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.

Friday, November 29, 2013

November 29

Today is Nellie Tayloe Ross Day

 Ross in 1938 at her Maryland tobacco farm.

Nellie Tayloe Ross Day is a state holiday in Wyoming, although it is little observed. 

1847   Missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and 15 others are killed by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians in what is today southeastern Washington, causing the Cayuse War.  The Whitmans conducted the first Protestant religious service in Wyoming.

1864         Sand Creek Massacre in which Colorado militia attack Black Kettle's Cheyenne band in Colorado.  Black Kettle was at peace, and the attack was unwarranted.  The unit would muster out shortly thereafter.  The attack would drive many Cheyenne north into Wyoming and western Nebraska, where they would link up with Sioux who were already trending towards hostility with the United States.  This would result in ongoing unbroken armed conflict between these tribes and the United States up through the conclusion of Red Cloud's War.

Today the Cheyenne trek north is memorialized in the Sand Creek Massacre Trail, a highway designation for the combination Interstate Highways and State highways that lead to the Wind River Indian Reservation. The Wind River is not a Cheyenne Reservation, but it is an Arapaho and Shoshone reservation, and the Arapahos were allied to the Cheyenne and Sioux in this period. 

Black Kettle had the added misfortune of having his camp attacked later by the 7th Cavalry, under Custer, at Washita, in 1868.  He was killed in that attack, which likewise was a surprise and found his band at peace with the US, although others in the area were not.

 Cheyenne prisoners, in artist's depiction, following Washita.

1873  Laramie County Stockgrowers Association forms in Cheyenne.The organization was one of the precursors of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.

1876  Nellie Tayloe Ross born in Missouri.

1888  Territorial Governor Moonlight proclaimed the day one of Thanksgiving, Prayer and Praise.

1901  Mildred Harris, movie actress, born in Cheyenne.  She was a significant actress in the silent film era, having gone from being a child actor to a major adult actress, but had difficulty making the transition to talking pictures.


Harris is also evidence that, in spite of my notation of changes in moral standards elsewhere, the lives of movie stars has often been as torrid as they are presently.  Harris married Charlie Chaplin in 1918, at which time she was 17 years old and the couple thought, incorrectly, that  she was pregnant.  She did later give birth during their brief marriage to a boy who was severely disabled, and who died only three days after being born.  The marriage was not a happy one.  They divorced after two years of marriage, and she would marry twice more and was married to former professional football player William P. Fleckenstein at the time of her death, a union that had lasted ten years.  Ironically, she appeared in three films in 1920, the year of her divorce, as Mildred Harris Chaplin, the only films in which she was billed under that name. While an actress probably mostly known to silent film buffs today, she lived in some ways a life that touched upon many remembered personalities of the era, and which was also somewhat stereotypically Hollywood.  She introduced Edward to Wallis Simpson.

She died in 1944 at age 42 of pneumonia following surgery.  She has a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  A significant number of her 134 films are lost or destroyed due to film deterioration.  Her appearances in the last eight years of her life were minor, and unaccredited, showing the decline of her star power in the talking era.

Stories like hers, however, demonstrate that the often held concept of great isolation of Wyomingites was never true.  Harris was one of at least three actors and actresses who were born in Wyoming and who had roles in the early silent screen era.  Of those, she was arguably the most famous having risen to the height of being a major actress by age 16.

1908   Major Harry Coupland Benson appointed acting Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park.

1916:   The Wyoming Tribune for November 29, 1916: Villa in the headlines
 

Scary headlines in the Tribune, which reported that Juarez, on the Mexican border, might be Villa's next target.
The Cheyenne State Leader for November 29, 1916: Chihuahua in Villa's hands = Carranza agreeing to Protocol?
 


The Leader made the curious assumption that Villa taking Chihuahua would cause Carranza to agree tot he draft protocol with the US that was designed to bring about an American withdrawal.

Now, why would that be the case? Carranza had been opposed to American intervention, but as it was, the American expeditionary force amounted to a large block of troops in Villas way if he really intended to move north.

A curious assumption.

And the US acting on behalf of besieged Belgium was also in the news.

1917   Thanksgiving 1917
 
Given the news of the day, it couldn't have been a cheery one.

President Wilson issued a proclamation, as was the custom:
 
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
 It has long been the honored custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. That custom we can follow now even in the midst of the tragedy of a world shaken by war and immeasurable disaster, in the midst of sorrow and great peril, because even amidst the darkness that has gathered about us we can see the great blessings God has bestowed upon us, blessings that are better than mere peace of mind and prosperity of enterprise.

We have been given the opportunity to serve mankind as we once served ourselves in the great day of our Declaration of Independence, by taking up arms against a tyranny that threatened to master and debase men everywhere and joining with other free peoples in demanding for all the nations of the world what we then demanded and obtained for ourselves. In this day of the revelation of our duty not only to defend our own rights as nation but to defend also the rights of free men throughout the world, there has been vouchsafed us in full and inspiring measure the resolution and spirit of united action. We have been brought to one mind and purpose. A new vigor of common counsel and common action has been revealed in us. We should especially thank God that in such circumstances, in the midst of the greatest enterprise the spirits of men have ever entered upon, we have, if we but observe a reasonable and practicable economy, abundance with which to supply the needs of those associated with us as well as our own. A new light shines about us. The great duties of a new day awaken a new and greater national spirit in us. We shall never again be divided or wonder what stuff we are made of.

And while we render thanks for these things let us pray Almighty God that in all humbleness of spirit we may look always to Him for guidance; that we may be kept constant in the spirit and purpose of service; that by His grace our minds may be directed and our hands strengthened; and that in His good time liberty and security and peace and the comradeship of a common justice may be vouchsafed all the nations of the earth.

Wherefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday, the twenty-ninth day of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and invite the people throughout the land to cease upon that day from their ordinary occupations and in their several homes and places of worship to render thanks to God, the great ruler of nations.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done in the District of Columbia this 7th day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seventeen and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-second.

WOODROW WILSON
 The news, overall, was pretty grim:


The concern of what was going on with Russia, as can be seen, was mounting.

