.

The song was written by Judge Charles E. Winter, whom one of my aunts had worked for when she was a teenager. He'd had quite a career, having been Wyoming's Congressman and later Governor of Puerto Rico.  He returned to practicing law in Casper and was therefore one of those examples of lawyers who seemingly never retire.

He was also multi talented.  In addition to being a songwriter, he was a novelist, with one of his novels having been made into a movie several times.  His son, Warren, was still practicing when I was first a lawyer, and was nearly 100 when he died.  He also never retired.

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Songs: Wyoming Where I Belong

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Songs: Wyoming Where I Belong: 

Wyoming Songs: Wyoming Where I Belong

One of two office state songs for the state, this one having been made official in 2018.

Updates for February, 2021

 February 23, 1921.  Pioneering air mail flight.

"Oil Capital of the Rockies" and other nicknames.

Monument to oil production at the Amoco Parkway in Casper, Wyoming.  The Parkway is within the confines of the former Standard Oil Refinery.

What's in a name?  A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Shakespeare

I came across the old nickname for Casper, Oil Capital of the Rockies, a bit by accident the other day and began to ponder it as a nickname for Casper, and then nicknames for Wyoming towns in general.*  Hence the entry.  

We'll start with Casper in this list, as Casper made us ponder it, but then we'll drop back to alphabetical order, to make it a bit easier reading.

Casper

Casper embraced oil production really early in its history and oil production and refining has been a feature of Casper's economy almost from its onset.  It's had a collection of refineries and, while refining isn't what it once was in Casper, it still retains a refinery today, down from the three it had when I was young.  

When I was growing up, the Casper Star Tribune had, on its masthead, the words "Oil Capital of the Rockies", a self proclaimed proud distinction that even the newspaper embraced.  There's no way on earth that the paper would have that on the masthead today, but it did for years.  I can well remember it, but I can't remember when that disappeared.  It was still there at least as late as 1970, when the logo was actually printed at the top of every page.  By 1975 the Tribune was asserting that Casper was the "World's Energy Capital", giving the town a promotion in that category which must have been inspired by the Arab Oil Embargo initiated spike in prices.  By 1980, however, as the bloom was beginning to come off the boom's rose, the Tribune made no reference in its masthead to oil or energy at all.

The embracing of the title is something that predated the masthead and continues on.  A common nickname for Casper is "Oil City", even though Natrona County actually had a town at one time actually called "Oil City", and it wasn't Casper.  The remnant of that town is barely there today.  

There are all sorts of businesses in Casper that use "Oil City" in their names, and one of the electronic news outlets uses it as well.  Oil may be in trouble now days, but the naming habits don't show it.

Casper isn't limited to a single nickname, however.  Another one you see in use is the name "Ghost Town" due to the old cartoon Casper the Friendly Ghost.  As a "ghost town" is a town that is no longer inhabited, the use of the nickname is a bit unfortunate, but it's pretty common.  Users of the nickname presumably simply assume that everyone is familiar with the animated cartoon that was first introduced in 1945.  As the cartoon frankly isn't funny, in my view, I have to wonder if my disdain for the nickname is in part inspired by that.  Be that as it may, it's certainly in widespread use.  The last truck stop on the way out of the town to the west, which actually is several miles beyond the town and actually much closer to Mills, Wyoming, than Casper, is "Ghost Town", for example, which used to have a classic, but now long gone, neon sign that looked like the front of a cabover truck.  Seeing it at night or in snowstorms remains an enduring memory of my youth.

Nobody has combined the two so far, so some opportunity remans.  Oily Ghost Town, or Casper the Oily Ghost Town, or something. . . 

Some time ago, some civic entity or perhaps the City of Casper itself came up with the name WyoCity.  Or perhaps it paid somebody to come up with that.  It hasn't stuck in the public imagination, and no wonder.  WyoCity? What does that mean?

Another unofficial nickname for Casper is Wind City, which nobody who has ever been to Casper need wonder about.  Chicago may call itself the Windy City, but it has nothing on Casper in regard to wind.  As with Oil City, various local businesses have embraced the name and use it.

Big Piney

Big Piney is cold in the winter. Really cold.  Like wind in Casper, residents of Big Piney have embraced that and its nickname is "Icebox of the Nation". They aren't joking.

Cheyenne.

Cheyenne, like Laramie, has an old nickname that probably goes back to early boosterism, with that being the "Emerald City of the Rockies".  Towns on the Union Pacific at the time must have had a gem stone theme going on.  The nickname was used early on and it competed with Denver's, which chose to call itself the "Queen City of the Plains".  Oddly, Denver is really closer to the Rocky Mountains than  Cheyenne, which is actually on the plains.  Anyhow, Emerald City has fallen into disuse, and probably  The Wizard of Oz didn't help that.

At some point the city itself decided it didn't like it, and it changed its nickname officially to the "Magic City of the Plains".  Or, perhaps, the nickname existed simultaneously.  It seems to have been based on the town springing up overnight, as if by magic, when it was built in 1867.  The city still uses that nickname.

