April 2

 1792   Congress passed the Coinage Act, which authorized establishment of the U.S. Mint.

1866   U.S. President Andrew Johnson declares the Civil War to be over.

1870  An Indian attack on the Sweetwater killed six settlers.

1881  Big Nose George Parrot sentenced to death.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1890  Mail service, on a three times a week basis, established between Laramie and Keystone.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1892  George Dunning, an intimate of the conspirators associated with the invasion of Johnson County, returned from Idaho to Cheyenne at the behest of H. B. Ijams, secretary of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, to participate in the raid, although he professed disapproval.  He drew a .45-90 Winchester from a Cheyenne store where accounts had been set up to arm the invaders. While the plot did not yet have the endorsement of the WSGA, it was well advanced by WSGA officials at the time.

1902  Ester Hobart Morris died in Cheyenne.

1909.  The Spring Creek Raid marks the last open attack in a long running range war in Wyoming, and concludes the era of private warfare in the state.  In the Spring  Creek Raid a collection of Big Horn County cattleman attacked sheepman Joe Allemand and killed him, and then burned his sheepwagon.  This was one of a series of such raids that had occurred since sheep were introduced into Wyoming in the 1890s.  The brutality of the assault shocked area residents, who for the first time supported legal efforts to prosecute the perpetrators in the Big Horn Basin, which previously had not been the case.  The tide had effectively shifted some years earlier in much of the state, as the willingness to prosecute and execute assassin Tom Horn in 1903 had demonstrated.

News traveling more slowly in those days, news of the attack was first published in Natrona County Wyoming on April 6, 1909.

The Spring Creek Raid.

Students of Wyoming's history are well familiar with the story of the Spring Creek Raid, which occurred on April 2, 1909, on the Nowood River outside of Tensleep, Wyoming.  The tragedy has been the subject of at least three well known books, including the excellent A Vast Amount of Trouble, Goodbye Judge Lynch, and Tensleep and No Rest, the first two by lawyer and historian John W. Davis and the third, and earlier work, by Jack Gage, a former Governor of Wyoming.

The raid is justifiably famous for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it may be the sheepman murder that most closely fits the way that we imagine the cattlemen v. sheepmen war of the late 19th and early 20th Century being.  Of course, the fact that it was an outright cold blooded killing no doubt causes it to be well remembered as well.  And then that the killings actually resulted in a trial which convicted the assassins is also worth remembering, as it demonstrated the turn of the tide of the public view on such matters.

The Wyoming historical marker sign that describes the killings does a good job of it, with perhaps the only thing omitted is that one of the ambushing party was armed with a semi automatic Remington Model 8 in .35 Remington, a very distinct arm for the time.  In basic terms, the raid occurred as several men connected with cattle raising in the area decided to enforce the "Deadline", a topographic feature of the Big Horn Mountains which meant it was a literal dead line.

The .35 Remington turned out to be critical in the story of the raid as it was an unusual cartridge for what was, at the time, an unusual arm.  The Remington 08 had only been introduced in 1905 and was a semi automatic rifle in an era in which the lever action predominated.  A lot of .35 Remington cartridges were left at the scene of the murders and investigation very rapidly revealed that a Farney Cole had left his Remington 08 at the home of Bill Keyes, which was quite near the location of the assault.  One of the assailants, George Saban, was known to not carry a gun and was also known to have been at the Saban residence the day of the assault.  Subsequent investigation matched other cartridges found on the location to rifles and pistols known to have been carried by the attackers.

Arrests soon followed and five of the assailants were ultimately charged with murder.  Two turned states' evidence.  The trials were not consolidated and only Herbert Brink's case went to trial.  To the surprise of some, he was convicted by the jury.  Due to prior trials for the killing of sheepmen being both unsuccessful and unpopular, Wyoming took the step of deploying National Guardsmen to Basin to provide security for the trial, which proved unnecessary.  The conviction was the first one in the area for a cattleman v. sheepman murder( Tom Horn had earlier been convicted for the 1903 killing of Willie Nickell, but that killing took place in southern Wyoming.

The killings were, quite rankly, uniquely cold blooded and gruesome, involving shooting into the wagons and setting them on fire.  Because of that, and the Brink conviction, the remaining four charged men plead guilty, rather than face trial.  Two plead guilty to arson, and two to second degree murder.

All were sentenced together, and Brink was sentenced to death.  His sentence was commuted, however, and he was released from prison, together with another one of the party, in 1914.  Another, George Saban, who was deeply affected by his conviction, escaped while out of the penitentiary and under guard, after being allowed to stay over in Basin in order to allegedly conduct some of his affairs.  His escape was successful and he disappeared from the face of the earth.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

1916   The Punitive Expedition: Sunday State Leader. April 2, 1916
 

1917  President Wilson asks Congress for a Declaration of War against Germany.

 Woodrow Wilson addresses a Joint Session of Congress and ask for a Declaration of War Against Germany
 

Woodrow Wilson went before a special joint session of Congress on this day in 1917 to ask for a Declaration of War against Germany.

