Another interesting item about transportation a century ago. From a recent Casper Star Tribune article, quoting the Natrona County Tribune of 1909.
"A Dozen Will be in Service During This Summer.
"... J. P. Cantillon, superintendent of the Wyoming & Northwestern railroad company, ... was the first of Casper's citizens to start the fashion. Mr. Cantillon owns a Pope-Toledo, 20 horse power. ... (T)o its use is due the fact that very few of the ranchers about here now have any teams that are afraid to meet an auto in the road. ...
"C. M. Elgin ... has a Chalmers-Detroit 30-horse power," which he drove to Casper after purchase. "The time made on the trip ... (was) eighteen hours and forty-five minutes from Denver.
" ... M. N. Castle (Shorty) owns a 20-horse power Reo . ... (He) deserves credit for a new mixture ... for fuel for his machine, but he only used it once, and says that he will never do so again if he can help it. ... (H)e ran out of gasoline and could procure no more, but the ranch where he stopped had plenty of coal oil. Shorty tanked up with the coal oil and the mixture ... sufficed to run him into town, a distance of twelve miles."
The Reo in question appears here.
J. V. Puleo, on this topic on the Society of the Military Horse website, posted an interesting photograph of a little newer Reo here.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Transportation, Early 20th Century
Natrona County Tribune, 1909 A trip to write about -- "AN auto-stage line is to be established between Shoshoni and Thermopolis in the near future, and every editor in the state is hoping that the gasoline wagon will be in operation before the meeting of the Press association."
An item noted in today's Casper Star Tribune.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Niobrara County Courthouse
This is the Niobrara County Courthouse, one of the oldest courthouses still in use here. Perhaps its the oldest one still in use. Anyhow, this is an example of how they used to be.
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Postscript.
Perhaps simply because this is one of the first posts that I did on this blog it has remained, for some reason, one of the consistently most viewed. Anyhow, in checking back on it, I realized that I didn't post a link to the photo of this courthouse up on Courthouses of the West, our companion blog, in the main thread, although I did add it in a comment.
Also, since posting this, I've learned that at the time I posted this photo there were at least two, and probably three, courthouses then in use that are older than this one. One of those, the Johnson County Courthouse, just went out of use, as a new courthouse has been built. Another one, however, in Uinta County is much older than this one, having been actually built in the 1870s.
Transportation, late 19th Century
A modern highway map shows as distance of 211 miles from Worland, in the southern half of the basin, to Rawlins, and 293 miles from Cody to Green River, but modern transportation systems are not remotely like those of 1879. In practical terms, Green River and Rawlins were further from the Big Horn Basin in 1879 than they are now from Outer Mongolia, and criminal prosecution was nearly impossible.
There were no roads leading south from the basin, only trails. At least one yearly trip to the Union Pacific had to be made, though, because in the early 1880s this was the nearest railhead, the only real opening to a market to sell cattle and get supplies. E. W. Copps declared that the cattle drive from Buffalo to Rawlins, a trip that did not require a traverse of mountains, took eighteen days. Coming from the basin, however, a cattle owner first had to get out, and any exit required going over an 8,000-foot pass, such as Birdseye Pass or Cottonwood Pass; thus, David John Wasden's estimate of six weeks for a round trip seems about right. Of course, the return trip, when cattle were not being driven, did not take as long but was still arduous. Owen Wister describes a 263 mile excursion from Medicine Bow "deep into cattle land," a trip taking several days by wagon, while "swallowed in a vast solitude." His description sounds like a journey north into the Big Horn Basin.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Sunday, April 18, 1909. St. Joan d'Arc beatified.
St. Joan d'Arc was beatified by Pope Pius X before a crowed of 30,000 in St. Peter's Square.
Drawing of St. Joan d'Arc made during her lifetime.
A patron saint of France who lived from 1412 to 1431 before being executed, her canonization would follow in May, 1920.
Remarkably, an example of her signature exists.
The 1909 St. Louis Cardinals were photographed.
