Colorado adopted its apparently popular flag. I've always thought this flag a bit lacking, but that's not the widespread view.
Ho Chi Minh boarded the French ship L'Admiral Latouche Tréville on his way to France. He'd taken a job on the ship as part of the kitchen staff.
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Jack Mosby, an IWW member, deserter from the United States Marine Corps, and son of the Confederal general, won an election for the position of Magonistas commander in Baja California, which the Magonistas had declared the region an independent People's Republic the day prior.
The Magonistas were struggling with internal politics and a lack of supplies, which was preventing them from advancing on Federal forces in the rest of Baja California, which they wished to take in defiance of the surrender of the Diaz government to Madero.
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Madero left El Paso on a Southern Pacific train which took him to Spofford Junction, Texas. He crossed the border there into Mexico where he boarded another train on his trip to Mexico City to meet interim Mexican President de la Barra.
Prominent Porfiristas José Ives Limantour, Guillermo de Landa y Escandón and Leopoldo Batres left Mexico City en route to destinations in the United States and Europe where they'd go into exile.
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was incorporated.
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Porfirio Díaz, declaring "Moriré en México" (I shall die in Mexico), departed the country forever on board the steamer Ypiranga.
His statement, which seems delusional now, was not wholly irrational. Large elements of the Mexican Army supported him, and Mexico's prior history had seen at least one exiled leader, Antonio López de Santa Anna, return.
The White Star liner RMS Titanic was launched from Belfast at 12:13 pm. The ship was incomplete and was towed to a berth to have its superstructure and the interior completed.
Terrorists bombed the Nicaraguan Army barracks at Fort La Loma, killing 130.
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I had no idea that this is what this train was called. Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know!
I've been looking into local passenger train travel as part of my efforts with a novel. What I found is that I knew very little about it. Probably more than your average bear, but that's about it. I'd long assumed that a person could board a train in Casper in 1916 and take the train to Douglas or Cheyenne, and then return that evening, but the more I looked into it, that was just an assumption.
I'm not the one who figured out how it really worked. That goes to MKTH. the result is fascinating.
It turns out I was right sort of. The Burlington Northern ran a train from Denver Colorado, to Billings Montana, and vice versa, daily. This article takes a look at it.
What I imagined, for novel purposes, was boarding in Casper, and traveling to Douglas. I may, as I work at it, make it Cheyenne.
Anyhow, this is a really interesting article and give a really good look at what traveling on the Denver to Billings night train was like, complete with stops for food, which is something I hadn't considered. It also picked up mail, and my source indicates, cream, something I also hadn't figured, but that may explain why the creamery my family owned was just one block from the Burlington Northern. In fact it probably does.
The trip took 19 hours. It take 8 hours today by car, assuming good weather conditions, and not figuring in stops for food, etc. The train moved about 34 miles an hour.
We'll look at the return trip first. The train having come up from Cheyenne boarded there at 12:49 in the morning. Uff.
It got to Casper at 6:20 in the morning, having made a couple of stops along the way.
What I imagined?
Not really. And I also had no idea that there was a major cafe right off the railroad. This article deals with the early 1960s, but I can see that some variant of it was there decades prior. That makes piles of sense, really. Of course there would be. How else would people eat if they were making the long journey?
It simply hadn't occurred to me.
In my imaginary trip., that'd be it. If I stuck with the Douglas variant of this, my protagonist would be boarding the train in the early, early morning hours and get in a couple of fitful hours of sleep, probably interrupted by a stop in little Glenrock. Indeed, this train stopped everywhere to pick up mail, and a few passengers.
What about the other way around?
Well that was a day trip, but as we can see, the 19 hours the train traveled in total meat that it took a good 6.5 hours to travel just from Cheyenne to Casper. Going the other way would mean the same thing, and likely a bit in reverse. The 6.5 hour trip from Cheyenne to Casper was the second major leg of the trip (it'd still stop in numerous small towns in between), the first being Denver to Cheyenne. Going the other way around meant that the Cheyenne to Denver leg was about five hours. The article notes that the train actually arrived from Billings 40 minutes before its 7:00 p.m. departure. So it arrived, more or less, at 6:00 p.m. and changed crews. That would have meant that it left Cheyenne, on the way to Denver, at about 1:00 p.m. or so, which makes sense. Passengers traveling all the way to Denver would have eaten lunch there.
By extension, however, that meant that the train left Casper at about 6;00 in the morning, approximately.
These times are almost unimaginable now. When we had good air travel to Denver I'd frequently board United Express here about 6;00 a.m. and be in Denver about 8:30, and take the train downtown and be to work by 9. I'd be back in Casper on the redeye about 10:00, or if I was lucky, 6:00.
And when I go to Cheyenne, I drive. Normally that takes me a little under three hours. I haven't stayed overnight in Cheyenne for years, although I recently had an instance which should really cause me to.
Anyhow, if I'm looking at 1916, why not just drive?
Well, in 1916 most Americans, including most Wyomingites, didn't own automobiles, and those who did, didn't normally make long trips with them. They frankly weren't that reliable, even though they were simple. Roads also tended to be primitive, and not really maintained for weather. Could a person have driven from Casper to Cheyenne in a Model T, the most likely car they would have had? Yes, but it wouldn't have been any faster. It may well have been slower, quite frankly, as well as much riskier.
There's precedent for it.
When Woodrow Wilson, after campaigning on keeping us out of war, committed us to the greatest one in the world's history at that time since the Napoleonic Wars, he was faced with the problem that his pacificist Attorney General was of the view that National Guardsmen could be Federalized only to spats within the United States. That's what kept them on the border, but not over it, during the Punitive Expedition.
