Saturday, March 29, 1924. Yesterday's news, or not. Morning mail.

 Well, it was the "Night Mail" edition.  You'd get it Saturday morning.

The local paper was a day behind on Daugherty, but only to the extent that you got this edition first thing in the morning, or in Saturday's morning mail.

Morning mail?

Yes, morning mail.  Mail was delivered twice per day until 1950.  It varied a bit by city, however, with some cities restricting that to businesses, and some covering everyone.  Some cities had business delivery more than once per day, with some delivering to businesses up to seven times per day. 

Twice per day home delivery ended on April 17, 1950.  For businesses, that ended in 1969.

The same issue had a tragic story of a love gone lethally wrong, and a shooting at the Lavoye.

The final addition, from the next day, followed up on that last story.

Last prior edition:

Friday, March 28, 1924. Daugherty resigns.

1920s, 1924, Calvin Coolidge, Petroleum, Teapot Dome Scandal

Blog Mirror: Postal Zones Introduced: 1943

 

Postal Zones Introduced: 1943

Thursday, October 11, 1923. Yankees win, case almost to jury, and miscellaneous death and destruction.

 

The Cantlin murder case was almost complete

The Yankees evened up the game count, with Babe Ruth hitting two home runs in the game.

The DeAutremon Brothers attempted to rob their employer's train, the Southern Pacific Railroad No. 13, as it passed through a tunnel in the Siskiyou Mountains in the Pacific Northwest.  The robbery was a failure, but they murdered four railroad men while making their escape.  

They successfully evaded authorities for a period of years, but were ultimately all captured and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences.  Hugh DeAutremon was captured in 1927 when a soldier who had been stationed in the Philippines recognized him as a serving soldier in his former unit, under an assumed name.  Ray and Roy were captured in Ohio that following June.

All were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, which is somewhat surprising for the era, given the murders.  Hugh was paroled in 1958 and died of stomach cancer nearly immediately thereafter. Roy was diagnosed with schizophrenia and given a lobotomy, which rendered him unable to care for himself, and he was a resident of the Oregon State Hospital until 1983 when he died.  Ray was paroled in in 1984 and expressed horror for their crime upon his release.

The investigation was notable for the use of a forensic chemist, who identified the suspects based on the residue in a pair of overalls left at the scene.

The SS City of Everett sank in the Gulf of Mexico on a molasses run. All 26 hands on board were lost.

Eight children who were passengers on a horse-drawn school bus were killed near Rootstown Ohio when the wagon was hit by a train. This is mentioned in the newspaper above.

Calvin Coolidge addressed a group of Postmasters.

Friday, April 27, 1923. The IRA calls it quits, The Pro Treaty Sinn Finn depart, New Country Club, Harding and Work.

Having already effectively ceased combat operations, as they'd already lost the war, Éamon de Valera announced that the Irish Republican Army was prepared to agree to a ceasefire.

On the same day, Cumann na nGaedheal ("Society of the Gaels) a political party of pro treaty former members of Sinn Féin was formed.  It would merge into Finn Gael in 1933.

For residents of Casper, familiar with the Country Club, the origins of it were in evidence in this day in 1923.

Quite an assortment of other news as well.

And not just in Casper, but all around, it would seem.

The horse jumping over car photograph, probably last popular as horse jumping over Jeep during World War Two, was in vogue.

Jack Prestage on Tipperary in this case.

President Harding, whom we now know should probably have been in a clinic, visited the Tri State Clinic.

Warren G. Harding, who was in the last year of his life, was 57 years old at the time of his death. . . a good 20 years older than Donald Trump is now.  People don't really "live longer", contrary to the common claim, but they don't die as young due to various factors and heart attacks and strokes kill fewer.

Still, It's insane to be electing a President over 70 years of age.  It's questionable, really, to be electing somebody to their first term over 60 which means, if my restrictions mean anything, that I wouldn't be qualified.  I'd do a better job than either of the main candidates, I'm quite certain, which disqualifies me to start with, but age ought to.

In this photo, Harding didn't really look well.

And the guy third second from his left, as viewed, looks annoyed.

