Showing posts with label Rock Springs Wyoming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rock Springs Wyoming. Show all posts

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Tuesday, March 7, 1944. U-Go and women at war.

The Japanese launched Operation U-Go on the Indian Burmese border.


It was a major Japanese offensive, and would be one of their last.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 71944  It is announced that the Wyoming State Hospital at Rock Springs will be training nurses for the Army.

In Germany, the National Socialist Women's League (Nationalsozialistische Frauenschaft, abbreviated NS-Frauenschaft) started making house calls to recruit women between the ages of 17 and 45 to work in "the service of the community" as part of an effort to address the German labor shortage.

Navajo woman with carrots, near Phoenix, Arizona, March 7, 1944.

On Bougainville, the Japanese were preparing for an assault, which is the same day these men of the 37th Infantry Division were photographed.



Last prior:

Thursday, July 20, 2023

Friday, July 20, 1923. Pancho Villa slain.


José Doroteo Arango, better known as Francisco "Pancho" Villa, was gunned down along with his assistant Daniel Tamayor, his unfortunate chauffeur Migel Trujillo and bodyguards Rafael Madreno and Claro Huertado in Hidalgo del Parral. Bodyguard Ramon Contreras survived the attack, killing one assailant.



The fatal trip into town in his Dodge sedan was to pick up payroll for his ranch employees. Details of the killings remain unclear, but it is widely suspected Plutarco Elías Calles and President Alvaro Obregón had a role in the killings, and that they were brought about by Villa's murmurings that he might reenter politics.  Jesús Salas Barraza took responsibility for the murder, with it being attributed to resentment over Villa whipping him in a feud over a woman, but it's generally felt that this was to divert attention from the plotters. Barraza served three months out of a twenty-year sentence for murder, and went on to become an officer in the Mexican Army.  Most of the surviving assassins also ended up in the Mexican army.



Telegraph service to Villa's hacienda of Canutillo was interrupted briefly, apparently in a move to cut communications lest his followers there start an uprising.

Villa left a complicated personal life in his wake.  His longest lasting spouse, Luz Corral, was not living with him at the time, and Austreberta Rentería was in residence at his hacienda as his wife.  Court challenges would uphold Corral as his legal spouse, and she would inherit his estate.  He had at least four living children at the time of his death.

Villa was an extremely odd character who had served brilliantly as a cavalry commander in the initial stages of the Mexican Revolution, but who was unable to adjust to the changes in military technology that had altered how cavalry had to be used.  He's the best remembered Mexican Revolutionary by far, although politically not a terribly effective one.  His decision to rail Columbus New Mexico in 1916, in retaliation for Woodrow Wilson allowing Carranza to transport his troops across Texas and back into Mexico, nearly lead the US into war, and provided an embarrassing episode in which a US expeditionary force was unable to run him down.  The Punitive Expedition, as it was known, did however serve to prepare the US for entry into World War One.

Perhaps Villa's violent life and death make the gathering of "prominent young girls" in a pageant in Seneca Falls depicting the progress of women, in which they were depicted as ancient warriors, a bit ironic.


 Warriors. Agnes Lester, Marjorie Follette, Emily Knight, Elizabeth Van Sickle, Carol Lester, prominent young girls of Seneca Falls, as warriors in the Drama depicting the Progress of Woman to be given at the reception at Seneca Falls, N.Y., on July 20, 1923.

The bodies of Villa and his men, laying dead in their Dodge, depicted the true face of war, which is not very glamorous. Women in liberal western societies, but only in liberal western societies, would "progress" into combat over the next century, but it's not an existential progress, but a retrograde trip into barbarity.

Casper's paper for the same day reported the end of the second dusk to dawn flying record attempt in Rock Springs.

Speaking of violence and women, the Casper paper was reporting a Cheyenne rancher was charged with violation of the Mann Act in the far western part of the state.

There were strikes in Port Arthur, Texas.

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Thursday, July 19, 1923. Record seeking pilot forced down in Rock Springs.


Russell Maughan's second attempt at a dawn to dusk transcontinental flight came to an end at Rock Springs, Wyoming due to an oil leak.

