How To Use This Site




How To Use This Site


This blog was updated on a daily basis for about two years, with those daily entries ceasing on December 31, 2013. The blog is still active, however, and we hope that people stopping in, who find something lacking, will add to the daily entries.

The blog still receives new posts as well, but now it receives them on items of Wyoming history. That has always been a feature of the blog, but Wyoming's history is rich and there are many items that are not fully covered here, if covered at all. Over time, we hope to remedy that.

You can obtain an entire month's listings by hitting on the appropriate month below, or an individual day by hitting on that calendar date.
Use 2013 for the search date, as that's the day regular dates were established and fixed.

Alternatively, the months are listed immediately below, with the individual days appearing backwards (oldest first).

We hope you enjoy this site.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

September 24

1906   The First US National Monument, Devils Tower, was designated by President Theodore Roosevelt.

1911  Governor Richards daughter and son in law murdered at Richards' Red Banks ranch on the Nowood.

1916   Cheyenne Sunday State Leader for September 24, 1916: Guard awaits order to move to border
 

This story was repeating itself by this time, but the State's National Guard was expecting orders to move out.

Meanwhile, Army camps were proving to encourage theft, a common story, as it was found that National Guard items were making their way from Camp Kendrick to Cheyenne.
  
1918 

The Influenza Epedemic Abating? The Casper Daily Tribune, September 24, 1918.


The horrible disaster of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic was just starting to hit the front pages of Wyoming newspapers and here it's reported as abating.

Technically, it might have been. The flu had valleys and peaks, the epidemic rose and fell and then rose again.  It might actually have been in a declining state, but far from gone, in September 1918.

And a call went out for fruit pits to help counter poison gas. . . 
1919  Woodrow Wilson spoke in Cheyenne as part of his nationwide tour in support of the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles.

September 24, 1919. President Wilson in Cheyenne.


The Cheyenne State Leader lead with Wilson's arrival, also noting that the first vote didn't look promising for the League of Nations.

On this day in 1919, Woodrow Wilson, touring in support of the Versailles Treaty arrived in and was greeted by the City of Cheyenne.

The Laramie Boomerang noted the President had in fact been in Laramie and at about the time it had predicted the day prior.  But he only remained in town for ten minutes and chose not to make a middle of the night speech.

He was in Laramie first, where he did not speak. But he did acknowledge the crowed in the early morning hours.


Cheyenne gave the touring President a big welcome, as had other cities he'd been in.

Casper's paper got the time wrong.  Note the use of Simplified Spelling for Cheyenne, which was a movement at the time.

Wilson was only 63 years old, but he looked older, worn down by the the burdens of his Presidency, and this schedule was grueling and soon to prove too taxing.

His next stop was Pueblo, Colorado.

1937  President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered an address from the back of a train in Thermopolis.  He would travel through Cheyenne and Casper on the same day.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Monday, September 23, 2013

September 23

1806     The Corps of Discovery returned to St. Louis.

1897  Cheyenne Frontier Days held for the first time.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1918   The Global Collapse of the Central Powers. The news of September 23, 1918
 
Because we've been dealing mostly with the American effort in France, we've ceased keeping readers here up to date on other theatres.  If we did, this would read as an even lengthier treatise than it already risks becoming.

But there was a lot going on.  Specifically, in the Macedonian Front the Central Powers were going into a headlong collapse. . . as were the Turks in the Middle East where some pronounced mounted warfare was gaining significant advances.



One of Cheyenne's papers, remarkably up to date (as many of these World War One papers were, they were on time and pretty close to being on target, frequently), was reporting the Serbs gaining ground against the Austro Hungarians and the collapse of the Turks.  It also noted that the Russian Whites had exhumed the bodies of the Czar and his family and reinterred them.

William Jennings Bryan, received the cold shoulder in Cheyenne.

And, yes, once again, there was a clash on the Mexican border.


In Laramie readers of one of the town's two local papers also learned about the events in the Middle East.  In spite of what would seem to have been the obvious signs of a complete Central Powers collapse, the paper noted that the planning was for the war to go on into 1919, which was universally believed among the Allies.

And snow was coming to high altitude Laramie. . .


Casper readers of one of Casper's two papers found a really busy front page.  Events in Macedonia lead the headlines but the Turk's fate figured prominently as well.

The clash on the Mexican border and the exhumation of the Czar and his family also figured prominently and Casperites were informed that men were going to be released from non essential industries so that they could go into the Army.  Their place would be taken by women.

