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.

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Friday, September 22, 2017

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Lex Anteinternet: Sports News

Lex Anteinternet: Sports News: I rarely read it, but today's Tribune sports page has two items of interest. First, Casper is getting, for the third time, a non yo...

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Lex Anteinternet: Movies In History: Wind River

Lex Anteinternet: Movies In History: Wind River: I often dread watching modern movies set in Wyoming (I tend to give the older ones a pass) as they get things so wrong.  And, of course, as...

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Some Gave All: The Sundance, Wyoming Rest Stop Memorials.

Some Gave All: The Sundance, Wyoming Rest Stop Memorials.

 Memorials at the Sundance Wyoming Rest Stop.
I usually don't put a bunch of memorials, even at one single spot, in one single post.  Each, I generally feel, deserves its own post as each is its own topic, in terms of what it commemorates.


 Black Hills Sign at the Sundance Wyoming Rest Stop.
I'm making an exception here, however, as these are grouped so nicely, they seem to require a singular treatment. 




The first item we address is the Black Hills sign. This sign discusses the Black Hills, which straddle the Wyoming/South Dakota border.


 Crook County sign.
The second sign discusses Crook County, named after Gen. George Crook, and in which Sundance is situated.


The sign oddly doesn't really go into Crook himself, but then its a memorial for the county, not the general.  Still a controversial general, Crook came into this region in the summer campaign of 1876 which saw him go as far north as southern Montana before meeting the Sioux and Cheyenne at Rosebud several days prior to Custer encountering them at Little Big Horn.  Crook engaged the native forces and then withdrew in a move that's still both praised and condemned.  At the time of the formation of Crook County in 1888 he was sufficiently admired that the county was named after him, at a time at which he was still living.


 Custer Expedition Memorial.
Finally, the Rest Stop is the location of an old monument noting the passage of Custer's 1874 expedition into the Black Hills, which is generally regarded as the precursor of the European American invasion of the Black Hills and the Powder River Expedition of 1876.  Obviously, it's more complicated than that, but its safe to say that the discovery of gold in 1874 gave way to a gold rush which, in turn, made conflict with the Sioux, who had taken over the Black Hills (by force) from the Crow, inevitable.


This memorial is interesting in the super heated atmosphere of today given that the historical view has really changed since 1940, when this roadside monument was dedicated (surprisingly late, I'd note, compared to similar Wyoming monuments). In 1940 Custer was still regarded as a hero.  By the 1970s, however, he was regarded in the opposite fashion, by and large, at least in terms of his popular portrays are concerned.  The 1874 expedition into the Black Hills is not favorably recalled in history now at all.




I have to wonder, however, in terms of the history if this expedition changed history the way it is recalled.  The Black Hills always seem to be an attractant.  They attracted the Sioux who took them (in living memory in 1874) from the Crows and it seems highly likely that they would would have attracted European Americans as well.  Certainly they continued to even after the hopes of gold seekers were dashed.

Monday, August 21, 2017

Lex Anteinternet: Berlin Air Lift Rates

Lex Anteinternet: Berlin Air Lift Rates:

Berlin Air Lift Rates


One plane every minute.



C-54 during the Berlin Air Lift
That was the highest rate achieved for the Berlin Air Lift in 1949.
Today, for the eclipse, the rate is predicted to be one plane every two minutes.
Will that actually occur?

Saturday, August 19, 2017

Monday, July 24, 2017

Friday, June 2, 2017

Lex Anteinternet: It's National Doughnut Day!

Lex Anteinternet: It's National Doughnut Day!: Or Donut Day, if you prefer. John A. Johnston, First Vice President of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Ironwork...

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Wyoming Fact & Fiction - Neil A. Waring: Western Books

Wyoming Fact & Fiction - Neil A. Waring: Western Books: I have often read that Owen Wister's publishing of  The Virginian , 115 years ago this week, on May 28, 1902, was the start of Wes...

Friday, May 26, 2017

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Como Bluffs: Dinosaur Graveyard and Train Robberies



These two historic markers are located at Como Bluffs, between Rock River and Medicine Bow Wyoming. I'm sure I've stopped at them before, but it's probably been over thirty years and I've never photographed the markers before, or if I did it would have been that long ago.


The first marker is for the fossil fields nearby.  The sign tells the story.  I'd only note as an aside that my father told me that back in the 1940s he stopped at the fossil cabin with his father and the owner of hit gave him a fossilized dinosaur egg from the nearby fossil beds.  Unfortunately, it's long since been lost.


The train robberies sign also speaks for itself.  The first robbery noted is a famous one by The Whole In The Wall Gang, famously depicted in the film Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.  The other details the life of Bill Carlisle, the "Gentleman Bandit". 


Structures at this site are depicted in these two photographs, including the famous "fossil cabin".  A nearby sign notes that it was featured in "Ripley's Believe It Or Not".


Some Gave All: Wyoming Veterans Museum: World War One Display

Some Gave All: Wyoming Veterans Museum: World War One Display: Display dedicated to George Ostron, who was an accomplished armature illustrator and who won a contest to design what became the unit ins...

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Lex Anteinternet: Baseball's Only Double No Hitter, May 2, 1917

And yes, it's off topic

Lex Anteinternet: Baseball's Only Double No Hitter, May 2, 1917:

On this day.

 Winning pitcher Toney.
The Reds v The Cubs.  Ten innings.  One run.  Victory to the Reds.

 Hippo Vaughn.

Fred Toney v. Hippo Vaughn.  They both pitched the entire game.

When the run came in, and the Cubs lost, Cubs owner Charlie Weeghman stuck his head into the Cubs clubhouse and yelled at the team, “You’re all a bunch of asses!

 Charlie Weeghman, far left, in 1914.

Monday, May 1, 2017

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Some Gave All: The Black 14, University of Wyoming, Laramie Wyoming

Some Gave All: The Black 14, University of Wyoming, Laramie Wyoming


This is a monument to The Black 14 in the University of Wyoming's Student Union.



The Black 14 were fourteen University of Wyoming football players who, in 1969, wanted to wear black armbands during the University of Wyoming v. Brigham Young football game. The action was intended to protest the policy of the Mormon church in excluding blacks from leadership roles in their church.  Coach Eaton, the UW football coach at the time, dismissed all fourteen players prior to the game, ending their football careers at UW and, at least in some cases, simply ending them entirely.


The event was controversial at the time, and to a lesser degree, has remained so.  Generally, in most of Wyoming, Coach Eaton was supported, rather than the players, which doesn't mean that the players did not have support.  As time has gone on, however, views have changed and generally the players are regarded as heroes for their stand.  Views on Eaton are qualified, with some feeling he was in the wrong, and others feeling that he was between a rock and a hard place and acted as best as
he could, even if that was not for the best.




It is indeed possible even now to see both sides of the dramatic event.  The players wanted to wear black armbands in protest of the Mormon's policy of not allowing blacks to be admitted to the Mormon priesthood and therefore also excluding them from positions of leadership in the Mormon church.  This policy was well know in much of Wyoming as the Mormon theology behind it, which held that blacks were descendant of an unnatural union on the part of Noah's son Cain, resulted in black human beings.  This was unlikely to be widely known, however, amongst blacks at the University of Wyoming, most of whom (but not all of which) came from outside of the state.  A week or so prior to the UW v. BYU game, however, Willie Black, a black doctoral candidate at UW who was not on the football team, learned of the policy.  Black was head of the Black Students Alliance and called for a protest.  The plan to wear armbands then developed.
The protest, therefore, came in the context of a civil rights vs. religious concepts background, a tough matter in any context.  To make worse, it also came during the late 60s which was a time of protest, and there had been one against the Vietnam War just days prior to the scheduled game. Following that, Eaton reminded his players of UW's policy against student athletes participating in any demonstration, a policy which raises its own civil liberties concern. The players went ahead with their plans and Eaton removed all of them from the team.
 
Looked at now, it remains easy to see why Eaton felt that he had to act, while also feeling that he acted much too harshly.  Not everyone agrees with this view by any means, however.  Many, but a declining number, still feel Eaton was right.  A much larger number feel he was definitely wrong.  Few hold a nuanced view like I've expressed.  Even those who felt that Eaton was right often admire the protesting players, however. 
 
Anyway its looked at, the Black 14 are now a definite part of Wyoming's legacy as The Equality State, even if most of them were not from here (at least one, and maybe more, were).  This year at Wyoming History Day, a statewide high school history presentation competition, which had the theme of "taking a stand", they were the subject of one static display and two video presentations.  They may be more well remembered now than at any time since the late 1970s, and this memorial in the student union certainly contributes to that.

Thursday, April 13, 2017