So what was Thanksgiving like in 1917 for average Americans?  This item from A Hundred Years Ago gives us a glimpse/  This ran on A Hundred Years Ago prior to the 2017 Thanksgiving.  I'm linking it in now, as the 1917 Thanksgiving was on this day, rather than the slightly earlier day in November we now celebrate it on.  An interesting look at earlier Thanksgivings:

Grandma’s 1914 Thanksgiving

Interesting that goose was the meat of choice.

1919  A four week coal strike causes as serious coal shortage in Cokeville, Wyoming. Attribution, Wyoming Historical Society.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1931  An Oregon Trail marker was dedicated at Torrington. The decade of the 1930s saw an increased interest in Wyoming in marking the state's early history which was coincident with the pioneer generation passing away.

1942   Coffee
 
Coffee rationing began in on this day in 1942.

Smiling soldier.  I think he's drinking coffee.  I may have had to volunteer for service (which I likely would have done anyway) just in order to get a cup of coffee.
I would not have liked that.  Coffee roasters were already restricted to 75% of their war time prior average.  This resulted not due to fewer beans being produced during the war.  Not hardly. Rather, it resulted from the fact that this import crop is shipped to the continental United States
I think that's something that we tend not to ponder much. Coffee is a huge American drink, just like tea is a huge British drink, but in neither case do these consuming nations produce the elemental crop locally.  Given that, it's really amazing that either drink has such a hold in the consuming nation.  Indeed, by and large, with some slight exception, its not even grown in the Norther Hemisphere.  Kona coffee, grown in Hawaii, is the only coffee actually grown in the United States, in so far as I'm aware.
Just consider it for a moment.  The bean that is roasted to produce the crop is grown thousands of miles from the continental United States, roasted (often) in the US, and then packaged for sale here.  It's pretty amazing that there's more than a couple of varieties of it, frankly, or that its even affordable.


The Coffee Bearer, by John Frederick Lewis, Orientalist painter.  The same figure was a figure in his painting The Armenian Lady, whose servant she is portrayed as being.
As an aside, the second biggest coffee bean producer in the world (the first is Brazil) is. . . . Vietnam.
One more reason that not having prevailed in the Vietnam War is unfortunate, to say the least.
Well, anyhow, it's not cheap, as any coffee drinker will tell you. But it's not terribly pricey either.
And somehow, it's gone from a few basic brands to a wide variety of specialty brands and brews of every imaginable type and variety.



Coffee varieties have of course always existed.  Interestingly, one of the contenders for oldest coffee brand sold in the United States is Lion Brand which is Kona coffee.  Lion was first sold in the United States, as green coffee beans, in 1864.  Pretty darned early.  Hawaii wasn't an American territory at the time.  Folgers has them beat, however, dating back to 1850.  Hills Brothers dates to 1878.  Maxwell House to 1892.
Arbuckle Coffee, for some reason, was a huge item in the West in the late 1800s, showing how brands come and go.  I've never seen Arbuckles sold today, although it apparently still exists.  The owners of the company, John and Charles Arbuckle, owned a ranch near Cheyenne, although I don't know if that explains the connection with the West, or if perhaps that connection worked the other way around.
Now there's a zillion brands of coffee, many of which I don't recognize, and many which have pretensions towards coffee greatness.  This seems to have come about due to the rise of coffee houses, lead in a major way by Starbucks.  There's a Starbucks on every street corner now, it seems.  I'll be frank that I don't like their coffee much at all.  Too strong, and I like strong coffee.  Anyhow, the many specialty brews that Starbucks makes has spawned many various specialty coffees, or at least different coffees, to the extent to which a person can hardly keep track of it.  Over the weekend I was in City Brew, one of the local coffee houses, as well as Albertsons, where a Starbucks is located, and they both had "Christmas Blends".  How can there be a Christmas blend of coffee?

Chock full o' Nuts, a brand that, as the can indicates, has been around since 1932.  That was the date the company founder changed his nut shops into lunch counters, figuring that they were a better bet during the Great Depression.  I used to drink Chock full o' Nuts when I was in college but stopped as it seemed to have way too much caffeine.
Not that I'm complaining.  I frankly like the vast variety in coffee. And while I'm not inclined to buy something like Starbucks Free Range Easter Island Coffee Licked Gently By Baby Yaks, I will buy peculiar roasts just because the sound interesting. And I tend towards those dark roasts even if I sometimes wish I'd gotten something milder.

And it is interesting to see how coffee houses, following in Starbuck's wake, have popped up everywhere.  Just the other day I bought a sack of Boyer's coffee in the grocery store.  I was aware of Boyers, as they're a Denver brand with a Denver coffee house, but I wasn't aware that you could buy it up here.  Quasi local, as it were.  A great Denver coffee, with some good coffee houses is Dazbog, which plays up the Russian origin of the founders.  One of the independent local coffee houses here sells Dazbog, and its good stuff.  City Brew has outlets here in town, and apparently they're originally from Montana, which they play up with some of their roasts, even though we all know coffee isn't grown in Montana.  I'm told that Blue Ridge Coffee, another local coffee house that sells sacked coffee, is purely local.

And that doesn't cover every coffee house in town.  Quite the evolution when just a decade or so ago you'd have had to go to a conventional cafe and just have ordered the house coffee, whatever that was.  No special roasts or blends.  Just a up of joe.

And I prefer to buy from the locals as well.  Subsidarity in action, I suppose.  Indeed, I'm not told that I can buy Mystic Monk sacked coffee at the Parish Office, and I likely will.

In the grocery store, for the most part, you bought the major brands.  Most of those are still around,  but now you can buy any number of major and minor brands.  I even have a coffee grinder, although that certainly isn't a new invention, although most of the time I buy pre ground coffee.  Indeed, I got the grinder as I bought whole bean coffee by mistake, which I've done from time to time, and I don't want to waste it.

Using coffee grinders, of course, is an odd return to the past. Everything old is new again, sort of.  But the huge variety, of course, is wholly new.