Gentlemen of the Congress:

I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making.

On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the 1st day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meagre and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe-conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the at tempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meagre enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people can not be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.

It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.

When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavour to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we can not make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it, and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training. It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well conceived taxation....

While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools. Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbour states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a league of honour.

One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without our industries and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Government of the United States. Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people towards us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that Government entertains no real friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the intercepted [Zimmermann] note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic governments of the world. We are now about to accept gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

Just because we fight without rancour and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honour. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity towards a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us -- however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present government through all these bitter months because of that friendship -- exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions towards the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy, who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it towards all who are in fact loyal to their neighbours and to the Government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts -- for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.

Congress did not vote on the matter on that day.

The Wyoming Tribune: Prelude to The Declaration of War. April 2, 1917

 

1948  A fire destroys 30 Laramie businesses.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

April 1

1813  Spanish surrendered San Antonio to Mexican revolutionaries.

1867  Blacks voted in Colorado's state elections for the first time, and without incident.

1869  Reorganization of the U.S Army saw the 30th Infantry mereged with the 4th Infantry, impacting troops stationed in Wyoming.  On this day, the D Company's of both regiments were consolidated at Ft. D. A. Russell.  K Company of the 30th Infantry was consolidated with G Company of the 4th Infantry.

1887  Frank Canton became the chief stock detective for northern Wyoming.

1892  The New York Times reports that (large) Wyoming stockmen have launched a raid which would become known as the Johnson County War. This date is remarkable in that it predates the first assault of the war and shows how their plans had already broken as news even at the point the raid was just starting.  The New York Times article featured a headline that read:

OUT FOR WHOLESALE LYNCHINGS.; WYOMING CATTLEMEN ON A CAMPAIGN AGAINST THIEVES.

1915  Wyoming's Workers Compensation act goes into effect.  Attribution:  On This Day.

Workers Compensation fits into the category of economic news that most people find terminally dull, but this was a landmark in Wyoming's history.  The much maligned Workers Compensation system is actually highly unique and Wyoming was a very early adopter of this type of system.

An entirely state administered system, completely occupying the field, the system was modeled on the German workers compensation system which was the origin of the German national healthcare system.  Like the German system, Wyoming's makes the state the insurer of covered workers, rather than requiring employers to purchase private workers compensation insurance.  The system is also quasi judicial in nature, having an adjudicatory system for contested claims with a right of appeal to the state's court system.  

The system also directly impacts civil litigation in Wyoming, as it prohibits suits against employers where an employee has received benefits under the act.  Suits against co-employees are allowed, but only under a very heightened standard.

1917   The Cheyenne Sunday State Leader for April 1, 1917: The President Calls For You. Volunteer to Enlist Now in the National Guard
 

1918  It was reported that  by this day, for a period dating back to December 1, 1917, Wyoming's revenue's from oil royalties had increased 74%, an impact, no doubt, of World War One.

1935  Alcohol once again legal.

1951  The Wyoming Air National Guard's 87th Fighter Squadron was activated for service during the Korean Conflict, with personnel assigned to Clovis AFB, N.M., Germany, Okinawa, and South Korea.  Wyoming pilots would fly 1800 missions during the Korean War.

1970     Richard Nixon signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and TV.

2011  Major General Luke Reiner, who was attached to the Liaison Section of the 3d Bn 49th FA back when I was in it, in the 1980s, for a time, became the the Adjutant General of Wyoming.

Elsewhere:

1778   Oliver Pollock, a New Orleans businessman, created the "$" symbol..

1863   Conscription goes into effect in the Union.

1918    Alberta declares total prohibition of alcoholic beverages.

1954   U.S. Air Force Academy was founded in Colorado.

2016  Governor Mead announced the formation of centers to assist displaced mineral industry workers light of the layoffs by Arch Coal and Peabody Coal Company, the two largest coal producers in the United States.  The layoffs came on top of a nearly continual stream of smaller energy sector layoffs over the past several months.  The formation of centers to assist the displaced workers is extraordinary, bringing to mind no other recent examples of anything similar.

March 31

Today is Easter Sunday for 2013.

The April 8 entry on this blog has a discussion of how the date for Easter is determined.

1888  Elwood Mead, the predominate force in Wyoming's water law, took office as State Engineer. 

 Elwood Mead

1917   The Cheyenne State Leader for March 31, 1917: Zimmerman defends his note
 

Well, at least you have to give Zimmerman credit for not denying the plot.

