Monday, May 25, 2009

Tuesday, May 25, 1909. Reclamation lots in Powell.

Today In Wyoming's History: May 251909   The Reclamation Service sold lots in Powell, founding the town.

The Indian Councils Act of 1909 was given Royal Assent.  It caused the legislative councils of British Indian provinces to include members elected by Indians.

Israel Greene, age 85, died on his farm near Mitchell, South Dakota.  He had led the Marines who had captured John Brown.  He'd served as a Confederate Marine during the Civil War, even though he'd been born in New York and had grown up in Wisconsin.  His wife was from Virginia.

He'd moved to South Dakota in 1873.

Child labor at  Amoskeag Mfg. Company, Manchester N.H, was photographed.





Last prior edition:

Monday, May 18, 2009

Tuesday, May 18, 1909. Sulfanilamide,

A patent was issued to Heinrich Hoerlein of the Bayer company for a sulfanilamide, the first synthesized sulfonamide. 

It was not until1935 that the antibiotic properties of sulfonamides were realized.

Hoerlien would go on to rise to power in the IG Farben company.  He joined the Nazi Party in 1934 after having campaigned against Hermann Göring's law banning testing on animals, showing how radical movements then and now had similar traits.  He went on to have knowledge of the company's production of Zyklon B and was tried after the war was a war criminal, but acquitted.  He had a place on the board of Bayer after the war.

Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia, chose his 14-year-old grandson Lij Iyasu as his successor.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, May 12, 1909. The Taft Summer Residence.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Thursday, May 6, 1909. Developments in the Episcopal Church of Wyoming.

Today In Wyoming's History: May 61909   Nathaniel Seymour Thomas consecrated Episcopal Bishop of Wyoming, the first Episcopal Bishop with Wyoming solely as his territory.


The Vice President went to a baseball game.


Life's current issue was out.


Youthful employees of Chace Cotton Mills were photographed.


Last prior edition:

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Wednesday, May 5, 1909. The Saxon vote.

The German free state of Saxony changed its election laws providing for four different classes of voters, those being; taxpaying men, 25 or older, one vote, men with higher incomes, two votes, three or four votes. Men reaching 50 years of age acquired another vote.

Which takes us to stuff we're not supposed to say.

This weighting of the vote was obviously based on the concept that society should be governed by men of means.  Current American politics would suggest that this certainly isn't the case.  Donald Trump is reputedly as rich as Midas, although how rich he really is, isn't clear, and he clearly shouldn't be in politics and no deliberative person should vote for him.  Many, however, are going to.

And that raises a question.  In 2024, as opposed, let's say, to 2016, or even 2020, after he attempted to defeat the results of an election, and after those who support him have gone increasingly hardcore populist (not conservative) is there something wrong with the American electorate?  It would appear so, and what it would appear to be, is ignorance.  That's an ignorance that's reinforcing itself.  We'll deal with it elsewhere, but what questions does that raise about who really should have the franchise?

Jackson County, Colorado, was created from western Larimer County.

Chace Cotton Mill, Burlington, Vt.   Female employees.

Last prior edition:

Monday, May 4, 2009

Transportation, Early 20th Century



Natrona County Tribune, 1909 A trip to write about -- "AN auto-stage line is to be established between Shoshoni and Thermopolis in the near future, and every editor in the state is hoping that the gasoline wagon will be in operation before the meeting of the Press association."

An item noted in today's Casper Star Tribune.

Tuesday, May 4, 1909. Acquitted over Pat Garrett.

Wayne Brazel was acquitted of the murder for the February 29, 1908, killing of Pat Garrett, the famous New Mexico lawman.

Brazel was the lessee of the ranch of Pat Garrett's son, Dudley.  The killing seems to have involved the bringing on of a large herd of goats onto the ranch, but who the killer actually was, and exactly what happened, remains a mystery.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, May 2, 1909

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Best Post of the Week of April 27, 2009

Lex Anteinternet?

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.

__________________________________________________________________________

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

 


Friday, May 1, 2009

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.


Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

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.

Monday, April 27, 2009

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.

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Sunday, April 26, 2009

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.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

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.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

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.