And the Casper paper reported that Catholic Archbishop John Ireland was in failing health and likely to pass away.  Ireland was a towering figure at the time.

1919  September 23, 1919. Trips and foreign lands.
President Wilson, travelling on the Union Pacific was planning stops for Wyoming towns along the way, and the press was reporting on them a day ahead of his scheduled arrival.


Wilson, as we've noted here already, was making a hectic tour across the United States in support of the Versailles Treaty.  On this day, he delivered speeches in Ogden and Salt Lake City Utah, before traveling on to Wyoming. The Laramie Boomerang noted it, with that "1:50" time being 1:50 a.m., very early in the morning.  In other words, after leaving Utah, he was traveling through Wyoming in the evening and nighttime hours.


One of the Cheyenne papers noted that children wouldn't be allowed at the event.

We haven't checked in on the world scene here for awhile, and we'd note that while President Wilson was touring in support of a treaty that he was confident would end wars, wars were raging, including a war in Turkey. The Red Cross was still active there.

"On the road - Sept. 23, 1919 - near Kurds' camp after being fired upon--Col. beeuwkes attending the sick".  LoC title.

And while the President was away, Congress remained in session.

Arizona Senator  Henry F. Ashurst.  I don't know much about Ashurst but I've linked this both for the reason that the photo was taken on this day in 1919, and for the dress he is affecting.  It's common to depict Western Senators dressed in a Western fashion, and Ashurst here has affected a fairly typical and even modern style of cowboy hat to go with his Edwardian suit.  Note the extremely high waistline however, and the stiff collar.

While Woodrow Wilson was traveling, Walt Wallet was cleaning up due to the recent Gasoline Alley gang camping trip.



1933  Geologist employed by Standard Oil set foot in Saudi Arabia.  This may not seem like part of Wyoming's history, but it sure is.  Nothing about the oil industry has been the same since.

Wyoming had been an oil province since the 1890s, with refineries operating in the state as early as that decade. The massive Arabian Peninsula did not occur until 1932, when in occurred in Bahrain.  Standard Oil would not discover oil in Saudi Arabia until 1938.  The presence of oil, however, was significant enough to cause the British, who were strongly tied to the region, to switch their naval vessels over to oil for fuel, rather than remain with coal. American vessels were already oil burning, given massive US oil resources.  None the less, US resources were not so significant that the US could avoid becoming an oil exporting nation, with much of that oil coming from the Middle East.  Having said that, the trend has started to reverse in recent years with oil imports declining.

1960  Senator John F. Kennedy, Presidential candidate, spoke in Cheyenne.  His speech stated:
My friend and colleague, Senator McGee, your distinguished Governor, Governor Hickey, Secretary of State Jack Gage, your State Chairman, Teno Roncalio, your National Committeeman, Tracy McCraken and Mrs. McCraken; your next United States Senator, Ray Whitaker, your next United States Congressman, Hep Armstrong, ladies and gentlemen: I first of all want to express on behalf of my sister and myself my great gratitude to all of you for being kind enough to have this breakfast and make it almost lunch. (Laughter) I understand from Tracy that some of you have driven nearly three or four hundred miles to be here this morning. Yesterday morning we were in Iowa, and since that time we have been in five states, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Colorado, and now Wyoming. We have come, therefore, all of us, great distances, and I think we have come great distances since the Democratic Convention at Los Angeles. I know that Wyoming is a small state, relatively, but it is a fact that Wyoming, which was not talked about as a key state in the days before the convention, when they were talking about what California and what Pennsylvania and what New York, and Illinois would do at the convention, not very many people talked about what Wyoming would do, and yet, as you know Wyoming did it.
So you can expect in other days, other candidates, will all be coming here. I don't know whether it is going to be that close in November. I don't know whether Mr. Nixon and I will be three votes apart, but it is possible we will be. If so, Wyoming having gotten us this far, we would like to have you take us the rest of the way on November 8. (Applause)
My debt of gratitude, therefore, to everyone in this room and everyone at the head table, goes very deep. As Gail said, I have been to this state five times. My brother, Teddy, has been here ten times, and I think that the Kennedys have a high regard and affection for the State of Wyoming