The Wyoming Tribune for March 31, 1917: Colorado Guardsmen entrain for home.

 

The Laramie Boomerang for March 31, 1917: Mexican Situation Causing War Department Much Worry
 

And again, Mexico hit the front pages with concerns on the part of the War Department about Mexican and war.

1918 Daylight Savings Time went into effect throughout the U.S. for the first time.

1918   So its Easter Sunday, March 31, 1918.

 Church of the Ascension in Hudson Wyoming.  I don't live in Hudson, but this Catholic Church in the small town is just about the same size as the original St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church where I would have attended, everything else being equal, in 1918.  Because of the huge boom that occurred in my home town during World War One, that original church was taken down and the current church built during the late teens with the new church being completed in 1920.

Which, if you read this on a timely basis, means that you are reading it on Holy Saturday, 2018.

Let's look back on your Easter Sunday of that year, assuming of course that you are somebody situated like me, not assuming by extension that you are a young man in an Army camp somewhere that's being ravaged by the flu, or in France fighting against the German onslaught.

One thing you'd have to endure is the very first occurance of Daylight Savings Time, on this day in 1918.

So the US endured the ravages of false time for the first time on this day in 1918.

 

Oh, the humanity.

 

A sleepy nation "sprang forward".  And on Easter Sunday, no less.

So let's assume that you are in fact somebody like me living in the region I do.

If that were the case, you'd be living in what was still a small town, but an enormously expanding one due to a tremendous oil boom (something I've experienced at least twice, in fact, in my own life).  You  have an office job, but maybe you have an interest in cattle too, or perhaps farming, somehow, although mixing professions would have been much, much, more difficult in 1918 than in 2018, although it did actually occur.  If you had a military age son, as I do, you'd almost certainly have seen him off at the local train station, or in our case one of the two local train stations, last year.

And you'd be worried.

So how would the day go?

Well then, like now, most people would have attended a Church service on this Easter morning.  There's a really common widespread belief that religious adherence was universal in the first part of the 20th Century and has sadly declined markedly now but  that is in fact mostly a myth on both scores.  And part of that is based upon the region of the country you live in, and it was then as well.  But Easter Sunday, like Christmas, is always a big event and many people who don't attend a service otherwise, do on those days.  Others, like me, go every Sunday and of course adherent Catholics and Orthodox go every Sunday and Holy Day.

Now, one feature of the times that has changed is that by and large people tended to marry outside of their faith much less often and people's adherence to a certain faith was notably greater.  Currently, we often tend to hear of "Protestants and Catholics", but at the time not only would you have heard that, but people were much more likely to be distinctly aware of the difference between the various Protestant faiths.  And this often tended to follow a strongly economic and demographic base as well.  People of Scottish background, for example, tended to be Presbyterians.  The richest church at the time was the Episcopal Church and if people moved within Protestant denominations it tended to be in that direction.  I know to people here in town, for example, who made a move in that direction in their pre World War Two marriages, although one of those individuals, who married prior to World War One, went from the Catholic Church to the Episcopal Church, which was quite unusual.  In the other the individual went from the Presbyterian Church to the Episcopal Church, which was not unusual.  In both of the instances I'm aware of the men adopted the faiths of their brides to be in order to marry them.

People of "mixed marriages", i.e., where the couple were of different faiths, did of course exist so this can be taken much too far.  Even then it wasn't terribly uncommon for Catholics to be married to Protestants, although it was much less common than it is now, with the couple attending the Catholic Church.  Marriages involving Christians and Jews were much less common but also did occur, with at least the anecdotal evidence being that this also tended to be something in which the Jewish person married (it seems) a Catholic and they attended the Catholic Church.  I'm sure that this also occurred between Protestants and Jews but it's harder to find immediate examples.  In the area we're talking about, however, the Jewish demographic was so small that it would have been practically unnoticeable, although it was sufficiently large in Cheyenne such that a synagogue had gone in there in 1915 and it was about to be absorbed, in 1919, by a new Orthodox Jewish community.  I don't know if Jewish people even had a place that they could attend services of their own in this era, here in this town.  I doubt it. But I don't doubt that there were Jewish residents of the town by 1918.

What was hugely uncommon at the time were "mixed marriages" in terms of two different "races".  As I've noted here before, however, the concept of "race" is a purely human construct and what this means is not the same in any one era.  Because of the oil boom in Casper, Casper was starting to have a black and Hispanic community, and both of those groups have "race" status in the United States today, and then did then as well.  Mix marriages between blacks and whites, while not illegal in Wyoming as they were in some areas of the country, would have been completely socially unacceptable at that time.

Marriages between Hispanics and "whites" were certainly uncommon at that time, but that barrier was never as stout.  For one thing Hispanics were co-religious with various other groups that had "race" status earlier and that caused the boundaries to break down pretty quickly in some regions.  The Irish, Italians, Slavs and Greeks all had "race" status at the start of the 20th Century but by even World War One that had basically disappeared in the case of the Irish and it was disappearing for the other groups as well.  It had not, and still has not, for Hispanics but the "no mixed marriages" social taboo was not as strong.  It was oddly not as strong in regards to men marrying Indian women either.

All of which is only introductory to noting that on this Easter Sunday, March 31, 1918, you'd likely have gone to church with your family in the morning, assuming all of your family was in town, which if you had a young male in your household, wouldn't have been true.

Before you did that, however, you likely would have picked up a newspaper from your front step.

Now, I've been running newspapers here really regularly for a couple of years and that may have created a bit of a mis-impression.  Quite frequently, when I run newspapers, I run the Cheyenne paper or the Laramie paper.  I don't run the Casper paper nearly as often although I do occasionally.  I hardly ever run a paper like the Douglas paper, and Douglas is just fifty miles from Casper and much closer to Casper than Cheyenne.

Why do I do that?

Well, because there was a huge difference in Wyoming newspapers at the time.

Cheyenne and Laramie had excellent newspapers.  I think the Laramie Boomerang, which still exists, was a better paper then than it is now, which is not to say it's bad now.  But a feature of those papers is that they were all on the Union Pacific rail line and they were Associated Press papers.

Casper's newspapers had never been really bad, but they were much more isolated going into the early teens.  They only became contenders, sort of, in terms of quality in 1917 when the big oil boom caused buyouts in the local newspaper market and the quality really started to improve.  Immediate global news became more common in the papers.  Unfortunately, at the same time, a sort of massive economic myopic boosterism also set in and on some days, many days, there was nothing but oil news in them.

Some other local papers, like Sheridan's, were pretty good, but others were strictly local news.  So if you got the Douglas paper in Douglas, it was just all local happenings. Hardly any global news at all.

And that really matters.

There was no other source of news, other than letters, in 1918.

In the entire United States there were just a handful of commercial radio stations. In fact, those stations were;  KQW in San Jose California, WGY in Schenectady New York, KGFX in Pierre South Dakota, and KDKA in Pittsburgh, absent some university experimental stations and a couple that did Morse Code transmissions only.  Early radio, moreover, until the 1920s, was practically a hobby type of deal and a person depending upon radio, where there was radio, for the news would have been a rather optimistic person.

So, no radio, not television, no Internet.  The newspaper was it.

So if you relied upon a paper like the early ones in Douglas, you'd know that the State Fair was doing well, how local events were going, and that Miss. Barbara Jean Romperoom visited her aunt Tille for three days before returning to Chicago.

You wouldn't have been aware that the Germans were knocking on the door of Paris.

You'd be doing better if you read the Casper paper, after wading through the Oil!, Oil! Oil! hysteria, but not as well as you would have been if you were reading the Cheyenne paper.

Which maybe you were.

 No really cheerful news on the cover of this Easter addition of the Cheyenne State Leader.

Newspapers being so important at the time, traveled. Indeed they did well into the 1980s.  When I was a kid you could buy the Cheyenne Tribune Eagle, the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, every day, from newsstands, in Casper.  Now you sure can't.  Indeed the Rocky Mountain News doesn't even exist, having been bought out by the less impressive Denver Post.

Now, in 1918, they couldn't have trucked the paper up from Denver and Cheyenne every day early in the morning, but they could have put them on the train and I suspect they did, at least with the Cheyenne paper. That is, I suspect that sometime that day, or the next day, a reader in Casper was able to pick up the Cheyenne papers.  I didn't know that for sure, but that was the general practice of the day.  It's no accident that the really major newspapers in Wyoming were all on the Union Pacific.  So I'd guess that perhaps the Cheyenne papers, if they didn't come overnight (and they may have) arrived late that day or the next and were available at newsstands, which did exist at the time.  Indeed, one such stand existed in the "lobby" of my office building, which had gone up in 1917, at a stand that also sold cigars. Don't they all?

  The office.  It had a newsstand and cigar shop in the small lobby originally.  Another cigar shop that sold papers for many years was just on the corner.

So my guess is that if you lived on a rail line, you were probably able to pick up the Cheyenne papers, and maybe the Denver papers, if perhaps on a day late basis.

So, let's get back to the day.

