Niobrara County Courthouse

This is the Niobrara County Courthouse, one of the oldest courthouses still in use here. Perhaps its the oldest one still in use. Anyhow, this is an example of how they used to be.

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Postscript. 

Perhaps simply because this is one of the first posts that I did on this blog it has remained, for some reason, one of the consistently most viewed.  Anyhow, in checking back on it, I realized that I didn't post a link to the photo of this courthouse up on Courthouses of the West, our companion blog, in the main thread, although I did add it in a comment.

Also, since posting this, I've learned that at the time I posted this photo there were at least two, and probably three, courthouses then in use that are older than this one.  One of those, the Johnson County Courthouse, just went out of use, as a new courthouse has been built.  Another one, however, in Uinta County is much older than this one, having been actually built in the 1870s.

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.

Sunday, May 2, 1909

 

Saturday, May 1, 1909. May Day.

A major parade protesting child labor, and generally celebrating the cause of labor, was held in New York City.

The parade had a heavily ethnic character to it, and the day was regarded as "Labor Day", before that holiday was officially created as an American one in contrast to May Day.

Walter Reed Medical Center opened as Walter Reed General Hospital.

San Franciscans turned out in huge numbers to visit the Aso and Soya which had been captured by Japan in the Russo Japanese War.

The Aso, which had been the Bayan was sunk as a target ship in 1932.  The Soya, which had been the Varyag, was given back to the Imperial Russian Navy in 1916 during the Great War, was seized by the British in 1918, sold to the Germans for scrap in 1920, but ran aground whiel being towed, and was scrapped in place, the process being completed in 1925.

Last prior edition:

Friday, .April 30, 1909.

1900s, 1909, Arizona, Arizona (Douglas), Douglas Arizona, Railroads, Transportation

Friday, .April 30, 1909.

 

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 29, 1909. Tornado devastation.

1900s, 1909, Disaster, Iran, Persia, Russia, Weather

Thursday, April 29, 1909. Tornado devestation.

Tornadoes killed 125 in the South East.

April 29, 1909 Tornado Outbreak

Russia invaded Persia and occupied Tabriz.  The incursion was in aid of hte Shah against constitutionalist rebels.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, April 28, 1909. Liberating the Harem.

1900s, 1909, Francis McCullagh, Ottoman Empire, Women, Young Turks

Wednesday, April 28, 1909. Liberating the Harem.

Deposed Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II was packed up and sent to Salonika.  Francis McCullagh, the adventuresome Irish journalist, reported, further:

The instant Yildiz surrendered... All who were not women were immediately summoned to leave the Harem, and nearly all obeyed the summons voluntarily. The eunuchs hesitated but were bodily cast forth by the more energetic of the young ladies inside. On being helped to their feet by the soldiers, these unhappy Nubians manifested as much fear as if they were about to be hanged on the spot. But they were not treated harshly on the whole. A military commission, after having controlled their identity and their number according to list which they possessed, sent some of them to the above-mentioned camp and others to the Old Seraglio in Stamboul.

The harem itself was also broken up, and from the sounds of it, some of its members were happy with that result.

Executions commenced of the mutineers who had supported him.  The former Sultan would live until 1918.

River front, Parkersburg, W. Va.

Lynchburg, W. Va.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, April 27, 1909. Fall of the Sultan.

1900s, 1909, Arizona, Arizona (Tombstone), Islam, Monarchy, Ottoman Empire

Tuesday, April 27, 1909. Fall of the Sultan.

Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II was deposed by unanimous vote of the Turkish parliament, after a fatwa was approved by Sheik ul Islam.  A fatwa was necessary as he was the Caliph and, therefore, both a civil and a religious figure.

Rechad Effendi, the Sultan's brother, a prisoner of the deposed monarch since 1876, was invited to be the new Sultan, which he became as Sultan Mehmed V.

It was quite a promotion, at least for the time being.

And folks were photographing Arizona.

University of Arizona, April 27, 1909.

Tuscon, Arizona.

Tombstone Arizona.

Last prior edition:

Monday, April 26, 1909. The barbarity of the day.

1900s, 1909, Austro Hungaria, California, Eugenics, Hungary, Indiana, Modernity Is Barbarism, Nazi Germany, Nogales Arizona-Sonora, Stockton California, transgenderism, Virginia (Natural Bridge), Washington

Monday, April 26, 1909. The barbarity of the day.

Natural Bridge, Virginia, April 26, 1909.

California joined Indiana and Washington in providing a law to force the sterilization of mentally retarded persons.

A growing movement at the time, this is universally regarded as a horror now, but largely because the Nazis would adopt a policy to murder people in the same category, revealing such actions for what they are.

Stockton, California, April 26, 1909.

Transgender surgeries, particularly of minors, has been rightly compared to it, and will be regarded in the same fashion in the future.

Nogales, Arizona, April 26, 1909.

The Hungarian cabinet resigned in protest of the Austro-Hungarian Viennese government's lack of support for universal suffrage for Hungarians, use of Magyar in Army regiments, and Hungarian bank independence.

Harrison County, Texas, Deputy Sheriff Lewis Markham Huffman, age 27, was shot and killed investigating a railroad camp disturbance. His partner was shot but survived.The offender was lynched. 

Last prior edition:

Saturday, April 24, 1909. Driving.

1900s, 1909, Equine Transportation

Saturday, April 24, 1909. Driving.

 

Last prior edition:

Friday, April 23, 1909. Lethal politics in Kentucky.

Friday, April 23, 1909. Lethal politics in Kentucky.

William S. Taylor

Governor of Kentucky, Augustus E. Willson, pardoned former Governor of Kentucky, William S. Taylor for assessor to the murder, which he denied, of William Goebel, who had been declared to be the lawful winner of the 1899 gubernatorial election.

Augustus E. Willson.

Very MAGAesque.

Taylor had taken up residence in another state, where he practiced law, and he rarely returned to Kentucky.

The horrors taking place in Turkey were noted.

The Acting Secretary of State to Ambassador Reid.

Department of State,

Washington, April 23, 1909.

Referring to department’s telegram of the 18th, Mr. Wilson asks if a fleet adequate for the protection of foreign life has been sent to the disturbed regions in Turkey, and if American citizens are in jeopardy whether we can rely upon the doing of all that is feasible for their protection. Says, in view of the humanitarian concern felt by the President and because of the distressed interest of naturalized Armenians in the United States, the department would be glad to learn if possible what is being done under the Berlin act to check the massacre of Armenians in Turkey. Quotes telegram of this date from Turkey.

Gimbels signed a 105-year lease for property at New York Herald Square.  This provided for $60,000,000 in rent until 2014.

The 1909 Benavente earthquake in the Santarém District of the Central Region, Portugal. Sixty people were killed in the incident.

Child labor was photographed in Lewiston, Maine.

It shows, I guess, why quite a few World War One veterans, in reality, didn't think the war was all that bad.  Daily life was already really rough.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, April 18, 1909. St. Joan d'Arc beatified.

1400s, 1412, 1430s, 1431, 1900s, 1909, baseball, Catholic, France, Missour (St. Louis), religion, Sports, St. Joan d'Arc, St. Louis Missouri

Sunday, April 18, 1909. St. Joan d'Arc beatified.

 St. Joan d'Arc was beatified by Pope Pius X before a crowed of 30,000 in St. Peter's Square.

Drawing of St. Joan d'Arc made during her lifetime.  

A patron saint of France who lived from 1412 to 1431 before being executed, her canonization would follow in May, 1920.

Remarkably, an example of her signature exists.

The 1909 St. Louis Cardinals were photographed.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, April 17, 1909. Soccer riots.

1900s, 1909, actors and actresses, children, Rhode Island, Soccer, Sports, Teenagers, Washington DC, William Howard Taft

Saturday, April 17, 1909. Soccer riots.

Edith Kelly was photographed in her role in Havana.  She was an English actress, best known for her role in that production.

Thousands of angry soccer fans attacked the stadium at Hampden Park after a replay of the Scottish Cup between the Rangers and Celtics ended in a draw.

Soccer riots aren't a new thing.

The Scottish Football Association did not award the prize cup to any team.

Helen and William Howard Taft opened West Potomac Park to the public.

Child laborers were photographed in Rhode Island on  this day in 1909.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, April 14, 1909. The Adana Massacre continues.

1900s, 1909, 860 BC, 860s BC, Adana Massacre, Agriculture, Animals, Cartoons, Christianity, Illinois, Iran, Minnesota, Ottoman Empire, Persia, Petroleum, Sheep, Smoking, tobacco, Women

Wednesday, April 14, 1909. The Adana Massacre continues.

The slaughter of Armenian Christians by Ottoman soldier began in earnest in Adana, Ottoman Empire.

Tuesday, April 13, 1909. The Aadna Massacre.

The Adna Massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which would kill over 20,000 people, commenced.  Ottoman troops would participate in it.

Armenian orphans from the massacre.

The Armenians had the first Christian kingdom in the world, and have had a state of one kind or another since 860 BC.  Since the conquest of Anatolia by the Turks, they've been subject to repeated atrocities.

The Anglo Persian Oil Company was incorporated.  The company became a power in its own right, and extensively exploited what became Iran, setting the stage for what we have today, unfortunately.

Minnesota passed a law banning cigarettes, effective August 1.  Too bad that didn't stick.

Punch, April 14, 1909.

Sheep yards, Kirkland, Ill, April 14, 1909.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, April 13, 1909. The Aadna Massacre.

1900s, 1909, Adana Massacre, Armenian Genocide, Education, North Carolina, Ottoman Empire, panoramic, The Big Picture

Tuesday, April 13, 1909. The Aadna Massacre.

The Adna Massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which would kill over 20,000 people, commenced.  Ottoman troops would participate in it.

Armenian orphans from the massacre.

On the same day, a rebellion broke out in the Ottoman Empire after newspaper editor Hassan Fehmi Effendi was assassinated. The rebels forced the resignation of democratically elected Prime Minister, Grand Vizier Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha, and killed the Minister of Justice. Tewfik Pasha.

The revolution was backed by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who sought to regain the absolute power.  It wouldn't go well for him.

What would become the University of North Carolina was photographed.

State Normal School, #1, Greensboro, N.C., April 13, 1909.

State Normal School, #2, Greensboro, N.C., April 13, 1909.

Last prior edition:

Monday, April 12, 1909. Doc Powers falls ill.

1900s, 1909, baseball, Health, Medicine, Personalities

Monday, April 12, 1909. Doc Powers falls ill.

 

Michael Riley "Doc" Powers, catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics and a physician, became seriously ill during a game.  He'd ultimately die of peritonitis a few days later, after three intestinal operation.  He blamed his condition on earthing a cheese sandwich during the game, while some though he'd been injured straining to catch a foul ball, or by crashing into a wall during the game.

He was 38 years old at the time of his death.

I’m guessing the cheese sandwich was right.  Having been a victim of the dreaded gasoline station sandwich, and having witnesses my son virtually rendered comatose due to one, I think Doc was right.

Sunday, April 11, 1909. Tel Aviv founded.

Settlers drawing lots for plots, April 1909.

100 Jewish settlers living in Jaffa founded a 12 acre village located in sand dunes, dividing the property into 60 lots.  It was called Ahuzzat Bayit, but only for a year, after which it was renamed Tel Aviv.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, April 10, 1909 Finnish, Métis Tragedy, and Arctic Tragedy.

1800s, 1809, 1900s, 1909, 9000 BCs, Alberta, Canada, Finland, Finnish War, Metis, panoramic, Peary's Eighth Arctic Expedition, Personalities, Russia, Sweden, Tennessee, The Big Picture, Venezuela