Bobby has been here, I guess, several times. We have been here more than we have been to New York State. I don't know what the significance is, but in any case, I am delighted to be back here this morning. (Applause) I am delighted to be here because this is an important election, and because Wyoming elects not only a President of the United States this year, but it elects a United States Senator and a Congressman. The Electoral College and the organization of the states is an interesting business. New York has 15 million people, Wyoming has 300,000 people; you have one Congressman, they have many Congressmen – you have more than that? (Laughter) Odd people? Well, they have a few in New York, I guess. (Laughter) But in any case, you have two Senators and New York has two Senators. This causes a great deal of heartburn in New York but it should be a source of pride and satisfaction to you that when Wyoming votes, it votes the same number of United States Senators as the State of New York, and the State of Massachusetts, and the State of California. All states are equal, and, therefore, the responsibility on the people of Wyoming is to make sure that they send members to the United States Senate who speak not only for Wyoming, who serve not only as ambassadors from this state, but also speak for the United States and speak for the public interest, and that, I think has been the contribution which Senator O'Mahoney has made to the United States Senate and Gail McGee now makes. They speak for this state, they speak for its interests, they speak for its development, they speak for its needs, but they also speak for the country. And, therefore, our system works, and Wyoming and the United States flourish together
I think we have a chance to carry on that tradition. To send as a successor to Senator O'Mahoney, who grew up in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and who saw the wisdom and came west, I think we have a chance to carry on that tradition when you elect Ray Whitaker as United States Senator next November 8.
Actually, as you know, the Constitution of the Untied States confines and limits the power of Senators. We are given the right to approve Presidential nominations, and to ratify treaties. But the House of Representatives is given the two great powers which are the hallmark of a self-governing society: One, the power to appropriate money, and the second is the power to levy taxes. If you don't like the way your taxes are, if you don't like the way your money is being spent, write to the House of Representatives, not to the United States Senate, because our powers and responsibilities are somewhat different. Therefore in sending a man to fulfill these two functions, we want a man of responsibility and competence and energy. I therefore am sure that the people of this state will send to the House of Representatives to share in the great constitutional powers given to that body, Hep Armstrong, with whom I served in the Navy and hope to serve in the Government of the United States next November.
During this campaign, there are many efforts made to divide domestic and foreign problems and I don't hold that view. I think there is a great interrelationship between the problems which face us here in the United States and the problems which face us around the world. I think if the United States is moving ahead here at home the United States power and prestige in the world will be strong. If we are standing still here at home, then we stand still around the world. I think in other words, as Gail McGee suggested, that the 14 points of Woodrow Wilson were the logical extension of the New Freedom here in the United States. (Applause) And the Good Neighbor Policy of Franklin Roosevelt had its counterpart in his domestic policy of the New Deal. And the Marshall Plan and NATO and the Truman Doctrine carried out in foreign policy under the administration of Harry Truman and Point IV, all had their logical extension in the domestic policy of President Truman here in the United States. I say that because I think that there is a direct relationship between the efforts that we make here in the Sixties, here in the West, here in the State of Wyoming, here in the United States, and what we do around the world.
Two days ago I spent the day in Tennessee. I think that there is a direct relationship between what was done in the Tennessee Valley by Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Party in the Thirties, and what other countries in Africa and the Middle East and Asia are attempting to do to develop their own natural resources. I stand and you stand today in the middle of the Great Plains of the United States. There are great plains in Africa, and in my judgment Africa will be one of the keys to the future. The people of Africa want to develop their resources. They want to develop their resources of the great plains of Africa and they look to see what to do here to develop the resources, of the Great Plains of the United States.
I don't think that there can be any greater disservice to the cause of the United States and the cause of freedom than for any political party at this watershed of history to put forward a policy for developing the resources of the United States of no new starts. I don't say that we can do everything in the Sixties, but I say we can move and start and go ahead, and I think it is that spirit which separates our two parties.
I come from Massachusetts, but it is a source of satisfaction and pride that the two Americans who did more to develop the resources of the West both came from New York, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt, and they did it because they saw it not as a state problem, not as a regional problem, but as a national opportunity, and it is in that spirit that I look to the future of the Great Plains of the United States in the Sixties.
We are going to have over 300 million people living in this country in the year 2000. Many of them will live in this state. We are going to have to make sure that we pass on to our children a country which is using natural resources given to us by the Lord to the maximum; that every drop of water that flows to the ocean first serves a useful and beneficial purpose; that the resources of the land are used, whether it is agriculture or whether it is oil or minerals; that we move ahead here in the West and move ahead here in the United States. I think that there is a direct relationship between the policy of no new starts in developing our water and power resources, and irrigation and reclamation and conservation, and the fact that our agricultural income has dropped so sharply in the United States in recent years, and the fact that we are using our steel capacity 50 per cent of capacity. Pittsburgh, Wyoming, Montana, Wisconsin are all tied together. A rising tide lifts all the boats. If we are moving ahead here in the West, if we are moving ahead in agriculture, if we are moving ahead in industry, if we have an administration that looks ahead, then the country prospers. But if one section of the country is strangled, if one section of the country is standing still, then sooner or later a dropping tide drops all the boats, whether the boats are in Boston or whether they are in this community.
I can assure you that if we are successful that we plan to move ahead as a national administration, with the support of the Congress, in using and developing the resources which our country has. This is a struggle, not only for a better standard of living for our people, but it is also a showcase. As Edmund Burke said about England in his day, "We sit on a conspicuous stage", what we do here, what we fail to do, affects the cause of freedom around the world. Therefore, I can think of no more sober obligation on the next administration and the next President and the next Congress than to move ahead in this country, develop our resources, prevent the blight which is going to stain the development of the West unless we make sure that everything that we have here is used usefully for our people.
The Tennessee Valley in Tennessee, the Northwest Power Development, the resources of Wyoming, all harnessed together, the Missouri River, the Columbia River, the Mississippi River, the Tennessee River - all of them harnessed together serve as a great network of strength, a stream of strength in this country which is going to be tested to its utmost. So I come here today not saying that the future is easy, but saying that the future can be bright. I don't take the view that everything that is being done is being done to the maximum. I think the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats in 1960 is that we both think it is a great country, but we think it must be greater. We both think it is a powerful country, but we think it must be more powerful. We both think it stands as the sentinel at the gate for freedom, but we think we can do a better job. I think that has been true of our party ever since the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, and I think we can do a job in the Sixties.
I have asked Senator Magnuson, who is the Chairman of our Resources Advisory Committee, to hold a conference on resources and mineral use here in the City of Casper in the State of Wyoming during the coming weeks, because I think we should identify ourselves in the coming weeks with the kind of programs we are going to carry out in January. If there is any lesson which history has taught of the administrations of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, it is the essentiality of previous planning for successful action by a new administration. Unless we decide now what we are going to do in January, February, March and April, if we should be successful, we will fail to use the golden time which the next administration will have. I come here today speaking not for Wyoming or Massachusetts, but speaking for a national party which believes in the future of our country, which will devote its energies to building its strength, and by building our strength here we build the cause of freedom around the world. Thank you.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