Chances are that you picked up the daily paper (there were two different ones, maybe you picked up both) from your front step about 5:00 a.m., assuming the local paper published on Sunday, which not all of them did.   You likely read it as you waited to go to Church.  If you are Catholic or Orthodox, you didn't eat anything as you couldn't break the Sunday morning fast.  Indeed, if you were Orthodox, and there were some Greek Orthodox in this region at the time, you were in an interesting situation as your faith had no church and, at that time, no pastor.  As a rule, you went to the Catholic Church instead, although perhaps a traveling Priest would come up next weekend for Orthodox Easter, which was a week behind that year.  If so, he'd use the Catholic Church for his Easter service.

Of course if you were Catholic or Orthodox, and you had a resident pastor, you could have gone the night prior to the Easter Vigil and you may have well done so. Given as that's the preference for my family, I'll assume that would have also been the case in 1918.  If that was the case, I'd be firing up the cook stove for coffee.  If you are a President, and had no pre service fast, you likely would have done that anyhow.

So, I'd fire up the cook stove and boil coffee, probably before anyone was up, put out the dog, and wait for other people to get up. I know that I'd have to wake my wife up, as she has a long standing tradition of Easter morning minor gifts that have replaced hidden eggs as the kids have grown older.  This year, that is 1918, it'd be sad and worrisome of course, as it'd be unlikely that our son would be here.

If I felt energetic, maybe I'd start breakfast.  I don't see us going out for breakfast in 1918, although that was just as much of an option in most places as it is in 2018. Frankly, I've never liked eating out after Church on Sunday mornings as I feel that it sort of occupies a lot of time involving sitting around eating a lot more then I normally would.  I'd have likely felt that way then.  My wife and my late mother, I'd note, feel very much differently so who knows.

So, at some point, I'd have read the local news.  Me being who I am, if the Cheyenne papers came in by train in the morning, at some point in the morning I'd have likely fired up the Model T, which would likely have acquired, and driven downtown to the station to buy one.

 A 1910 manufacture Ford Model T in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Model Ts had been out for fifteen years by this time and were becoming quite common.

And so, as a newspaper reading person, what would we have learned and have known that Easter of 1918?

Well, what we would have known is that the Allies were in serious trouble.  We'd have been constantly reading this pat week of a massive German offensive that was throwing the British, against whom it seemed primarily aimed, back.   We'd have also know that the Germans had resorted to the shocking measure of shelling Parish with some new huge long range artillery.  Every recent issue of the newspapers would have asserted that the Germans were slowing down and would soon be thrown back, but it sure hadn't happened yet.

We would have also seen it claimed (and not terribly accurately, we'll note) that the Americans were taking a role in the fighting, although we would also have seen that just a couple of days ago Pershing volunteered to deploy US troops to the fighting, which wouldn't have made a lot of sense if they were actually fighting already.

And that might have caused us a lot of concern if we had a relative in the Army, let alone if we had a son in the Army.

And if we were in that position, we might know more about the status of the Army in March 1918 than the average paper reader who was reading about our "Sammies", as the press oddly called them.

If you were in that position, your son (or other relatives) would have ended up in the Army one of three ways.  They could have been 1) drafted; or 2) joined the Army prior to the draft taking over everything; or 3) they could have been in the National Guard.

Indeed, they could have been in the National Guard even if they hadn't been until after war was declared.

That's actually an oddity that can still occur, and it was quite common in 1917.  For that matter, while a little different, quite a few men joined the National Guard in 1940 after it had been mobilized for the emergency.  There were strong incentives to do so as it allowed you to serve with people you knew, where you were from.  And in 1917, when the Guard was called back up, after having been demobilized from the Punitive Expedition's border service, the tradition that carried over from the Civil War of mustering state units was still sufficient strong that the states were raising Guard units as state units that were larger than their peacetime establishment.  Indeed, Wyoming not only called back up the infantrymen who had recently been on the Mexican border, but added new infantrymen to them, and planned on trying to raise an entire regiment of cavalry.  It didn't get that far with the cavalry, however.

Men who had been drafted after war was declared and also men who had volunteered were still in training all over the United States. But many prewar regulars and some National Guardsmen were already in France, undergoing training there.  Those infantrymen had gone to Camp Greene, North Carolina as the 3d Infantry Regiment, Wyoming National Guard.  At Camp Greene, however, they were soon converted into part of the 148th Field Artillery, as artillery, and the 116th Ammunition Train of the 41st Division.  The 41st had been established just five days before the declaration of war and it as an all National Guard division.  The 148th Field Artillery was an artillery unit made up of National Guardsmen from the Rocky Mountain region, only some of whom had been artillerymen before the war.  Conversion of the Wyoming infantrymen into artillerymen spoke highly of them, as artillery was a considerably more complicated role than infantry.  Conversion of the remainder into the 116th Ammunition Train spoke to their experience with horses and freighting, both of which were a necessary element of that role.