The leak had developed earlier in the flight, and had been twice repaired, but nausea from the oil finally resulted in his giving up the attempt.

The Frederic Remington Museum in Ogdensburg, New York opened.

Remington is so associated with the American West that it's easy to forget he was actually a New Yorker and while he was very widely traveled, he spent much of his working life in the East.  He was only 48 years old when he died in 1909 due to complications from an appendectomy.  His painting style had never stopped evolving.  He was one of the greatest American artists of all time.

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Friday December 30, 1921. Cheyenne gets gas.

Brattleboro, Vt. from Mt. Wantastiquet.
 

On this day in 1921, the Rock Springs newspaper published reports of the recent big raid in that town.


In Cheyenne, the exciting news was that natural gas, an abundant resource in the state, was coming to the city.



Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Thursday December 29, 1921. The Raid hits the news.

 

We reported on this item yesterday.  It hit the news across the state today, receiving front page treatment in both Casper and Cheyenne.

Cheyenne's paper also noted that Governor Short of Illinois was going to appear in front of a grand jury, but the way the headline was written must have caused Gov. Carey in Wyoming to gasp.  Early example of "click bait"?



Mackenzie King became the Prime Minister of Canada.  He'd serve in that role off and on, mostly on, until 1948.  An intellectual with good writing but poor oral skills, he'd become a dominant Canadian political figure for a generation.

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Wednesday December 28, 1921. The Raid.

A couple of items from our companion blog, Today In Wyoming's History for December 28

1921  A large prohibition  raid occurred in Rock Springs.

Rock Springs had a large Eastern European and Southern European immigrant and first generation population that had never favored prohibition.  As a result, the town predictably became a bootlegging center in Wyoming, leading to a huge evening raid on this day in 1921.

1921  USS Laramie commissioned.

She was a fleet oiler, survived being torpedoed in the Atlantic in 1942, and was decommissioned in 1945.


The Rand Rebellion, a gold miners strike, commenced in South Africa.

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Today In Wyoming's History: September 14, 1919

Today In Wyoming's History: September 14, 1919: 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.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

August 14, 1919. The Red Desert "exerting a depressing influence" on the personnel of the 1919 Motor Transport Convoy.

On this day in 1919, the diarist for the 1919 Motor Transport Convoy reported that parched landscape of the Red Desert was exhibiting a "depressing influence on personnel".

And they had a fair amount of trouble including a breakdown that required an Indian motorcycle to be loaded into the Militor.

You'd see a lot of motorcycles on the same stretch of lonely highway today. The highway itself is unyielding busy but the desert is still a long stretch in Wyoming.  People either love it or find it dispiriting even now.

Classic, retired, Union Pacific Depot in Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Union Pacific freight station, Rock Springs.

Oddly, Rock Springs hardly obtained mention in today's entry, even though it is now a larger city than nearby Green River, which is the county seat.  But it is remarkable to note that the convoy was able to stop, grind a valve, and get back on the road, which is what they did, having the valve ground (or probably grinding it themselves, in Rock Springs.


The final destination that day was Green River, which they arrived in relatively late in the evening, in comparison with other days reported in the diary, after a 13.5 hour day.


Rawlins was the last substantial town that the convoy had passed through prior to this day, and its paper memorialized their stay in the and through the town with a series of photographs in the paper that was issued on this day.


The Casper paper mentioned another momentous event, the transfer of 14,000 acres from the Wind River Indian Reservation to be open for homesteading, a post World War One effort to find homesteads for returning soldiers.

That act was part of a series of similar ones that had chipped away at the size of the Reservation since its founding in the 1860s.  While the Reservation remains large, it was once larger until events like this slowly reduced its overall extent. 

14,000 acres is actually not that much acreage, but what this further indicates is an appreciation on the part of the government that the land around Riverton Wyoming was suitable for farming, as opposed to grazing.  The various homestead acts remained fully in effect in 1919 and indeed 1919 was not surprisingly the peak year for homesteading in the United States, as well as the last year in American history in which farmers had economic parity with urban dwellers.  But the land remaining in the West that was suitable for farming, as opposed to grazing, was now quite limited.  Some of that land was opening up with irrigation projects, however.