September 22

1869  The Territorial Governor issued a proclamation that the Territorial Legislative Assembly was to convene for the first time on October 12 of that year.

1890  Emancipation Day celebrated by African Americans in Cheyenne.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1920  Plans were announced to build a petroleum pipeline to the refinery in Riverton.  Riverton no longer has a refinery. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1922  Saturday, Sepember 22, 1923. Henning Hotel Robbed.

A major raid in Chicago on speakeasies resulted in the jails being filled to capacity.

Crime was a major story in Casper as well:


And the Governor of Oklahoma caught a dragon.

The Navy's ZR-1 dirigible flew over Washington, D. C.








1934  The self-declared "World Famous" Wonder Bar opens in Casper.

1937  A forest fire near Cody killed 14 and injured 50.Attribution.  On This Day.

1939  Michael John Sullivan was born in Omaha.  He was the 29th Governor of the State, serving from 1987 to 1995, and was later the US Ambassador to Ireland under President Clinton.

1945   Gov. Lester Hunt proclaimed “American Indian Day.”  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1951     Jacob Horner, the last 7th Cavalry veteran of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, died.  Horner, a private, had been left behind in the rear as he lacked a mount.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

September 21

1890   It was reported that every county in the state elected a female school superintendent.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1897     The New York Sun ran an editorial that answered a question from 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon: "Is there a Santa Claus?"  Suffice it to say, this annually run article was run a bit earlier in the year than generally supposed.

1904   Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph dies on the Colville reservation in northern Washington at the age of 64.

1909  Municipal natural gas service starts in Basin. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1916   The Cheyenne Leader for September 21, 1916. State Troops Expect Orders
 


During this week Wyoming would receive visits from both William Jennings Bryan and Charles Everett Hughes.  Included in the big news, however, was that the Wyoming National  Guard was expected to go to the border.