Unofficially people sometimes refer to Cheyenne as "Shy Town", using the sound of its first syllable.  The nickname is simply a play on words and infers nothing beyond that.  

Cody

Cody bills itself as the Rodeo Capital of the World, which is frankly bizarre.  I doubt anyone uses the nickname and I've never seen a "Rodeo City" business there.

The name likely stems form the Cody Night Rodeo, which occurs nightly during the summer, but that wouldn't make it the Rodeo Capital.  Cheyenne and Calgary would have better claims to that.

Douglas

Douglas is the "Jackalope Capital of the World", playing on its adoption of the jackalope as its official symbol.  Indeed, the town has embraced the mythical creature and there are several jackalope statutes in town, although the one that used to be in the middle of the main street downtown has been removed as it was determined to be a bit of a traffic hazard.

Douglas has to get credit for embracing something whimsical and just running with it.

Frannie

Frannie, which is in two counties, but which is a really small town, bills itself as the The Biggest Little Town in the Nation.

Gillette.

Gillette calls itself the "Energy Capital of the World", although these days its energy businesses are hurting.  By doing that, it's co-opting a nickname that the Casper Star Tribune had claimed earlier for Casper.

Gillette may have an official nickname, but like Cheyenne and Casper, it has an unofficial one that's a play on its name, that being "Razor City".  Gillette, the company, manufactures shaving razors, and hence the nickname.  Again, it doesn't apply more than that.

Gillette may be a bit fortunate in this regard, as its original name was "Donkey Town", having been named for Donkey Creek.  Razor City isn't a great nickname, but it's better than Donkey Town as an official one.

Jackson

Jackson Wyoming is located in Jackson Hole and residents refer to the town as "The Hole".   The area around Jackson, however, has a lot of nicknames.

Teton Valley, Idaho, which is just next-door to some extent, interestingly has a lot of nicknames. But as this post isn't on that topic, we'll omit them.

Laramie.  

Laramie is the "Gem City of the Plains" for reasons that are unclear to me.  The nickname has been around for a long time, and it was probably part of an early effort at boosterism.  Laramieites know of the nickname, however, and its used in some businesses in Laramie.  The official newsletter of the City of Laramie is the "Gem City Spark", so unlike Casper's government, it's embraced its old nickname.

Some haven't embraced it, however, and those appear to be students.  UW students have taken up calling Laramie "Laradise", something that's come on since I lived there.  Laramie can be a fun town, and students have a sarcastic streak, so the nickname probably embraces both, both implying that Laramie might be a paradise for the young, and that it isn't, at the same time.

Lovell

Lovell, Wyoming asserts that its the Rose City of Wyoming.  This is because an early resident of the town, Dr. William Horsley, was a renowned expert on roses and promoted their growth in the community over a fifty year period.  The nickname is unknown for the most part outside of Lovell, but it has been embraced by the town and businesses in the community use it for their names.

Meeteetse

Meeteetse bills itself as the Ferret Capital of hte World as the endangered black footed ferret, which was believed extinct, was relocated there.  It also calls itself Where Chiefs Meet, which is taken from the meeting of its name in Shoshone, which is reputedly "meeting place", although that translation is disputed.

Riverton

I've heard Riverton occasionally referred to as "River City", probably recalling the fictional town in The Music Man.  It's official nickname, however, is "The Rendezvous City", reflecting that one of the early fur trapping Rendezvous gatherings was held there.

Rock Springs.  

Like Cheyenne, Rock Springs has an unofficial nickname that plays on its actual name, that being "Rocket City".  It has an official one as well, however, that being "Home of 56 Nationalities", reflecting its early mining history when it was indeed very polyglot.

Saratoga 

Saratoga calls itself "Where the Trout Leap in Main Street".   The North Platte River runs right through town and the small town has an outdoorsy nature, so this might help explain this.  Having said that, it might also stem from an early freighter tossing lighted sticks of dynamite off the bridge into town and blasting fish up on to the road, an act he took as he was tired of waiting for help to unload a wagon.

Upton 

Upton calls itself the "Best Town on Earth", which its boosters must feel that it is.

Honorable mention, Interstate 80.

Not a town, but another sort of man made geographic feature, Interstate 80 also has a nickname, at least in part.  The stretch of highway between Wolcott Junction and Laramie along Interstate 80 bears the nickname the "Snow Chi Minh Trail".

That nickname obviously can go no further back than the 1960s and I think it started in the 1970s, when the memory of the North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh Trail was still fresh. That NVA effort was persistently vexing to the United States and the blizzardy section of the highway is likewise vexing to motorist, hence the nickname.

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*For those who might wonder, Tulsa Oklahoma bears the nickname "Oil Capital of the World", although even by contemporary American standards, that nickname would more properly belong to Houston, Texas.  Cognizant of that, Houston is the "Energy Capital of the World".