At the end of the road.

Holscher's Hub: Where you have to hike in.

 

These are all photographs, taken from a long distance away, of an old ranch house.

The location of the house isn't a bad one.  In a valley, near a stream that runs year around. The house is a two story house. I'd guess it was built somewhere in the 1900 to 1920 time frame.

Now it's abandoned.  I have to wonder why, but I can't help but note that a newer house is within eyesight of the highway.  Perhaps that provided the incentive?  This house would have truly been out at the end of the road, the only thing on the road at that.  I wouldn't have abandoned this location, and I don't really know why the owners did, but it's interesting to speculate on.

The Rise and Decline of the "SUV".

 Some time ago, on this transportation obsessed blog, I published this item:

Lex Anteinternet: SUVs before SUVs: 

A 1962 Dodge Power Giant Carryall.  Not mine, I saw it for sale the other day while driving through town.  It appears in nice shape, and still features bias ply tires.  This is a D100 Carryall, which means its rated at 1/2 ton, although it has a two speed rear axle.  Of course, I don't know anything about it or what is, or isn't original.  It looks pretty original, however.

Anyhow, it's interesting how SUVs are supposed to be a modern concept, with the Chevrolet Suburban supposedly sort of ushering them in. But Suburban's themselves go way back, and before them were vehicles like this Dodge Carryall.  Carryalls, in fact, go all the way back to World War Two.

Of course, these aren't easy to drive.  It has a manual transmission and armstrong steering.  And, of course, conventional hydraulic brakes.  Not something a soccer mom, or dad, would probably drive.  Still, it's interesting to note how far back the concept of a full sized 4x4, built on a truck frame, goes.  About as far back as 4x4 trucks themselves.

Since that time, I posted a comment on trucks or SUVs on the M K Wright blog, and Jenny, who has a couple of excellent blogs herself, including the 1870-1918 blog, noted that she'd be interested on how SUVS became the sort of bloated light duty vehicles that they've become. To a fan of 4x4s, which I obviously am, that question struck a chord and so I'm back on the topic.

I guess to start off on this, we'd have to define what an SUV actually is. The term isn't really that old in comparison to the vehicles that arguable fit the definition.  SUV, as we know, stands for Sport Utility  Vehicle.  But what's that?

It's a bit hard to say. When the term first was used, it seemed to fit any 4x4 that was a light carryall, but over time it expanded to include all the traditional carryalls and perhaps even things like Jeeps. So, here we'll take a look at that class of vehicle, that being the 4x4 that isn't a pickup, but is designed to carry multiple passengers.

 

M151A1 Jeep in the foreground, with self propelled artillery in the background, South Korea, 1987.  The M151 was the last of the US military Jeeps.  Today, the Jeep is basically almost back to a single manufacturer after having had as wider run at one time.

If we look at it that way, I suppose the Jeep, which we've discussed here before several times.  Probably the last time I looked at them at length was in this post:

Jeep

I've owned Jeeps twice.

 

My first car, a 1958 M38A1 Army Jeep.  In the words of Iris Dement, "it turned over once, but never went far."*

My very first vehicle was a Jeep.  I bought it for $500 with money I had earned from a summer job.  I was 15 at the time, and not old enough to actually drive, but I still had it when I turned 16.  

The engine was a mess, in need of rebuilding or replacement, and as you can see, the prior owner had hit a tree with it.  As the engine was so worn out, it burned nearly as much oil as gasoline, and I sold it when I was 16 and bought a Ford F100 to replace it.

My second Jeep was a 1946 CJ2A, the very first model of civilian Jeep.  I kept it for awhile, but ultimately when my son was small, I sold it too.  The CJ2A, particularly ones made in the first couple of years of production, was nearly unchanged from the World War Two Army 1/4 ton truck that gave rise to the species, and indeed, the model I had, had some parts commonality otherwise unique to the Army Jeeps of the Second World War.

Depiction of Jeep in use on Guadalcanal, bringing in a KIA.

Jeeps got their start in that role, as a military vehicle, a 1/4 ton truck, entering service just prior to World War Two.  Bantam, a now extinct motor vehicle manufacturer, gets a lot of credit for the basic design, and indeed the Bantam Jeep did enter U.S. and British service.

Bantam Jeep being serviced by Army mechanic. The Bantam was actually lighter than the Willys Jeep.

But it was Willys, with larger manufacturing capacity, that really gets credit for the design.  It was their design that became the Jeep, although Ford made a huge number of Jeeps during the Second World War as well.