Industrial strength coffee grinder.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Related threads:

Coffee

The Science Behind Coffee and Why it's Actually Good for Your Health
Blog Mirror. A Hundred Years Ago: Keep Coffee Warm with a Thermos
National Coffee Day.
The Joy of Field Rations: Roasting Coffee in the Field

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Today In Wyoming's History: Blog Mirror: Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving

Today In Wyoming's History: Blog Mirror: Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving: Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving : Today, November 22, is the Thanksgiving Holiday for 2012.  Thanksgiving remains one of the two really big h...

November 28

Today is Thanksgiving Day for 2013.

1872  The Diamond Hoax of 1872 exposed by geologist Clarence King, who issued his opinion that a diamond prospect that had been securing prominent national interest had been salted.

Clarence King

Many wealthy and prominent Americans had been fooled by the scheme and had invested funds to purchase what was thought to be a significant diamond strike. The 1872 date of this event shows the significance that geology had in the state's history from the very onset of the state's history.

1890  The McKinney Strip contest settled in favor of Buffalo.  This was a land contest of some sort, but I can't remember the details.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1912  Governor Carey declared the day to a day of Public Thanksgiving and Praise to Our Lord.

1914  New Your Stock Exchange reopens for the first time since July, when the crises leading up to World War One caused its closer.

1916:  The Cheyenne State Leader for November 28, 1916: Villa captures Chihuahua and moves north.
 

Villa was appearing quite resurgent, grim news for those hoping for a resolution to the border situation.

And a sugar plant was going in at Worland. . . where one still exists.  Elsewhere, the State Engineer was arguing for aid to settlers in an early economic development effort.

And the state's water contest against Colorado was making daily news.
1916  William F. Cody granted a patent for a design for a bit.


1917  Cornerstone laid for the Platte County Library.

I'm not completely certain, but I think that the old library is still there, attached to a much larger more recent structure. That sort of library update is fairly common. The Natrona County Library is the same way.

Libraries have fallen on somewhat hard times in recent years, but they remain a vital part of any community.  Most, indeed nearly any significant library, have updated their services over the years and offer a variety of them, although competing with the home computer is pretty tough.

In smaller communities, they also provide vital meeting room services.  Indeed, I was trying to remember if I've ever been in the Platte County Library.  I don't think so, but the reason I was trying to recall that is because I took a deposition in a southeastern Wyoming library years and years ago.  I'm pretty sure, however, that was the Goshen County Library.  Nonetheless, in smaller towns, finding a space in which to do something like that can be hard, and libraries can fit the bill. By the same token, I've taken a deposition in the Yale Oklahoma library, and there clearly would have been no other place in which to do that.

Anyhow, today is the centennial of the Platte County Library's cornerstone being fixed.

1918  Thanksgiving Day, 1918
The first Thanksgiving of the peace (keeping in mind that the United States only went through one wartime Thanksgiving in which it was a combatant), occurred on this day, in 1918.


I posted an item on this yesterday in that one of the Cheyenne newspapers ran an article about things being closed in Cheyenne today, and there having been late shopping last night, a century ago. Sounds a lot like today, eh?  In today's Casper Daily Press you can tell that they sent the employees home (keeping in mind that newspapers are put together the prior evening, if they're morning papers) so there'd be no paper on Friday.

That was so that people could enjoy the holidays on an American holiday that has remained much like it has always been, which is a refreshing thing to realize.

One of the things about Thanksgiving, which we've also already posted on, is a big gathering.  I've also posted on that here as well, in this entry:

Blog Mirror: Hundred-year-old Thanksgiving Menus

From A Hundred Years Ago:
Hundred-year-old Thanksgiving Menus

It's interesting to note what's on the menu not only for what's on it, but what isn't.  The authors of these menus didn't necessarily think that you had to have turkey.  Indeed, turkey is only on one of the menus.  "Roast fowl" is on two of them. But what sort of fowl were they thinking of? Any fowl?  Pheasant?

And wine isn't on the menu at all.  I note that as if you spend any time watching the endless Thanksgiving shows that will now be appearing on the Food Channel, or whatever, they're all going to have a part, or at least some surely will, where somebody talks about pairing wine with turkey (as they're all going to feature turkey. . . which is okay as I like turkey).

They're all going to have pumpkin pie as well. . . which only one of these does.  One of these, for that matter, has Maple Parfait. What's that?

Interesting stuff.

One of the things I didn't note in that entry, but which I should have, is that there was no "local food movement" at the time as all food was local.  Indeed, the most recent comment on this blog made me realize there's an element of that I'm not aware of, and as that's the purpose of this blog, exploring such topics, I'll be posting a query thread on that soon.  Anyhow, when I noted that some of these menus had "fowl" on them, it should have occurred to me that obtaining a fresh turkey probably presented greater or lesser difficulties (especially in 1918) for the cook depending upon where you lived.  Most folks probably could go to the butcher and obtain a turkey, and almost certainly some local farmer, even in Wyoming localities, raised them for the Holidays specifically.  Still, some hosts probably had menus that featured freshly obtained game, such as pheasant or, in Wyoming, ducks, geese or even sage chickens, all of which I find pretty darned tasty.

Of course, a lot of Americans were eating Thanksgiving Day dinners overseas in a mess hall of some sort in 1918.  What sort of menu did they find in the offering?  The authors of the excellent Roads to the Great War blog have that one covered:
Roads to the Great War: Thanksgiving Day 1918: Happy Thanksgiving from the Roads Editorial Team Much of the American Expeditionary Force found itself stuck in France after the Armis...
I don't know what "Dardanelle Turkey" is, unless that was the menu author's play on words Turkey keeping in mind that the recently defeated Ottoman Empire controlled the Dardanelles.  Perhaps.  But "White Fish" also on the menu. . .?  That one surprised me.

As it probably surprised some folks that Thanksgiving Day in 1918 was on November 28.  But as readers here will recall, the current calendar position of the holiday is a recent one, as this holiday used to move a fair bit around the month of November.

