February 23

1540   Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado began his unsuccessful search for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold in the American Southwest. Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of Mexico, sent Francisco Coronado overland to search for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola in present day New Mexico.  A dramatic mounted exploration, to say the least.

1836  The siege of the Alamo began.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1847     U.S. troops under Gen. Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican general Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista in Mexico.

1905  A creamery in Cheyenne began selling pasteurized milk.

The benefits of pasteurization, and the feature of a local creamery, are things that are almost wholly forgotten today.  Today, most milk is transported quite some distance before it is sold in a local store, but as recently as the 1950s, most significantly sized towns in Wyoming had a creamery, that being a local business that bought raw milk, pasteurized it, and sold it.  Here's an example of such a (former) facility in Casper.

Pasteurization, a process by which a liquid is heated and then rapidly cooled, was a major innovation in food safety, and is commonly used today for most dairy products and some beer.  The ability of a local facility to sell pasteurized milk was no doubt a major boon for local consumers in Cheyenne.  Now, however, there's a movement to sell certain products directly from farms and outside the food safety system.  Raw milk isn't something that a person usually encounters in Wyoming (unless a person lives on a farm or ranch that actually has a dairy cow, which few do) but it's a growing movement nationwide.  Not too surprisingly, there have been some health issues associated with it.

1917   The National Vocational Act (Smith Hughes Act) signed into law.
 

The National Vocational Act was the first American law to provide a direct Federal role in high school education.  It was signed into law on this day, in 1917.

Student in technical high school, 1916.

The act was aimed at students who were going to work directly on farms but its scope was broader than that and it had the support of Labor, which helped cause it to pass.  It's stated purpose was to support those "who have entered upon or who are preparing to enter upon the work of the farm" and funding was provided for that goal.  It also included mandated the creation of a Board of Vocational Education in each state, which lead to some districts combining their existing board with that purpose and others having a separate board just for that purpose.

 Girls in automobile mechanics class, Central High, Washington D. C., 1927.

The act was a really significant development in terms of the evolution of the relationship between the states and the Federal government. There had been prior acts on the topic of education, including a vocational act that this was a successor to, but this was the first Federal provision to directly impose requirements upon a state in regards to education and the first to provide Federal funding to the states.  In these regards, this was a fairly revolutionary Progressive Era step and its one that lead to later broader steps, perhaps culminating in the creation of the US Department of Education in 1979. We are now so used to the concept of that cabinet level entity existing that its hard to imagine that its a relatively recent arrival in terms of Federal agencies.  It's start can be seen to exist with the passage of the Smith Hughes Act into law in this day, one hundred years ago as of this posting.

Seal of the Department of Education.

 

Every school district in Wyoming continues to have at least some vocational training.  Natrona County has a completely separate high school campus, recently built, for scientific and vocational training.

1921  February 23, 1921. Pioneering Air Mail Flight.

Lex Anteinternet: February 23, 1921. Ridiculing customs.: 

February 23, 1921. Ridiculing customs.

We always reform or ridicule, not the customs of the remote past, but the new customs of the day before yesterday, which are just beginning to grow old. This is true of furniture and parents.

G.K. Chesterton, Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1921.

Jack Knight. Note the heavy early aviator's dress.  Knight died in 1945 of malaria contracted on a trip to South American that was working on securing a reliable source of rubber to the wartime allies.

The United States Postal Service completed a pioneering air mail run in which Jack Knight, taking off on the prior day from San Francisco, landed at Cheyenne, Wyoming, and then took off and flew through the night to Chicago.  Ernest M. Allison ten took over and lasted at 4:50 p.m. at Roosevelt Field at Long Island, New York.

The flight demonstrated that air mail was feasible.

While successful, it was also conducted under extreme odds, involving arctic conditions and nighttime fires to light the way.  Knight was justifiably regarded as a hero during his lifetime.

1941  Blizzard conditions stalled traffic in the state.  This was, of course, in the pre 4x4 days.  Prior to World War Two 4x4 vehicles were almost unheard of and were limited to industrial vehicles. Almost every vehicle was a rear wheel drive 2x4.

1948  An earthquake in Yellowstone was felt regionally.

1950  A special session of the legislature called to deal with the problem of grasshopper infestation concluded.

1969  Gov. Hathaway signed into law a State severance tax bill. The bill had been extremely controversial, with there being strong arguments by the opposition that passing it would cause Wyoming's extractive industries to greatly reduce their activity. The arguments failed to stop the bill, and the severance tax did not greatly impact the extractive industries.  Today, Wyoming's is nearly entirely funded by severance taxes.

1985  The Bison adopted as the state mammal.

1990  First Day of Issue Ceremony  for the stamp based on Conrad Schwiering's painting High Mountain Meadows held in Cheyenne.

February 22

1847 General Santa Anna surrounds the outnumbered forces of U.S. General Zachary Taylor at the Angostura Pass in Mexico and demands an immediate surrender. Taylor declines the offer to surrender.

1897  President Cleveland issues a proclamation establishing the Big Horn National Forest.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1899  The 1st Nebraska U.S. Volunteer Infantry and the Wyoming Battalion, volunteers, engaged Philippine insurgents near Deposito.  The action commenced at 0615 when the Wyoming Battalion, which deployed about two hours earlier, encountered Philippine insurgents and opened fire.  The action was sharp with results being generally inconclusive.

1913  Twelfth Legislative session concluded.

1917   The Cheyenne State Leader for February 22, 1917: Denver Guard Protest "Silly"

People were getting embarrassed about the snit over the location for the demobilization of the Colorado National Guard.

And the importation of booze from "wet" states to "dry" ones was getting Federal attention.

Pershing's rise continued, in the wake of the death of Gen. Funston.  And a terrible crime happened in Cheyenne.

1918  Montana's legislature passes a Sedition Law that severely restricts freedom of speech and assembly.

1919  Fifteenth Legislative session concluded.

1919  February 22, 1919. Marching home, Germany ablaze and no Carey County.

The Saturday Evening Post featured a Rockwell portrayal of a stout looking American veteran marching with admiring young boys.  The hyper patriotic and hyper romantic portrayal doesn't portray the veteran as bemused by the display, which in reality would have been the likely reaction.

The stout child in the lead is wearing the type of service coat that the Boy Scouts still did at that time.

It's odd to think that in any such real world crowd, the children depicted here would have had a fairly high chance of seeing service in the Second World War.

While soldiers were returning, newspapers all over the country carried the frightening news that Germany seemed to be descending again into full scale civil war.

That sudden revived slide was caused by the assassination of Kurt Eisner in Bavaria, after which radical socialist and communists took action to seize the Bavarian government, only lately a monarchy, and proclaim it to be a "Soviet" republic that following April. Eisner was a socialist himself but was in the process of resigning his role in government when a right wing assassin took his life.  Government in Bavaria became chaotic as a result and for approximately one month the large important German state was ruled by a communist cabal in Munich until the Freikorps put it down in their characteristic fashion.

A communist revolution in Bavaria was always a highly odd thing in the first place as the state itself was quit conservative and heavily Catholic.  Munich was the exception, and would prove the exception again as the center of Nazi activity only shortly later.

At the same time as it appeared an internecine war was about to break out in Germany, the League of Nations was gaining real opposition in the United States.

Wyomingites also read that the legislature was wrapping up, which is usually a time of relief for all.  The legislature did not get around to approving a Carey County and therefore Governor Carey didn't have the opportunity to sign into law a county named after his father.  Indeed, such a county would never come into being.

1941  Twenty Sixth Legislative session concluded.

2012  High winds closed numerous roads around Wyoming, including:

I-80 Corridor
Rock Springs - I-80 between Rock Springs and Point of Rocks - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
Patrick Draw - I-80 between Point of Rocks and Exit 142, Bitter Creek - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
Patrick Draw - I-80 between Exit 142, Bitter Creek and Exit 158, Tipton Rd - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
Wamsutter - I-80 between Exit 158, Tipton Rd and Wamsutter - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
Wamsutter - I-80 between Wamsutter and Exit 187, Creston Jct - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
Rawlins - I-80 between Exit 187, Creston Jct and Rawlins - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Rawlins - I-80 between Rawlins and Exit 235, Walcott Jct	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Elk Mountain - I-80 between Exit 235, Walcott Jct and Exit 255, WY 72	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Elk Mountain - I-80 between Exit 255, WY 72 and Exit 267, Wagonhound Rd	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Arlington - I-80 between Exit 267, Wagonhound Rd and Arlington	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Arlington - I-80 between Arlington and Exit 279, Cooper Cove Rd	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Laramie - I-80 between Exit 279, Cooper Cove Rd and Laramie	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Laramie - I-80 between Laramie and Exit 323, Happy Jack Rd - WESTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Laramie - I-80 between Exit 323, Happy Jack Rd and Exit 335, Buford - WESTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Cheyenne - I-80 between Exit 335, Buford and Exit 342, Harriman Rd - WESTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Cheyenne - I-80 between Exit 342, Harriman and Cheyenne - WESTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
I-25 Corridor
Chugwater - I-25 between Exit 29, Whitaker Rd and Chugwater	Feb. 22, 2012 06:49am
Chugwater - I-25 between Chugwater and Exit 73, WY 34	Feb. 22, 2012 06:49am
Wheatland - I-25 between Exit 73, WY 34 and Wheatland	Feb. 22, 2012 06:49am
Non-Interstate Routes
US 26
Jackson - US 26/89/191 between Moose and Moran Jct	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
US 30
Rock Springs - I-80 between Rock Springs and Point of Rocks - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
Patrick Draw - I-80 between Point of Rocks and Exit 142, Bitter Creek - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
Patrick Draw - I-80 between Exit 142, Bitter Creek and Exit 158, Tipton Rd - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
Wamsutter - I-80 between Exit 158, Tipton Rd and Wamsutter - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
Wamsutter - I-80 between Wamsutter and Exit 187, Creston Jct - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
Rawlins - I-80 between Exit 187, Creston Jct and Rawlins - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Rawlins - I-80 between Rawlins and Exit 235, Walcott Jct	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Medicine Bow - US 30/287 between Hanna Jct and Medicine Bow	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Medicine Bow - US 30/287 between Medicine Bow and Rock River	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Laramie - US 30/287 between Rock River and WY 34	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Laramie - I-80 between Laramie and Exit 323, Happy Jack Rd - WESTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Laramie - I-80 between Exit 323, Happy Jack Rd and Exit 335, Buford - WESTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Cheyenne - I-80 between Exit 335, Buford and Exit 342, Harriman Rd - WESTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Cheyenne - I-80 between Exit 342, Harriman and Cheyenne - WESTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
US 87
Chugwater - I-25 between Exit 29, Whitaker Rd and Chugwater	Feb. 22, 2012 06:49am
Chugwater - I-25 between Chugwater and Exit 73, WY 34	Feb. 22, 2012 06:49am
Wheatland - I-25 between Exit 73, WY 34 and Wheatland	Feb. 22, 2012 06:49am
US 89
Jackson - US 26/89/191 between Moose and Moran Jct	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
US 191
Rock Springs - US 191 between the Utah State Line and I-80	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
Jackson - US 26/89/191 between Moose and Moran Jct	Feb. 22, 2012 06:43am
US 287
Laramie - US 30/287 between Rock River and WY 34	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Medicine Bow - US 30/287 between Medicine Bow and Rock River	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Medicine Bow - US 30/287 between Hanna Jct and Medicine Bow	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Rawlins - I-80 between Rawlins and Exit 235, Walcott Jct	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Rawlins - US 287 / WY 789 between Rawlins and Mile Marker 23	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
WY 34
Laramie - WY 34 between Bosler and the Platte/Albany Cty Line	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Wheatland - WY 34 between the Platte/Albany Cty Line and I-25	Feb. 22, 2012 06:49am
WY 130
Laramie - WY 130 between Mile Marker 35, Westbound Closure Gate and Centennial	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Laramie - WY 130 between Centennial and Laramie	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
WY 210
Laramie - WY 210 between Curt Gowdy State Park and I-80	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
WY 321
Chugwater - WY 321 between Chugwater and I-25	Feb. 22, 2012 06:49am
WY 789
Rawlins - I-80 between Exit 187, Creston Jct and Rawlins - EASTBOUND	Feb. 22, 2012 06:46am
Rawlins - US 287 / WY 789 between Rawlins and Mile Marker 23

February 21

1883  Post Office established in Beulah.

1900  A military funeral held for Chief Washakie.

1903  Wyoming establishes a gift and estate tax.  Wyoming still has such a tax, but it only applies at very substantial income levels.

1925  The Legislature passed a $.02.5 gasoline tax.  While this sounds quite small, in terms of the era, 1925, it was actually a fairly significant tax.  Contrary to the common assumption, in real terms gasoline of the era was quite expensive, and automobiles, which were already common very expensive to purchase and own.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

Since first entering writing this paragraph, the news this year (2013) is that the Legislature will likely raise the gasoline tax an additional $0.10.

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: The Blizzard of 1949

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: The Blizzard of 1949: Nebraska report. Wyoming Storms and Blizzards. The North Forty News. Disasters. The Blizzard of 49. Blizzard traps the City of San F...

February 20

1792     President George Washington signed an act creating the U.S. Post Office.The Constitution requires the Federal Government to deliver the mail, and this was a vital government service in the much of the nation's history.  Now, with UPS and FedEx, it's easy to forget the extent to which this service mattered more to many people than any other governmental service at one time, and for many people, it was likely the only contact with the Federal Government that they ever had.