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Saturday, April 17, 1909. Soccer riots.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Saturday, April 17, 1909. Soccer riots.
Thousands of angry soccer fans attacked the stadium at Hampden Park after a replay of the Scottish Cup between the Rangers and Celtics ended in a draw.
Soccer riots aren't a new thing.
The Scottish Football Association did not award the prize cup to any team.
Helen and William Howard Taft opened West Potomac Park to the public.
Child laborers were photographed in Rhode Island on this day in 1909.
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Wednesday, April 14, 1909. The Adana Massacre continues.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Wednesday, April 14, 1909. The Adana Massacre continues.
The slaughter of Armenian Christians by Ottoman soldier began in earnest in Adana, Ottoman Empire.
Tuesday, April 13, 1909. The Aadna Massacre.
The Adna Massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which would kill over 20,000 people, commenced. Ottoman troops would participate in it.
Armenian orphans from the massacre.
The Armenians had the first Christian kingdom in the world, and have had a state of one kind or another since 860 BC. Since the conquest of Anatolia by the Turks, they've been subject to repeated atrocities.
The Anglo Persian Oil Company was incorporated. The company became a power in its own right, and extensively exploited what became Iran, setting the stage for what we have today, unfortunately.
Minnesota passed a law banning cigarettes, effective August 1. Too bad that didn't stick.
Punch, April 14, 1909.
Sheep yards, Kirkland, Ill, April 14, 1909.
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Tuesday, April 13, 1909. The Aadna Massacre.
1900s, 1909, Adana Massacre, Armenian Genocide, Education, North Carolina, Ottoman Empire, panoramic, The Big Picture
Monday, April 13, 2009
Tuesday, April 13, 1909. The Aadna Massacre.
The Adna Massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which would kill over 20,000 people, commenced. Ottoman troops would participate in it.
Armenian orphans from the massacre.
The revolution was backed by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who sought to regain the absolute power. It wouldn't go well for him.
What would become the University of North Carolina was photographed.
State Normal School, #1, Greensboro, N.C., April 13, 1909.
State Normal School, #2, Greensboro, N.C., April 13, 1909.
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Monday, April 12, 1909. Doc Powers falls ill.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Monday, April 12, 1909. Doc Powers falls ill.
Michael Riley "Doc" Powers, catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics and a physician, became seriously ill during a game. He'd ultimately die of peritonitis a few days later, after three intestinal operation. He blamed his condition on earthing a cheese sandwich during the game, while some though he'd been injured straining to catch a foul ball, or by crashing into a wall during the game.
He was 38 years old at the time of his death.
I’m guessing the cheese sandwich was right. Having been a victim of the dreaded gasoline station sandwich, and having witnesses my son virtually rendered comatose due to one, I think Doc was right.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Sunday, April 11, 1909. Tel Aviv founded.
Settlers drawing lots for plots, April 1909.
100 Jewish settlers living in Jaffa founded a 12 acre village located in sand dunes, dividing the property into 60 lots. It was called Ahuzzat Bayit, but only for a year, after which it was renamed Tel Aviv.
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Saturday, April 10, 1909 Finnish, Métis Tragedy, and Arctic Tragedy.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Saturday, April 10, 1909 Finnish, Métis Tragedy, and Arctic Tragedy.
Czar Nicholas II approved a recommendation that "laws of general Imperial interest concerning Finland" be enacted by the Duma, in which Finland had a single representative, rather than its own legislative assemble. It was part of the process of Russification of the country which had commenced in 1899, reversing the original imperial policy put in place in 1808 when Sweden had lost Finland to Russia.
The Finn's have inhabited Finland since at least 9,000 BC, and probably longer. The first references to it as an entity come from Catholic sources in the 12th Century as the Church began to Christianize the country, but it had no real political organization. It came under the control of Sweden the following century, with Sweden losing it to Russia in the Finnish War of 1808-1809. The Russification policy, something the Russians have exhibited ever since the 19th Century wherever it has control, and which effectively continues to the present day, would result in the Finnish independence movement.
Canada opened up the Métis lands in Alberta to homesteaders. 250 claims by French Canadians were registered on the first day.
Professor Ross G. Marvin of Cornell became Admiral Peary's Eighth Arctic Expedition's only fatality when he drowned, maybe.
His body was found floating and appeared to have gone through thin ice, as reported by Inuit guide Kudlookto. However, in 1926 Kudlookto claimed he had shot and killed Marvin, either because Marvin had started acting irrationally, or because Marvin refused to let Kudlookto's cousin, another member of the expedition, rest. Peary's daughter (as you'll recall his sons were by his native mistress and were left up in the Arctic in the abandoned care of their mother), discounted the story, although how she would know what happened in reality is another matter. Presumably from information supplied by her father.
It's hard to imagine why Kudlookto would make the story of killing Marvin up, although people do odd things.
Peary's account.
He had been on a prior expedition. He was 29 years old at the time of his death.
Cipriano Castoro, the former President of Venezuela, was forcibly ejected from Martinique by the French.
Jonesboro, Tenn, April 10, 1909.
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Friday, April 9, 1909. Establishing Mother's Day.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Wednesday, April 9, 1924. Dawes Plan released.
The Dawes Committee released its plan for the Allies to restructure the method of reparations payments being made by the Germans.
Pope Pius XI canceled plans to leave the Vatican in order to dedicate a new building for the Knights of Columbus in Rome, which would have made him the first Pontiff since 1870 to travel outside of the Vatican's walls.
Cancelled on thirty minutes notice, Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Gasparri, appeared in his place. The cancellation was over the issue of Vatican sovereignty, but was spurred on due to this intended departure of the place being a major matter in the local press.
Senator Smith of South Carolina in 1924. He'd serve until 1944, when he was defeated for reelection. He took the news on his farm and stated: Well, I guess I better go out and look at the pigs." He died several days later, in the same bed in which he'd been born. His Senatorial career had spanned from 1909 to 1944, the same span as our look back posts today.
Senator Ellison Smith delivered his "Shut The Door" speech.
It seems to me the point as to this measure—and I have been so impressed for several years—is that the time has arrived when we should shut the door. We have been called the melting pot of the world. We had an experience just a few years ago, during the great World War, when it looked as though we had allowed influences to enter our borders that were about to melt the pot in place of us being the melting pot.
I think that we have sufficient stock in America now for us to shut the door, Americanize what we have, and save the resources of America for the natural increase of our population. We all know that one of the most prolific causes of war is the desire for increased land ownership for the overflow of a congested population. We are increasing at such a rate that in the natural course of things in a comparatively few years the landed resources, the natural resources of the country, shall be taken up by the natural increase of our population. It seems to me the part of wisdom now that we have throughout the length and breadth of continental America a population which is beginning to encroach upon the reserve and virgin resources of the country to keep it in trust for the multiplying population of the country.
I do not believe that political reasons should enter into the discussion of this very vital question. It is of greater concern to us to maintain the institutions of America, to maintain the principles upon which this Government is founded, than to develop and exploit the underdeveloped resources of the country. There are some things that are dearer to us, fraught with more benefit to us, than the immediate development of the undeveloped resources of the country. I believe that our particular ideas, social, moral, religious, and political, have demonstrated, by virtue of the progress we have made and the character of people that we are, that we have the highest ideals of any member of the human family or any nation. We have demonstrated the fact that the human family, certainty the predominant breed in America, can govern themselves by a direct government of the people. If this Government shall fail, it shall fail by virtue of the terrible law of inherited tendency. Those who come from the nations which from time immemorial have been under the dictation of a master fall more easily by the law of inheritance and the inertia of habit into a condition of political servitude than the descendants of those who cleared the forests, conquered the savage, stood at arms and won their liberty from their mother country, England.