But somebody came up with the brilliant idea that as the U.S. was introducing conscription, the entire Guard could just be conscripted. . . so it was, on August 5, 1917, specifically.
ICE already acts like an occupying military force, and it dresses like one. It's familiar with weapons, as we all know. If troops are needed for boots on the ground, draft them en masse.
I'm not joking. Those who signed up for ICE had to be comfortable with MAGA extremism. Let them go fight for MAGA. Draft them into the Army, and if boots are going in, send them.
I'll note I've seen a similar idea posted elsewhere:
I feel the same way here. I'm tired of the rah rah MAGAs who are were against war until Trump was for it, and support anything that Trump supports. Over half of the American public feels Donald Trump is a demented twat waffle. Let those who admire him go fight and if necessary die for their beloved. They portray Trump as a hero. . . well here's there very own chance to be one themselves.
Let the Trumps go first. Barron is of military age and, based on the life history of his family, is more likely to be a boil on the butt of humanity than something benefitting it. Service would do him, and his two brothers, and heck his sisters good. Maybe the Trump family will pull itself out of the world it lives in and inflicts on the rest of us if they see a little of the rest of it that isn't so rich and gaudy.
Let them go fight, and if necessary die, in their father's war.
And the same for Wyoming mega MAGA Trumpites. Chuck Gray is still young enough to serve and hasn't had a real job a day in his life. He's not married and doesn't have any dependents either. Here's his chance. He can come back a veteran, maybe a hero, or, if in a body bag, well, there won't be a widow or orphan. Reid Rasner already has the crewcut, and he's single too. Let him go put his life on the line for Donald. He talks might big, let him put his mouth, and his body, where his words are. Yes, there's risk involved, but if that risk isn't accepted, well the words were just that.
Chuck and Reid, a recruiting station is a near as the mall.
And then there's all the "I'm a veteran" candidates out there who on the far right in Wyoming. Well, if there's one thing being a veteran qualifies you for its military service. Brent Bien. . . your chance to show us your mettle once again awaits. . .
Shoot, let non veteran John Barrasso go. Heck, make him go. He's been practicing the Patton "war face" for years. Yes, he's a geezer, but I'm confident if he asked Donny, Donny would let him go and shortly forget who he was.
Most Americans didn't want this war. Most Americans shouldn't have to fight in it. Perhaps only those who are willing to volunteer for it within the service right now should have to. We let servicemen with moronic objections to vaccinations out of the service during the Biden Administration. We should let those who have no desire to fight and die for whatever we're fighting and dying for now get out, if they don't want to serve. Their ranks can be filled by MAGA, ICE, and Trumps.
But it won't happen.
ICE will simply carry on as it is, until 2027. MAGAs will continue to support any dumbass thing Trump spews out of his decaying brain. People who have connections with Epstein Island will go on doing what they do.
And if we're still in it by fall and its turning to shit, well 9 out of the 10 "Trump was always right" crowed will deny they ever saw anything in him. They knew, they'll claim, he was a fraud all along.
Only the dead, Santayana tells us, have seen an end to war. It's a pretty good guess that no Trumps and no fire breathing MAGA politicians are going to see war at all. They're okay with Trumps war, but not so much that they'll ever seek out to fight in it.
Not that this is a surprise. Trump has always felt that servicemen are schmucks. He's loyal to no one other than himself, and perhaps to those who have something over him. The dead, well, you know, that just happens.
.webp)
The Germans advanced to Fabas, France, in their offensive at Verdun.
The French executed Phan Xích Long following an attempted prison breakout days earlier.
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More recently it figured here, as the owners of the building commissioned some murals on the fire escape doors:
So how on earth does it end up in a political campaign?
Frankly, I have no idea, but the entire idea of it being built by "a Democrat" is a real wild one. The principal figure in the building being built was B. B. Brooks, who served as a Republican Governor for Wyoming, as we noted above. Brooks had his offices on the fifth floor of the building.
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This building has been continually occupied since 1917, and some of the businesses currently in it have been in the building since the 1940s although as earlier noted, one of them might have been in the building as early as 1917. Of the other two sisters, one is now the Townsend Justice Center which houses Natrona County's courts, and Wyo. Bank Bldg is an apartment building with a cafe on the street level.
All three buildings originally had, fwiw, massive period style lobbies which are sadly now all gone although you can catch glimpses of them, particularly in the Wyo. National Bank Bldg. The ConRoy once had a cigar store and magazine stand on the street level, after the lobby was taken out, and into the 50s, which explains the current appearance of its very small lobby today. Basically, the ConRoy and the Wyoming National Bank building were victims of "modernization" concepts in architecture from the 1950s and 1960s, at which time those buildings were forty years old and less, and nobody thought of them being particularly historic. The Townsend probably retained its architecture the longest, as it was a hotel originally, and up into the 70s when it closed. By that time it was pretty much a flop house with a popular cafe. I recall it as my father had lunch there until the cafe closed, which many other downtown businessmen and professionals did as well. It made for an odd place to go as a kid, which I sometimes did with my father, as the cafe was really popular, as was the adjoined Petroleum Club, but in the lobby the working girls were recovering from their prior night.
The ConRoy, on the other hand, has hummed on much like it has since 1917, although some of the notable early tenants, like the Casper Star Tribune, have moved on. The building was recently featured in the Oil City News when some of the equipment for a new elevator, replacing the one from the 1950s that replaced the one from 1917, was lifted by crane into the structure.
Anyhow, this is baffling. Of course, I only know of this as somebody else whose familiar with the building pointed it out to me and was horribly amused by it. I don't know that I am, as I like things to be accurate.
But why would a person do this, and how would such a wild rumor get started?
There was dramatic news on the cover of the Casper paper:
