Today In Wyoming's History: Sidebar: The Irish in Wyoming. A St. Patrick's Day Observation during National Agriculture Week

 

The Kistler Tent and Awning building in downtown Casper Wyoming (the company still exists, but not in this location).  Note the reference to Sheep Wagon covers, herder's tepees and lambing tents, all things that many an Irish immigrant to Wyoming became familiar with.

I linked this item (which is one of the most popular on the blog noted below) to this site way back when I first wrote it.

Today In Wyoming's History: Sidebar: The Irish in Wyoming: Just recently we posted our "green" edition of this blog with our St. Patrick's Day entry .  Given that, this is a good time ...

I'm sure it's bad form to do that again, but today is St. Patrick's Day and its National Agriculture Week. What do the two have to do with each other?  Well, quite a lot. 

At least as late as the 1990s, agriculture made up the largest sector of the Irish economy. I don't know where it stands today, but Ireland has also undergone a tremendous economic and cultural revolution since that time, not all of which is good by any means.  Perhaps Ireland is sort of a cautionary tale, on some things, today, as well as being an example of a host economic lessons of one kind or another.

Be that as it may, Ireland's history, as anyone who has looked at it well knows, has been far from pacific or bucolic.  The Emerald Isle has a tragic history in the extreme, with its principal exports for many years including its young.  Some of those people include my ancestors, on both sides of my family.  Indeed, my great grandmother came from Ireland at age 3, with her sister who was 19.  They were the only two members of that family that the family could afford to send to the United States.  I don't know what became of the rest of them, save for one brother of hers who joined the English army and made a career out of it.

A common concept of the Irish in America depicts them in the urban setting, that was so common for many of them. And, indeed, on my mother's side that would be accurate, as they went to Montreal.  But another very common path for a very rural people was to try to get some land and farm.

Indeed, the Irish were manic about agriculture and land.  In Ireland, having land was paramount, and most of them didn't have it.  To be able to obtain land was everything to many of them, and in the US they had that chance.  Not just in the U.S., of course.  This was also true of much of the English Empire and it was also true for all of North America.  Mexico, for example, first drew the attention of Irish immigrants at the time of the Mexican War, where the Mexicans picked up on the fact that land could be a powerful inducement to desertion for an oppressed, land starved, Catholic, population.  And it worked in some cases.  Young Irish soldiers in the U.S. Army, crossing into Mexican towns to attend Mass, seeing attractive Mexican young ladies, and being offered free land. . . . that went a long ways towards breaking the bonds of loyalty, in some cases, for some so situated.

Anyhow, the Irish are part of the story of American agriculture in the west for that reason and they're particularly associated with the history of sheep ranching here.  Sheep were an animal that they were already familiar with and they became one of the foundational pegs of Wyoming sheep ranching quite rapidly.  The Irish and sheep were a story in Wyoming well into the 20th Century.

Now, of course, in the somewhat glum thread I've been sewing with here recently, it would be wholly impossible for an immigrant to come over and establish a viable ranching operation in the U.S., let alone become rich doing it as some Irish immigrants did.  It isn't even really possible for the average American to get into it.  That should give us some pause.

National Agriculture Week

This week is National Agriculture Week.  This commenced, of course, yesterday, so I'm a day late in noting it.



The photo above is of a high mountain pasture in the southern Big Horns, this past November.   There's still snow on it now, and it'll get more before summer arrives there. 

To those who imagine themselves to be hardcore environmentalist, this is a nearly pristine wilderness.  To sportsmen, this is elk habitat.  To those who like ATVs, there's a road not too far away which makes this prime roading (or whatever the term would be) country.  To fishermen, it's a mountain spot between streams.  It's all these things, because it is a high mountain pasture. Agriculture keeps it that way.

In yesterday's tribune the Governor, in a special section, noted that agriculture is the third biggest industry in the state, behind mineral exploration and tourism, and he stated that agriculture "supports the other two".  I don't agree with him that agriculture "supports" mineral extraction so much as I feel they live side by side, uncomfortably, but agriculture surely does support tourism. Without agriculture here we'd have much less of it, as there'd be much less wild land to view.

Still, it's become, as often noted, a hard way to make a living in the state.  At some point in the 1950s, or maybe the 1940s, it became nearly impossible to really take it up as a vocation here if you weren't born into it.  In recent years, it's tended to be people with vast wealth, usually outsiders, who purchased working ranches intact, if they did.  Rarely it was a local, but if it was, it was probably somebody who was quite wealthy.

This isn't a good trend.  I've written on it before, but its in our human interest to keep real farmers and ranchers on the land and in our society. And its certainly in the interest of our wildlands.

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: A legal Gerontocracy?

The bill discussed here:

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: A legal Gerontocracy?: Like a vampire from a movie, the topic I wrote about last legislative session here, is back again: Lex Anteinternet: A legal Gerontocrac...

failed again.

I'd like to hope that this bill stays dead, which it deserves to, but it probably won't.  Like a host of other bills in recent legislatures, bills that have been failing recently tend to come right back the next session.  It might almost be worth considering a rule that precludes repeat failures from being introduced in successive sessions.  This session, I'd note, the bill turned out to have next to no support whatsoever.

This bill has some particularly troubling aspects to it, one of which is that it darned near amounts to special legislation in that those introducing it keep referring specifically to one single Wyoming Supreme Court justice. That he's doing well and capable of keeping on keeping on does not mean, of course, that everyone is.  Some brilliant lawyers have minds that fail in their 60s or 70s.  If we experience that, and at some point we will, what are we to do?  We can't legislatively remove a single justice absent impeachment, which seems a might bad way to conclude a distinguished career.

Indeed it might be worth noting that this year has not been a good one in our state's history for the fate of older, brilliant, men.  Things don't always go well for everyone. We know, from the example of the United States Supreme Court that older justices often feel duty bound to stay, with it sometimes being the case that they steadfastly believe that they are the best possible occupant of the post, or alternatively, like DeGaulle, "apres mois, le deluge".  In real, and admirable, contrast, we've had one very long serving Circuit Court judge step down this past year specifically noting that he wanted to leave the bench (in his 60s) while his mind was still strong, and this past week Justice Marylnn Kite (whose brother was a county and then district court judge who retired some time ago) announced that she's stepping down soon, at age 67.  The more power to them.

The Big Picture: Railhead: Abandoned rail line, North of Casper Wyoming

Railhead: Abandoned rail line, North of Casper Wyoming:

Movies In History: They rode into Mexico

A few weeks ago I wrote an entry on the Mexican Revolution.  In that entry, I touched on the Punitive Expedition and the occupation of Vera Cruz.  It occurred to me at the same time how many movies are based on the them of Americans, sometimes military, and sometimes not, entering Mexico in this period, and earlier.  Quite a few.  It might be interesting to look at the history portrayed in those films and how it holds up, and how they just hold up as films. So we'll take a look.  Discussed, in no particular order, are the following.

The Professionals

This film from the 1960s is in the star packed genera, which many films of this period were.  Featuring Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, Burt Lancaster, and others, the film is set in the Mexican Revolutionary period, with a plot centered on American soldiers of fortune being hired by a wealthy rancher to retrieve his kidnapped wife.

All in all, this film is pretty entertaining and is done pretty well.   In terms of history, it has some interesting features including the fluid nature of the border and the confusing  nature of Mexican revolutionary forces. The film has an offhand referenced to the "Colorados", who were an actual faction in the Mexican Revolution and who were followers of Pascual Orozco, and who fought for Modero at first and then switched to Huerta against him.  This would also place the film in the 1913 to 1915 time frame and would place the revolutionaries generally depicted in the film into some category of Villistas, more or less. 

The firearms in the film are period correct, and small details, such as Marvin's clothing (he's supposed to be a former professional soldiers) show some surprisingly small scale correct details that are generally omitted in films in this period.  One of the better films of this type.

The Wild Bunch

This film was made pretty close in time to The Professionals, but is much different in character.  The film is frankly one of my guilty pleasures, and is a good, but not great, film.   It's also one of the most controversial movies ever made.

This film takes place in 1914 or 1915.  We learn from a minor line in the film that Huerta is the dictator of Mexico as the film's scenes take place.  We also learn that World War One is going on.  Very unusual for any movie, this film centers on totally unredeemed criminals who, at the onset of the film, conduct a very violent raid on an American border town, in order to rob a bank.  The film follows their retreat into Mexico and their pursuit by bounty hunters and the U.S. Army, before they become entangled with Mexican revolutionaries and the Mexican army.

This film might be summarized as gritty, to say the least, but it does a very good job of portraying chaos and violence, and its a well done film.  The concluding scene of the film is one of the most famous, most violent, and most misunderstood scenes in any movie of any era.  Director Peckinpah's point in the film, that Americans like films about criminals because of their criminality, not because they have "a heart of gold", is typically missed by viewers.

In terms of its history, the film does a good job of getting the confusing and violent nature of the era right, but it's poor on material details.  Firearms are not all period correct, and there's at least one plot device about one that's inaccurate.  The inclusion of German officers is a nice suggestion of what would be coming and what was going on in Mexico at the time, so while their placement in the film is unlikely, what it suggests is interesting.  Depictions of the nature of transportation at the time are well done.

They Came to Cordura

Another film set during the Mexican Revolution is They Came to Cordura.

I'll be frank, I've never seen this entire movie and I haven't found it engaging enough to watch all the way through.  I probably, therefore, shouldn't be including it, but as I've seen the beginning and the end, and as its in the category, I've included it.

This film concerns a group of American soldiers who have distinguished themselves in the Punitive Expedition and whom are being taken back to the United States to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.  The lead character in the movie is a cavalry officer portrayed by Gary Cooper, in his typical understated style.  His character, and every single other character in the film, has some horrible skeleton in his closet, and so the movie is a character study of a group of men who are supposed to be heroes but whom are actually deeply flawed.

That thesis is a fine one, but it just doesn't work well, in my view, in this film. All the hidden character traits are too overdone and the entire thesis of that many men winning the CMH, and being taken across hostile Mexico in a small mounted party, is really strained.  Also strained is the portrayal of a largely empty Mexico, which is rather odd.  The Mexico of The Wild Bunch, with small villages and the like, is much better done. 

Major Dundee

This film is set during the American Civil War, and like The Wild Bunch, it was filmed by Sam Peckinpah.

This film is often noted as being a deeply flawed film, but it's deeply flawed in its original version in part because the movie editors cut huge amounts of significant material from it, actually omitting some critical scenes. This film seems to be missing something when viewed in its original form, because it is.  The restored version, which wasn't able to incorporate everything left on the editing floor, is much better and restores some very necessary details to the film, as well as incorporating a much better soundtrack. This is one of those rare films where a "directors cut" is indeed much better than the version that toured in the theaters.

It's actually a very good film and its unique amongst movies showing the frontier American Army in that many of the minor material details portrayed in the film are accurate where, in other films, they're incorrect.  Uniforms, for example, while not done perfectly in this film, are more accurate than in most other American frontier Army movies, and the U.S. cavalry is depicted wearing short boots, rather than cavalry boots, which is an oddly correct item as cavalry boots were only just coming into service at this time.  The firearms are also period correct, sometimes in odd ways. The use of Henry rifles, always a movie favorite, is a bit of a questionable item, but they were in the service at the time and are depicted as an unusual military arm.  The handguns are generally all cap and ball revolvers, with one single exception which depicts a cartridge conversion to a cap and ball revolver, which in fact is not only correct but probably an actual example of the rare conversion depicted.  The use of cap and ball revolvers, it should be noted, is quite rare for films of this period, which generally used later handguns instead.  All in all this is a well done film.

It's also one of at least three movies that all have a nearly identical scene of a waterfall that's in a Mexican national park, the other two being The Wild Bunch and Big Jake.

Geronimo

This film mostly takes place in the American southwest, but it does include a scene where two American cavalry officers and a scout go into Mexico in an effort to make contact with Geronimo.

This film is based on real events, and is based on a book by Britten Davis, who was a frontier cavalry officer who did in fact make contact with Geronimo.  I'm not familiar enough with his story to know if he ever crossed into Mexico as part of that effort, but I do know that the scout who is depicted as having gone over the border in the scene, and who is shown getting killed in a gunfight against scalphunters, in fact lived well after the frontier period and died during the construction of Hoover Dam.  Indeed, the accident that killed him, involving a large rock rolling down on him during construction, is sometime suspected of being the work of Apache workmen who remembered his earlier role.

In material details this film is well done.  Being a later frontier movie, the uniforms and equipment are correct, and in fact some of the weapons depicted are not only correct, but obscure.

Rio Grande

I haven't seen this film in years and years, but it's one of John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy, and is, I believe, the last one to have been released.

In this film John Wayne reprises his role as Kirby York, a frontier Army officer.  York first made his appearance in the first of these three films, Fort Apache.  In the second, and best of the three, Wayne plays a different character, Cpt. Nathan Briddles.  Well cast with members of the John Ford Acting Repertory Company, the  movie includes a scene in which the Army crosses the border into Mexico.  For that matter, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon includes a border sense, but one in which the soldiers do not cross.

All in all, all three of these films are well done, but they do tend to miss the point that border crossing by military forces in hot pursuit of Indian bands was in fact tolerated by the US and Mexico, so the crisis that it seems to create in these films didn't exist in reality, to the same degree.  In this film, the crossing is shown to be an illegal oral order, but in reality, it would have just been done.

Like all of these films, material details are only so so.  Filmed in the era in which it was, departures from period uniforms and weapons was generally not a matter of great concern.  Ironically, these three films tended to actually define what people came to believe the frontier Army actually looked like.

Big Jake

This is one of John Wayne's better films, and its interesting a 20th Century western.  Set in 1909, a persistent theme of the film is the lingering of the old west as it yields to modern times.  Wayne symbolizes the endurance of the old west in the film.  The plot revolves upon a criminal raid on a ranch which results in a kidnapping of Wayne's grandson, whom he's never seen, who is taken over the border to Mexico.

Truth be known, Mexico oddly hardly figures in this movie in any fashion, even though the last half of the movie is set there.  The Mexican border town in the film is more like a typical movie Texas town, so we can't say much about that aspect of the film. It is a good film, however.

On material details, this film isn't bad, particularly given the era in which it was filmed.  The transition in firearms and the arrival of automobiles and motorcycles is accurately portrayed, as is the ongoing importance of the horse.  The arrival of oil exploration is also inserted accurately.

Rio Conchos

Mostly a film vehicle for the gravelly voiced Richard Boone, this isn't a very good film.  It's one of several based on the concept of Confederate holdouts going into Mexico to build a new Confederate life.  None of these films is very good, including this one.  Boone's acting is good, but it almost always is.  Silly plot with improbable thesis, with Mexico seemingly unpopulated enough for a Confederate empire to be rebuilt there without the notice of the Mexicans. 

The Shadow Riders

See Rio Conchos, just filmed later, and a vehicle for Sam Elliot and Tom Selleck.  This film, like the earlier one mentioned, involves die hard Confederates going into Mexico, except this time they raid a Texas ranch and take family members captive, for sale in Mexico.  This is, apparently, based on a Louis Lamour novel, none of which I've ever read.

The plot is awfully strained, and this film isn't really worth bothering with.  Like a lot of these Confederates going into Mexico movies, some Confederates seem to have strangely well preserved uniforms even after years in the field and defeat at the hands of the Union, I'd note.

The Undefeated

Yet another so so effort involving Confederates attempting to go into Mexico, although this time they succeed and are sort of the good guys.  Not worth viewing and improbable as the rest of these films.

In this one, Rock Hudson is the defeated Confederate officer (who oddly also retains a well preserved uniform) and John Wayne is a former Union officer, just back from the Civil War.  The Confederates are taking their families and horses into Mexico to be sold to Juarez's forces.  A strained plot in the extreme.

A Fist Full of Dollars
For A Few Dollars More
Once Upon A Time In Mexico

Sergio Leone managed to make an entire franchise out of the concept of really gritty Mexican border towns. The best of these films is A Fist Full of Dollars, but quite frankly none of these movies is really very good.  The Mexico they portray didn't ever really exist, and the films don't do Mexico, or the old west, justice in any fashion.  At best, A Fist Full of Dollars is worth watching to contrast it with its Japanese inspiration, Yojimbo. The worst, in some ways,is Once Upon A Time In Mexico which takes all of the elements of these films that made them a surprise hit, and ramps them up to the extreme.

The Magnificent Seven

Like A Fist Full of Dollars, this movie is actually based on a Japanese film, and that film is an absolute classic.  The Magnificent Seven takes the classic Seven Samurai, and resets the story in the west.  It's pretty faithful to the Japanese original, although its considerably shorter, and not as good.

Which isn't to say its bad.  Its a great film.

It can't be said to really portray Mexico accurately, but  in some ways it does touch upon elements of the isolated Mexican agrarian life (as the original did upon the Japanese agrarian life of the Japanese middle ages) fairly accurately.  Its very well done.

In terms of material details, this film is a typical 1950s-60s western, and it just doesn't bother.  The clothing for the seven is closer to mid 20th Century western clothing than late 19th Century western clothing, which is frankly the norm for western movies of the time.  The Mexican people are uniformly portrayed more accurately, however.  All in all, it's a good film worth seeing.

I should note that, like A Fist Full of Dollars, this film inspired a franchise with there being a series of films based on it.  None of them are worth seeing, in my view.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

An absolute classic, this film was filmed in 1948 and takes place at some point within the prior 20 years prior to that.  The date it is set in is never explained, but the suggestion is that it takes place during the Great Depression.

This film follows three down and out American ex patriots in their effort to become wealthy gold prospectors.  It's a wonderfully filmed movie and is one that can be watched on more than one level.  Indeed, it's one of those films in the American film library that a person should really see.  The cast, including Walter Houston and Humphrey Bogart is fantastic, and it includes some of the all time great movie stock lines.

In terms of material details, its more accurate than a person might suppose, portraying the wide open nature of northern Mexico relatively accurately.

All the Pretty Horses

This movie is set just after the Second World War, and is another one worth seeing.  A very bittersweet movie, this movie follows two American cowboys, who pick up an American runaway, who venture into Mexico.  One comes from a ranch that has just been sold and is without work or purpose, and the other simply follow him.

A beautifully filmed movie, this movie does again capture the wide open nature of northern Mexico but at a time when its really entering the modern world.  It also portrays the corrupt nature of Mexico at the time, as well as the still very rural nature of southern Texas.  A sense of loss is sewn throughout the film, starting with the protagonist loss of his family ranch at the hands of his selling mother, to the loss of the heavily rural nature of Texas due to changing times.

It's a sad film, but a good film worth seeing.

Lonesome Dove

This movie has been addressed elsewhere, so I wont' repeat that, but I would note that the films early scene of a cattle theft raid into Mexico is pretty accurate for the time.  Indeed, this film scores high overall in terms of accuracy, as earlier noted.

Two Mules for Sister Sara

A Fist Full of Dollars converted Clint Eastwood from a good looking television cowboy, Rowdy Yates, into a tough, grizzled, movie cowboy.  This film is not part of the Sergio Leone franchise, but Eastwood is cast in the role, in essence that he was in the Leone films he was in.

This movie isn't a good film.  It basically is set around the Eastwood's role during the Juarez revolution against Maximilian, with "Sister Sara" actually being far from a nun, and merely assuming that role as part of a similar effort.  Basically not worth viewing.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Grace Bible Baptist Church, Casper Wyoming

Churches of the West: Grace Bible Baptist Church, Casper Wyoming:

An observation about the dangers of contemporary histories.

 

 Saddled British donkeys, turn of the prior century, waiting for a hack.

I've noted this before, but it's a dangerous matter, when writing history, to rely too heavily on the first hand observations of those close to events.  Indeed, I've sent it out here, in a slightly different form:

 Holscher's Seventh Law of History.  No accurate history can be written until 60 years have passed since the event.

A really thorough history of  an event cannot be written close in time to the event.  Indeed, several decades must pass from the event's occurrence before an accurate history can be written.

That may sound shocking (although at least historian Ladislas Farago noted this in the introduction to his early biography of George S. Patton; Patton:  Ordeal and  Triumph) but its true.  Close in time to an event, authors tend to be too much men of their own times with their views colored by the context of those times. Such influences tend to remain at least as long as twenty years after an event occurs.  Direct participants in an event have a stake in what occurred, which also tend to inform and color their views.

Beyond that, however, and very significantly, authors who write close in time to an event, including those who participated in it, tend to simply accept certain conditions as the norm, and therefore diminish their importance int their writings or omit them entirely.  Conversely, they tend to emphasize things that were new or novel, for the same reasons.  Given that, early written records tend to overplay the new and omit the routine, so that later readers assume the new was the normal and they don't even consider the routine.

Take for example the often written about story of the German army during World War Two.  Only more informed historians realize that most of the German army was no more mechanized during World War Two than it was during World War One.  Fewer yet realize that a fair number of German soldiers remained horse mounted during World War Two for one reason or another.  Period writers had little reason to emphasize this, however, as it really wasn't novel at all at the time, and not very dramatic either, and reflected similar conditions in many armies.

This doesn't mean that early works and first hand recollections aren't valuable.  Rather, it means that a person cannot base his final view on those early works, however.  It also provides the answer as to why later historical works on a frequently addressed topic are not only valuable, but necessary.  Rick Atkinson's and Max Hasting's recent works on World War Two, for example, really place the conflict in context in all sorts of ways for the very first time.  The plethora of new books on the First World War that were at first regarded as revisionist are in fact corrective, and likewise the war is coming into accurate focus for the first time.

 

 Cavalryman, Ft. Riley Kansas, 1942.

I don't mean to rehash myself, and goodness knows I don't need to, as I blabber here enough.  But this is something that occurs to me again and again, in terms of writing history.  Contemporary accounts of things are naturally geared towards the dramatic and unusual, not the routine and normal.

News accounts from World War Two emphasized the mechanized nature of the German army, as mechanization was new and spectacular.  The fact that most of the German forces weren't mechanized wasn't interesting to contemporary journalist, as that was the long historical norm.  You can't expect, really, the average journalist to write that most of the German troops he was viewing were walking, or that the Germans deployed cavalry in France.  You'd have expected the Germans to do that, as every army would have done that.

For that matter, you wouldn't get too excited, if you were writing about farms, noting that men were in their fields plowing with horses in the 1940s.  Men had always done that, so it was hardly worth noting.  That there were new tractors and automated implements would be more interesting.

If you are writing about daily living today, you probably don't write about how many ink pens, or pencils, you have in the house.  Computers are still new enough, even now, that they're the exciting thing. That the old writing tools are around, probably doesn't interest you that much.  But they are.

The point generally is that, when looking at history in any context, you have to recall that the mundane and normal of the times often goes unrecorded, the weird unusual and spectacular does. But that colors our view of what was written about any one time, and often the mundane and normal of the past is what would interest us now.

Why do you have to write? « M J Wright

Why do you have to write? « M J Wright

A few random thoughts on Putney Piddleboms and other classic British cars « M J Wright

A few random thoughts on Putney Piddleboms and other classic British cars « M J Wright

Toyota Landcruiser: The Prime Mover of the Third World Military.

 Moroccan troops with some sort of Toyota, United States Marine Corps photograph.

Americans may have invented the  Jeep, but based on what you see in the news, the Japanese surely perfected the type.  The Toyota Land Cruiser of the FJ type is surely the prime mover of the third world and irregular military.   This past week, I saw news footage of a fairly  new pattern of Toyota Landcruiser (or whatever they're calling them now) that had been fitted out with a rocket launcher, being used in Iraq, by the Iraqi army.

Whatever that pattern is, they don't import it here.  Universal (i.e., light small 4x4 trucks of the Jeep type) have gone from being a product offered solely by Willy, to being one, as I've noted before, that was offered by many manufacturers, to include Toyota, Rover, Nissan, and Ford, amongst others.  Now the numbers have dwindled back down so that the only common one is the Jeep once again, now a Chrysler product, unless you include Toyota's somewhat larger option.  Mercedes does make a Jeep type vehicle that's imported into the US, but you rarely see one.  And I know at least Steyr makes one overseas.  Jaguar, the current owner of the Rover brand, might as well.

No matter, it's Toyota that has the light military vehicle role all sewn up all over the glove.  Every third world army everywhere, and every mobilized irregular guerrilla outfit, uses them too.  They must be a fantastic light truck.  While I know it'd be very politically incorrect, were I in the Toyota advertising department, I'd propose the slogan "Toyota Landcruiser:  The prime mover of the third world army".

Old Picture of the Day: Planting Corn

Old Picture of the Day: Planting Corn: Today's picture shows a farmer planting his corn. The picture was taken in Mississippi in 1937. Looks like he is planting the whole...

Old Picture of the Day: Spring Potato Planting

Old Picture of the Day: Spring Potato Planting: Today's picture is from Maine and shows a farmer getting ready to plant is potato crop. The picture was taken in the spring of 1943...

Old Picture of the Day: Beans

Old Picture of the Day: Beans: Today's picture shows a farmer picking up his beans in preparation for planting. The picture was taken in 1940 in Pie Town, New Me...

Old Picture of the Day: Preparing the Ground

Old Picture of the Day: Preparing the Ground: Today's picture shows farmers getting the ground ready for spring planting. The picture is in North Carolina and was taken in 1936...

Old Picture of the Day: Old School

Old Picture of the Day: Old School: This picture shows a Farmer's Son getting ready for spring planting. The picture was taken in 1939 in Alabama. I believe the devic...

Old Picture of the Day: Spring Planting

Old Picture of the Day: Spring Planting: This has been a really cold winter here in West Texas, but finally today I was hearing some sounds of spring outside. I am hopeful that...

Dreaming of vintage flight in the magical age of aviation « M J Wright

Dreaming of vintage flight in the magical age of aviation « M J Wright

Writing inspirations – jumping back to 1938 « M J Wright

Writing inspirations – jumping back to 1938 « M J Wright

Standing in awe of the ultimate art deco aircraft « M J Wright

Standing in awe of the ultimate art deco aircraft « M J Wright

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: An Interview with John Mohler Studebaker

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: An Interview with John Mohler Studebaker: I recently came across an issue of “The Hub” magazine from 1910.  This publication, and others like it, is filled with information regardin...

Words of endurance: Toward the Flame | 1870 to 1918

Words of endurance: Toward the Flame | 1870 to 1918

And the link to the Gutenberg text provides even more great illustrations!

Mid Week At Work: Where Have All The Teachers Gone? : NPR Ed : NPR

Where Have All The Teachers Gone? : NPR Ed : NPR

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: March 10. Daylight Sa...

Lex Anteinternet: Today In Wyoming's History: March 10. Daylight Sa...:

Bah.  If only the legislature, rather than proposing to study the transfer of Federal land management to the state,  proposed to study ending Daylight Savings Time and these time changes instead. Ack.

The Big Picture: Daytona Beach, 1911.

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Byron White Courthouse, Denver Colorado

Courthouses of the West: Byron White Courthouse, Denver Colorado:

Enigmatic Messages for Weary Travelers.

Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men: Lex Antein...

Our earlier post here discussed oil going down to $40/bbl:

Lex Anteinternet: The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men: Lex Antein...: I've been bumping up this thread from time to time: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: $40/barrel? : A couple of we...

 At the time I started this series of threads out, $40/bbl sounded absurd, and there were plenty of naysayers.  Since that time, it's dropped down that low, but then rebounded to $60/bbl. Now, however, some industry analysts are noting that the supply is so over stocked that there's a real chance of it going down to $20/bbl.

That's simply amazing.

And it would truly be devastating to American oil exploration. At that level, it would be at an all time low, lower than its ever been, by a significant margin.

Layoffs in the industry are still going on, and they'd have to accelerate at that point.  There's be no way around it. What the overall impact on the economy would be I can't say, other than that's so low it would probably have a temporary deflationary impact.  But for the oil industry, it'd be devastating.

Lex Anteinternet: Protesting Too Much: Lex Anteinternet: The return...

Well the bill discussed here:

Lex Anteinternet: Protesting Too Much: Lex Anteinternet: The return...:   I've commented several times on this year's legislative efforts regarding the Federal lands in the state, with a comment on the...

passed.  Although not without the irony of one of the sponsors otherwise noting that the Legislature is spending too much money on tasks forces that could otherwise simply be handled by legislative committees.  No doubt, of course, he doesn't see it that way, as this study could not be handled by a legislative task force.

We'll see how this plays out, but my prediction is that the state will come back with a study that shows it could do a better job of managing the Federal land, even though I doubt it could.  It'll propose that the the Federal government, which represents the 300 plus million landowners, who will decline the state's suggestion, and the state will be mad.  So, $100,00 will be spent on a dubious proposition that has no chance of becoming reality.

That won't be all, however.  Local sportsmen, a large contingency of voters, won't forget this, and they largely have no beef with Federal land management.  This will, in the end, come back to haunt some of those who supported this bill, and it'll turn out to be a bill which actually has very few who really support its goals outside of those who think it will expedite use for industry and free local industry from Federal control.  In reality, that same industry isn't really doing much complaining about Federal oversight, however, and is used to working with the Federal government. So this will be a gift that just keeps on giving, but not in the anticipated manner.

Sunday Morning Scense: Churches of the West: Church of the Resurrection, Casper Wyoming

Churches of the West: Church of the Resurrection, Casper Wyoming:

Protesting Too Much: Lex Anteinternet: The return of a perennial bad idea, the transfer o...

 

I've commented several times on this year's legislative efforts regarding the Federal lands in the state, with a comment on the Wyoming bill being here:

Lex Anteinternet: The return of a perennial bad idea, the transfer o...: Every few years Wyoming and the other western states get the idea that the Federal government ought to hand over the Federal domain to the ...

I may have commented on it here (I don't recall) but I wrote my local state senator and my local representative on this, knowing that my rep was one of the sponsors of the bill.  I noted in that, that I would take backing such bills into future consideration next time I vote, as I feel many people will.

My rep wrote back, to his credit, but complained a bit that I seems to think there was some conspiracy to take away the Federal lands.  Given as the original bill proposed to do just that, I found that objection to my opposition a bit strained. After all, it was a topic in last year's statewide elections and then it showed up in the legislature.  Why wouldn't I be suspicious.

Following on that, it occurs to me that  there were "take" bills of various types in the Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado and Utah legislators, all in the present session.

Hmm. . . . .

I hadn't thought of any of this in conspiratorial terms, but now I really do wonder a bit.

In recent years, one thing that Wyoming's legislature has seen is some pretty stout effort to bring it into regional efforts that are of a strongly libertarian bent. These haven't worked, but they have been well financed.  I have to wonder about these bills now, and if they are indeed part of a wider effort.

The irony to them, of course, is that the philosophical and legal basis for such "take" concepts are so extremely poor.  You can't "take back" something you never owned, and never had a legal right to, and the ideal that the Federal government poorly manages this asset and we will do better is strained in an era when it seems that various state agencies are always stretched for funds.

Well, anyhow, folks backing such bills best be careful.  This state isn't really capital "C" conservative so much as it is "leave me the heck alone" and use of the public lands by common people is a part of the local culture.  Recent efforts here which have attempted to bring in what's going on in national politics haven't been successful, and there's a reason for that.  If fisherman, hunters, hikers, ATV users, etc., figure that somebody is outstretching a grasping hand, they may be inclined to cut it off.

"This land is my land, but shouldn't be your land". Misbegotten hostilitiy to ranchers using the public lands

This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

Woodie Guthrie's misunderstood protest song, This land Is Your Land.

 

If you've lived in the West, or follow news regarding lands of any kind, you've seen the claim made at some point. Ranchers who lease the public domain are "welfare ranchers" who should be driven off the public domain, so it can be turned over to hordes of SUV driving weekend users, who will be kinder to the land in their light hiking gear, even if they used more fuel to get there than a third word nation consumes in a year.

Well, not so fast junior.

 

This is exactly the sort of attitude, I'd note, that has spawned in part the movement in the West to "take back" the land, which is an equally ill informed reactionary movement.  Perhaps it would behoove people to take a look at reality, just a bit.  Indeed, a little history would be in order.

As I've written a bit on the origin of public lands in the west, here and elsewhere, what I'm going to do, therefore, is to incorporate back in some of that text I've already written, which I think provides a good background to this stuff.  

Lets' start, therefore, with my earlier text on the Johnson County War, on that famous blog, Today In Wyoming's History, which it was featured as a "Sidebar":

The popular concept of the war is that it represented an armed expression of unadulterated greed.  While greed cannot be dismissed as an element, the larger question remains.  What was it all about?

The cattle industry, as we know it, didn't really come about until the conclusion of the Civil War.  Prior to that, the most significant meat livestock in the US was pork.  Swine production produced the basic farm meat for most Americans, which is not to say that they didn't eat cattle, they did, but cattle production was fairly small scale in the East, and much of it was focused on dairy and mixed production.  Meat cattle were more common in the South, and while it's popular to note that American ranching was a development of Mexican ranching, it was also very much a development of Southern ranching practices.  This, in fact, partially gave rise to the Johnson County War, as will be seen.

At any rate, the American Beef Cattle industry was born when the railroads penetrated into Kansas after the Civil War, and returning Texas cattlemen found that the herds in their state had gone wild, and greatly increased.  Cattle in Texas, up until that time, had followed the Mexican practice of being raised principally for their hides, not for meat, but the introduction of rail into Kansas meant that cattle could now be driven, albeit a long ways, to a railhead and then shipped to market.  An explosion in urban centers in the East provided a natural market, and soon the cattle industry in Texas had switched over to being focused on shipping cattle for beef.

The Texas industry spread north as well and by the 1870s it was making inroads into Wyoming, although really only southern Wyoming for the most part.  At the same time, and often forgotten, a dramatic increase in herds in Oregon, the byproduct of early farm herds and pioneer oxen herds, produced a surplus there that caused herds to be driven back east into Wyoming at the very moment that northern Wyoming opened up for ranching.

But what was ranching like here, at the time?

It was dominated by the fact of the Homestead Act, a bill passed during the Civil War in order to encourage western emigration into the vast public domain. But the bill had been written by men familiar only with Eastern farming, and it used the Eastern agricultural unit, 40 acres, as a model. That amount of acreage was perfectly adequate for a yeoman farmer, and indeed after the Civil War "40 acres and a mule" was the dream of the liberated slave, which they hoped to obtain from the Federal government.  But 40 acres wasn't anywhere near adequate for any sort of livestock unit in the West, and most of the West wasn't suitable for farming.  In the West, additionally, the Federal homesteading provisions oddly dovetailed with State and Territorial water law.

Water law was the domain of states or territories exclusively, and evolved in the mining districts of California, which accepted that claiming water in one place and moving it to another was a necessary right.  This type of water law, much different from that existing in the well watered East, spread to the West, and a "first in time, first in right" concept of water law evolved.  This was to be a significant factor in Western homesteading. Additionally, the Federal government allowed open use of unappropriated public lands for grazing.  States and Territories, accepting this system, sought to organize the public grazing by district, and soon an entire legal system evolved which accepted the homesteading of a small acreage, usually for the control of water, and the use of vast surrounding public areas, perhaps collectively, but under the administration of some grazing body, some of which, particularly in Wyoming, were legally recognized.  In the case of Wyoming, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association controlled the public grazing, and had quasi legal status in that livestock detectives, who policed the system, were recognized at law as stock detectives.

This was the system that the large ranching interests accepted, developed and became use to in the 1870s and 1880s.  Large foreign corporations bought into Western ranching accepting that this was, in fact the system.  It had apparent legal status.

But nothing made additional small homesteading illegal.  And the penalty for failing to cooperate in the grazing districts mostly amounted to being shunned, or having no entry into annual roundups.  This continued to encourage some to file small homesteads.  Homesteading was actually extremely expensive, and it was difficult for many to do much more than that.  Ironically, small homesteading was aided by the large ranchers practice of paying good hands partially in livestock, giving them the ability to start up where they otherwise would not have been.  It was the dream of many a top hand, even if it had not been when they first took up employment as a cowboy, to get a large enough, albeit small, herd together and start out on their own.  Indeed, if they hoped to marry, and most men did, they had little other choice, the only other option being to get out of ranch work entirely, as the pay for a cowhand was simply not great enough to allow for very many married men to engage in it.

By the 1880s this was beginning to cause a conflict between the well established ranchers, who tended to be large, and the newer ones, who tended to be small.  The large stockmen were distressed by the carving up of what they regarded as their range, with some justification, and sought to combat it by legal means.  One such method was the exclusion of smaller stockmen from the large regional roundups, which were done collectively at that time, and which were fairly controlled events.  Exclusion for a roundup could be very problematic for a small stockman grazing on the public domain, as they all were, and this forced them into smaller unofficial roundups. Soon this created the idea that they were engaging in theft.  To make matters even more problematic, Wyoming and other areas attempted to combat this through "Maverick" laws, which allowed any unbranded, cow attended, calf to be branded with the brand of its discoverer.  This law, it was thought, would allow large stockmen to claim the strays found on their ranges, which they assumed, because of their larger herds, to be most likely to be theirs (a not unreasonable assumption), but in fact the law actually encouraged theft, as it allowed anybody with a brand to brand a calf, unattended or not, as long as nobody was watching.  Soon a situation developed in which large stockmen were convinced that smaller stockmen were acting illegally or semi illegally, and that certain areas of the state were controlled by thieves or near thieves, while the small stockmen rightly regarded their livelihoods as being under siege. Soon, they'd be under defacto  siege.

 

 

 Cattle on livestock driveway in Wyoming.

So, to summarize, the way that the system developed was this way.  Prior to the Civil War, the Federal government turned over most of the lands it held to the states, upon their becoming states.  Starting with the Homestead Act, however, it kept most of the land, which it had a perfect legal right to do. The Homestead Act further crated a system, based upon eastern agriculture, in which small parcel were deeded to homesteaders, but they were too small to be viable economic units.  It wasn't that agriculture itself wasn't viable, but the units had to be larger. This in turn created a de facto system in which, basically by necessity, water sources were homesteaded and the remaining public domain simply occupied.

Over time, this very much eroded and in fact it was the early 20th Century, not the late 19th, that was really the era of massive homesteading.  In almost every state in the West upwards of half the lands were ultimately homesteaded, with only the very dry states being the exception.  The use of the public domain continued on, of course, but really by the teens any unhomesteaded land was the natural range, due to lack of water, of some other parcel. This didn't keep people from continuing to homestead however, but by that time, over the warnings of local stockmen, most homesteads were doomed and destructive in the ranching region. When the Dust Bowl of the 1930s hit, these homestead failed.

 

A lot, but not all, of those homestead were farms, not ranches. Ranching was durable, precisely because it fit into the natural pattern of the land, contrary to what modern antis think. Ranching made use of the land for large ungulates, in a region in which there had been a closely related large ungulate.  Cows aren't buffalo, but in most of their native Northern Hemisphere range, the two species actually overlap somewhat. That's because the wild Norther Hemisphere's cow, the ancestor of our modern domestic cow, the auroch, had a range that overlapped that of the European Wild Bison.  Most Americans aren't even aware that there are European Bison, even now, but there are. Aurochs, on the other hand, are gone.

Now, of course, aurochs didn't live in North America, but our Bison differs little from the European one, and so, as is often completely ignored in modern environmentalist views of a romantic bovine free prairie, cattle on the range really simply basically replaced bison on the range.  One big ungulate for another.  Indeed, contrary to what is sometimes imagined, bison were quite capable of environmental destruction when their numbers were high, particularly on cottonwood groves near water sources.

Anyhow, the conditions of the Dust Bowl lead to the passing of the Taylor Grazing Act, a prime feature of which was to end the homesteading of the public range.  This guaranteed that those small, 20th Century, homesteads that weren't viable would collapse back into the public domain or into larger ranches, depending upon whether they were proved up or not.  Viable units would go on to be proved up, those that weren't would either be bought out by their neighbors, directly or via the banks, or return to larger grazing units.  One entire region of Wyoming, the Thunder Basin National  Grasslands, basically consists of failed early 20th Century farms that went back to grazing lands.

 

 

Abandoned hay farm homestead, homesteaded right after World War One, abandoned during the 1930s.

When the Taylor Grazing Act came in, the old system of open public lands ended, and its place the Federal government created a system by which it made it plan that it would retain the land henceforth, but lease it to designated nearby real livestock units. This made sense, and this is the system that we retain today.

Now, something is key to note in this is that, by and large, this land is land that was left in Federal ownership, or which returned to it, for a reason.  Anti grazing forces like to show photos of the most bucolic land in the west, but the vast majority of retained Federal lands were very large dry stretches of grazing land that had not been homesteaded, because they could not be.  That didn't make them unusable by any means, but it does mean that if they are separated from their private "base lands", they rapidly become pretty bleak.

When the lands passed back into Federal ownership, or were withdrawn from homesteading, and element of control was additionally placed on them, although that is very poorly understood.  Mining interests, which always had primary access to Federal lands, retained it, and they still do today, although they can no longer patent land as they once could.  I.e., they can enter land, file a claim, and mine, but they can't pass unpatented lands onto their own ownership.  They can still do this, by the way, for the thousands up thousands of acres where the Federal government owns the subsurface mineral interest but not the surface.  Ranchers who wish to continue grazing the Federal domain may do so via leases for the surface, attached to a base, as noted above.  Sportsmen of all types have free access with no charge, even though some of the things they do, principally in the form of using vehicles on the Federal lands, are somewhat destructive.  And if we consider the forest lands, which have a separate history as they were withdrawn for water conservation earlier, and for silvaculature as well, they can be logged under permit.

 

Another abandoned hay farm.

Now the irony of modern opposition to this system is that it largely fails to take into account the nature of the land, which is far from park land as a rule, and it comes from the one sector of use that doesn't pay for use.  Ranchers, timber companies, oil and gas companies, and mining companies, all pay for use.  Indeed, technically Wyoming state land requires a permit for recreational use, although hardly anyone ever bothers to get it.

Antis tend to point out, in regards to grazing, that the leasing of the land supposedly doesn't break even, but that statistic fails to take into account that funds that the Federal government expends in this area are ones that it elects to spend, but for which the leasing agricultural entities are largely not asking for.  Prior to the Taylor Grazing Act the Federal government spent next to nothing on Western agriculture and it could choose to do so again and frankly be little missed.  Ranchers aren't really asking the Federal government to do anything for them, and if the Federal government is, its choosing to do so. The Federal government would point out that this is what it does as the landlord, and any landlord would do the things it does, but if this is the case, it would seemingly have a bit of an efficiency problem.  In reality, the administrative costs of the Federal government are ones that it simply elects to undertake, some of which, perhaps most of which, it does wisely, but it does it via under its own volition and a person could wonder if there was another cheaper way to do it.  Indeed, I'd note that the current focus of the poorly thought out, in  my view, Wyoming Senate File 0056 is to take this role over from the Federal government, at which point it would be come a state one, and which I suspect would result in simply less being done.

And agriculture itself expends resources on the public lands, which is hardly ever noted.  Fencing, water projects, and the like, require permission from the BLM, but they're typically done at the ranchers expense.  As noted in an earlier post, these projects result in an improvement to the ecology of the land.  In contrast, a Federal lease is much more favorable to other uses than a private lease would be. Generally, private agriculture leases include exclusive use. That is the tenant can keep anyone off, other than the landlord.  As in a Federal lease the Federal government is the landlord, and it acts on behalf of the people, it normally allows anyone to go onto the leased land. Therefore, the only thing the tenant usually gets is the right to use the land, which he or she often improves, and nothing else.  The rancher rents lands on which the general public, or mineral extraction businesses, can and do freely access with no notice to the rancher at all.  That's a condition that accepted by ranchers, but when people wonder why a Federal lease goes for less than a private one, that's an element of it.

And, frankly, leasing the large amount of the Federal domain keeps ranching in the West viable, the alternative to which is increased balkanization and destruction of the land.  40 acre ranchettes are ranches and don't preserve wildlands.  Urbanites in far off distant Portland or professors in the Ivory Tower of small town Laramie don't recognize that, seemingly, but htey reason that there's so much wild land in the West has everything to do with agriculture.

But farmers and ranchers have always been easy to have contempt for.  It's a long American habit to portray them as dull rustics, and even farmers and ranchers believe that easy living is to be found in the cities.  But it's those guys in cotton and wool who are living close to nature, and that should be kept in mind. The Gortex clad armies in the newest hiking shoes have a lot more in common with the suits in a steel and glass building downtown, and indeed are sometimes the same people, than they do with anything or anyone out in the grazing lands.I'm not condeming them by any means, and I'm happy that people get out to enjoy things. But there always seems to be a group of people, and that can I'll admit include ranchers, who take the view that their use is the best use, and should be the exclusive use.  So, we get "non consumptive" outdoor users who are hostile to agriculture and hunters.  Conservationist who are hostile to agriculture and other conservationist.  Boaters who are hostile to other water uses.  Agriculturalist who feel the land should be theirs.  State Legislators who worry more about mining and petoleum production than any other use.  Everyone ought to take a step back from their propaganda and accept that multiple use is probably the best for the multitude, most of which never see most of this land.

In his classic 1930s protest ballad Guthrie noted:

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

That's true of the Federal lands, for everyone.  Ranching helps keep it that way. And there's something to be said for that in addition, we'd note.

People opting to live on the land, really live on it,  rather than just own it as a hobby or to say that they're "ranchers" keep a direct cultural tie to the land that we're loosing as a culture, and which the evidence is that we need to keep.  A culture that looses connection with the land, and with agriculture itself, begins to suffer for it.  This culture is. The disconnect between nature, food and urban life, which is what most Americans live, is vast. At the point where it becomes too separated, agriculture simply becomes one more industry in people's minds, while at the same time, no matter how much they may suppress it, they continue to crave the close connection to nature.  Most nations encourage a small farming sector to keep on. We should do so as well.  The vast size of the country won't do it in and of itself, and support from the government in some fashion, if not a monetary fashion, should be part of that.  And, public lands should be part of that as well.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Powder River Let 'er Buck

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Powder River Let 'er Buck

USDA Blog » 19-Year-Old Hopes to Retire and Farm

USDA Blog » 19-Year-Old Hopes to Retire and Farm

Resources | Inequality for All. It's graphics

Liberal economist Robert Reich has put out a film, which probably very few people will actually see (and which I have not) regarding our economy and the Middle Class.  It's called, as the title here indicates, Inequality For All.

I'll freely admit I remember Reich but I know very little about his views really, other than that he is regarded as a liberal economist, which would mean that he has a certain set of views.  So I'm not endorsing nor condemning his work here, as I don't know much about it, and I haven't seen the film.  I'm quite unlikely to actually see it.

His website on the the film, however,does have an interesting set of graphics, which can be found here:

Resources | Inequality for All

In some ways, these graphics fit into the topic of this blog, given as they're a look at the economy, and wealth, through time.  This assumes, of course, that the graphics are accurate, which I presume they are.

Mid Week At Work: Coast Artillery

Lex Anteinternet: Random Snippets: Blogger difficulties

Lex Anteinternet: Random Snippets:: Odd how this program works, a slight addition and a bumping up of the past item moved all the prior items to the next page. No idea why. ...

Every once and awhile, this program (Blogger) just gets oddly glitchy.  Some feature that has worked forever, will quite working. Right now, a couple of the page feeds don't work. When this happens, I have to take them off, and reload them a couple of days later.  It's as if they acquire a memory and cease functioning.  Once they function, they work again fine forever.

Now, it's viewing any half way long post on the front page as being really long, and rolling over to the next page.  Again, no idea why.  There's longer posts that haven't done that.

Hopefully it returns to normal somewhat soon.

Random Snippets:

Odd how this program works, a slight addition and a bumping up of the past item moved all the prior items to the next page.

No idea why.

_________________________________________________________________________________

And still doing it, but not for the next page.  Hmmm. . . . .