I think we now have sufficient population in our country for us to shut the door and to breed up a pure, unadulterated American citizenship. I recognize that there is a dangerous lack of distinction between people of a certain nationality and the breed of the dog. Who is an American? Is he an immigrant from Italy? Is he an immigrant from Germany? If you were to go abroad and some one were to meet you and say, “I met a typical American,” what would flash into your mind as a typical American, the typical representative of that new Nation? Would it be the son of an Italian immigrant, the son of a German immigrant, the son of any of the breeds from the Orient, the son of the denizens of Africa? We must not get our ethnological distinctions mixed up with out anthropological distinctions. It is the breed of the dog in which I am interested. I would like for the Members of the Senate to read that book just recently published by Madison Grant, The Passing of a Great Race. Thank God we have in America perhaps the largest percentage of any country in the world of the pure, unadulterated Anglo-Saxon stock; certainly the greatest of any nation in the Nordic breed. It is for the preservation of that splendid stock that has characterized us that I would make this not an asylum for the oppressed of all countries, but a country to assimilate and perfect that splendid type of manhood that has made America the foremost Nation in her progress and in her power, and yet the youngest of all the nations. I myself believe that the preservation of her institutions depends upon us now taking counsel with our condition and our experience during the last World War.
Without offense, but with regard to the salvation of our own, let us shut the door and assimilate what we have, and let us breed pure American citizens and develop our own American resources. I am more in favor of that than I am of our quota proposition. Of course, it may not meet the approbation of the Senate that we shall shut the door—which I unqualifiedly and unreservedly believe to be our duty—and develop what we have, assimilate and digest what we have into pure Americans, with American aspirations, and thoroughly familiar with the love of American institutions, rather than the importation of any number of men from other countries. If we may not have that, then I am in favor of putting the quota down to the lowest possible point, with every selective element in it that may be.
The great desideratum of modern times has been education not alone book knowledge, but that education which enables men to think right, to think logically, to think truthfully, men equipped with power to appreciate the rapidly developing conditions that are all about us, that have converted the world in the last 50 years into a brand new world and made us masters of forces that are revolutionizing production. We want men not like dumb, driven cattle from those nations where the progressive thought of the times has scarcely made a beginning and where they see men as mere machines; we want men who have an appreciation of the responsibility brought about by the manifestation of the power of that individual. We have not that in this country to-day. We have men here to-day who are selfishly utilizing the enormous forces discovered by genius, and if we are not careful as statesmen, if we are not careful in our legislation, these very masters of the tremendous forces that have been made available to us will bring us under their domination and control by virtue of the power they have in multiplying their wealth.
We are struggling to-day against the organized forces of man’s brain multiplied a million times by materialized thought in the form of steam and electricity as applied in the everyday affairs of man. We have enough in this country to engage the brain of every lover of his country in solving the problems of a democratic government in the midst of the imperial power that genius is discovering and placing in the hands of man. We have population enough to-day without throwing wide our doors and jeopardizing the interests of this country by pouring into it men who willingly become the slaves of those who employ them in manipulating these forces of nature, and they few reap the enormous benefits that accrue therefrom.
We ought to Americanize not only our population but our forces. We ought to Americanize our factories and our vast material resources, so that we can make each contribute to the other and have an abundance for us under the form of the government laid down by our fathers.
The Senator from Georgia [Mr. Harris] has introduced an amendment to shut the door. It is not a question of politics. It is a question of maintaining that which has made you and me the beneficiaries of the greatest hope that ever burned in the human breast for the most splendid future that ever stood before mankind, where the boy in the gutter can look with confidence to the seat of the Presidency of the United States; where the boy in the gutter can look forward to the time when, paying the price of a proper citizen, he may fill a seat in this hall; where the boy to-day poverty-stricken, standing in the midst of all the splendid opportunities of America, should have and, please God, if we do our duty, will have an opportunity to enjoy the marvelous wealth that the genius and brain of our country is making possible for us all.
We do not want to tangle the skein of America’s progress by those who imperfectly understand the genius of our Government and the opportunities that lie about us. Let up keep what we have, protect what we have, make what we have the realization of the dream of those who wrote the Constitution.
I am more concerned about that than I am about whether a new railroad shall be built or whether there shall be diversified farming next year or whether a certain coal mine shall be mined. I would rather see American citizenship refined to the last degree in all that makes America what we hope it will be than to develop the resources of America at the expense of the citizenship of our country. The time has come when we should shut the door and keep what we have for what we hope our own people to be.
South Dakota experienced floods on the Belle Fourche.
Friday, April 9, 1909. Establishing Mother's Day.
South Dakota became the first state to officially recognize Mother's Day, with a proclamation by Gov. Robert S. Vessy that designated "the second Sabbath in our national memorial month of May" for the same.
This followed the first church service recognizing the day, which had been in 1907 as prat of Anna Jarvis' effort to establish the holiday, which she had been working on since 1905. The first service for the day was at Andrews Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia.
This brings to mind something we posted last week:
Blog Mirror: Family Values
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Thursday, April 8, 1909. Creation of Japanese Corporations
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Thursday, April 8, 1909. Creation of Japanese Corporations
The Japanese Diet passed a law for the Japanese equivalent of corporations.
The United Kingdom and France accepted the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Chickasha Oklahoma, April 8, 1909.
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Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Wednesday, April 7, 1909. A busy day for the Tafts.
President Taft issued an executive order that deaf mutes and deaf persons be allowed to take the civil service examination.
Some of the Tafts went riding.
Helen Taft became a professor of history and college dean.
The third Taft child, Robert, not pictured here, went on to become a U.S. Senator from Ohio.
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Tuesday, April 6, 1909. Peary claims the North Pole.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Tuesday, April 6, 1909. Peary claims the North Pole.
Adm. Robert E. Peary, Matthew Henson, Ootah, Ooqueah, Egingwah, and Seegloo, reached the northernmost point of their expedition, which Peary believed to be the North Pole. They would remain there for thirty hours.
They would learn, upon their return, that Frederick Cook had claimed the prize of reaching the North Pole first already, although his claim could not be substantiated. In 1989 the National Geographic Society determined that Peary had dome within 5 miles of the North Pole, which may or may not be close enough if it really matters.
The claim of who was first led into a bitter contest, in which Peary prevailed. Cook went on to a sad life, going into the oil business in Texas and Wyoming, where he'd be accused of fraud. He was convicted, after which his Texas claims proved to be in one biggest oil pools in the state. He died in 1940, at age 75, after having just been pardoned by Franklin Roosevelt.
As noted, I'm not a fan of Peary's. Ironically, the US flag he hoisted at the presumed pole had been sewn by his wife, whom he was cheating on in the Arctic. Peary quit talking about his trip after he took questions he received to be hostile. He died, leaving an abandoned family in the Arctic, at age 63 in 1920.
As or the first, Cook could well have been first, or not. Same with Peary, depending upon how you determine the pinpoint spot. It seems reasonably to say they were both pretty close to the North Pole, which in the context of the time, may be close enough.
The first undisputed trip to the North Pole was made in 1968.
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Monday, April 5, 1909. Sensational news.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Monday, April 5, 1909. Sensational news.
A hoax with long legs started on this day when the Phoenix Gazette published "Explorations in Grand Canyon: Mysteries of Immense Rich Cavern Brought to Light" claiming that S. A. Jordan of the Smithsonian Institute had found a network of interlinking tunnels filled with Egyptian artifacts and mummies. The entire matter was a hoax, but the Internet, amazingly, has kept it alive.
Seemingly all of it, including the names of the discoverer, were simply made up by reporters having some fun.
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Friday, April 2, 1909., The Spring Creek Raid.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Friday, April 2, 1909., The Spring Creek Raid.