Huber Work accepted a resolution from his postal clerks.

Thursday, November 6, 1947. Meet The Press Premiers.

Meet The Press, the longest running television program in the United States, premiered in that format.  It had previously premiered on radio as American Mercury Presents:  Meet the Press on October 5, 1945.

While I very much favor This Week over Meet the Press, it occurs to me that somewhat ironically, as I listed to the audio podcast variant, I listed to it closer to the radio version.

The first guess for the then 30-minute Thursday night program was James Farley, the Postmaster General and DNC Committee chairman.  The initial moderator was Martha Roundtree, reprising her role from the radio variant, and the only woman moderator of the show to date.  Roundtree hosted the program until 1953.

She died in 1999 in Washington D.C., nearly blind since the 1980s, due to the harsh effects of primitive television lighting.

As noted, I do listen to it, but I'm not a fan of the current moderator, Chuck Todd.  Indeed, I was hoping for a second female moderator in the form of Kasi Hunt.

On the same day, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov told a Moscow audience that the means of making an atomic weapons were no longer secret.  American intelligence took that to mean that the Soviet Union knew how to build a bomb, but didn't necessarily have one.  The Soviets, who had penetrated the American government fairly successfully, suspected that the US was working on such a weapon by 1942 and started their own project accordingly.  Nonetheless, they had not developed a bomb by this point themselves, but were only two years away from doing so.

Canada invited Newfoundland to join the Canadian Dominion.

Monday, October 26, 1942. Hard fighting in the Solomons

Today In Wyoming's History: October 26: 1942  The Torrington Post Office robbed. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

In the Solomons, the Battle for Henderson Field ended with an American victory, and the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands was raging.  On this date, the USS Hornet of Doolittle Raid fame was badly damaged, which would lead to her scuttling the following day.

Japanese losses in trying to take Henderson Field were grossly outside, with over 2,500 men being killed in comparison to less than 70 Americans.

In the Second Battle of El Alamein the Defense of Outpost Snip action began.

Wednesday, August 2 1922. Work and play.

 

Saturday March 4, 1922. Work at work.

A rather odd illustration graced the cover of Judge.

On the same day, Dr. Hubert Work was sworn in as Postmaster General, replacing William Hayes who went to work in the motion picture industry as its moral conscience.

Hayes was there for the event.

Work would later serve as Secretary of the Interior.

Thursday December 1, 1941. Lighter than air.

The US airship C-7 flew from Hampton Roads, Virginia to Washington D.C. filled with helium, rather than explosive hydrogen, making it the first airship to use that gas.

This was a large event given that helium, of which the United States has a large supply, is so much safer in this use than hydrogen.

The Federal Government was dealing with other modes of transportation on this day as well.  The task was to find a safer way of delivering the mail, in light of robberies which had been occuring.

Postmaster General Will Hayes and other Post Office officials and a Marine inspecting new armored trucks proposed as a means of protection for the mails.

On the same day, the Federal government imposed regulations on the right to radio broadcast commercially. The regulations required a license and set aside two specific AM frequencies for their operations.

The United Kingdom announced that it intended to offer dominion status to Ireland, but that it intended to retain Ulster.  Talks between Irish Republicans and the British had become dangerously stalled, with there being predictions of a resumption of fighting between the two forces.

The US was looking to introduce a new silver dollar design for 1922.

Director of the Mint, Raymond T. Baker, and Anthony de Francisci examining model of new silver dollar to be issued by Jan. 1st.

A statute to Date was unveiled in Washington D.C. on the 600th anniversary of his birth.

All things Italian remained in vogue at the time.

The Aerodrome: Medicine Bow Airport (Site 32 SL-O (Salt Lake-Omaha) Intermediate Field Historic District).

The Aerodrome: Medicine Bow Aiport (Site 32 SL-O (Salt Lake-Omaha...: 

Medicine Bow Airport (Site 32 SL-O (Salt Lake-Omaha) Intermediate Field Historic District).

Teletype hut and beacon tower.

I didn't know that Medicine Bow had an airfield at all until MKTH photographed it.  I've never been to it myself.