Coast Guard patrol with Jeep.  The Coast Guard also had mounted patrols during the Second World War, acquiring horses and tack from the Army.

American and Australian troops with Jeep serving as a field ambulance.

Jeeps became synonymous with U.S. troops during World War Two.  Indeed, there's a story, probably just a fable, of a French sentry shooting a party of Germans who tried to pass themselves off as Americans, simply because the sentry knew that a walking party of men could not be Americans, they "came in Jeeps."  A story, probably, but one that reflected how common Jeeps were and how much they were admired by U.S. forces at the time.  It's commonly claimed by some that Jeeps replaced the horse in the U.S. Army, but that's only slightly true, and only in a very limited sense.  It might be more accurate to say that the Jeep replaced the mule and the horse in a limited role, but it was really the American 6x6 truck that did the heavy lifting of the war, and which was truly a revolutionary weapon.  

None the less, the fame of the Jeep was won, and after the war Jeeps went right into civilian production.  For a time, Willys was confused over what the market would be for the little (uncomfortable) car, and marketed to farmers and rural workers, who never really saw the utility of the vehicle over other options.  Indeed, for farmers and ranchers who needed a 4x4, it was really the Dodge Power Wagon that took off.  The market for Jeeps was with civilian outdoorsmen, who rapidly adopted it in spite of the fact that it's very small, quite uncomfortable, and actually, in its original form, a very dangerous vehicle prone to rolling.  Still, the light truck's 4x4 utility allowed sportsmen to go places all year around that earlier civilian cars and trucks simply did not. The back country, and certain seasons of the year, were suddenly opened up to them.  For that reason, Jeeps were an integral part of the Revolution In Rural Transportation we've otherwise written about.  You can't really keep a horse and a pack mule in your backyard in town, but you can keep a Jeep out on the driveway.

Not surprisingly, Willys (and its successor in the line, Kaiser) soon had a lot of competition in the field.  The British entered it nearly immediately with the Land Rover, a light 4x4 designed for the British army originally that's gone on to have a cult following, in spite of being expensive and, at least early on, prone to the faults of British vehicles.  Nissan entered the field with the Nissan Patrol, a vehicle featuring the British boxiness but already demonstrating the fine traits that Japanese vehicles would come to be known for. Toyota entered the field with its legendary Land Cruiser, the stretched version of which I once owned one of, and which was an absolutely great 4x4.  Indeed, their smaller Jeep sized vehicle, in my opinion, was the best in this vehicle class.   Ford even entered the field with the original Bronco.  Over time, even Suzuki would introduce its diminutive Samurai.

So, what's happened here to this class of vehicles anyway?

Recently, for reason that are hard to discern, I decided to start looking once again for a vehicle in this class.  I know their defects.  They are unstable compared to trucks, and they don't carry much either.  But there is something about them.  Last time I looked around there were a lot of options, and costs were reasonable for a used one. Well, not anymore.

I don't know if its the urbanized SUV that's taken over everything.  But whereas once a fellow looking for a Jeep like vehicle could look for Jeeps, Land Cruisers, Land Rovers, Samurais, Broncos and International Scouts, now you are down to Jeeps, the Toyota FJ Cruiser or the soon to be extinct Land Rover Defender.  The Defender is insanely expensive, but the Jeep and Cruiser sure aren't cheap.  Even used vehicles in this class now command a crazy price.  I'm actually amazed I see so many around, given that most people don't use them for what they are designed for, and they're so darned expensive.

The Jeep  was the first of the SUVs, although only barely so.  The Jeep came about just prior to World War Two, as the U.S. Army, which had quite a bit of experience all read with front and rear axle drive vehicles, sought to have a really light car, or truck developed for military use. Being light weight was a requirement for the vehicle, as was it being four wheel drive, a revolutionary requirement at the time.  Jeeps were the result, with there being two Jeeps to see U.S. service during the war, the Bantam Jeep and the Willys type Jeep, which was also made by Ford.  The Willys type Jeep was made in much larger numbers.  By the wars end, the Soviet Union was making its own version of the Jeep, based on the Willys and Bantam examples they'd acquired via Lend Lease.  The Germans, who loved all things mechanical, had also experimented with light weight 4x4s after being exposed to the Jeep, and came up with 4x4s based on the Kubelwagen. The Germans, however, never made the full switch to 4x4s so their examples are much less common that their 2x4 vehicles.

Civilian Jeep fans would tend to identify this as a CJ5, but it's actually a M38A1, in service with the South Korean Army in 1987.

I've addressed at length before, but Jeeps have had a long run as a popular civilian 4x4, and have actually outlasted their use by Americans in the civilian role, the Army no longer using Jeeps at all.  Those armies that do use a Jeep like vehicle today, use Toyota, Land, Steyr or Mercedes trucks, not American ones.  But the Jeep lives on as an American 4x4, but only made by Jeep.  A small close cousin, but much lighter, does exists in the form of the Suzuiki Samauri and the General Motors equivalent of it, but that vehicle seems to be an example of what generally seems to have occurred here.  Starting out a sub Bantam type Jeep, but made for the outdoors, it's evolved into a little 4x4 car.  As we'll see, that seems to have been the general trend.

The Jeep wasn't the only 4x4 passenger vehilce (ie., I'm omitting trucks) introduced by the military during World War Two.  Just as the Army sought to introduce 4x4 trucks and the Jeep, it also introduced, during the war, a class of vehicles we'd later know as Travelalls or Carryalls, and which like the Jeep, we find that there was explosion of types, but that we're now down to a singular example.

I've posted an example of a Dodge Carryall above, so we know what the type is, but we can probably define it as a 4x4 panel truck with seating.  Indeed, the first vehicles to carry that name were in fact 4x2 panel trucks.  Just before the Second World War, however, the Army decided to introduce a Dodge variant of the panel truck for passengers, just as Dodge was also producing a 4x4 heavy duty pickup truck for the Army. And, in addition to that, Dodge also introduced a vehicle called a "command car" that went under a variety of WC designations.

We'll take a quick look at two of these vehicles, before going on to the third, as it's interesting how Detroit sort of missed the boat on these early on, although that's true of nearly all of the early 4x4 vehicles.  Truth be known, they just didn't see much of a post war use for any of them.

 

One of the WC Command Cars

Command cars were a Dodge product based on at first the 1/2 ton Dodge military pickup chassis, and later the 3/4 ton chassis. They were a great vehicle, and were very popular with the service at the time.  Sometimes called a "weapons carrier", they were basically the first true SUV.  Senior officers with access to them, such as George Patton, frequently used them rather than the Jeep, as they were just big enough to be a bit more useful, and small enough to remain really maneuverable.  When we see the later SUVs of the 80s and 90s, we're really seeing something that's pretty darned close to these, conceptually.  Oddly, however, not only did the automobile manufacturers basically fail to appreciate that there's be a post war market for them, the Army phased them out after the war in favor of the Jeep, which isn't quite as useful.

Dodge 4x4 military ambulance, essentially a panel truck.

Also based on the Dodge truck frame was the Dodge military ambulance. This vehicle was hugely successful and a nearly identical model was put into production after the war when the Army adopted the M35, an updated version of the World War Two 3/4 ton Dodge military truck.  Again, however, this didn't seem to inspire the manufacturers to produce a civilian model, and perhaps that's understandable as these were, after all, military ambulances. They did find some favor with civilian users, however, post war as a surplus rugged panel truck.  Here two, however, we can see something that would come back into favor later in another form.

Dodge military carreyalls.

Dodge also produced true carryalls for the Army during the war, and it's hear that we really see the beginnings of something that would find widespread post war use.  The least significant of Dodge's wartime vehicles, it's almost hard t find a picture of them actually being used overseas.  But they set a pattern, along with the Dodge 4x4 truck, that would soon find expression in post war vehicles.

Wartime manufacture.

After the Second World War, Dodge kept its military truck in production, in a civilian variant, as the Power Wagon, vending the heavy 4x4 to commercial and agricultural customers as being "job rated".  Willys kept the Jeep in production as well, struggling to vend it to a market it didn't quite understand.  Soon, sportsmen proved to be the market for Jeeps, while Power Wagons were bought by the anticipated market.  Nobody kept a 4x4 panel truck in manufacture except for Willys, which alone made one in this class, based on its small frame 4x4 pickup truck.  This vehicle, termed by Willys a "station wagon", also very much anticipated the later size of common SUVs, although the car, nicknamed the "rumble wagon", was very much a truck.

In 1954, however that suddenly changed.  Dodge came back out with the vehicle depicted above, the Town Wagon.  But they were late by a year. The prior year, International Harvester, the heavy truck and implement company, came in with the Travelall, a vehicle built on the same concept.  Chevrolet was already making its panel truck, the Suburban, but in 1957 it entered the 4x4 market with the panel truck as well.  As odd as it may be to think of the "family truckster" starting off as a fairly heavy 4x4, they all were.

So, by the late 1950s three American manufacturers were making heavy 4x4 panel trucks for passenger use.  The Carryall, the Travelall and the Suburban all vied for the same, fairly off road, passenger market. A fourth, the Jeep, was a smaller vehicle nearly alone in its class. None of these vehicles was  the plush type vehicle that the Suburban is today, but they are all recognizable as being in that class.  

That class took a new turn in 1963 when Jeep took a huge leap and abandoned its station wagon in favor of a luxury carryall, that vehicle being the Jeep Wagoneer.  There was nothing really like it.  Dumping all pretensions of commercial use, the Wagoneer was the luxury vehicle in the suburban or carryall class, and it did really well. While Jeep vehicles, save for the Jeep itself, have been somewhat forgotten as being pioneering, this one clearly was. 

Just a few years thereafter Chevrolet ramped up the competition by taking it in another direction, when it introduced the Blazer.  Based on a half ton, short box, pickup truck frame, the Blazer took the carryall one notch down in size, marketing its vehicle to the smaller family size now emerging in the US and the weekend sportsman. The Blazer was a huge success.

1972 Chevrolet Blazer.  This type of Blazer (without the lifted suspension and large wheels) was the first model of the popular 1/2 ton SUV.

The Blazer was such a successful vehicle that soon there were others in its class.  Ford, which had a contender in the Jeep market which was very much loved, the Bronco, dumped it in favor of a larger Blazer sized vehicle, still called the Bronco. Dodge, which of course had a military vehicle in this class as long ago as 1940, came back out with one based on its 1/2 ton short box pickup frame, calling it the Ram Charger.  By the early 1980s, Ford, Chevrolet and Chrysler were all competing in this class, and International and Chevrolet were still competing in the carryall class, Dodge having dropped out.

In the meantime, other manufacturers had not been idle.  Toyota had come out with a stretched Land Cruiser, and entered the field, by the 1960s.  Land Cruiser had as well, but it's temperamental expensive 4x4 was never really popular in the US, so that variant was rarely seen.  International Harvester, which had competed in the Jeep class with its Scout, came out with a new larger variant of the Scout which also competed in this smaller, but not Jeep sized, class.  Jeep itself would attempt to enter it from time to time, but was never successful in really figuring it out.

 
 Chevrolet Blazer in use by the U.S. Army, in this case the 3d Bn, 49th FA, Wyoming Army National Guard, in South Korea.  It's odd to think that this class of vehicle, which basically started off as a military vehicle, had a return, albeit a not too successful one, to military service.

By the late 1980s, this latter class, the smaller, but not 1/4 ton, 4x4 market really took off.  Nissan entered the class with its rugged Pathfinder.  Toyota, already in the class, came out with an additional vehicle in it called the Four Runner.  Mazda entered it as well.  Seeing what was going on, Chevrolet abandoned its trailblazing full size Blazer in favor of a smaller model in this class, also called the Blazer.

And then, something happened.

Somehow these vehicles quite being what they were, which was offroad vehicles, and simply became panel trucks, with 4x4, once again.

How it happened isn't clear, but whole class of rugged personal 4x4s began to evaporate.  The Bronco disappeared.  International quit making personal vehicles.  And the small SUVs increasingly became large 4x4 cars, but not really trucks.  

Some of these vehicles are still around in one form or another, but only some.  The Jeep class is principally occupied by Jeep, unless a person is so well off they can afford a Mercedes or Land Rover.  The mid sized SUV still sees a rugged Toyota class vehicles, and Jeep has finally figured it out, virtually dominating the field now with its four door Jeep.  General Motors still makes a Suburban class vehicle and a Blazer sized vehicle, but both vehicles now are nearly luxury vehicles, not the field vehicles they once were, although they can still do the back country and come with off road options.

People will buy, of course, what they want.So the manufacturers can't be blamed for producing what they do. But the evolution is an interesting one.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Bill Barlow and his Sagebrush Philosophy

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Bill Barlow and his Sagebrush Philosophy

World War One Division Patches

This is a topic which likely interests only me, but these photos depict World War One U.S. service coats, for the most part.  The photo immediately above also depicts some leather jerkins, a type of long vest that's almost Medieval in appearance, but which made a reappearnce in the Allies forces during World War One, due to their utility.

Anyhow, these photos show a lot of divisional patches from the Great War.

The U.S. Army hadn't assembled on this level since the Civil War, which was also the last time the Army had been large enough to use large unit symbols and badges.  That had fallen completely by the wayside after the Civil War, but during World War One, it came back in.  In the Army, it's remained the norm ever since.  In the Marine Corps, which was in the 2nd Division during World War One, it disappeared, reappeared during World War Two, and disappeared again thereafter.

I frankly don't recognize all of these patches, although I do a fair number.  Fans of U.S. uniforms, or those who have been in the service, will also recognize quite a few, sometimes in a bit of a surprising way. The "AA", ie., All American, division patch of the can be seen above, but before that unit was airborne and therefore before it had an airborne tab.  Quite a few other patches are recognizable, others not.

I"m unfortunately not familiar enough with the other patches to recall what they symbolize.  Some are obvious, like the small machinegun patch on the 82nd uniform above.  Others I generally don't recognize. Some may be wound badges, and some represent months overseas.  Why the private stripes on so many of these service coats are red, I don't recall, as generally at least World War One enlisted stripes were the same olive color as the coat, so that they were not easy to spot by enemy troops.

Courthouses of the West: Federal District Courthouse, Denver Colorado

Courthouses of the West: Federal District Courthouse, Denver Colorado:

Are deeply held, but unpopular beliefs, worthy of protection?

Some topics become so controversial, you're tempted to self censure and not comment on them. But that's chicken, really, and those are the ones you probably should comment on.  This is one such matter, to some degree.

Some time ago, when the Legislature was in session, I wrote a couple of items about a bill then pending that was supposed to protect people from same gender attraction from discrimination, while there was also a bill pending that sought to protect those who had religious convictions opposed to recognizing same gender unions as marriages from having to serve in some capacity associated with those unions.  I noted at that time that the debate was descending to the sub intelligent level.  The debate had already descended to the trite with words like "fair" and "bigoted" being thrown around without adequate consideration as to the actual nature of the topic at hand, while some on either side struggled to keep the eye focused on the real issues, but not really succeeding in getting everyone to do that.  A legislator even ended up being tossed out of a committee meeting after making some childish comment. 

Both of those bills failed, which is no wonder given the descent of the debate, but other bills like them, maybe (I haven't read any of them)  have passed elsewhere in the US and now a raging debate is going on about one of those bills in Indiana, which as become law, while another in some other state (Alabama?) just passed.  This raises an interesting question that's getting ignored, but shouldn't be.  It's one that has come up in our country's history on more than one occasion, and the country has flunked it more than once.

That is, are the deeply held views of people protected when they counter the majority view, and should they be?

Keep in mind, we're not referencing free speech.  Everyone always claims they support free speech, even if they don't. No, what I"m talking about is conviction backed by action.

Where this has come up most notably in our country's history has been in the context of military service.  We've had conscientious objectors all the way back to the Revolution, where some men declined to serve in militia units based on conscience.  During  the Mexican War, and during the Mexican War some people went to jail, rather than be mustered into their state militias, as they were morally opposed to the war.  Others deserted the U.S. Army for the Mexican Army during the war.  During the Civil War the situation was similar for Southerners, although in the North a person could provide a substitute for service.

During World War One a few objected to the draft, and even during World War Two some did. And as we know, quite a few did during World War Two. What was the country's reaction?

Well, generally, it was hostility.  People didn't appreciate that one darned bit and were pretty hostile to those who refused service.  Reactions varied, some paid fines and some were prosecuted criminally.  Ultimately, of course, it came to be the case that a person could claim conscientious objector status, which was the law at least by World War One, but people generally don't like that being done.  Refusing any service, as late as World War One, was a crime  By World War Two, and since, conscientious objectors have been allowed to forgo service.  It's a law passed to protect people with such beliefs, but that doesn't keep those people from being harassed during wartime.  The thought is that no matter how popular the cause, a person shouldn't be penalized for holding to their deeply held beliefs.  We admire that our country has such a law, although it's fairly recent and things haven't always gone well for conscientious objectors, who are a small minority of the population with their views usually based in religion.

There are other examples.  