Today In Wyoming's History: The Spring Creek Raid.:
Arrests soon followed and five of the assailants were ultimately charged with murder. Two turned states' evidence. The trials were not consolidated and only Herbert Brink's case went to trial. To the surprise of some, he was convicted by the jury. Due to prior trials for the killing of sheepmen being both unsuccessful and unpopular, Wyoming took the step of deploying National Guardsmen to Basin to provide security for the trial, which proved unnecessary. The conviction was the first one in the area for a cattleman v. sheepman murder( Tom Horn had earlier been convicted for the 1903 killing of Willie Nickell, but that killing took place in southern Wyoming.
The killings were, quite rankly, uniquely cold blooded and gruesome, involving shooting into the wagons and setting them on fire. Because of that, and the Brink conviction, the remaining four charged men plead guilty, rather than face trial. Two plead guilty to arson, and two to second degree murder.
The Spring Creek Raid.
Students of Wyoming's history are well familiar with the story of the Spring Creek Raid, which occurred on April 2, 1909, on the Nowood River outside of Ten Sleep, Wyoming. The tragedy has been the subject of at least three well known books, including the excellent A Vast Amount of Trouble, Goodbye Judge Lynch, and Ten Sleep and No Rest, the first two by lawyer and historian John W. Davis and the third, and earlier work, by Jack Gage, a former Governor of Wyoming.
The raid is justifiably famous for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it may be the sheepman murder that most closely fits the way that we imagine the cattlemen v. sheepmen war of the late 19th and early 20th Century being. Of course, the fact that it was an outright cold blooded killing no doubt causes it to be well remembered as well. And then that the killings actually resulted in a trial which convicted the assassins is also worth remembering, as it demonstrated the turn of the tide of the public view on such matters.
The Wyoming historical marker sign that describes the killings does a good job of it, with perhaps the only thing omitted is that one of the ambushing party was armed with a semi automatic Remington Model 8 in .35 Remington, a very distinct arm for the time. In basic terms, the raid occurred as several men connected with cattle raising in the area decided to enforce the "Deadline", a topographic feature of the Big Horn Mountains which meant it was a literal dead line.
The .35 Remington turned out to be critical in the story of the raid as it was an unusual cartridge for what was, at the time, an unusual arm. The Remington 08 had only been introduced in 1905 and was a semi automatic rifle in an era in which the lever action predominated. A lot of .35 Remington cartridges were left at the scene of the murders and investigation very rapidly revealed that a Farney Cole had left his Remington 08 at the home of Bill Keyes, which was quite near the location of the assault. One of the assailants, George Saban, was known to not carry a gun and was also known to have been at the Saban residence the day of the assault. Subsequent investigation matched other cartridges found on the location to rifles and pistols known to have been carried by the attackers.
Arrests soon followed and five of the assailants were ultimately charged with murder. Two turned states' evidence. The trials were not consolidated and only Herbert Brink's case went to trial. To the surprise of some, he was convicted by the jury. Due to prior trials for the killing of sheepmen being both unsuccessful and unpopular, Wyoming took the step of deploying National Guardsmen to Basin to provide security for the trial, which proved unnecessary. The conviction was the first one in the area for a cattleman v. sheepman murder( Tom Horn had earlier been convicted for the 1903 killing of Willie Nickell, but that killing took place in southern Wyoming.
The killings were, quite rankly, uniquely cold blooded and gruesome, involving shooting into the wagons and setting them on fire. Because of that, and the Brink conviction, the remaining four charged men plead guilty, rather than face trial. Two plead guilty to arson, and two to second degree murder.
All were sentenced together, and Brink was sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted, however, and he was released from prison, together with another one of the party, in 1914. Another, George Saban, who was deeply affected by his conviction, escaped while out of the penitentiary and under guard, after being allowed to stay over in Basin in order to allegedly conduct some of his affairs. His escape was successful and he disappeared from the face of the earth.
Interestingly, the Casper Press had an advertisement aimed at range dwelling stockmen on its cover the same day.
The Jewish Territorialist Organization, which sought to find a location for a Jewish homeland outside of Palestine, released its report from its expedition to Cyrenaica (Libya), concluding that the lack of water made it impracticable as a Jewish homeland.
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