The Lieutenant

The Lieutenant ('A Troubled Image')

Gene Rodenberry before that Star Trek.

The Lieutenant ('The War Called Peace')

And the middle name Tiberius appears. . . hmmmm.

Sunday Morning Scene. Churches of the West: College Heights Baptist Church/Christ Reformed Church. Casper, Wyoming.

Churches of the West: College Heights Baptist Church/Christ Reformed Chu...: 

College Heights Baptist Church/Christ Reformed Church, Casper Wyoming

I'll admit to a lot of confusion on this one regarding what this church currently is.

The church was built as College Heights Baptist Church in 1963, at which time it would have been on the edge of Casper.  Signs on the church still identify it as College Heights Baptist, but signs leading up to it point people towards the large old elementary school nearby, which College Heights bought a decade or more ago. The same signs indicate that this church is now Christ Reformed Church.

Reading between the lines and reading the signs, what I think I take from that, although I'm frankly not certain, is that College Heights Baptist has moved into the very large school and uses it for everything and it is now letting Christ Reformed occupy its old church.  Having said that, I'm not really sure.  Christ Reformed is a member of the branch of the Protestant "Reformed" churches of which the Dutch Reformed are best known in the United States.

September 3, 1920. Stepp appointed postmaster.

1920 Alonzo Stepp was appointed the postmaster of Fontenelle, Wyoming.  He was an area rancher.

That may not seem remarkable, but Stepp was an African American who was exceptional for his era in numerous ways, one of which was that he was one of few black ranchers in the state at the time, with there remaining few today.  The Kentucky born Stepp was college educated, having received a classical education, but immigrated to Wyoming with his wife, whom he'd met in college, to pursue ranching after having worked on a Wyoming ranch one summer while in college. That introduction to ranching came through the invitation of a college friend, who was a white student.  Lon Stepp ultimately moved back to Wyoming and into ranching, working on area ranches and purchasing land over the years until he had a full time operating ranch.  By 1920, he's already served as an elected district road supervisor.  He occupied the postmaster position until December 15, 1941, when he died.

The Stepps would continue to ranch in the area until their ranch was one of the ones that was taken over by the government for Fontenelle Reservoir in 1963.  The Stepps fought the condemnation for the reservoir in court but ultimately lost.  

Fontenelle Reservoir in 1972.

Perhaps ironically, the dam for the reservoir on their land which they had opposed has proven to be leaky and the reservoir has had to been hurriedly drained twice.  Irrigation from the reservoir never really developed due to the difficulties of doing that in a high desert region, and therefore the lake has principally been used for recreation.

Stepp family members remain prominent in the area today.

More on the Stepps can be found on the WyoHistory.org page on them.  This entry is based on that one.

From here.

Also on this day, Way Down East was released.

You've seen part of it at least. The scene with the protagonist, played by Lillian Gish, on ice flows heading toward a waterfall.

Label Appendix to Growing Up In the 1960s

This post only serves the odd feature, for this blog, for adding in Labels for Growing Up in the 1960s.

The reason is that the labels would otherwise exceed the allowable limit.

The Organization for African Unity formed, May 25, 1963

Yes, usually we track events occurring in 1918 or 1968, but not always.  For reasons of our own, we looked into events of 1963 a bit today.

The big event today was the formation of the Organization of African Unity.  The left leaning organization was Africa centric and came in as colonialism went out.

The OAU itself went out in 2005.  It's results were pretty mixed, but then most similar organizations had mixed records as well.  Worth noting, while hardly ever noted, Africa all in all is doing very well today and is really a rising region of the globe. . .and a giant one at that.