Since writing the paragraph immediately above, the impacts of other services, and most particularly of the internet, have made the Post Office's position sufficiently precarious that Saturday mail delivery is scheduled to be eliminated.

1911  Gov. Carey signed bill carving Lincoln County out of Uinta County.:  Attribution:  On This Day.

1917   The Cheyenne State Leader for February 20, 1917: The news about Gen. Funston hits the headlines and Colorado protests a Wyoming demobilization.
 

The news of Gen. Funston's death hit the front page of the paper the day after.

And Colorado was upset about Colorado National Guardsmen being sent to Ft. D. A. Russell for demobilization, rather than a location in their home state.

Dogs were barred entry into the state by Governor Kendrick due to concerns over rabies.

1919  The  Legislature appropriated $2,500 for placing markers along the Oregon Trail.  A good example of these very first markers can be seen in the bottom photograph here.  The top example, featuring a bronze medallion, is a somewhat later one which was placed by a commission.  The monument itself in the top photo is not original, but the 1914 State of Wyoming one is fully original.

1923  The Legislature experienced a 56 hour "day" in a questionable legislature trick designed to keep the clock from winding up on the session. This trick has been repeated since then, but this one was the record.

1949  The last day of the Blizzard of 1949, which was actually a series of blizzards that occurred in rapid succession.

1957  Gov. Milward Simposn signs a state Civil Rights act.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1980 Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the first child of Theodore Roosevelt, his only child by his first wife Alice, and the last of his living children, died.

1982  The University of Wyoming's Arena Auditorium opened.

February 19

1864  William F. Cody joined the 7th Volunteer Kansas Cavalry.

1887  The final run of the Black Hills stage left  Cheyenne.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1901  A bill prohibiting gambling signed into law.

1915  The Governor signed to acts pertaining to improvements at the state capitol consisting of the addition of wings onto the capitol building.  One was to approve the construction, and another to authorize a property tax to pay for it.

1915  The Natrona County Tribune merges into the Wyoming Weekly Review.

1917  The State Highway Commission created by the signature of the Governor of an act approving it. 

It's odd to think of Wyoming lacking a Highway Department but up until this date in 1917, it did.  That was common at the time as most vehicular transportation remained strictly local.  However, that would begin to change with the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, which provided funds, for the first time, to state highway departments in one of the "progressive" policies of the Wilson Administration.

The activities of the Commission would be modest but growing throughout its early years.  Limited winter plowing commenced in 1923 and then it began in earnest in 1929.  In 1991 the highway department became the Wyoming Department of Transportation, which it remains.

 

Wyoming featured in a speedy automobile advertisement in 1923. 

 

1917   General Frederick Funston dies.

 

On this date in 1917 a shock happened to the nation.  The general who Woodrow Wilson already had in mind for an American expeditionary force in Europe, should the US enter the Great War, which was becoming increasingly likely, died.

And with his death, it truly seemed that an era had really passed.

 Gen. Frederick Funston, next to driver, in 1906.

Funston was a hero and a legend.  He'd risen to high command on the strength of his military achievements without being a West Point graduate.  He was truly an exception to the rules.

Funston was born in Ohio in 1865 and in some ways did not show early promise in life.  He was a very small and slight (at first) man, standing only 5'5" and weighing only 120 lbs upon reaching adulthood.  He aspired as a youth to the military, after growing up in Kansas, but he was rejected by West Point due to his small size.  He thereafter attended the University of Kansas for three years but did not graduate.  Following that he worked for awhile for the Santa Fe Railroad before becoming a reporter in Kansas City in 1890.

Only after a year he left reporting and went to work for the Department of Agriculture as a researcher in an era when that was an adventuresome occupation.  In 1896, however, Funston left that to join the Cuban insurrection against Spain in Cuba.

  Funston as a Cuban guerilla.

As most Americans spending any time in Cuba at the time experienced, he came down with malaria while serving the Cuban revolution.  Returning to United States weighing only 95 lbs he found himself back in the United States just in time to secure a commission with the 20th Kansas Infantry as it was raised to fight in the Spanish American War.  

"Funston's Fighting Kansans" in the Philippines.

The 20th Kansas didn't fight in Cuba, it fought in the Philippines.  Funston served there heroically and received the Medal of Honor, and found himself promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the Regular Army at age 35, a remarkable rise contrary to the usual story of military advancement and more reminiscent of the Civil War than anything thereafter.  Following his service in the Philippines, however, he fell into a period of controversy due to aggressively pro military action comments he made in the United States.

