Today In Wyoming's History: More Than 50 Years Later, ‘Rawlins Rodeo Murders’ ...

Today In Wyoming's History: More Than 50 Years Later, ‘Rawlins Rodeo Murders’ ...:   More Than 50 Years Later, ‘Rawlins Rodeo Murders’ Of Young Girls Remain Unsolved

Tuesday, January 27, 1976. Earthquake at Rawlins and the White Hall Flasher.

Today In Wyoming's History: January 27: 1976   A small earthquake occurred near Rawlins.

The White Hall flaster was arrested.

Oddly enough, "flashing" was a trend in the 1970s which continued on into the 1980s in the form of "streaking", running through a public area naked.  Comedic singer Ray Stevens even authored a song about it, "The Streak".

Laverne & Shirley premiered.

It was a spin off of Happy Days and ran until 1983. Depicting two single women employed in a brewery in Milwaukee for most of its run, it was set in the 1950s to early 1960s. The last season was set in Burbank, California.

I can't say that I was a fan.

The Royal Moroccan Army attacked the Algerian Army at Amgala.

The House passed a bill already passed by the Senate to ban the sale of US arms to or to provide aid to paramilitary groups in Angola.

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 21, 1976. Supersonic.

Labels: 1970s, 1976, Aircraft, Angola, Bahrain, Brazil, France, People's Air Force of Angola, Transportation, United Kingdom

Tuesday, July 1, 1924. Airmail.

Regular U.S airmail commenced with a fully established Transcontinental Airway System at New York City; Bellefonte, Pennsylvania; Cleveland and Bryan, Ohio; Chicago; Iowa City; Omaha and North Platte, Nebraska; Cheyenne, Rawlins and Rock Springs, Wyoming; Salt Lake City; Elko and Reno; and San Francisco.

President Coolidge held a press conference:

Press Conference, July 1, 1924

Japan held a national day of protest over the new US immigration act.

Last edition:

Monday, June 30, 1924. Teapot Grand Jury comes in.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Álvaro Obregón, British League of Nations Mandates, Calvin Coolidge, Health, law, Mexico, Palestine, Zionism

Lincoln Highway Redux?

Gen. Luke Reiner^[1] head of the Wyoming Department of Transportation, has stated that WYDOT is proposing to reroute Interstate 80 along the path of Wyoming Highway 30.

Eh?

Okay, this is the stretch between Laramie and Rawlins, which is notoriously bad during bad weather.  For those not familiar with I80 in that area, or Highway 30 between Laramie and Rawlins, observe below:

WYDOT Public use map.

For those who are historically minded, you may be thinking that Highway 30, in that area, looks a bit familiar.

That's because that is where the "interstate", or protointerstate if you will, was prior to Interstate 80 being built.

Witness:

Gen. Reiner notes, in his statements to the Cowboy State Daily, that 

“If you look at a map, you’ll see that the old highway, Highway 30, goes further to the north, and then sort of comes down from the north into I-80.  Rumor has it that when they went to build I-80, that the initial route followed the route of Highway 30. And somebody made the decision, ‘No, we’re going to move closer to these very beautiful mountains,’ to which the locals said, ‘Bad idea,’ based on weather. And it has proved to be true.”

I don't know if it's a rumor, and I don't know if they had beauty in mind.  I've heard the same thing about locals warning those building the highway not to get too close to the mountains, only to be disregarded.

Highway 30 followed the route of the Union Pacific, and except in this stretch still largely does.  The Interstate, however, followed a cutoff route of the Overland Trail.  That's significant that the portion of the Overland Trail that it followed turned out to be an unpopular one, and the Army, which garrisoned a post at the base of Elk Mountain, eventually abandoned it.

We've written about that location here:

Sunday, August 2, 2020

Ft. Halleck, sort of. Near Elk Mountain Wyoming

Where Ft. Halleck was, from a great distance.

This set of photographs attempts to record something from a very great distance, and with the improper lenses.   I really should have known better, quite frankly, and forgot to bring the lense that would have been ideal.  None the less, looking straight up the center of this photograph, you'll see where Ft. Halleck once was.

The post was located at the base of Elk Mountain on the Overland Trail, that "shortcut" alternative to the Oregon Trail that shaved miles, at the expense of convenience and risk.  Ft. Halleck was built in 1862 to reduce the risk.  Whomever located the post must have done so in the summer, as placing a post on this location would seem, almost by definition, to express a degree of ignorance as to what the winters here are like.

 The area to the northeast of where Ft. Halleck once was.

The fort was only occupied until 1866, although it was a major post during that time.  Ft. Sanders, outside the present city of Laramie, made the unnecessary and to add to that, Sanders was in a more livable 

Of course, by that time the Union Pacific was also progressing through the area, and that would soon render the Overland Trail obsolete.  While not on an identical path the Overland Trail and the Union Pacific approximated each others routes and, very shortly, troops would be able to travel by rail.

As that occured, it would also be the case that guarding the railroad would become a more important function for the Army, and forts soon came to be placed on it.

Elk Mountain

And, therefore, Ft. Halleck was abandoned.

Whatever the reason for locating Interstate 80 there, and I suspect it had more to do with bypassing a bunch of country, making the road shorter, and the like, it was a poor choice indeed. The weather in that area is horrific during the winter.  Perhaps the irony of that is that this stretch of the National Defense Highway system would have had to end up being avoided, quite frequently, if we'd really needed it if the Soviets had attacked us in the winter.  

Gen. Reiner, who really doesn't expect this to occur, has noted in favor of it:

Our suggestion to the federal government is to say, ‘If you want to do something for the nation’s commerce along I-80, reroute it. Follow Highway 30 — it’s about 100 miles of new interstate, the estimated cost would be about $6 billion. So, it’s not cheap, but our estimate is that it would dramatically reduce the number of days the interstate’s closed, because that’s the section that that kills us.

It doesn't just "kill" us in a budgetary fashion. It kills a lot of people too.  Anyone who has litigated in Wyoming has dealt with I80 highway fatalities in this section.  That makes the $6,000,000,000 investment worthwhile in my mind.

And of course taking the more southerly route doesn't just kill people, as crass as that is to say, it helped kill the towns of Rock River and Medicine Bow, two of the five towns on that stretch of Highway 30 that were once pretty bustling Lincoln Highway towns.^[1]   Highway 30 runs rough through them.  

And of note, FWIW, Highway 30 between Bosler and Rock River

Now, I know that a new Interstate 80 wouldn't go right through Rock River and Medicine Bow, but past them, like Highway 30 does to Hanna, but some people would in fact pull off.  It's inevitable.  

It's a good idea.

Not as good of an idea as electrifying the railroad and restoring train travel, but still a good idea.

It won't happen, however.  Not even though there's still relatively little between Laramie and Rawlins, and it won't cause any real towns to dry up and blow away.  Not even though it would save lives and ultimately thousands of lost travel dollars.  And not even though the current administration is spending infrastructure money like crazy.

Footnotes:

1.  Before he was head of WYDOT, Reiner was the commanding officer of the Wyoming Army National Guard.

When I was a National Guardsmen he was a lieutenant, and his first assignment was to my Liaison section.  I knew him at that time.  He's an accountant by training, and he was in fact an accountant at the time.  His parents were Lutheran missionaries in Namibia, where he had partially grown up.

2.  The towns are Bosler, Rock River, Medicine Bow,  and Hanna.

August 12, 1919 Medicine Bow to Rawlins, Wyoming on the Motor Transport Convoy

Lincoln Highway marker at Ft. Fred Steele.

The Motor Transport Convoy traveled from Medicine Bow to Rawlins on this day in 1919.

The Strand Theatre in Rawlins, which was built in 1919.

The diarist wasn't impressed with the roads or the conditions in any fashion.  Indeed, he reported Ft. Steele as being the only pleasant spot on the journey.

A photograph taken from Ft. Steele.

Today the highway doesn't pass through Ft. Steele as it once did, but is located several miles to the south.  Interestingly, there is a campground near the current Interstate Highway.

Union Pacific depot in Rawlins.  This would have been a busy depot in 1919.

On the same day, men were busy at work elsewhere in the West.

Water troughs at Thompsons Cattle Camp. Wenaha N.F. 43264A. USDA, Forest Service, Umatilla National Forest, Oregon. August 12, 1919.

And overseas, a photographer took a reminder of the cost of the recent war.

Tuesday, July 18, 1911. Premier game of the Wyoming State Penitentiary All Stars

 

New warden Felix Alston organized the team following his appointment to the position in 1911. He chose  George Saban, convicted murderer from the Spring Creek raid, to be head coach and team captain due to their friendship.  The only team they played against was the Rawlins Juniors, which they played four times in 1911. They won all four games.

The team was comprised for the following members:

Coach: Saban, George.  Convicted of murder, he escaped and disappeared from history in December, 1913.

Cameron, Thomas Convicted of Sexual assault, his sentence expired in June 1912.

Pendergraft, Harry A.  Convicted of Larceny , he was granted parole in Jan 1912

C, RF:  Powell, James.  He had been convicted of rape.  Powell was black.  This was an integrated team.

1B: Rowan, Eugene.  He had been convicted of rape, and breaking and entering.  He was granted parole in Nov 1913.  Rowan was also an African American.

2B: Fitzgerald, Frank.  Breaking and entering.  His sentence expired in Dec 1911

SS: Guzzardo, Joe.  Manslaughter.  He was pardoned in July 1912.  Guzzardo had killed a woman in 1908 while shooting at a man who was threatening his life.

3B: Crottie, John.  Grand larceny. He was released in Nov 1911

LF: Carman, Ora.  Grand larceny.  He completed his sentence in Sept 1911.

LF: Stone, Earl.  Breaking and entering.  He completed his sentence in Sept 1911.

CF: Potter, Sidney.  Forgery.  He completed his sentence in June 1912.

RF, C, SS:  Seng, Joseph.  First-degree murder. He was hanged in May 1912

Their August 29, 1911 game was their last.

Contrary to a myth about the team, they were not all on "death row", and indeed only one of the men, Joseph Seng, was. Seng had killed his supervisor after he was fired from his job as a watchman in Evanston.  He was the first man to be executed at the Wyoming State Penitentiary.

Russian backed and equipped deposed Shah of Persia Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar landed at the Caspian Sea port of Astarabad with an army in an attempt to regain the throne that he had lost in 1909.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 15, 1911. Unreasonable demands.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Africa, Agadir Crisis, Albania, French Empire, German Empire, Morocco, Ottoman Empire, Republic of Congo

Transportation, late 19th Century

A modern highway map shows as distance of 211 miles from Worland, in the southern half of the basin, to Rawlins, and 293 miles from Cody to Green River, but modern transportation systems are not remotely like those of 1879. In practical terms, Green River and Rawlins were further from the Big Horn Basin in 1879 than they are now from Outer Mongolia, and criminal prosecution was nearly impossible.

There were no roads leading south from the basin, only trails. At least one yearly trip to the Union Pacific had to be made, though, because in the early 1880s this was the nearest railhead, the only real opening to a market to sell cattle and get supplies. E. W. Copps declared that the cattle drive from Buffalo to Rawlins, a trip that did not require a traverse of mountains, took eighteen days. Coming from the basin, however, a cattle owner first had to get out, and any exit required going over an 8,000-foot pass, such as Birdseye Pass or Cottonwood Pass; thus, David John Wasden's estimate of six weeks for a round trip seems about right. Of course, the return trip, when cattle were not being driven, did not take as long but was still arduous. Owen Wister describes a 263 mile excursion from Medicine Bow "deep into cattle land," a trip taking several days by wagon, while "swallowed in a vast solitude." His description sounds like a journey north into the Big Horn Basin.

Goodbye Judge Lynch, by John W. Davis.