The Germans advanced to Fabas, France, in their offensive at Verdun.
The French executed Phan Xích Long following an attempted prison breakout days earlier.
Last edition:
Showing posts with label 1910s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1910s. Show all posts
Sunday, February 22, 2026
Saturday, February 21, 2026
Monday, February 21, 1916. The Battle of Verdun commences.
The Germans committed fifty divisions to an assault at Verdun, commencing the battle that would last over nine months.
The German Army deployed stormtroopers in the attack for the first time.
Richard Murphy, legendary American seaman and commercial fisherman, died at age 77.
The Italian hospital ship HS Marechiaro was sunk by the SM U-12 near Durrës, Albania.
Last edition
Friday, February 18, 1916. Villa departs from Plaza de Namiquipa.
Friday, February 20, 2026
Monday, February 20, 1911. Combating the plague.
Lincoln County Wyoming was established.
The Chinese government ordered villagers to burn their dead in order to combat the bubonic plague.
Last edition:
Thursday, February 16, 1911. A resolution to annex Canada voted down.
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Friday, February 18, 1916. Villa departs from Plaza de Namiquipa.
Pancho Villa's forces departed from Plaza de Namiquipa and disappeared. They would not be fully heard from again until March 9.
The German garrison at Mora surrendered after a year and a half long siege.
Last edition:
Wednesday, February 16, 1916. Russian Army blunders, Lomond established, Kermit Roosevelt Jr. born.
Labels: 1910s, 1916, Adams, Bush, Disaster, Dương Văn Minh, Erzurum Offensive, Imperial Russian Army, Kennedy, Ottoman Army, Roosevelt, Texas, Trump
Monday, February 16, 2026
Wednesday, February 16, 1916. Russian Army blunders, Lomond established, Kermit Roosevelt Jr. born.
The Imperial Russian Army, which had been seeing success after success against the Ottomans, entered Erzurum, but botched it, allowing the retreating Ottoman Third Army to set up a new defense line less than 10 km away from the city. Losses were heavy on both sides.
Lomond, Alberta was established.
Kermit Roosevelt Jr. was born to was born to Kermit Roosevelt Sr., son of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, and Belle Wyatt Roosevelt (née Willard) in Buenos Aires. He's later work for the OSS and CIA.
Kermit Jr, Theodore Roosevelt, and Richard Derby.
A member of the greatest dynastic American family, he died in 2000. His father exhibited the occasionally tragic aspect of the family, dying by suicide in 1943 in Alaska.
Anyway you look at it, the Roosevelts stand apart as an American political family, although they have chosen to remain outside of politics since the 1940s. Never tainted while in office, and highly self sacrificing, their family remains admirable to this very day. The Adams family may rate a close second (or first?), followed by the Bush family, and perhaps the Kennedy family. The Trump family stands a chance of being the polar opposite.
Dương Văn Minh, the last President of South Vietnam, was born in French Cochinchina. A soldier by training and profession, he'd live until 2001. He spent much of his post Vietnam War exile in France, but immigrated to Pasadena California to be near his daughter in his old age. He was extremely quiet in exile, and did not produce a memoir.
A gas explosion destroyed Mexia Texas' opera house and damaged a half-block of buildings, killing nine and injuring eight.
Last edition:
Tuesday, February 15, 1916. Chivalry in Africa.
Thursday, February 16, 1911. A resolution to annex Canada voted down.
U.S. Representative William Stiles Bennet (R-New York), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a resolution proposing that the United States annex Canada, after unsuccessfully opposing the reciprocal trade agreement with the country.
He was a sore loser.
The proposal had no chance of passage but rightfully angered Canadians, who had kicked American a** twice in prior armed attempts to annex it.
The resolution failed 9 to 1. Today Republicans would show dronish servitude to King Donny the Mad and vote to approve it.
Life magazine issued its "Socialist Number"
The illustration was by William Balfour Ker, and quite striking. The choice was intentional as Ker, who generally did illustrations, including for Life, was a dedicated Socialist, and one who lived an unconventional lifestyle as was common for radicals of the period.