But it does, as these photos show.

As these photos show, not only is a strip still there, but one of the big concrete arrows (which I've never seen in person myself either) is on the strip, indicating that it was once part of the Transcontinental Air Mail system.  It must have been part of a connection between Cheyenne and points further west, but what the next western airfield was, I don't know.  My guess would be Rawlins, but that would be just a guess.  According to the submitting material for its placement on the National Register of Historic Places, it was an emergency field on "Route T".  This was "Site 32" on the route.

Today the strip is owned by the Town of Medicine Bow, and is little used, apparently.  It's still there, however, including the noted remnants of the near century old teletype hut and its beacon tower.

Tuesday November 15, 1921. A gift of a truck.

Veteran protests in Washington, D.C. demanding the release of incarcerated wartime dissenters.

On this day in 1921 there was a donation of a World War One artifact in Cheyenne.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 15, 1921

1921  A truck used by John J. Pershing in the Great War was donated to the Wyoming State Museum.         

I wonder where it is now?  I've been through the museum, but can't recall seeing it, which doesn't mean that it isn't there.

Marines guarding the U.S. mail.  Marines guarded high priority mail in 1921 and 1922 following some robberies.

Thursday, July 1, 1971. Leaving the cabinet and Vietnam.

The United States Postal Service came into existence and replaced the cabinet level United States Post Office Department.

On the same day, the United States withdrew 6,000 troops from Vietnam as part of an ongoing troop drawdown, bringing the total U.S. commitment to 236,000, about half of what hit had been in 1969.

May 26, 1921. Rickenbacker crashes in Cheyenne.

Today In Wyoming's History: May 26: 1921   Eddie Rickenbacker crashed a mail plane near Cheyenne.

And this photograph was taken of Craig Street in Montreal, five  years before my mother was born in that city.

April 1, 1971 Cigarette Advertisement ban signed

President Nixon signed legislation that banned cigarette advertising on radio and television. The ban would not go into effect for the rest of the year.  Cigarette advertising had been a major feature of television advertising up to that time, with the theme of the Magnificent Seven effectively used by Marlboro on its cowboy themed television advertisements.  Somewhere, I have an old record that dates back to that put out by Marlboro.

The banning of the advertisements was a major event.

The United Kingdom ended restrictions on gold ownership  The gold standard was fully on its way out globally at the time, although the British had been off of the gold standard directly since 1931.  The Bretton Woods Agreement, however, had put the nations entering it onto an international gold standard system. That system was rapidly collapsing in 1971.

Canada introduced its postal code in a test run in Ottawa.  The U.S. Zip code had been in effect since 1963.

February 23, 1921. Ridiculing customs.

We always reform or ridicule, not the customs of the remote past, but the new customs of the day before yesterday, which are just beginning to grow old. This is true of furniture and parents.

G.K. Chesterton, Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1921.

Jack Knight. Note the heavy early aviator's dress.  Knight died in 1945 of malaria contracted on a trip to South American that was working on securing a reliable source of rubber to the wartime allies.

The United States Postal Service completed a pioneering air mail run in which Jack Knight, taking off on the prior day from San Francisco, landed at Cheyenne, Wyoming, and then took off and flew through the night to Chicago.  Ernest M. Allison ten took over and lasted at 4:50 p.m. at Roosevelt Field at Long Island, New York.

The flight demonstrated that air mail was feasible.

While successful, it was also conducted under extreme odds, involving arctic conditions and nighttime fires to light the way.  Knight was justifiably regarded as a hero during his lifetime.

Quebec established a Commission des liqeurs to control the quality and sales of alcohol.  Quebec, with its strong French traditions, was the only Canadian province to reject any sort of prohibition.

In its original form, the Commission lasted until 1961.  It has evolved into the latter Société des alcools du Québec which interestingly operates on a model similar to that of the State of Utah's, with the state being the sole distributer of alcohol.

In Washington D. C. a collection of stately dignified women was photographed, probably being members of the women's party that was meeting in the city at the time.

November 29, 1920. Monday Events.