Any way you look at it, for most people this was likely a happier holiday than the one in 1917 had been. . . although for thousands of others, it was likely a profoundly sad one.

1919  November 28, 1919. The Union Pacific Gives Up, Mexico erupts, Ships launched and Heroines

The Union Pacific declared that it was giving up the search for Bill Carlisle on this post Thanksgiving Day (prior to it being Black Friday) and it was blaming Wyomingites for that.  It held that they were too sympathetic to the train robber and lambasted the state's residents for that in no uncertain terms.

1924  An earthquake occurred near Lander.

1927  William R. Coe made a substantial donation to the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1942  Coffee rationing goes into effect in the United States.

1954  Edward D. Crippa completed his term as appointed Senator from Wyoming, filling out the balance of Lester C. Hunt's term until an elected replacement could be seated.


1960  Hugo Gerhard Janssen, early Wyoming photographer, died in Lovell Wyoming.

1989  The Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News wins the contract to build the SSN 773, USS Cheyenne.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

November 27

1868  Battle of Washita, Oklahoma occurs.  7th Cavalry under George Custer attacks Cheyenne camp of Chief Black Kettle.  The Cheyenne band attacked was not at war with the US, and Black Kettle, who was killed in the battle, had been the same unfortunate leader who had been attacked at Sand Creek some years earlier, when his band was likewise not at war with the United States.

1869  Suffrage bill introduced in, and passed in, the Territorial Senate.

1903  Casper's oldest bank declared bankrupt.  This was prior, of course, to the FDIC and the FSLIC, so the economic impact of a bank becoming insolvent could be truly devastating to those with accounts in the bank.  Attribution, Wyoming History Calendar.

1916 Laramie Daily Boomerang for November 27, 1916: ROTC established at the University of Wyoming
 

ROTC comes to UW, and the big water case advances.

1918  November 27, 1918. The Consumer Economy appears, and the Nation resumes a Peacetime Economy.

The Laramie Boomerang reported that the country was resuming a peacetime economy and cutting appropriations, which in fact was done very rapidly, and with a somewhat disastrous impact on the national economy and individual businesses. At the same time, the paper was reporting that a giant military commitment of 1,200,000 men would remain in Europe for the time being.

At UW, the campus military training detachment was standing down.  Mass military training at UW came to an end.


The Casper newspaper, however, was focused on Thanksgiving, which in 1918 occurred on November 28.

To my surprise, Thanksgiving was clearly already associated with shopping, giving evidence to that phenomenon having existed much earlier than I would have supposed.  Indeed, an occasional topic of historical focus in some areas of historical focus is when the consumer economy first appeared.  Whenever that was (and its generally regarded as having its origins prior to World War One, it was clearly before 1918 as the stores in Cheyenne were going to be open to 9:00 this evening.

1923 (linked in for the Casper item) Tuesday, November 27, 1923. Oklahoma Senate Approves Ban On Mask, Oil Filters, Odd feats of strength.


No, not that kind of mask you might see in a headline today, but rather the costume of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Wiggins shoe store mentioned in this article was still open in the 1990s, and maybe the 2000s.  It no longer is. By that time, it was one of two shoe repair shops still operating downtown.

Now there are none.

The modern oil filter was patented by George H. Greenhalgh. Prior to this, automobiles simply used a screen, which would partially account for the short engine life early automobiles had.

The Purolator oil filter is essentially what most vehicles use today, and is still in production.


The Purolator original design featured the cardboard filter which was inserted into a fixed housing.  I've worked on vehicles that retained this filter design exactly, and it is essentially the same as a modern filter except now the housing comes with the filter, and you replace the entire thing.  I've also worked on cars that used this sort of filter for their fuel filter.

While a revolutionary design, it did not become immediately widespread.  It wasn't until the 1950s, apparently, when they became universal, although my 1946 CJ2A, which I sold long ago, had one.  A 1954 Chevrolet Sedan I once had also had one.

1924  A schoolhouse was dedicated in Salt Creek.  Salt Creek was, and remains, one of Natrona County's earliest oilfields.

1941     Joint Army-Navy signal to Hawaii states, "This dispatch is to be considered a war warning.  Negotiations with Japan looking toward stabilization of conditions in the Pacific have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days. The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organization of naval task forces indicates an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines, Thai or Kra Peninsula or possibly Borneo. Execute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL46. Inform District and Army authorities. A similar warning is being sent by War Department. Spenavo inform British. Continental districts, Guam, Samoa directed take appropriate measures against sabotage".

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

November 26

1835  Texas forces defeated Mexican forces in the Grass Fight near San Antonio.

1863   President Abraham Lincoln proclaims November 26th as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday of November (since 1941, on the fourth Thursday).

1916   The Cheyenne Leader for November 26, 1916 (but with a date error): U.S. Ready to Ratify Protocol With Mexico
 

We need to note here that the Leader made an error on its date on page 1.  To show that, we've uploaded page 2 as well.  This was the November 26 paper, note the November 25 paper.
Woodrow Wilson, the Leader reported, was ready to ratify the protocol with Mexico. But was Carranza ready?  The battle appeared to be turning for Carranza's enemy, Villa, in Chihuahua.
In Washington, John E. Osborne, former Wyoming Governor, appeared to be pondering leaving his Assistant Secretary of State position in the Wilson administration in order to head back to Wyoming. 
And sad news was reported regarding the death if Inez Milholland Bossevain, who had been in Cheyenne during the Presidential campaign.
And the Governor put out a Thanksgiving message for the upcoming holiday. 

1918  November 26, 1918. Letters home with scruffy photos. News photographs with polish appearance. Wyoming for Pershing? The murder of the Jews of Lvov, Rumors of War between Peru and Chile.
Post card home of Harold A. Stivers, 311th Infantry, 78th Division.  Stivers refers to his dress, which he regarded as a little rough.  It is interesting.  He's wearing the by then standard overseas cap and a leather jerkin.  American troops wore the jerkin much less often than the British, with whom it had become standard late in the war.  He notes that his puttees aren't wrapped correctly.  Puttees, used by the British and the French during the war, were adopted by the Americans but they didn't completely replace leggings.  After the war, the American Army quickly went back to leggings.

