I became so preoccupied with the 2018 Primary Election that I neglected to say much about the 1918 one. . .

which of course took place on the same Tuesday on the calendar.

So what was going on?

Well, the following Casper newspaper from 1918 gives us a bit of a clue:

The Casper Daily Tribune for August 21, 1918, which also noted the results of the prior day's primary election.

 

I ran this on one of the 100 Days threads, but it's a report of the election results and give us a look at what was going on.

 

The sitting governor was Democrat Frank Houx.  Houx had been elected to Secretary of State, not Governor, but took over when Democrat John B. Kendrick was elected to the Senate on a rare wave of Democratic good fortune in the state.  Kendrick was the Governor at the time, so he had to resign, and Houx then stepped in, as per the Wyoming constitution.

Houx was an unusual personality.  He had studied law but had not completed his studies, taking up business pursuits instead.  He was Missouri born and his father had served in the Confederate army during the Civil War.  Indeed, Houx was related to General Sterling Price.  He'd come west to take up ranching in Montana and was headquartered out of Cody.

Houx was dedicated to his job but very much fit into the Democratic mold of the time.  He was very much for Wilson's efforts in the war, as almost everyone was during the war, and a strong backer of the Prohibition movement.  He was running for Governor for the first time.

Against him was Robert D. Carey, the Wyoming born son of the popular if sometimes controversial Joseph M. Carey.  Robert was well educated and was a rancher and banker in Cheyenne.

The Casper paper was reporting that Houx had received a serious challenge from "Osborne", whom I think was former Democratic Governor John E. Osborne.  Osborne had recently resigned from a position in the Wilson administration and had returned to Wyoming and apparently took a run at the Governor's office again.