The U.S. Post Office held a Christmas themed parade in Washington D. C. on this day in 1920.

On the same day, the Red Army invaded Armenia.

Soviet troops in Armenia.

Lenin famously declared the right of self determination of nations, none of which stopped the infant Soviet Union from invading those areas which had declared their independence and which had been part of Imperial Russia. The Baltic States had to fight for their independence, and by this point Poland and the Soviet Union had fought a war in which, had the Soviets won, and they nearly did, would have imposed Communism on Poland in 1920 and probably would have reincorporated the country into the Soviet Union.  Trotsky at the time, moreover, envisioned the Red Army continuing on to Berlin.

Armenia would regain her independence after the fall of the Soviet Union, but the oldest officially Christian nation in the world has continued to be beset by its neighbors to the present day.

Also on this day a newspaper photographer photographed the eclectic Adelaide Johnson.

Piece of marble being moved by oxen using a stone boat.

Johnson was a feminist sculptor who was able to launch her career following a settlement she received in a tragic accident.  She sculpted female centric themes and in later years would fall into poverty as she wouldn't sell her works for the prices she was offered, figuring they commanded more. She destroyed some publicly in later years in protests over this.  Her "bridesmaids" at her wedding were three sculpted figures of feminist and suffrage heroes, which might, or might not, be the work depicted below.

September 12, 1920. A Restoration

Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church at the point of its reunification, Dimitrije Pavlović 

On this date in 1920, the Serbian Orthodox Church was reunified after a long period of separation due to its members being in various empires.  The aftermath of World War One changed that situation.  The church is the second oldest Slavic Orthodox Church, second only in that status to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.  The church today has over 8,000,000 members, mostly in Serbia, and is one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches in communion with Constantinople.

Residents of Cheyenne were disappointed by the failure of the mail plane to arrive, which was front page news.  The headline seemed to blame the failure on an errant pilot, but it was engine trouble in Utah that caused the delay.

Movie goers on this date were apparently up for a massive serving of turgid.

The Restless Sex follows the story of a young adventurous woman who is in love with her step brother, whom she grew up with, and whom she's been in love with since her youth, until he travels afar, and she's pursued by another.

Plot spoiler.

The step brother wins.

Hmmmm. . . . 

Movie goes who may have been pondering the "ick" quality of Restless also had the option of seeing Homespun Folks, also released on this date.

In that one a young lawyer makes good by getting the position of district attorney only to be accused of murder.

 

The Aerodrome: Air Mail 100

The Aerodrome: Air Mail 100:

Air Mail 100

An organization has been retracing the route of the first U.S. Air Mail flights, something that we marked the centennial of here this past week.  Their website for the endeavor is here:

Air Mail 100

Air Mail 100

They were in Cheyenne on the route yesterday, September 10.

September 8, 1920. The start of Air Mail

On this day in 1920, the U.S. Post Office inaugurated Air Mail in the United STates with early morning flights taking off from New Jersey and San Francisco, ultimately bound for the other location, and with distribution stops and refueling stops along the way.  Cheyenne was one of the cities on their flight path.

As the Cheyenne paper noted, unusually spelling it out, the reason for the numerous stops was that the Airco DH4 airplanes dedicated to the project didn't carry sufficient fuel not to make numerous stops.  The DH4 was a British designed World War One bomber which the US had ordered in sufficient numbers to make the United States the largest customer for the aircraft. After the war they were placed into mail service, which they'd continue to perform up until 1932.  Indeed, as late as that year the US seriously considered purchasing an updated variant.

On the same day an Italian crises continued as the Italian Regency of Carnaro, effectively declaring Fiume to be a city state, was proclaimed by Gabriele D'Annunzio, poet and wartime Italian army officer.  The move sought to formalize the Italian control over the city of mixed ethnicity but went beyond that in the formation of a proto fascist state.  It's independence would be more formalized the following year, but would be brief, as it followed a treaty with Italy that sought to incorporate it within the Kingdom of Italy. That effort lead to a brief war which Italy obviously won.

And this peaceful photograph was taken.

Y.M.C.A. Island & playground, Lynchburg Virginia.

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.