The contrasting photograph of Gen. Leroy S. Upton, commander of the 57th Bde, 29th Division, who presents a much more polished appearance. Gen. Upton is wearing private purchase lace up, and thick soled, riding boots with speed laces. . . a much preferable piece of footgear for actual field conditions than the standard field boots of the time.


One of the Cheyenne newspapers was declaring that Wyoming would support drafting Pershing for a 1920 Presidential run, or otherwise supporting him in that effort.

No doubt, the news was not in error.  Pershing was the son in law of Francis E. Warren, Wyoming's Senator, and very well remembered there.

And the tax on automobiles was coming off.


The other Cheyenne paper was reporting about the looming war between Chile and Peru, and on the horror of ethnic genocide in Lvov.  And there was fighting, of a different type, in the streets of New York City.

1919  USS Laramie, a fleet replenishment oiler,  launched.

1926  Utah's John M. Browning died.  Browning is regarded as the most successful firearms designer of all time.

1934  Charles E. Richardson, publisher of the Rock Springs Daily Rocket-Miner from 1974 to 2005 born in Newcastle Wyoming.

1942  Lusk announces they will forgo outdoor Christmas lights in accordance with a request from the War Production Board.  Attribution.  Wyoming History Calendar.

1948  Former Governor Frank E. Lucas died in  Buffalo, Wyoming.  He had been Wyoming's Secretary of State from 1923 to 1927, and Governor in 1925 after the death of Governor Ross.  He left office in 1927 and spent the rest of his life as the editor and publisher of the Buffalo Bulletin.

1984  Big Nose George Parrott's remains given to the Carbon County Museum.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

2004  The Snake River Ranch added to the National Registry of Historic Places. 

Monday, November 25, 2013

November 25

1867  Fifty three cans of cranberries reported stored at Fort Bridger.  Attribution, Wyoming State Historical Association calendar.

1876.  The Dull Knife Battle.  Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie, 4th U.S. Cavalry, in command of Company K, 2nd U.S. Cavalry, Company H and K, 3rd U.S. Cavalry, Company B, D, E, F, I, and M, 4th U.S. Cavalry, Company H and L, 5th U.S. Cavalry and accompanied by a large contingent of Pawnees, together Arapaho and even Lakota scouts, surprises the Big Horn mountain camp of Cheyennes under Dull Knife.  Sometimes regarded as a somewhat unwarranted attack, Dull Knife's band had been at war with the US during the proceeding summer, and they had recently attacked and defeated a band of Shoshone.  Mackenzie's attack did not succeed in taking the camp whole, but it did succeed in eventually driving the Cheyenne out of it, who lost a great number of villagers in the frozen retreat thereafter.  A large number of the ultimate dead were the old and very young.  The attack is remarkable for having occurred in horrific climatic conditions..  That is, below 0 weather, snow, and high winds.  

Mackenzie is a figure who tends to be much less remembered, in the popular imagination, than other Indian War Army commanders, but he was actually one of the most effective, and consistently so.  He was the son of a career U.S. Navy officer who had risen to the rank of Commodore and his family was very well connected in the military and in politics.  Ranald Mackenzie graduated from West Point in 1862 and immediately entered into an Army career with, of course, the Civil War raging at that time.  During the war he rose to the rank of Brigadier General.  He was briefly mustered out of the service at the end of the Civil War but brought back in during Reconstruction as a Major General.  He thereafter reverted to his permanent rank of Captain.  During the Indian Wars he demonstrated tactical and field command brilliance, commanding both infantry and cavalry, as well as black and white troops.  During this period he rose back up the rank of Brigadier General.

Unfortunately, he began to decline mentally by the 1870s which was manifesting itself as early as the campaign which featured the Dull Knife battle. A poor horseman, he took to the field in terrible conditions with his troops, but in camp he was already demonstrating signs of mental instability and severe depression.  He was ultimately discharged for insanity in 1884, just three years after he had purchased a ranch in Texas and had become engaged.  He died in 1889 at just 48 years of age.  The source of his mental decline is not really known, and remains somewhat debated today, with a possible head injury being one of the suspected causes.

Ranald S. Mackenzie.

The following Congressional Medal of Honor would be awarded for action at The Dull Knife fight:

FORSYTH, THOMAS H:   First Sergeant, Company M, 4th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Powder River, Wyo., 25 November 1876.  Citation: Though dangerously wounded, he maintained his ground with a small party against a largely superior force after his commanding officer had been shot down during a sudden attack and rescued that officer and a comrade from the enemy.

Forsyth was an unusual enlisted man in that he was from a wealthy family and was somewhat a man of means, an unusual circumstance for an enlisted man, let alone a career enlisted man.  He left the service in 1891, the same year he finally received his Congressional Medal of Honor, at which time he had served in the Army for 25 years.  The retirement period for an Army pension at this time was 30 years, go he left earlier than the norm for a full retirement, and I suspect that it may have been a medical retirement, which would also have resulted in a pension.  He held the rank of First Sergeant at the time.  He died in 1908 at age 65.

1889  Scarlet fever caused the public school in Rawlins to be closed.  Courtesy of the Wyoming History Calendar.

1909  Governor B. B. Brooks declared the day to be one of Thanksgiving and Praise.

1916   The Wyoming Tribune for November 25, 1916: Accord reached with Mexico?
 

An accord was signed with Mexico. . . but that might not quite mean what it seems. . . .
The Cheyenne Leader for November 25, 1916: Peace breaking out with Mexico?
 

Big news indeed.  The joint commission with Mexico had reached an agreement which should soon see U.S. troops withdrawn from Mexico.

But, before we assume too much, look for the followup post on this topic.
Inez Milholland Boissevain, Suffragist, lawyer, dies on this day in 1916
 
Inez Milholland Boissevain, a truly remarkable personality, died on this day in 1916.  She had campaigned in Cheyenne during the election only shortly before.


Milholland was thirty years old at the time of her death.  She was born into a wealthy family in which her father had been involved in many progressive causes of the era.  She graduated from Vassar in 1909 with the intent to pursue a career in law, which she did do. Receiving rejections from many of the schools she applied to, she graduated from New York University School of Law in 1912.  She was admitted to the bar in 1912 and went to work for Osborne, Lamb, and Garvan where she handled criminal and divorce cases.

She was involved in many of the causes of the era, including obtaining the vote for women and the cause of African Americans.  A pacifist, she traveled to Italy early in World War One to report on the war but was not allowed to travel to the front.

She married Eugen Jan Boissevain in 1913, after knowing him for only a month. The marriage cost her citizenship as Boissevain was Dutch and the law at the time attributed a woman's citizenship to her spouse.  She nonetheless campaigned for the right of women to vote in the United States. She fell ill on a speaking tour in 1916 and died on this day of pernicious anemia.


Probably not since the Punitive Expedition wrapped up had John J. Pershing and Francisco "Pancho" Villa appeared on the front page in headlines.



Pershing, still in command of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe, which was going into occupation duty in Germany, showed up as Ohio Republicans were imagining him as a candidate for the 1920 Presidential Election.

The speculation would not prove to be idle. While Pershing would see a major promotion on the horizon elevating him in 1919 to the rank of General of the Armies of the United States, a rank higher than that occupied by any other U.S. officer during his own lifetime, Pershing did somewhat entertain the move.  He later announced that he would not campaign for the office, but he wouldn't decline it if offered either, sort of splitting the Shermanesque position that is so famously quoted. As luck would have it, however, Gen. Leonard Wood, well regarded in Republican circles, and not beholden for career success to a Democratic President, as Pershing was, would be the martial early favorite before his campaigned flamed out in favor of Warren G. Harding.

The presence of Villa on the front page should give the reader now, and should have then, some pause in regard to the Pershing boosterism.  How successful of a general was he really?  He's come down in history as a major American military success but the record is frankly rather thin on that.  Prior to the Great War he had been a very successful combat officer in the Philippines, but he wasn't the only one and that was, after all, an ongoing, embarrassing, low grade guerrilla war.  That doesn't mean that Pershing was bad at it, but guerrilla wars aren't usually major conflicts, and the Philippine Insurrection, while it started off as one from the American prospective, really wasn't by the end.

That wasn't Pershing's first combat command, indeed he saw service in the late stages of the Indian Wars and he'd commended troops in the field in Cuba during the Spanish American War.  But none of those events had really raised him to prominence.  It would take the Punitive Expedition to do that.  But how well did he do, really?

Well, a person can debate it.  He kept the American effort going and it didn't cost a lot of American lives.  It also did not capture Villa, or put him out of commission, which had been its singular goal.  Late in the expedition he made recommendations that would have undoubtedly have caused a major escalation of the war which would have almost certainly converted it from a border conflict into a full blown war with Mexico.  We could have won that, surely, but it would have put us in the position of occupying a hostile revolutionary Mexico which was proving difficult for its own successive governments to manage.  That effort would have likely have been so taxing on the United States that our later participation in World War One may very well not have occurred, which in turn may very well have meant that Germany's 1917 and 1918 efforts would have paid off and Imperial Germany emerged the victor.

Pershing can't be faulted for not seeing that far forward, but he can be for not realizing that a small police action shouldn't risk being expanded into a full blown war.  And in regard to his suitability for national leadership, that's important.

Of course those boosting Pershing were thinking of his hero status that came about due to the Great War.  But here too, real questions can be raised.  Americans have believed since the very onset that Pershing was absolutely correct in keeping the U.S. Army out of action until it could be committed as a singular large command, but the evidence shows that this is somewhat of a myth and, moreover, the AEF was not really well commanded in some regards.  In reality American troops started to go into action under French and British control both in order to get combat experience and because the German 1918 Spring Offensive required the deployment of American troops in defense actions. They did well but when counterattacks began American troops took horrendous casualties in part because they were so green but in part because the American military steadfastly refused to accept lessons from the French and the British regarding the circumstances of 1918 European combat.  American military efforts were successful, but at huge and at least partially unnecessary cost and at least one American offensive, the St. Mihel Offensive, was unnecessary yet conducted at American insistence.  When the Germans began to break in 1918 they were impressed with the recklessness of American operations and the individual American fighting man, but at the same time its notable that the French and the British were advancing with less loss.  Moreover, Pershing was one of the generals, although certainly not the only one, who insisted that combat continue right up until the last minute of the war, something which at least now appears to be not only a miscalculation but perhaps a bit more than that.

All in all, retrospectively, Pershing's record is pretty mixed and open to question.  Nothing really existed to suggest that he would have been a good President.  In the end, the GOP didn't decide to run him.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

November 24

1835.  Texas authorizes the Texas Rangers.

1874.  Joseph F. Glidden received his patent for barbed wire.


Barbed wire changed the nature of ranching and farming in the West.  More than any other single physical item, barbed wire was responsible for the end of the open range and permanently established ranches with fenced pastures.  It even changed the nature of the cowboy's work and employment, as it caused the rise of multiple smaller ranches with a small number of year around employees who worked cattle more and rode less.

1890  Francis E. Warren resigns as Governor, a position he had held as State Governor for only a little over a month, but which as Territorial Governor he had held for about a year.  None the less, he holds the status of being Wyoming's first Governor.  He resigned in order to take up his duties as a newly elected Senator, which oddly he had assumed a few days prior to his resignation as Governor.

Warren in life.  He was in his late 40s when he became Senator.

1890  Amos W. Barber assumes office as Governor at age 29.  Barber had not been elected Governor, but assumed the acting position when Francis E. Warren resigned to assume the office of Senator.  Barber, who was a surgeon by training, and who come to Wyoming while serving in the Army, would find his term in office plagued by the Johnson County War, during which he was associated with the large stockmen side of the conflict.  He is not regarded as a strong Governor, and probably did not miss the office when he vacated it in 1893.  He returned first to the position of Secretary of State and then to private medical practice, and reentered military service during the Spanish American War.  He later moved to Minnesota, but he was buried in Cheyenne after his death in Minnesota in 1915.

