January 14
1920 The first fatal air accident to occur near Casper occurred, taking the life of pilot Bert Cole and passenger Maud Toomey. Ms. Toomey is also the first female air fatality in Wyoming. The very early airport in use at this time was located where the town of Evansville now sits, and a memorial to Ms. Toomey, who was a schoolteacher, is located in Evansville. Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.
On this day, Natrona County suffered its first air fatality.
The location of this tragic accident is in Evansville, Wyoming, where the county's first air field was located. There's a cross marking the location somewhere in Evansville, but I've never been able to find it.
On the same day, the paper was reporting on the prior days violent clashes in Germany.
Also on this day in 1920, John Francis Dodge, one of the two Dodge brothers who rose from machinist to automobile manufacturer, died from what really amounted to complications from the Spanish Flu.
John Francis Dodge.
Crude by nature, the Dodge's were somewhat of social outcasts, although their vast wealth made them important members of Detroit society none the less. At the time of his death John Dodge was worth $100,000,000, a vast sum of money now and then. He was survived by his third wife, Matilda and had outlived his first, Ivy. Both Ivy and Matilda were Canadians by birth. Matilda had been his secretary. His second wife, Isabelle, about whom little is known, was his housekeeper and the marriage was kept secret during his lifetime.
Matilda married well twice and inherited large estates twice, going on to become the first female lieutenant governor of Michigan. John's younger brother Horace would live only until December, 1920, also dying of complications of the Spanish Flu. Their deaths sent their car company on the path to being sold to Chrysler in 1925.
The Treasury Department, which enforced Prohibition, was now employing chemists.
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