None of this took into mind, really, what was just for the native residents of the Reservation and that lead to the protests in Chicago.  Interestingly, those protests do not seem to have been undertaken by Arapaho and Shoshone tribal members, who indeed would have been a long way from home, but rather from Indians who were living in those areas, showing how the the efficient development of the spreading of news was impacting things.

Locally Judge Winters was stepping down as he felt that private practice would be more lucrative and he'd be better able to support his family  Judge Winter was a legendary local judge and his son also entered the practice of law.  While I may be mistaken, Judge Winter came back on the bench later, perhaps after his children were older.  His son was a great University of Wyoming track and field athlete and graduated from the University of Wyoming's law school in the 1930s.  Because of the Great Depression, he was unable to find work at first and therefore only took up practicing law after the Depression eased.  He was still practicing, at nearly 100 years old, when I first was practicing law and he had an office in our building.  He and his wife never had any children.

Sunday, July 21, 2019

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Holy Communion Episcopal Church, Rock Springs Wyoming

Churches of the West: Holy Communion Episcopal Church, Rock Springs Wyoming

Holy Communion Episcopal Church, Rock Springs Wyoming.


This is Holy Communion Episcopal Church in Rock Springs, Wyoming.  Based upon the appearance of the church, I strongly suspect it was an old structure that was added on to, but I haven't found any information to support that. The older part of the church, or what I think is the older part, is a classic English Gothic style structure. The bask side, which is not depicted here, is much more modern and frankly doesn't really work very well, architecturally, with the older portions of the building.

Thursday, June 27, 2019

June 27, 1919. Introduction of the Volstead Act, the men of the 148th coming to Casper, an uncertain Peace, horses and oil, violence in Tennessee, Annapolis and Rock Springs.

On this day in 1919 the Volstead Act, the bill that was tailored to carry out Prohibition under the 18th Amendment, was introduced into the House of Representatives.

On this day in 1919 there was still time to have a beer. Soon, there wouldn't be.

An enforcing act was necessary in order to make Prohibition actually come into effect, something that's occasionally missed in this story.  Compounding the overall confusion, many states had passed state laws on the topic, including Wyoming, so in those places Prohibition was coming into law earlier, and with different provisions.  In some localities, such as Colorado, it already had.

It hadn't come into effect just yet, which meant that Casperites had time left to toast returning members of the 148th Field Artillery, recently discharged from their military service, just as they were also contemplating Germany signing a treaty that would end the war, but which appeared likely to result in an uncertain future.


That uncertain peace headlined the Wyoming State Tribune, which also featured an article that would be regarded as racist today, because it was.  That latter storing being how Mexican women were going to be liberated from the chains of tradition by adopting more progressive, non Mexican, values regarding their gender.


The 15th Cavalry, it was noted, was also going to appear in Cheyenne for new billets that afternoon.

Cavalry of that period was still horse cavalry, of course, and horses remained an important part of the economy in every fashion.  Advertisements for a horse auction in Campbell County appeared right on the cover of Wright's newspaper, which noted that it was published weekly "in the interests of dry-farming and stockraising in Wyoming".


Today, of course, when you think of Wright, you think of oil, gas, and coal.  You probably don't think of farming at all, let alone dry farming, although ranching is still there.

A photographer visited the Burk Waggoner oilfield of Texas on this day, giving a glimpse of what oil production in 1919 was like.





In far off Tennessee, Sheriff Milton Harvie Stephens of Williamson County, was murdered by horse thieves.  He was 74 years old and had held the office for one year.  That crime demonstrates that the value of the old means of travel, and the crimes it was associated with, kept on. The fact that Stephens was employed as a sheriff at age 74 also says something about the working environment of the day.

In that same region of the country, sort of, riots occurred in Annapolis between Navy trainees who were training to be mess attendants and local residents. The riot is regarded as part of the Red Summer, but the oddity of it was that the rioters were all black on both sides.  Mess attendants were normally black or Filipinos in the segregated Navy of that period and in this case it was black local residents who were in conflict with the sailors. The cause was that sailors had been harassing local women.