1917   The Wyoming National Guard had gone to the Mexican boarder as infantry. . . 
 
and they'd been mobilized in 1917 as such as well.


But they wouldn't be going to France as infantry.

Today the news hit that the unit was being disbanded and reformed into artillery, machinegun, and ammunition train units.

I'm  not sure what happened to the machinegun and ammunition train elements, or if those actually happened. They likely did.  I do know, however, that the artillery unit was in fact formed and is strongly associated with the Wyoming Guard during the Great War.

This was not uncommon.  As the Army grew, the Army would be taking a lot of smaller units such as this and reconstituting them as something else. Both Regular Army and Guard units experienced this.

It's hard to know what the men thought of this.  A lot, but not all, had served and trained as infantry just the prior year along the border.  Did they have a strong attachment to it?  Hard to know.  Were some relieved, perhaps, that their role, in some instances, wouldn't involve serving as infantrymen in the trenches?  We don't know that either.

1918   A victory against the Turks . . . and the Flu spreads. Casper Daily Tribune, September 21, 1918.
 

1920  A  committee of Dubois businessmen was formed to support road and other improvement efforts. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Dubois in 1920

Friday, September 20, 2013

September 20

1806  The Corps of Discovery entered La Charette, the first American controlled settlement they had been in since departing over two years earlier.

1858  Camp Walbach established in what is now Laramie County.

1870  Wyoming Library and Literary Association organized.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1873     Panic swept the New York Stock Exchange due to railroad bond and bank failure issues.

1916   The Wyoming Tribune for September 20, 1916: Villa in Chihuahua
 

World War One in the East took the big headline for Cheyenne's other newspaper, but Villa in Chihuahua showed up as well, a couple of days after the other Cheyenne newspaper reported on the raid. This report had a different character, however.

Oil also showed up on the front page, as did a population predication, not the largest from the state's early history, that shows that it was made during a booming economy.  A horse at the sold at auction was celebrated at the Natrona County Fair.

1944 Soldiers from Ft. F. E. Warren collected scrap metal from the Ferris-Haggerty copper mine.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

2006  The Heart Mountain Relocation Center designated a National Historic Landmark.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

September 19

1867  The printing of the Cheyenne Leader shifted from Denver to Cheyenne.  The Leader was the first newspaper to be published in what later would become Wyoming.  Attribution:  On This Day.

The September 19, 1867 Cheyenne Leader.

1890  The Union Pacific issued 50,000 copies of a pamphlet which advertised Wyoming's resources.

Advertising of this type by railroads was very common, and railroads were instrumental in encouraging settlement in Western states in the closing decades of the 19th Century and the opening decades of the 20th Century. Being the only means of transporting goods across the continent at the time, the railroads were strongly interested in encouraging the development and settlement of the West.

Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1900  The Wild Bunch robbed  First National Bank of Winnemucca, Nevada.

1903   William C. Irvine, who was associated with the Invaders in the Johnson County War, was appointed State Treasurer.  Henry G. Hay resigned as State Treasurer on the same day.

1918   The Casper Record: The Spanish Flu appears on the first page. September 19, 1918.
 

World War One was making most of the headlines, but another global disaster that would take millions of lives was making its appearance.  The Spanish Flu was now on Casper's front page.

2010  A 3.6 earthquake occurred near Jackson.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

September 18

1865  John B. Stetson, Philadelphia, supposed invented the cowboy hat.

While Stetson's role in manufacturing and marketing "cowboy hats" was vast, the attribution of the form to him is erroneous.  Broad brimmed felt hats dated back to the Middle Ages and their use in North America long predated the "cowboy hat".  Even in relation to 1865 attributing the form to Stetson is in error.  Use of broad brimmed hats by Frontiersmen in the West was already common by that time, and their use as unofficial military hats became very widespread during the Civil War, reflecting widespread civilian use at the time.

What Stetson really did was to market a form of the hat with a Western attribution. Stetson's early, shallow crowned, 3" brim, hat was called the Boss of the Plains.  That hat was an enormous success with working cowboys and others, and at one time was the predominate form of cowboy hat.  It never supplanted, however, other similar hats, and by the last two decades of the 19th Century many variants of cowboy hats existed, including many that were manufactured by Stetson.

Wyoming cowboys.  The cowboy on the far left appears to be wearing a Boss of the Plains.  The one of the far right wears a Montana  Peak, a style that was popular for many years.  All wear flat brims, curved brims not becoming the norm until the automobile.

While Stetson did not invent the cowboy hat, his name, or rather that of his company, became strongly associated with it.  This was so much the case in some localities that the name "Stetson" became associated with cowboy hats of all types.  For example, the Montana Peak hat adopted by the Canadian army for its forces during the Boer War was simply identified as the "Stetson", which remained the identifier (and  the manufacturer) after the style was adopted by the Northwest Mounted Police. Even today, cowboy hats are called Stetsons in some regions of North America.

Stetson itself never restricted itself to cowboy hats and was a major hat manufacturer in modern times.  Like all hat companies, it has suffered in modern times as hat wearing has declined.  The company still exists today, however, although it is a branch of another company.

More on hats, caps, and history can be found here on our companion site Lex Anteinternet

1870  Old Faithful given that name by members of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition.


1890  Passenger trains collided near Rock Springs, killing one person.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1905   Construction contract awarded for Shoshone dam.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

September 17

Today is U.S. Constitution Day.

1787.  The U.S Constitution completed and signed by a majority of delegates, nearly giving the US it's current constitutional form, and radically altering the form that had existed under the Articles of Confederation.  Concerns over the lack of limits on Federal power would shortly lead to the Bill of Rights, which were a series of early amendments to the Constitution.

1842  Mathew Caldwell Texas' forces defeated a Mexican force under Adrián Woll.

1842  A small Texas force under Captain Nicholas Dawson defeated by a large force of Mexican cavalry.

1843   John W. Meldrum, the first Commissioner of Yellowstone National Park, born in Celdonia New York.

1851  The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was signed between United States treaty commissioners and representatives of the Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Shoshone, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara nations.  Of note, not all of these Tribes were typically at peace amongst themselves. The treaty sets forth traditional territorial claims of the tribes as among themselves, guaranteed safe passage for settlers on the Oregon Trail  and provided for return for an annuity in the amount of fifty thousand dollars for fifty years. It also provided for the establishment of roads and forts on Indian territory.

The United States Senate ratified the treaty but adjust compensation from fifty to ten years. Acceptance of the revisions was forthcoming from all the tribes except the Crow, who ironically were generally regarded as US allies but more accurately were Sioux enemies. was procured.

This treaty should properly be regarded as a failure.  Not all of the promised payments were forthcoming.  The payments, while not at all unsubstantial by 19th Century standards, were likely not well understood by the intended recipients.  The general acceptance of the Indian tribes was questionable to a degree, as the ability of any one group of delegates to ratify anything for an entire Tribe was questionable.  The United States failed to accurately gauge the degree of Western movement that would occur in the 1850s and 1860s, as it could not have predicted the impact of gold strikes in the West and then the mass emigration caused by the Civil War, so it was completely ineffectual in restricting emigration to the Oregon Trail.

1851  Ordinance Sgt Leodogar Schynder appointed Garrison Postmaster at Ft. Laramie.  Schnyder served more years at Ft. Laramie,  37 than any other enlisted soldier, during his 53 years in the Army.

1865   Sergeant Charles L. Thomas of Company E, 11th Ohio Cavalry. "Carried a message through a country infested with hostile Indians and saved the life of a comrade en route." which won him the Medal of Honor.  Thomas was with Gen. Connor's Powder River Expedition, in Wyoming, at the time.

What's missed in the official account is that Gen. Patrick Connor called for a volunteer "to go as a scout and find Cole or perish in the attempt."  Thomas volunteered.  Col. Cole, who was hoping for relief, was surrounded with his command the time, as a patrol had revealed.  Sgt. Thomas was to deliver a message back to him, traveling 201 miles alone over a 36 hour period.  Part of the time Thomas was under fire and he actually captured an Indian pony en route and took it along with his own.  He ended up delivering the Indian pony to a soldier of the 2nd Missouri he encountered en route, and took him along the remainder of the way to Cole's camp.

1916   Cheyenne State Leader for September 17, 1916. The Wyoming Guard to the border, and Villas raid on Chihuahua
 

The Wyoming National  Guard is ordered to the border.  On the same day, showing how initial news reports might not be fully accurate, the Villista raid on Chihuahua was reported as a defeat, when in reality, it was not.  A better question would have been how a force that had been down to 400 men just a few weeks prior now had many times that number.

