Sunday, December 19, 2021

Monday, December 19, 1921. Rockin' 1922

You may have noticed, if you are a regular reader here, that the daily entries for a century ago have very much trailed off. That may have been not noticed as the temporary daily ones for eighty years ago have picked up.

This is a history website, after all.

Anyhow, this 1921 Casper Daily Tribune is put up for two reasons, one in the front page above.

That's the headline "Year 1922 To Rock World".

I guess I've always associated the word "rock" like that, to come from "Rock and Roll". 

Apparently not.

And here's the next one:



528 West Yellowstone Highway today is an auto body shop . In 1921, however, it was the U.S. Army Goods Company, a surplus store. That caught my eye as just a block away, at 254 West 1st Street, there was a store when I was young called War Surplus.  It's now Gear Up, an outdoor clothing store.

We always called War Surplus the "Army store" when I was a kid, and my father referred to it as the "Army Navy Store".  I wonder if this nearby store was the same store, and it just moved a block deeper into the Sand Bar at a later date?

It was an enduring fixture of my youth, at any rate, and in the 60s and 70s it had a lot of genuine war surplus items from the 40s through the 70s.  It also sold Carhartts, and heavy work clothing, much like the store noted here on the way to the Standard Oil Refinery (now also long gone) did.

Anyhow, I've always associated that store with surplus becoming widely available after World War Two.  For whatever reason, I didn't associate the same thing with World War One.  I likely should have, as overproduction of some items occurred on such a vast scale in the Great War it caused a scandal, and a Congressional investigation, later.

No comments: