On this day in 1919 the Volstead Act, the bill that was tailored to carry out Prohibition under the 18th Amendment, was introduced into the House of Representatives.
On this day in 1919 there was still time to have a beer. Soon, there wouldn't be.
An enforcing act was necessary in order to make Prohibition actually come into effect, something that's occasionally missed in this story. Compounding the overall confusion, many states had passed state laws on the topic, including Wyoming, so in those places Prohibition was coming into law earlier, and with different provisions. In some localities, such as Colorado, it already had.
It hadn't come into effect just yet, which meant that Casperites had time left to toast returning members of the 148th Field Artillery, recently discharged from their military service, just as they were also contemplating Germany signing a treaty that would end the war, but which appeared likely to result in an uncertain future.
That uncertain peace headlined the Wyoming State Tribune, which also featured an article that would be regarded as racist today, because it was. That latter storing being how Mexican women were going to be liberated from the chains of tradition by adopting more progressive, non Mexican, values regarding their gender.
The 15th Cavalry, it was noted, was also going to appear in Cheyenne for new billets that afternoon.
Cavalry of that period was still horse cavalry, of course, and horses remained an important part of the economy in every fashion. Advertisements for a horse auction in Campbell County appeared right on the cover of Wright's newspaper, which noted that it was published weekly "in the interests of dry-farming and stockraising in Wyoming".
Today, of course, when you think of Wright, you think of oil, gas, and coal. You probably don't think of farming at all, let alone dry farming, although ranching is still there.
A photographer visited the Burk Waggoner oilfield of Texas on this day, giving a glimpse of what oil production in 1919 was like.
In far off Tennessee, Sheriff Milton Harvie Stephens of Williamson County, was murdered by horse thieves. He was 74 years old and had held the office for one year. That crime demonstrates that the value of the old means of travel, and the crimes it was associated with, kept on. The fact that Stephens was employed as a sheriff at age 74 also says something about the working environment of the day.
In that same region of the country, sort of, riots occurred in Annapolis between Navy trainees who were training to be mess attendants and local residents. The riot is regarded as part of the Red Summer, but the oddity of it was that the rioters were all black on both sides. Mess attendants were normally black or Filipinos in the segregated Navy of that period and in this case it was black local residents who were in conflict with the sailors. The cause was that sailors had been harassing local women.
Strife and violence also seems to have broken out that day in Rock Springs.