1945  The first classes were held at Casper College.  The college occupied the top floor of Natrona County High School for the first years of its existence.

2001  The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 Attacks, its longest closure since the Great Depression.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Lex Anteinternet: Terrorism. Always with us. (September 16, 1920)

Lex Anteinternet: Terrorism. Always with us.: September 16, 1920. Wall Street.  A horse drawn wagon laden with explosives blew up blew up at noon, killing 38 and injuring 143. Believ...

September 16

 set sail for the New World.

It was at sea for ten weeks, putting in near Cape Cod on November 11, 1620.


1810  Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costillo and several hundred of his parishioners seized the prison at Dolores, Mexico marking the beginning of the first significant Mexican rebellion against Spain.

1811 The  Astorians renamed Seeds-Kee-Dee-Agie (Praire Hen River) the Spanish River.  It would later be renamed the Green River. 

1875  J. C. Penney Jr, founder of J. C. Penny's, which first opened its doors in Kemmerer, born in Hamilton Missouri.

1920  While it didn't occur in Wyoming, and event which impacted the entire nation:

September 16, 1920. The Wall Street Bombing.

On this day, at 12:01 p.m., terrorist widely believed to be Galleanist anarchists, set off a bomb in New York's Wall Street district which killed thirty-eight people and injured hundreds more.


The bomb, designed to deploy shrapnel, killed mostly young workers in the district at a time at which young workers were very young.  It was left in a horse drawn wagon, with horse still attached, and went off at the busy noon hour.


The direct perpetrators of the act were never discovered.











On the same day, a Polish artillery regiment was destroyed, with some prisoners and wounded, by a Red Army cavalry unit that outnumbered it after it expended all of its ammunition during the Battle of Dytiatyn.  The Red Army unit was itself destroyed by Polish forces a few days latter.

The battle became a famous one for the Poles who established a military cemetery there.  That was later destroyed by the Soviets following World War Two and the location is now inside of Ukraine.

1924  A coal mine explosion at Kemmerer kills 55.

1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history.

1940 President Franklin Roosevelt orders the Army to begin mobilizing the entire National Guard for one year’s training. The National Guard's horsed cavalry regiments, would go into Federal service for the last time. Horse mechanized units, such as Wyoming's 115th Cavalry Regiment (Horse-Mechanized) would go into service for the first and last time.

More on the last two items:

Today In Wyoming's History: September 16, 1940. Conscription starts and the National Guard mobilized.

Some of those conscripted men in 1945.

On this day in 1940, a couple of monumental events occurred in the history of the US and the state. These were:

Today In Wyoming's History: September 161940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history.


1940 President Franklin Roosevelt orders the Army to begin mobilizing the entire National Guard for one year’s training. The National Guard's horsed cavalry regiments, would go into Federal service for the last time. Horse mechanized units, such as Wyoming's 115th Cavalry Regiment (Horse-Mechanized) would go into service for the first and last time.

The story is always told a little inaccurately, and even the way we posted it on our companion blog slightly is.  The 1940 Selective Training and Service Act, reviving a conscription process started during World War One, was the first "peacetime draft" only if we omit the story of state mandatory military service which had existed from the earliest colonial times (recognizing the colonies as precursors to the state) up until after the Civil War, when it petered out.  Indeed, this history is why the National Guard, not the Army or Navy, is the senior service, dating back to December 13, 1636.  People didn't "join" the militia, they, or rather men, were compelled to be in the militia.  Only when the Frontier period caused populations to be so transient did this really change and even today many states define all men of sixteen years to sixty to be in the militia.

But Federal conscription itself was an anomaly and had only existed twice before, once during the Civil War and then again during World War One.  It had never been in existence in peacetime. And for that matter, hardly any Americans in 1940 had a living memory of mandatory militia duty, although there would have been those had been alive when it still existed.

Also of huge significance was the mobilization of the National Guard.

The mobilization of the Guard in 1940 is well known, but underappreciated.  The U.S. Army would have been incapable of fighting World War One or World War Two without the National Guard. During the Great War the reorganized Guard, reorganized as its state determined peacetime branches did not all comport with the Army's needs for a largescale European war, constituted a large percentage of the actual fighting force throughout the war.  It's peacetime establishment was reorganized again in the 1920s to match needs upon mobilization and accordingly many of the Army units that fought in the Army's early campaigns, all the way into 1943, were made up of Guard units.  Indeed, to at least some extent the Army simply used up Guard units until it could deploy newly trained men.