The 41st had already gone to France and it had been one of the five U.S. Divisions sent over by this time.  However, it met with bad luck when the SS Tuscania was sunk on February 5, as the men on it were of the 41st.  We earlier dealt with that disaster here:

SS Tuscania Sunk, February 5, 1918.

SS Tuscania

The first US troops ship to be sunk during World War One, the SS Tuscania, went down due to German torpedos launched by the UB-77.  210 lives were lost.

It was only briefly dealt with in the local papers, and no doubt not much was known at the time, but some of the passengers on the Tuscania were Wyoming Guardsmen.  I don't know if any of them went down with her.  By March 31, anyone with relatives who died when the ship sank knew it.  Wyoming Guardsmen definitely witnessed the sinking from a nearby vantage.

Gen. Pershing only had five divisions of men in France, all trained, but he needed a source of immediate replacements.  The 41st Division became that source.  Units of unique value, like artillery, were taken out of it wholesale.  The 148th was equipped there with French 155mm guns, large artillery pieces, and also equipped with French artillery tractors.  They thereby became highly mobile, highly modern, heavy field artillery and were soon to be split out of the 41st in that role, if they hadn't been already.  The 116th Ammunition Train, however, went to Tours with the rest of the 41st and waited there to be pieced out as replacements, a sad end to the division.

French 155 GPF gun. This is the same type of artillery piece used by the Wyoming National Guard during World War One. They had not yet fired their first shot in anger.  A version of this gun would serve alongside a more modern 155 all the way through 1945.

You'd be unlikely to know much about that, however, unless you had letters home that might raise the question.  And they might.  If your son or loved one was an artilleryman, you might have had a hint about the fate of the Tuscania and that the unit was training with French artillery pieces.  If your son was in the 116th Ammunition train you might have received a disappointing letter from Tours.

You'd be worried either way as the papers were full of reports about Americans going into action, which wasn't happening much yet.

Well all that would be pretty grim to think about for Easter, wouldn't have it been?

Well, sometime mid day we'd likely gather for an Easter Dinner with relatives. Chances are really good that it'd feature ham, but that ham would likely be boiled ham.

You've likely never had boiled ham.  I never have.  But I recall my father speaking about it and he wasn't a huge fan. Boiling drove off the salt that was part of the curative brine and it took quite awhile.  Of course there's be other good foods as well, including likely pie.

My guess is that there's be beer too.  Maybe wine. And perhaps some whiskey.

The day would likely wrap up about 5:00 p.m. or so, and then back home. Back home would probably entail some reading, and some worrying as well.  If you are like me, that would entail worrying about the next days work, but it surely would have entailed worrying about what was going on over in France.

1933 Congress authorized the Civilian Conservation Corps.

1942  Tim McCoy, Western actor and Wyoming, announced his candidacy for the U. S. Senate.  His campaign would not be a successful one and he entered the Army for the second time after losing in the primary.

1961  Detroit Transits Wyoming Terminal reopened as a bus terminal.

2004  Financial considerations caused the Wyoming Territorial Prison Corporation to cease operations.  The old State Prison would be transferred to the State's parks department the following day.

2016   Coal layoffs and Northwest Wyoming
 

Peabody Coal Company, the world's largest coal producer, and Arch Coal have announced layoffs in the Gillette area which amount to a combined 450 jobs lost.  And the losses won't stop there.  With that many jobs lost the local economy in Campbell County will be undoubtedly impacted.  Additionally, a loss of that many jobs clearly indicates big changes in operations at the mines themselves, and the energy infrastructure in Campbell County, which is what the economy of the county is based on, will be hit.  It's unlikely, therefore that the job losses will stop there.

This is a rim news for the area economy.  And for the state.  School funding is principally based on the coal severance tax.  Without ongoing major coal production, the schools are in big trouble.

Moreover, this may reflect such a major shift in the economics of coal that there may never be a return to its former position in the economy, either nationally or locally.  Wyomingites have been quick, in some quarters, to blame regulation and the current Administration for coal's demise.  One of the interviewed miners blamed the event on regulation and expressed the thought that things wold turn around under a new Presidential administration.  Our Superintendent of Public Instruction mentioned budget problems, in a recent op-ed, as being due to "the war on coal".  But people shouldn't fool themselves.  This likely represents a shift so deep in the economics and culture of coal that current events show an existential change much deeper than merely a current White House discontent with it. 