Barber's time in office was marred by the Johnson County War, and his role in it suggests a potential weakness in his character.  On a more positive note, he detected the shenanigans that had occurred with the design of the state's seal, and would not tolerate that, although even there he kept his first corrective efforts a secret after the story became controversial.

File:AmosWBarber.jpg
Governor Barber's mustache belied his age, he was only 29 years old when he became the State's second governor.

1916   The Cheyennne Leader for November 24, 1916: Villa defated at Chihuahua, Carranza delegates to confer with Carranza
 


A lot going on in this November 24 edition of the Tribune.  But how much was accurate?

Things going badly for Villa?  A near agreement with Carranza?  And of course, the Great War.

1918  November 24, 1918. Cheyenne closes again, Horses being eaten in Russia, Revolution in Germany and Gasoline Alley

The papers were starting to report that the Spanish Flu Pandemic was easing, but in truth November was one of its peak years (and in other parts of the globe it'd rage on for the entire next year).  Reality hit as things were closed back up.


As bad as that was, the horrors of the Russian Civil War were pushing their way onto the front page of the local papers.  And there was legitimate reason to fear that the result of the Great War in Germany might be communist revolution throughout the defeated empires of Europe, a disaster that was being appreciated, if not perhaps in its full potential extent.


Elsewhere, in Chicago, the very first issue of Gasoline Alley made its appearance in the newspaper.

Gasoline Alley was, at first, only a Sunday paper in the black and white Sunday cartoons of the Chicago Tribune.  It soon became a daily.

The cartoon strip was one that appeared regularly, and maybe still does, in the Denver Post and occasionally in the Rocky Mountain News and I used to read it there.  It's a cartoon I like, but as it's a serial, its never one that I'm current on the story line so I was never up on what was going on in it.  The interesting thing about it for years and years, beside the content of the cartoon in general, is that it was a celebration of American garage culture.  In that context, it's pretty significant that it appeared in 1918 when automobiles, if not wholly new, were sill very much a new things.  They'd become common enough to be the subject of a cartoon at this point, which says something.

1921 A serious fire in Gillette, WY destroyed several of the towns' landmark buildings.

1922     The Colorado River Compact was entered into on this day in 1922.   The text of the agreement provided:

Colorado River Compact, 1922

The States of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, having resolved to enter into a compact under the Act of the Congress of the United States of America approved August 19, 1921 (42 Statutes at Large, page 171), and the Acts of the Legislatures of the said States, have through their Governors appointed as their Commissioners:

W.S. Norviel for the State of Arizona,

W.F. McClure for the State of California,

Delph E. Carpenter for the State of Colorado,

J.G. Scrugham for the State of Nevada,

Stephen B. Davis, Jr., for the State of New Mexico,

R.E. Caldwell for the State of Utah,

Frank C. Emerson for the State of Wyoming,

who, after negotiations participated in by Herbert Hoover appointed by The President as the representative of the United States of America, have agreed upon the following articles:

ARTICLE I

The major purposes of this compact are to provide for the equitable division and apportionment of the use of the waters of the Colorado River System; to establish the relative importance of different beneficial uses of water, to promote interstate comity; to remove causes of present and future controversies; and to secure the expeditious agricultural and industrial development of the Colorado River Basin, the storage of its waters, and the protection of life and property from floods. To these ends the Colorado River Basin is divided into two Basins, and an apportionment of the use of part of the water of the Colorado River System is made to each of them with the provision that further equitable apportionments may be made.

ARTICLE II

As used in this compact-

(a) The term “Colorado River System” means that portion of the Colorado River and its tributaries within the United States of America.

(b) the term “Colorado River Basin” means all of the drainage area of the Colorado River System and all other territory within the United States of America to which the waters of the Colorado River System shall be beneficially applied.

(c) The term “States of the Upper Division” means the States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

(d) The term “States of the Lower Division” means the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada.

(e) The term “Lee Ferry” means a point in the main stream of the Colorado River one mile below the mouth of the Paria River.

(f) The term “Upper Basin” means those parts of the States of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming within and from which waters naturally drain into the Colorado River System above Lee Ferry, and also all parts of said States located without the drainage area of the Colorado River System which are now or shall hereafter be beneficially served by waters diverted from the System above Lee Ferry.

(g) The term “Lower Basin” means those parts of the States of Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah within and from which waters naturally drain into the Colorado River System below Lee Ferry, and also all parts of said States located without the drainage area of the Colorado River System which are now or shall hereafter be beneficially served by waters diverted from the System below Lee Ferry.

(h) The term “domestic use” shall include the use of water for household, stock, municipal, mining, milling, industrial, and other like purposes, but shall exclude the generation of electrical power.

ARTICLE III

(a) There is hereby apportioned from the Colorado River System in perpetuity to the Upper Basin and to the Lower Basin, respectively, the exclusive beneficial consumptive use of 7,500,000 acre-feet of water per annum, which shall include all water necessary for the supply of any rights which may now exist. 

(b) In addition to the apportionment in paragraph (a), the Lower Basin is hereby given the right to increase its beneficial consumptive use of such waters by one million acre-feet per annum. 

(c) If, as a matter of international comity, the United States of America shall hereafter recognize in the United States of Mexico any right to the use of any waters of the Colorado River System, such waters shall be supplied first from the waters which are surplus over and above the aggregate of the quantities specified in paragraphs (a) and (b); and if such surplus shall prove insufficient for this purpose, then, the burden of such deficiency shall be equally borne by the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin, and whenever necessary the States of the Upper Division shall deliver at Lee Ferry water to supply one-half of the deficiency so recognized in addition to that provided in paragraph (d). 

(d) The States of the Upper Division will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet for any period of ten consecutive years reckoned in continuing progressive series beginning with the first day of October next succeeding the ratification of this compact. 

(e) The States of the Upper Division shall not withhold water, and the States of the Lower Division shall not require the delivery of water, which cannot reasonably be applied to domestic and agricultural uses. 