He was stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco upon his return to the United States and was there at the time of the 1906 earthquake.  He controversially declared martial law to attempt to combat the fire and looters and in fact authorized the shooting of looters.  Following that he was stationed again in the Philippines and Hawaii.  In 1914 he was placed in command of the Southern Department of the Army and was in command of the US forces in Vera Cruz and thereafter in Mexico under Pershing.

Funston and his family at the Presidio.

On this date in 1917 he was relaxing at the St. Anthony Hotel in San Antonio Texas when he suffered a massive stroke and died.  He was only 51 years of age but he had put on a tremendous amount of weight in recent years. Indeed, his weight had prevented him from active field service by the time of the Punitive Expedition, but the fact of his death in this fashion would suggest an undiagnosed high blood pressure condition, something that was commonly fatal in that era.

 

1917:  

The Laramie Boomerang for February 19, 1917: Two Wyoming Battalions To Leave Border as Cowboys cross it.

 

Two Battalions of the Wyoming Infantry were to be on their way home, the Boomerang reported.

And Theodore Roosevelt was planning to reprise his Spanish American War role if the US went to war with Germany.  Well. . . .Woodrow Wilson might have a say in that.

And the situation in Mexico was apparently getting complicated by a private body of cowboy militia crossing the border in reprisal for the recent death of their fellows.

Finally, the  Boomerang reported the situation with Germany as "hopeful". 

 

1917

The Wyoming Tribune for February 19, 1917: Colorado and Wyoming National Guard headed for Ft. D. A. Russell for Demobilization

 

News came on this Monday (in 1917) that indeed, Wyoming and Colorado state troops were headed home, or at least to Ft. D. A. Russell.

A general with a Cheyenne connection, John J. Pershing, now a national hero and the recent commander of the Punitive Expedition, came out for universal military training.  That was  big movement, of course, at the time.

And John B. Kendrick was on his way to the U.S. Senate, finishing up his time as Governor by signing the bills  that had passed the recent legislative session.

Miss Elanor Eakin Carr's engagement to Howard P. Okie, son of J. B. Okie of Lost Cabin, the legendary sheepman of the Lost Cabin area.  He'd take over his father's mercantile interest that year, but the marriage would not be a  long one.  He died in 1920

 

1921  Sixteenth state legislature adjourned.

1927  Nineteenth state legislature adjourned.

1942 Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas "as deemed necessary or desirable."  This would lead to internment camps, including Heart Mountain near Cody.

 Map showing interment camps and other aspects of the exclusion of ethnic Japanese from the Pacific Coast during World War Two.

1945 The US government imposes a midnight curfew on all places of entertainment.

1986  Vice President George Bush addressed the legislature.

1990  Budget session of fiftieth state legislature convened.

1996  Budget session of the fifty third state legislature convened.

February 18

Today is Presidents Day for 2013.

The holiday originally commemorated George Washington's birthday, but was expanded later to honor all Presidents.  It is a Federal Holiday.

1861  The Treaty of Ft. Wise, Kansas is signed by the Arapaho and Cheyenne, in which they gave up territory in Colorado between the North Platte and Arkansas Rivers in exchange for a reservation between the Arkansas and Sand Creek, Colorado.

1862   U.S. Congress approved an act entitled "An Act to grant lands to Dakota, Montana, Arizona, Idaho and Wyoming for university purposes.":  Attribution:  On This Day.

1906  John B. Stetson in Florida died at age 75.  He was the founder of the famous hat manufacturing company.

1911 An act providing that each county would have legislative representation was signed into law by Governor Carey. Attribution:  On This Day.

1913         Gen. Victoriano Huerta becomes leader of the Mexican government, a step on the way to the Mexican Civil War.

1917   The Cheyenne State Leader for February 18, 1917: Villa gone to Japan?
 

A rumor was published of Pancho Villa going East. . . .way East.

He didn't.

The cowboy victims of border violence were buried. And Cuban revolutionaries were reportedly holding Santiago.

And of course, U-boots were taking headlines.

1918  Laramie Boomerang, February 18, 1918. Exact same weather report a century prior.

Today's weather report could have been a repeat of the one in this issue of the Laramie Boomerang from February 18, 1918.

Two draft evaders headed for Mexico?  Seems like a poor move.

Austro Hungarian troops on the offensive.

The Central Powers, having determined that Trotsky's "neither war nor peace" was, in fact, war from their prospective, launched Operation Faustschlag on this Monday of 1918.  The Offensive captured massive amounts of former Imperial Russian territory but it also tied up resources and a combined 16 divisions sorely needed elsewhere.

German troops in Kiev. . .where their presence was considerably better behaved than it would be 23 years later.

The offensive did succeed in taking Russia out of the war in short order.

1919  February 18, 1919. Changing maps, stopping by the Red Cross, Maintaining the Headquarters, Tragic news at Bates Hole, Pilot County Crisis, Turkish wives.

Political cartoon that ran on February 18, 1919.

 British serviceman, left and American servicemen, right, entering a Red Cross canteen on this day in 1919.  Note the unit patches on the uniforms of the American soldiers, which were really a post World War One item.

British serviceman on left, American on right.  Note the unit patch.

The work of the Red Cross carried on.

Headquarters troops, Southern Department, Ft. Sam Houston, February 18, 1919.  Throughout the war, not only training occurred in Texas, but the Army continued to patrol a tense border with a country still in revolution.

Meanwhile, revolution or no (and in spite of the Allies actually requiring, for the time being, the Germans to keep troops in the Baltic's as a hedge against the Red Army, a new armistice limited the Germans to 25,000 troops.

A tragedy occurred locally at Bates Hole, an area I'm well familiar with, when news arrived that a soldier from the ranching reaching who had served in France had been killed in the war..  

It's funny how things work as there's a selection of names that I associate with Bates Hole, and Galehouse isn't one of them.  Time moves on and names are lost.

Pilot County, which never occurred, was still much in the news.

And a Cheyenne paper reported that merchant sailors who had been interned by the Turks during the war were returning with a lot of "beautiful" wives.

1931  Governor Frank C. Emerson died in office at age 48.

1931  Alonzo M. Clark became Governor of Wyoming due to the death of Governor Emerson.

1933   Gov. Miller signed an act repealing enforcement of prohibition by Wyoming.The repeal was actually only partial at first, and it took a period of many months before there was a complete repeal.

1937  A shell exploded on the USS Wyoming during exercises killing six Marines and injuring eleven others.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1943  Converse County woman collected furs to be used for vests for merchant marines.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1987  Cuttthroat Trout declared to be State Fish.

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.

1917  Fourteenth state legislature adjourns.

1917   The Cheyenne State Leader for February 17, 1917: Border watched, Guard coming home.
 

The Wyoming Tribune for February 17, 1917: National Guardsmen coming home.
 

With the U.S. Army back over the border, Woodrow Wilson apparently decided that the Guard no longer needed to be Federalized, so they were getting ready to deactivate them.

This makes sense, in context, but on the other hand its a bit difficult to grasp why Wilson, who was leading a country that rocketing towards war and he was letting the Guard stand down.  In hindsight, it would have really made a bit more sense to retain them as mustered in anticipation of war.  Indeed, in World War Two the Guard, and what little Reserve there was, was called into service in 1940 in anticipation of the looming war.

The Legislature was also set to come home, something that every citizen holds their breath for . . .
1923  Seventeenth state legislature adjourns.

1933 Craig Thomas born in Cody.  Thomas served as Congressman from 1989 to 1995 and Senator from Wyoming from 1995 until his death in 2007.

1933 The Blaine Act ends Prohibition at the Federal level.  Contrary to popular imagination, it didn't necessarily end it everywhere in the US, as many states, including Wyoming, had separate and additional Prohibition statutes.

1945  Max Maxfield, State Auditor from 1999 to 2007, and then was elected Secretary of State in 2006, born in Beloit Wisconsin.

1968 2nd Lt. Richard W. Pershing, 502nd Infanty, grandson of John J. Pershing and great grandson of F. E. Warren killed in action in Vietnam.

1986  Budget session of the forty eighth legislature convened.

February 16

1878  The silver dollar become legal tender in the U.S.

1890   Robert C. Morris suggested the "Equality State" as a state motto.  Morris was the son of Esther Hobart Morris, and she lived with him in his house in Cheyenne in her later years.  He was a legislator in the early 20th Century, and served as the Clerk of the Wyoming Supreme Court.

1895  Third State Legislature concludes.

1901  Governor Richards signed an act that required county commissions to raise taxes for the purpose of building a residence for the governor.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1901  Sixth State Legislature concludes.

1907  Ninth State Legislature concludes.

1908  The Atlas Theatre opened in Cheyenne.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1917   America Here's My Boy
 

In a clear sign how things were beginning to go, and an early introduction to what would be a massive movement in the American public supporting the Great War and shaming those who didn't, the song America Here's My Boy was copyrighted on  this day and very soon released:

This came, of course, just before the US entered the war, but it would end up being an early World War One American hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UJn9dHkD0E

I wouldn't rate it as great, but then music of this era. . . .

