July 4, 1920. Remembrance and Forgetting

On this day in 1920, the coal mining town of Hanna, Wyoming dedicated its memorial to its World War One Veterans.  

The monument before it was damaged.

An item about that appears in one of our companion blogs here:

Today In Wyoming's History: July 4: Today is Independence Day

1920  Veterans memorial to World War One veterans dedicated in Hanna, Wyoming.

The Hanna Museum's website has an article about the dedication here.

The monument is still present, and it looked like this 2012 when I photographed it.  However, since that time the actual plaque on the monument was stolen in 2015.  It was found damaged in a nearby ditch. The town was working to raise funds to repair the monument and buy a new plaque, which was apparently still the case at least as of 2019.

World War One Service Memorial, Hanna Wyoming

This is a memorial in Hanna Wyoming dedicated to all from the region who served in World War One.  Hanna is a very small town today, and the number of names on this memorial is evidence of the town once being significantly more substantially sized than it presently is.

The memorial is located on what was the Lincoln Highway at the time, but which is now a Carbon County Highway.  This was likely a central town location at the time the memorial was placed.

Hanna also is the location of the Carbon County Veterans Park which contains a substantial number of additional monuments.

I'd note that this entire item is nearly symbolic of where we are at, in some ways, as a nation today.  In 1920 the town, heavily made up of immigrants from Eastern Europe, proudly dedicated a memorial to its sons who had served in the recent war.  The Town had, at that time, barely recovered from two prior major disasters, the mine collapses at its Number One Mine. Those events had resulted in massive loss of life, and yet the town survived it.

The names of Hanna's men who served in World War One.

A century later its monument to its men who served in the Great War was damaged by would be thieves and the town is a mere shadow of its former self.

This is, of course, the second memorial I've written about this week that was damaged in acts that are acts of vandalism, not social justice.  The word "vandalism", of course, comes from the name of one of the Germanic tribes that invaded Rome in its late period who became famous for acts of destruction due to their ignorance.  The name has been used ever since for people who commit similar acts, the difference in our case is that our own failings have lead to the ignorance and the modern vandal is part of us, not an invading army from the north.

Even the monument to the huge loss of life at the Number One Mine bears a scar from a bullet.

It's pretty hard to be really optimistic on July 4, 2020.

On the same day, in the same region, Lewistown Montana endured a major flood.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: The Masters School, formerly St. Paul Lutheran Church., Lewistown Montana

Churches of the West: The Masters School, Lewistown Montana:

A Christian school, located in Lewistown Montana, in what was formerly St. Paul Lutheran Church

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First Presbyterian Church, Lewistown Montana

Churches of the West: First Presbyterian Church, Lewistown Montana:

This is the First Presbyterian Church in Lewistown Montana.  The Gothic style church was built in 1917.

The same church, early in the morning.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Leo Catholic Church, Lewistown Montana

Churches of the West: St. Leo Catholic Church, Lewistown Montana:

St. Leo's history is nicely explained by the National Registry of Historic Places photograph included above.  This beautiful church is a surprise as Lewistown is not a large town, having a population of only about 6,000 people. The church is very large, and strongly resembles St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Casper Wyoming, which was built at about the same time.

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Fergus County Montana Courthouse, Lewistown Montana

Courthouses of the West: Fergus County Montana Courthouse, Lewistown Montana

Carnegie Library, Lewistown Montana.

This is the Carnegie Library in Lewistown, Montana.  The library has an addition, clearly visible, which makes for quite a juxtaposition of architectural styles. Still, in spite of that, it works quite well.

Just recently Natrona County Wyoming's voters turned down an effort to build a new library, thereby opting to keep the county's strained library.  The current library in Natrona County dates back, I think, to the 1970s, with an older portion of that library dating back to the 30s or 40s. That older portion replaced a library that was an original Carnegie Library of the same approximate vintage as this one. 

I note that as it shows, perhaps, how the importance of libraries has changed to communities over time.  Or perhaps it says something only locally, as at least one other Wyoming community recently passed a bond measure to expand their library.  Anyhow, I've been in libraries all over Wyoming, and indeed, in a few in other regions of the country, and note how much use they still receive.  They don't, however, always figure in the public's mind like they once did.

This library is a good example of how central they once were.  The original small library is direction across the street from the courthouse in Lewistown, and courthouses tend to get pride of place in a community's downtown. That this library was constructed in such a central location says a great deal about how the residents of Fergus County Montana viewed it at the time they received a grant from the Carnegie Foundation to build it.

Calvert Hotel, Lewistown Montana

I've written a bit on old hotels here from time to time.  Here's another example.

This is the restored Calvert Hotel in Lewistown Montana.  This hotel, however, didn't start out as one, which may explain why I was surprised that it wasn't near a rail line.  This hotel was built in 1912 as a girls dormitory, for rural Fergus County Montana students.  It says something about conditions at the time that girls would have been housed by the county in a dormitory, like college students are today, in order to attend high school.  I didn't take a picture of it, but a building that was obviously built as a high school, but which is now used for some other purpose, is nearby.

The big dorm went idle in the 1920s but was revived decades later as a hotel, for which it was likely well suited.  In 2007 it was purchased again and rebuilt.  It's been nicely done, and some of the original features remain.  It's located nearly in the center of Lewistown, and the dome of the Fergus County Courthouse is visible on the right hand side of the photograph.

This is a nice hotel, and the room rates are really reasonable.  There's a nice restaurant in the basement, which is a restaurant that serves the towns people of Lewistown in addition to the hotel's patrons.  Like older hotels, and perhaps like older dormitories, the rooms are small. The one thing I noted about staying in it is that the walls are thin, but the walls are just as thin on a lot of modern motels as well.  Usually in these solid older buildings that's note the case, but this hotel wasn't originally built as one.  Perhaps the original dorm had fairly thin walls as well, reflecting either a relatively regimented life in the dorm, or perhaps an acknowledgement that it was going to be noisy anyhow.  Or maybe the rooms were added much later.

 Early morning view.