(f) Further equitable apportionment of the beneficial uses of the waters of the Colorado River System unapportioned by paragraphs (a), (b), and (c) may be made in the manner provided in paragraph (g) at any time after October first, 1963, if and when either Basin shall have reached its total beneficial consumptive use as set out in paragraphs (a) and (b). 

(g) In the event of a desire for a further apportionment as provided in paragraph (f) any two signatory States, acting through their Governors, may give joint notice of such desire to the Governors of the other signatory States and to The President of the United States of America, and it shall be the duty of the Governors of the signatory States and of The President of the United States of America forthwith to appoint representatives, whose duty it shall be to divide and apportion equitably between the Upper Basin and Lower Basin the beneficial use of the unapportioned water of the Colorado River System as mentioned in paragraph (f), subject to the legislative ratification of the signatory States and the Congress of the United States of America. 

ARTICLE IV 

(a) Inasmuch as the Colorado River has ceased to be navigable for commerce and the reservation of its waters for navigation would seriously limit the development of its Basin, the use of its waters for purposes of navigation shall be subservient to the uses of such waters for domestic, agricultural, and power purposes. If the Congress shall not consent to this paragraph, the other provisions of this compact shall nevertheless remain binding. 

(b) Subject to the provisions of this compact, water of the Colorado River System may be impounded and used for the generation of electrical power, but such impounding and use shall be subservient to the use and consumption of such water for agricultural and domestic purposes and shall not interfere with or prevent use for such dominant purposes. 

(c) The provisions of this article shall not apply to or interfere with the regulation and control by any State within its boundaries of the appropriation, use, and distribution of water. 

ARTICLE V 

The chief official of each signatory State charged with the administration of water rights, together with the Director of the United States Reclamation Service and the Director of the United States Geological Survey shall cooperate, ex-officio: 

(a) To promote the systematic determination and coordination of the facts as to flow, appropriation, consumption, and use of water in the Colorado River Basin, and the interchange of available information in such matters.

(b) To secure the ascertainment and publication of the annual flow of the Colorado River at Lee Ferry. 

(c) To perform such other duties as may be assigned by mutual consent of the signatories from time to time.

ARTICLE VI

Should any claim or controversy arise between any two or more of the signatory States: 

(a) with respect to the waters of the Colorado River System not covered by the terms of this compact; 

(b) over the meaning or performance of any of the terms of this compact; 

(c) as to the allocation of the burdens incident to the performance of any article of this compact or the delivery of waters as herein provided; 

(d) as to the construction or operation of works within the Colorado River Basin to be situated in two or more States, or to be constructed in one State for the benefit of another State; or 

(e) as to the diversion of water in one State for the benefit of another State; the Governors of the States affected, upon the request of one of them, shall forthwith appoint Commissioners with power to consider and adjust such claim or controversy, subject to ratification by the Legislatures of the States so affected. Nothing herein contained shall prevent the adjustment of any such claim or controversy by any present method or by direct future legislative action of the interested States. 

ARTICLE VII 

Nothing in this compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the United States of America to Indian tribes. 

ARTICLE VIII 

Present perfected rights to the beneficial use of waters of the Colorado River System are unimpaired by this compact. Whenever storage capacity of 5,000,000 acre-feet shall have been provided on the main Colorado River within or for the benefit of the Lower Basin, then claims of such rights, if any, by appropriators or users of water in the Lower Basin against appropriators or users of water in the Upper Basin shall attach to and be satisfied from water that may be stored not in conflict with Article III. All other rights to beneficial use of waters of the Colorado River System shall be satisfied solely from the water apportioned to that Basin in which they are situate. 

ARTICLE IX 

Nothing in this compact shall be construed to limit or prevent any State from instituting or maintaining any action or proceeding, legal or equitable, for the protection of any right under this compact or the enforcement of any of its provisions. 

ARTICLE X 

This compact may be terminated at any time by the unanimous agreement of the signatory States. In the event of such termination all rights established under it shall continue unimpaired. 

ARTICLE XI 

This compact shall become binding and obligatory when it shall have been approved by the Legislatures of each of the signatory States and by the Congress of the United States. Notice of approval by the Legislatures shall be given by the Governor of each signatory State to the Governors of the other signatory States and to the President of the United States, and the President of the United States is requested to give notice to the Governors of the signatory States of approval by the Congress of the United States. 

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the Commissioners have signed this compact in a single original, which shall be deposited in the archives of the Department of State of the United States of America and of which a duly certified copy shall be forwarded to the Governor of each of the signatory States.

DONE at the City of Santa Fe, New Mexico, this twenty-fourth day of November, A.D. One Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty-two. W. S. NORVIEL W. F. McCLURE DELPH E. CARPENTER J. G. SCRUGHAM STEPHEN G. DAVIS, JR. R. E. CALDWELL FRANK C. EMERSON 

Approved: HERBERT HOOVER

1929  Senator Francis E. Warren died.  At the time of his death, he had been a Senator longer than any other person in U.S. history.  He was also the last Union veteran to serve in the U.S. Senate, a distinction in his case which was amplified by the fact that he was a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, which perhaps explains his strong support of the Army while a Senator (which might also be explained by the fact that he was John J. Pershing's father-in-law).  He was also the first Senator to hire a female secretary.  His service was not without some blemishes, as a close association with the large stockmen side of the Johnson County War had given rise to questions about the extent of his association at that time, questions which nearly cost him his political career but which quickly passed.

1968  Expedition Island in the Green River was designated as a National Historic Landmark. The island is a park in Green River, WY and marks the location where Major John Wesley Powell began his expedition down the Green River and Colorado River in 1871.

1990  In one of Wyoming's most infamous murder cases, 15-year-old James "Jamie" Wiley shot and killed his stepmother Becky, brothers, Jesse (age 13), Willy (age 10), and Tyrone (age 5) and then set the house on fire.

2000   A magnitude 4.6 earthquake occurred about 82 miles from Cody, WY.

2011 Today is Thanksgiving Day for 2011.