Friday, March 10, 2017

The Laramie Boomerang for March 10, 1917: Laramie's troops retained in Cheyenne


The Laramie Boomerang was reporting that Laramie's Guardsmen had been unexpectedly detained in Cheyenne. 

There could be several reasons that this decision came about. For one thing, Laramie's unit was a medical detachment, not too surprisingly as the location of the University of Wyoming in Laramie gave the unit an educated population to draw from.  So perhaps it was kept at Ft. Russell until the other troops had cleared in case medical needs popped up.

Additionally, these troops were only traveling 50 miles, as oppose to the long distances being traveled by other Wyoming troops.  There may not have been available transportation space, in which case retaining the troops going back to Laramie would have made sense.

And finally, as many of these men were students, they didn't have much to go back to.  It was too late in the semester for the many students to return to school, and a lot of them probably were leaving right from Laramie on to their actual homes, or were competing for what little work there was in Laramie.

At any rate, while the rest of the Guardsmen were leaving Cheyenne, they stayed an extra couple of days.

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