Anyhow, it was a bit of a reaction to I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHEqjMf7Ojo

Band sound similar to the one above?

It's the same one.

At any rate, I doubt America Here's My Boy "expressed the sentiment of every American mother." I learned the year prior to my own mother's death that she worried that war would break out the entire time I was in the National Guard.

The Cheyenne Leader for February 16, 1917. Three Americans Captured by Mexicans Found Slain

 

More bad news from the Mexican border. . . and elsewhere.

The Wyoming Tribune for February 16, 1917. More troops being rushed to the border

 

More troops rushed to the border.

And the beginnings of JrROTC.

1918   The Cheyenne State Leader for February 16, 1918. Revolution in Mexico and Victory Pies
 

The Leader was correct, a new revolution had broken out in Mexico even as the contesting forces of Zapata and Villa continued their struggle against Carranza.

As the Mexican culture site puts it:

On February 16, 1918, soldiers loyal to the governor of the state of Guerrero, General Silvestre Mariscal, arrested Santiago Tlatelolco in the military prison, who took up arms to try to free his leader. Nearly 300 men who were under the command of Mariscal and had accompanied him to the Federal District took up arms in the Escuela de Tiro de San Lázaro, where they were quartered.

They were immediately repulsed by the law and order forces, under the command of General Miguel Madrigal, who defeated them and forced them to flee. Some escaped towards Peñón. Others, toward Tlalpan, where they tried to join the Zapatista armed forces that devastated the southern region of the Federal District.

So things really weren't settled south of the bordern.

North of the border restrictions on wheat were resulting in Victory Pies in restaurants.

Victory pies?

Well, what those apparently entailed is substituting out 1/3 of the flour substance for something other than wheat. 

Dancer turned aviator Vernon Castle was reported killed in an aviation accident in Texas.

Things were getting unsettled in Austria, which appeared to be teetering towards bowing out of the war.  Close to home, the war looked like it was bringing the Medical corps or cavalry back to Cheyenne. Cavalry had certainly had a presence there previously..

1919  The new Wyoming flag presented officially to Governor Robert D. Carey.

1929  Twentieth State Legislature concludes.

1935  Twenty Third State Legislature concludes.

1944  Wyoming's Senator Mahoney was reported as having said that victory in the Second World War was closer than most imagined, and the country should be prepared to rapidly convert to a peacetime economy.

The optimistic Mahoney was a Democrat who served four terms as a U.S. as  Wyoming's Senator, first from 1934 to 1953 and then again from 1954 to 1961.  Orginally from Massachusetts, he moved to Wyoming in 1916 as a writer for the Cheyenne State Leader, which was owned by John B. Kendrick. When Kendrick became Senator, he accompanied him there as a staff member, and graduated from Georgetown with a Bachelors of Law in 1920.  He was considered as a running mate in 1944.  He lost his seat when Dwight Eisenhower won the Presidential election in 1954, but regained a position of Senator upon the suicide of Lester Hunt.

1948 NBC-TV aired its first nightly newscast, "The Camel Newsreel Theatre," which consisted of Fox Movietone newsreels.

2011 Scott W. Skavdahl nominated the United States District Court Judge for the District of Wyoming, replacing the seat vacated by Judge William Downes.  Judge Skavdahl, like Judge Downes before him, occupies the Federal District Courthouse in Casper, a classic large Federal Courthouse built during the Great Depression.  Wyoming's other sitting Federal judges sit in Cheyenne.  Wyoming has quite an assortment of Federal Courthouses, but only two are in daily use.  Surprisingly, a number of Wyoming's Federal District Courthouses have been retired or even disposed of, even as the number of judges has grown.

February 15

1812   The Astorians reached the mouth of the Columbia River.  They traveled overland with one horse for each two men.

1869  Laramie's first school opened.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1879   President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the United States Supreme Court.

1887  Reports from Montana start to place the state's cattle deaths from this disastrous winter at 60%.

1898 The U.S.S Maine blew up in Havana Harbor.  This event would lead in short order to the Spanish American War, the first US war that Wyoming would participate in as a state.

 Wreckage of the USS Maine.

1909  Park County formed.

1917  The Natrona County Tribune for February 15, 1917: Casper Man Witnesses Return of Pershing's Expedition
 

An eyewitness Wyoming Guardsman reported on what he saw on the return of the Punitive Expedition from Mexico.

In other local news, a German-Hibernian bank was being formed.

The Cheyenne State Leader for February 15, 1917: Villistas threaten U.S. "Line".

 

Using terms now familiar to the readers to due the news on the Great War, Villistas were reported to be threatening the U.S. "line".

The news, in regards to Mexico, had nearly returned to the state of the year prior.

Otherwise, the news was much as noted in the paper below.  Gas leases, horse thieves, and the German U-boot campaign.

And Cuba again.

The Wyoming Tribune for February 15, 1917: Five Americans Shot by Mexican Raiders.
 

The border with Mexico was fully back on headlines, recalling the year prior, with news of a deadly Mexican raid into the US.

In other news, the crisis with Germany loomed large, but so did the capture of horse thieves.

1918    German Greed and Trotsky Goofs. . . and the Allies

Horseless Age, volume 43, number 4, February 15, 1918, page 50.

Four horse transport at No.4 Remount Depot in Boulogne, 15 February, 1918

Kipling, February 15, 1918.

If you will allow me, 1 will tell you a story.

1919  February 15, 1919. Wyoming passes its own Prohibition Act. . .

which would take effect on June 30 of 1919.

And for no good reason either.

You've read all about it, leading up to this date, but on this date.  It was signed into law.

New Governor Robert Carey signed the bill with three pens, which he then gave to the Friends Of Dry Wyoming.  The bill featured an unusual Saturday morning singing.

The Wyoming Star Tribune reported, in noting it, that; "The prohibition question is a closed question in Wyoming."

1919  A selection of non career U.S. Army officers serving in France were assembled, under the orders of Gen. Pershing, to work on the formation of an organization that would become the American Legion.

1921 Teton County formed.

1921  Sublette County formed.

1925  Fire in Shoshoni destroyed twelve buildings.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1933     President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami but which claimed the life of Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak.

The attempted assassin in this matter was Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian veteran of World War One who was fairly clearly in poor health and increasingly suffering from delusions to some extent.  The wounded Mayor Cermak survived until March 6, 1933.  By that time, Zangara had already been sentenced for four counts of attempted murder, and was given 20 years for each count.

That is, he had been sentenced in less than a month.

He was charged with homicide on March 8, 1933, due to Cermak's death.  He plead guilty and was executed on March 20, 1933.

Cermak never contested his responsibility for the crimes.  He was increasingly ill and suffering from delusions, but his statements made it fairly clear that he conceived of his actions as some sort of radical anti-capitalist action.  What strikes me as amazing, however, is that he went from arrest to execution in a little over a month.  Indeed, he went from arrest for homicide to execution in 14 days.

I am not noting this in order to make a comment about the death penalty.  That's an entirely different topic and frankly addressing it in the context of 2012 in comparison to 1933 isn't really even possible.  But what is really striking is that the criminal process played itself out so very rapidly.  Now I would have expected a process of examination to determine if Zangara was sane or even competent to make a confession, and there's no way on earth that the process would have occurred so very rapidly.

1955 "Wyoming" adopted as the official song of Wyoming.

The lyrics are:

In the far and mighty West, Where the crimson sun seeks rest, There's a growing splendid State that lies above, On the breast of this great land; Where the massive Rockies stand, There's Wyoming young and strong, the State I love!

Chorus:  Wyoming, Wyoming! Land of the sunlight clear! Wyoming, Wyoming! Land that we hold so dear! Wyoming, Wyoming! Precious art thou and thine! Wyoming, Wyoming! Beloved State of mine!

In the flowers wild and sweet, Colors rare and perfumes meet; There's the columbine so pure, the daisy too, Wild the rose and red it springs, White the button and its rings, Thou art loyal for they're red and white and blue,

Where thy peaks with crowned head, Rising till the sky they wed, Sit like snow queens ruling wood and stream and plain; 'Neath thy granite bases deep, 'Neath thy bosom's broadened sweep, Lie the riches that have gained and brought thee fame.

Other treasures thou dost hold, Men and women thou dost mould, True and earnest are the lives that thou dost raise, Strengthen thy children though dost teach, Nature's truth thou givest to each, Free and noble are thy workings and thy ways.

In the nation's banner free There's one star that has for me A radiance pure and splendor like the sun; Mine it is, Wyoming's star, Home it leads me near or far; O Wyoming! All my heart and love you've won!

1961  Laramie County Sheriff Norbert E. Tuck was killed in a railroad crossing accident in Iowa while returning a prisoner to Wyoming.

2006  Cheyenne's Union Pacific depot declared a National Historic Landmark.