The significant story of the National Guard in both world wars was downplayed by the Army as, in spite of its absolute reliance on the Guard, the Regular Army always looked down on it in this period and tended to ignore its contributions.  Those contributions were enormous, and the Army's treatment of the National Guard's history unfair, and the wartime treatment of its officers shameful.

Conscription would soon start a labor shortly and ultimately start a series of social crises, conflicts and changes that permanently changed the United States and its culture.  One year of service, as had originally been passed into law, would not have done that, but when that service extended into years and ultimately into the largest war fought in modern times, it certainly did.  World War One, coming in an era of more privative transpiration, even though it was only twenty years prior, had not resulted in the transcontinental mixing of races and cultures the way World War Two did, and of course the Great War was shorter.  Those conflicts certain arose, but many of them arose afterwards, as reflected in the Red Summer of 1919.  The Great War changed the country as well but those changes really bloomed during World War Two, for lasting good and lasting ill.  The Civil Rights movement that started with the integration of the Armed Forces in 1948 really had its roots in the war during which there was a lot of dissatisfaction on the part of segregated blacks in regard to segregation, both in the military and in society itself. By wars end that segregation was going to be on the way out, even if that wasn't appreciated at the time.

The war also started the process of dismantling the strong ethnic neighborhoods in the country's majority white population and to at least some degree turned the temperature up on the melting pot.  At the same time, the war encouraged a period of loose morals that would begin to reflect back on the country after the war, really starting off when Hugh Hefner took the wartime image of the town girl that had adorned American bomber after bomber and put her in glossy centerfolds.  Much of what the war brought is still being sorted out, and the full impact of it will likely take another half century or more to really appreciate.

And that process, for the United States, began today, eighty years ago.

1947  BB-32, the USS Wyoming, stricken from the Navy rolls.

1950  War Memorial Stadium opened.   Attribution:  On This Day.

1988 Casper native Tom Browning, Cincinnati Reds pitcher, pitched a perfect game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

September 15

1885  Governor Warren requests that Federal troops, sent to Rock Springs following attacks on Chinese Miners, be withdrawn from that town.

1904  1,000 sheep disemboweled by masked raiders in one of the raids of the Sheep War.  This occurred near Daniel.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1966  Wyoming Public Radio goes on the air.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

September 14

1890  Newcastle's waterworks completed.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1901     President William B. McKinley died in Buffalo, N.Y., of gunshot wounds inflicted by an assassin eight days earlier. Theodore Roosevelt, age 42, was sworn in,thereby becoming the youngest president in U.S. history.

1919  Game Warden Buxton was shot in the course of his duties.

Violence against Wyoming Game Wardens has been incredibly rare and very, very few have lost their lives in the performance of their duties.  Buxton was one of them.  He responded to reports of gunshots near Rock Springs, encountered two  individuals, and after informing them, Joe Omeye, that the hunting season confiscated a rifle from him. The day being a Sunday, Buxton reported to the incident with his wife.

While putting the rifle in his car he was called by Omeye who shot him with a pistol that he'd been carrying concealed.  The shot wounded Buxton who called for his wife to give him his gun.  Omeye then shot at Buxton's wife but missed, and she fled for help.  Help arrived too late and Buxton died on the way to the hospital. 

Omeye was convicted of Murder in the Second Degree and served time in the Wyoming State Penitentiary to twenty years in the penitentiary.

He initially served only four years before being paroled, providing proof that the common perception of serving being light only in modern times is wrong.  He violated his parole, however, and was returned to prison to be released again in 1931.

Omeye's companion, John Kolman, was not arrested and must not have been regarded as implicated in what occurred in any fashion.  An Austrian immigrant, he died in Rock Springs at age 93 in 1968.

1950   President Truman signed a bill merging most of Jackson Hole National Monument into Grand Teton National Park.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1950  The Act of September 14, 1950  prohibited the extension or establishment of any National Monument in Wyoming without the express authorization of Congress.

1960  The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was founded on this day at the Baghdad Conference of 1960.

1987  Anderson Lodge in the Absaroka Mountains east of Meeteetse,  added to the National Register of Historic Places.  Attribution:  On This Day.

2001  President Bush declared a national emergency.

2019  The Black 14 were belatedly issued University of Wyoming letter jackets at a UW football game.  See yesterday's entry.