Indeed, even twenty years ago I was told by an energy company executive that "coal is dead".  I was surprised by his view at the time, but he was quite definite in his views.  But he was expressing an energy sector long term view, at that time, that coal wouldn't survive a switch to other forms of power generation.  Ironically natural gas, of which North America has a vast abundance, has really eaten into the coal market and that's not going to change.  Power plants take years to build and years to permit.  Coal fired plants are being built, they're being retired.  This not only won't change overnight, it won't change at all.  The coal industry itself pinned its hopes on the Chinese market, which uses a lot of coal, but China also has a lot of coal.  The Chinese economy is in the doldrums right now, and that will likely change, but when it does the question is whether China will enter an economic period mirroring Japan's long endured slow economy, or change to a more growth oriented but volatile economy like North America's and Europe's.  And a bigger question is whether China, which is under pressure from much of the rest of the world on emissions, will itself move away from coal.  It hasn't so far, but there's no guaranty that it will not.  Coal, to the extent it retains any popularity (and that's little outside of the coal producing states), is popular only in the US and China.  Indeed, in some areas of the US it is now so unpopular that efforts to ship coal by sea to China were opposed in Pacific maritime states, something that had not been worked out at the time the local coal producers went into this slump.

So chances are high that this is a sea change, not a downturn.  And if it is, it's one that has huge implications for the state.  The state didn't deal with them in the last Legislature, or even really discuss dealing with them. By the next one it will have no choice.

Elsewhere:

1879  Governor Lew Wallace asks for the Federal Government to declare martial law in Lincoln County, New Mexico.

1916  Battle of Aqua Caliente.

1924   Monday, March 31, 1924. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (actually III) and the Teapot Dome Affair, Making Working Girls Homeless, and the Start of the Fishing Season.

Democrats were attacking Theodore Roosevelt, Jr's supposed role in Teapot Dome.  This Theodore Roosevelt was serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, that position now effectively being a Roosevelt one, with he being the third Roosevelt to occupy it.

Too many "girls" were occupying boarding houses on West A, B, and 1st Streets, which was causing the Casper Police Chief to counsel against allowing more boarding houses and to close the existing ones.

Without really detailing the article, what the Chief meant was that there were too many working girls in the Sandbar District for effective policing.

Dr. Morad was robbed at gunpoint.

The houses were closed, Casper's other paper noted:

Casper was not a nice town.

The police effort against the working girls in the 20s would fail.  It would take at least into the 1950s to really make a dent in the trade they occupied in the Sandbar, and it was finally shut down when an urban renewal project in the 1970s.

The Herald carried advertisements noting the opening of fishing season.

Wyoming doesn't have a fishing season per se now.  You can fish all year around.  Apparently, at the time, fishing opened on April 1.

A big difference between then and now is the extensive Wyoming Game and Fish hatchery system.  It existed in 1924, but it's been much expanded.

Money for a fish hatchery was first appropriated by the legislature in 1895.  I don't know if one was built at the time, but the oldest continually operating one in the state is the Story Fish Hatchery, which was built in 1909.

1939  Britain and France issue guarantees that they will declare war if Poland is invaded by Nazi Germany.

March 30

1889  Butch Cassidy participates in a bank robbery in Denver with the McCarty brothers.

1891  The Shoshone National Forest was set aside by President Benjamin Harrison as the Yellowstone Park Timberland Reserve.

1909. On this day, the U.S. Army abandoned Ft. Washakie. The post had previously been also known as Camp Brown and Camp Augar.. The post had lately been a 9th Cavalry post.

The facilities for the post remain in large part today, having gone over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Ft. Washakie, the town, is the seat of government for the Wind River Indian Reservation. The structures provide good examples of the period stone construction used by the Army at that time.

Ft. Washakie during a visit by President Arthur in 1883.

Some former cavalry structures at Ft. Washakie now in use as industrial or storage buildings.

1915  A quarantine on Wyoming livestock was put in place due to an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1916  The Punitive Expedtion: The Casper Daily Press, March 30, 1916
 

1917   Colorado criminalizes marijuana 
 

On this day in 1917 Colorado's legislature passed a bill that criminalized marijuana.  The act passed on this date stated:

An act to declare unlawful the planting, cultivating, harvesting, drying, curing, or preparation for sale or gift of cannabis sativa, and to provide a penalty therefore.

Section 1. Any person who shall grow or use cannabis sativa (also known as cannabis indica, Indian hemp and marijuana) that he has grown shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction shall be punished by a fine of not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail not more than thirty days, or by both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court.

The bill was in part inspired by the civil war in Mexico.  It was being asserted that Pancho Villa funded his Division del Norte in part through the sale of cannabis. Whether this is true or not, marijuana was not unknown by any means in Mexico and it shows up even in music of the period at least to the extent that it features in the Mexican Revolution ballad La Cucaracha.  The bill was introduced in Colorado by a Hispanic legislator from one of Colorado's southern counties which were and are predominately Hispanic in culture and where there was  strong desire to disassociate themselves from Mexican refugees, including any assertion that they might approve of the use of the drug.