Last edition:
Wednesday, February 15, 1911. Bogosity then and now and "Viva Diaz!"
Sunday, February 15, 2026
Tuesday, February 15, 1916. Chivalry in Africa.
Allied commander Brigadier General Frederick Hugh Cunliffe sent a message to German commander Captain Ernst von Rabe at the mountain fortress near Mora in Kamerun (now modern-day Cameroon), offering terms of surrender that included all African native soldiers to be allowed safe passage back to their home villages and all German troops interned in England.
Rabe accepted the terms with an additional offer all the native soldiers be paid for their military service.
Ottoman forces around Erzurum were evacuated.
British forces were forced off of "the Bluff" in Belgium. The Germans, however, sustained inordinate casualties in the effort.
Followers of putative Vietnamese Emperor Phan Xích Long attempted to break him out of his prison in Saigon. They failed.
Airborne reconnaissance located the new location of the Senussis.
Last edition:
Monday, February 14, 1916. Russians take Ft. Fafet, Australians mutiny, Petra Herrera murdered, Vietnamese rebel.
Wednesday, February 15, 1911. Bogosity then and now and "Viva Diaz!"
NAVARRO IN JUAREZ; REBELS GO SOUTH; Mexican General with 1,000 Men Greeted with Cries of "Viva Diaz!" -- Met No Insurrectos.
Headline in the New York Times.
Compulsory domestic service? Crud, most women had that then, and still do today.
A completely ineffective medicine that purported to be a remedy for the treatment of tuberculosis made up of olive oil, squill root, almonds, nettle and red poppy petals was granted U.S. Patent 1,368,974.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is probably ready to back it as we speak or read, assuming he's not recounting his glory days of sniffing coke off of toilet seats.
Ah. . . the best and the brightest. . .
"13 anniversary, destruction of the U.S.S. Maine, Havana Harbor, Feb. 15, 1911"
Last edition:
Tuesday, February 14, 1911. Madero reenters Mexico, John Browning patents the 1911.
Saturday, February 14, 2026
Monday, February 14, 1916. Russians take Ft. Fafet, Australians mutiny, Petra Herrera murdered, Vietnamese rebel.
The Russians captured Ft. Tafet.
Australian troops mutinied against conditions at Casula Camp in New South Wales.
Mexican revolutionary Petra Herrera, who fought both as a soldier and worked as a spy, was shot dead by drunken revolutionaries in a bar.
She's started off as a Villista who disguised herself as a man, and then later became an acknowledged female combatant, and later a spy.
Vietnamese rebels rose up in Saigon.
Last edition:
Saturday, February 12, 1916. Russians advance against the Ottomans.
Tuesday, February 14, 1911. Madero reenters Mexico, John Browning patents the 1911.
Madero crossed back into Mexico from Texas to assume command of Mexican revolutionaries, and to evade a U.S. warrant for his arrest.
John Browning was issued a patent:
The House of Representatives approved a controversial reciprocal trade agreement between the United States and Canada, by a 221-92 margin.
Niobrara County, Wyoming, was established.
Last edition:
Monday, February 13, 1911. Taking Durango.
Friday, February 13, 2026
Monday, February 13, 1911. Taking Durango.
The Acting Secretary of State to the Governor of Texas.
Department of State,
Washington, February 13, 1911.
Your telegram of the 10th instant. Department informed by Embassy at Mexico City that Mexican Government does not just now desire to ask for permission to move troops over United States territory.
Huntington Wilson
Troops under Jose Luis Moya took Durango. 55 years old, and therefore into advanced years by the standards of the day, he was an unusual example of a wealthy man who joined the revolution. He'd lose his life in its service in May, 1911.
Today In Wyoming's History: February 13: 1911 Campbell County created.
A coal and hydrocarbons producing county, the population of the county has grown by a factor of nearly ten since my birth, and doubled since I graduated from high school. I vividly recall going there for swim meets in the late 70s and early 80s at which time it was an incredibly rough county.
Nicaragua's President Juan José Estrada declared martial law after an explosion in Managua destroyed a large quantity of arms and ammunition.
Last edition:
Sunday, February 12, 1911.
Thursday, February 12, 2026
Saturday, February 12, 1916. Russians advance against the Ottomans.
Russian forces captured Fort Kara-gobek at Erzurum.
British forces failed to take Salaita Hill in what is now Kenya in the first large scale battle of the East Africa Campaign.
The Aurora was free of ice, but only temporarily.
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Apparently a Casper Knights of Columbus event was a big success, but what was surprising is that it was held at the Masonic hall.
Last edition:
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Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Painted Bricks: Dissing the ConRoy Building, and being inaccurate about it.
Painted Bricks: Dissing the ConRoy Building, and being inaccurate ...: What the crap? The original intent of this blog was simply to record the ghost signs of Casper, Wyoming. It did that pretty rapidly, and th...
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Dissing the ConRoy Building, and being inaccurate about it.
What the crap?
The original intent of this blog was simply to record the ghost signs of Casper, Wyoming. It did that pretty rapidly, and then it went on to catch them elsewhere and expand out a bit from there. Basically, we like historic buildings here.
One of the things we've noted, however, in doing this is that fables grow up around buildings. Sometimes it's really hard to figure out their origin.
I've been familiar with this building for over fifty years. It's one of three sister buildings in Casper that all were designed by the Casper architectural firm of Casper firm of Garbutt and Weidner, who at least based on these three buildings, were heavily into the same appearance for their "skyscrapers" at the time. This is the "ConRoy Building", the Consolidated Royalty Building. We noted its centennial several years, well nearly a decade, ago, elsewhere:
Happy Centenary! Things or rather places, that are 100 years old.
I've been meaning to post this forever but just wasn't in any big hurry to do it. Then it suddenly dawned on me that if I didn't do it soon, these places would be 101 years old, not 100. So here goes.
A thread dedicated to a few local places and establishments that made it to year 100 in 2017.
The ConRoy Building
A thread dedicated to a few local places and establishments that made it to year 100 in 2017.
The ConRoy Building
The ConRoy (Consolidated Royalty Building). The building's appearance has changed somewhat, but you have to really observe it to notice the changes. The windows were replaced from the original style about fifteen years ago, giving it more modern and more efficient windows. The elevator shaft, not visible here, is an enlarged one to accommodate a larger elevator than the one put in when it was built in 1917. The awning restores the building to an original appearance in those regards which it lacked for awhile, but at street level the building has a glass or rock masonry treatment which clearly departs from the original.
One that I've mentioned here before is the ConRoy, or Consolidated Royalty Building. Built in 1917 as the Oil Exchange Building, the building was one of Casper's first "sky scrapers", if in fact not the absolute first. Ground was broken in the summer of 1917 and the building was completed some time in August 1917. The Consolidated Royalty Oil Company, a company in which former Governor B. B. Brooks had a major interest, occupied the fifth floor of the structure.
The ConRoy Building occasionally gets some interesting avian visitors.
Unlike its two sister buildings, the Wyoming National Bank Building (now apartments) and the Townsend Hotel (now the Townsend Justice Center) designed by the same architect, the building has never been vacant and remains in use today. At least one of the current tenants descends from a firm that was a very early tenant, and perhaps a 1917 tenant.
The building has been updated over time, and its appearance is slightly changed due to the addition of an odd decorative rock face in the 1950s, but it by and large looks much like it did in 1917 from the outside. It's one of the few old downtown Casper buildings that hasn't undergone major appearance changes over the years.
May 2, 1917 edition of the Casper Daily Tribune announcing vacancies in the yet to be built Oil Exchange Building. The remainder of this issue was full of war news, and indeed it was partially the oil boom caused by the war that brought the building about.
More recently it figured here, as the owners of the building commissioned some murals on the fire escape doors:
Backdoor art.
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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B. B. Brooks, Republican. He would not be amused.
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?
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