Strife and violence also seems to have broken out that day in Rock Springs.



Sunday, July 8, 2018

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, Rock Springs, Wyoming

Churches of the West: Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, Rock Spring, Wyoming



This is Our Lady of Sorrows in downtown Rock Springs, Wyoming.  The Romanesque church was built in 1932, replacing an older Catholic Church that had served the English speaking community in Rock Springs.


Badly photographed ornate entry way to Our Lady of Sorrows.

Sunday, July 1, 2018

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, Rock Springs Wyoming..

Churches of the West: Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, Rock Springs Wyoming


Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church is located one block from St. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church in Rock Springs in what was probably an ethnic neighborhood at the time the churches were built.  In addition to having a sizable Slavic Community, Rock Springs had a sizable Greek community as well, both drawn to the area in the early 20th Century by coal mining.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Churches of the West: Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, Rock Springs Wyoming

Churches of the West: Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, Rock Springs Wyoming

Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church is located one block from St. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church in Rock Springs in what was probably an ethnic neighborhood at the time the churches were built.  In addition to having a sizable Slavic Community, Rock Springs had a sizable Greek community as well, both drawn to the area in the early 20th Century by coal mining.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Churches of the West: Sts. Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church, Rock Springs, Wyoming

Churches of the West: Sts. Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church, Rock Springs Wyoming:


This Romanesque church was built in 1912 after a protracted period of time in which efforts were made to build a church specifically for the Catholic Slavic population of Rock Springs, which was quite pronounced at the time. The church was named after brothers Cyril and Methodius who had been the evangelists to the Slavs.  The first pastor was Austrian born Father Anton Schiffrer who was suited to the task given his knowledge of Slavic languages.

Friday, January 20, 2017

Today In Wyoming's History: January 20. The Legislature sends Prohibition to the voters.

People tend not to think of Wyoming in the context of Prohibition, but the state was part of the big sweep that lead to it.  Indeed, while the story lays in the future from this post, Wyoming would push prohibition over the top with Sen. Francis E. Warren's vote in favor of the Volstead Act.

On this day, a century ago, the Legislature, which was predicted to pass a pro-Prohibition bill, did:
Today In Wyoming's History: January 20:

1917   Legislature passed an act submitting an act for a constitutional amendment that would allow people to vote on prohibition. Attribution:  On This Day.
The introduction of the bill had been widely predicated by the Cheyenne newspapers, in the form of predicting some bill.  That it would have taken the form, in 1917, of a proposed amendment to the state constitution is a bit of a surprise, but that would have served the dual purpose of making anything that passed really difficult to get rid of and, additionally, sort of passing the buck to the voters, as such an amendment requires the voters to approve it.

Which they didn't.

I'm not certain how it played out, but if the regular process took place, the voters rejected the measure that following fall.  Wyoming was the last state in the Rocky Mountain region to adopt Prohibition and the proposed amendment did not become law.

Which might have been a sign of things to come. While the state did pass Prohibition into law voluntarily, and in fact pushed it over the top nationally, it took to violating it nearly immediately.  Indeed Western Wyoming would become a bootleg liquor center, with wine being fermented in the Italian sections of Rock Springs and, ironically, heavily Mormon Kemmerer becoming a location for the distillation of high quality bootleg whiskey made with locally grown grain.

As outlined by Phil Roberts in an excellent article in Annals of Wyoming recently, Prohibition did break the back of the saloon trade in Wyoming, which in the end was a good thing. When alcohol returned in the 1930s it was stepped in over time, and with a new system which we retain today. That system, oddly enough for "free enterprise" Wyoming, runs all alcohol through the State Liquor Warehouse, which is the wholesaler for Wyoming, with no legal exceptions.

Prohibition would have the unfortunate impact of killing off a lot of local breweries, including those in Wyoming.  This has changed only recently, although there are quite a few small breweries now and even two distilleries.

A bottle of Wyoming Whiskey.  Something the legislators of 1917 would probably not have appreciated seeing at the time.