Colorado was not the first state to address marijuana statutorily.  At least California (1907), Massachusetts (1911), New York (1914), Maine (1914), and Wyoming (1915) had.  Colorado was one of the states that enacted the prohibition of alcohol by that time and therefore not acting on marijuana would have been odd under the circumstances.  It had already been addressed by Federal law to some extent at that time.

There's a certain irony in this, I suppose, in that Colorado is now a pioneer in a national movement that has seen several states decriminalize marijuana, although the irony would be diminished if the entire matter is considered in the context of its times.  It remains subject to Federal penalties, something that has seemingly been lost in the discussion of this topic, and there is no sign that this will change any time soon.  The Federal government, however, seems to have basically stopped enforcing the law on the Federal level for the time being, although that could change at any moment.

Circling back to Colorado, while often not noted in the discussion on this, Denver Colorado has provided a big test of the impact of the change in the law, and not in a good way.  Almost any casual observer who is familiar with Denver over time has noted the impact of the change and Denver, which has had a fairly large homeless population for decades now has a larger, but rather weedy one.  Open begging downtown for cash for marijuana is now common, and encounters with stoned younger people who are part of a marijuana culture will occur at some point if a person spends any time downtown at all.  All of this is the type of discussion that does not tend to occur, for some reason, in discussions over the monetary impacts of the change or on the degree to which the substance itself is dangerous or how dangerous it is.

1917  The Cheyenne State Leader for March 30, 1917: Guardsmen mobilzing at Ft. D. A. Russell.

 

Ft. D. A. Russell was being used for Guard mobilization this time.  It hadn't been a year prior for the Punitive Expedition.

The Wyoming Tribune for March 30, 1917: Germans spur Mexican outlaw murder?

 

Mexico remained on the front pages even with the US on the eve of war, this time once again in association with the Germans.

1918  Lex Anteinternet: The Kaiserschlacht Commences. Operation Michael. The First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux and the Battle of Moreuil Wood
 

Lex Anteinternet: The Kaiserschlacht Commences. Operation Michael

 The First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux and the Battle of Moreuil Wood

On March 30 the Germans none the less tried again, launching an assault south of the new Somme salient towards Amiens resulting in two significant battles, one of which is very well recalled today.  The Germans gained some ground but it was slight, and German troops lost discipline when they hit Allied supply depots.

The resumed German offensive opened up near the town of Le Hamel but was turned back, although the Germans took ground near the Hangard Wood.  This resulted in a five day pause in the German effort in this location until they resumed their attack towards the town of Villers-Bretonneux.  The French fell back upon the German resumed attack but British and Australian troops generally held well but were ultimately forced to retire due to a two stage retreat by the 14th (Light) Division. which ultimately fell back some 3500 yards to a new position.  Australian troops restored the line and counterattacked, pushing the Germans back out of the town.  This was followed up by flanking advances by British cavalry and Australian infantry which consolidated the line for the time being.

This phase of the German offensive also saw the remarkable Canadian cavalry charge in the Battle of Moreuil Wood in which the Canadian Cavalry Brigade conducted a mounted assault near the village of Moreuil, taking the wood against the prediction of failure of a nearby French unit, receiving assistance from the RFC in the assault.  The Germans retook the wood the following day, March 31, but the Canadians then took it back. The Germans ultimately retook the wood, showing the intense nature of the fighting, but the overall offensive was called off shortly after that.  Operation Michael had gained a lot of ground, but it had ground to a halt.  By April 5 the Germans were exhausted and an effort to resume the offensive against the British failed.

 The charge at Moreuil Wood.

1943  Lead by legendary UW basketball player Kenny Sailors, UW beat Georgetown 46 to 34 in Madison Square Gardens.  Sailors would enter the Marine Corps as an officer at the conclusion of that year.  UW would suspend basketball due to the war after that year.  Sailors eventually became a hunting guide in in Alaska, but returned to Wyoming in his old age, where he still lives, following the death of his wife.

1952  The ICC approved the abandonment of the Wyoming Railway between Clearmont and Buffalo.

2003  Teno Roncolio, Wyoming Congressman, and the last Democrat to have occupied that office, died in Cheyenne.

2009  The Wyoming Range Legacy Act signed into law by President Obama. 

2016  President Obama commuted the sentence of Angela  LaPlatney and 61 other prisoners.  She was a Casper resident who was sentenced to 20 years for possession of illegal drugs with the intent to sell the same and for hiding a man who was subject to a felony charge.  Her sentence will now end on July 28.  President Obama has commuted a large number of sentences during his time in office.

2016  Wyoming was hit by a massive Spring snowstorm that shut down much of the state, including offices in Cheyenne and, ironically, Casper's ski area.