One famous one, now a celebrated cause, is that of members of the far left in American politics who were hauled up to Congress to answer the question, "are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist party?"  Now regarded as a terrible witch hunt, the truth is that more than  a few of the people brought up to answer that question were, in fact, Communist, former Communists, or near Communists.  The hearings themselves were aimed at, originally, trying to determine if there was a large Soviet run espionage program at work in the U.S. government and in various industries. As it turns out, and as we now know, the Soviet Union in fact did have a pretty substantial espionage program going on dating back prior to World War Two, so the fears weren't completely unjustified.  Still, it rankles us now that this question was asked as, no matter how deeply repugnant Communism may have been, it ought to be legal to be one.  Indeed, it was, which makes the question all the more offensive, considered alone and without the additional context.

Opponents of slavery who acted upon their beliefs in the Antebellum South, weren't admired generally either, although from a legal prospective their situation was different from what we now are considering.  When Prohibition was the law, those women in particular who came out against it were subject to some real criticism, although again there was no legal bar to them doing so.    And I"m sure there are other examples.

My point is that right now, people who have deeply held religious beliefs to the effect that same gender unions are not valid marriages, and that they cannot morally serve them, shouldn't be castigated as bigots or forced into service any more than people who believe that a war is morally wrong ought to be made to carry a rifle in support of it.  By the same token, it seems self evident that it shouldn't be legal to discriminate in a conventional sense against people merely because they have a same gender attraction.  It isn't perfectly possible to craft a perfect law, but generally nobody really wants people fired from their job for having a same gender attraction but it's also the case that people who find same gender unions morally objectionable shouldn't be forced to serve that process thereby putting them in moral crisis or making it appear that their views are irrelevant or that they actually approve of something they do not.  The gist of it is that a person shouldn't be fired from their job at the caterers for having a same gender attraction, but the same caterer should be allowed to decline a job at a same gender wedding reception.  Seems easy enough, but the sides are now so backed up that people are yelling at each other on this one and some are no longer willing to yield to others who cite moral conscience.

The point isn't whether they are right or wrong, but whether or not unpopular beliefs can be tolerated.  Surely, they should be, particularly in the area we are discussing, in which the reverse was the case so recently. Indeed, it's unpopular or untrendy beliefs that probably need the most protection, as a society that tolerates those who hold them protects everyone at the end of the day.  That is, people who object to military service on moral grounds shouldn't be made to serve in the military, people who hold radical political views shouldn't be penalized at law for holding them, and people who have moral convictions that preclude them from doing something, such as taking oaths, or serving at certain functions, shouldn't be made to.  

The fact is, there are entire groups of people who very sincerely hold religious views that are unpopular or at least untrendy.  It is not correct, nor dignified, to force these groups into public submission, as that is a form of oppression.  People yelling at them right now are actually arguing contrary to the things they claim to be supporting.  You can't be tolerant by being intolerant. 

The Amish will not bear arms in service of their nation. Should they be forced to?  I doubt anyone thinks they should, even though most people believe its your patriotic duty to bear arms when the country calls.

Indeed, they largely will not mix with others, should they be made to? Should their children be forced to go to public school, Carlisle Indian School style?   Nobody would argue that they must.

Jehovah's Witnesses will not take oaths, and therefore they won't even say the Pledge of Allegiance. Should we make them?  I doubt it.

Some Moslems so object to eating pork they won't handle it.  If there is an Islamic caterer and we want pork roast for a wedding, should they be forced to serve us?  Nobody would rationally argue that they should.

Ultra Orthodox Jews will not do anything on Saturday.  If the rest of us work on Saturday, should they be made to do so if we do?

Some Protestant Christian denominations strongly object to the consumption of alcohol, and won't  have anything to do with it.  Nobody argues for Prohibition anymore, and while there are dry counties, by and large you can buy alcohol in most of the country.  If people with an objection to alcohol are caterers, should they be required to attend a wedding where alcohol is served if they object to it?  I doubt anyone feels that way.

The point is that in the current public debate, there's a lot of overreaction going on, and we've done that before.  

The further point is that, for the most part, I think this topic is one where the majority of people don't want people to be hostile or broadly discriminatory to the group at hand. Pretty much everyone recognizes, and has for a long time, that a person should not be discriminated at work, etc., for this, or any other reason, and should be judge on their work force performance.  I could try to list other topics that are generally similar, but that would be long and pointless.  But there are some groups with deeply held religious beliefs, or sometimes philosophical beliefs, and it's always tempting to leap on them dog pile style and accuse them of bigotry, or whatever.  Again, I don't really think, quite frankly, that Communists in the 30s were really "anti American", so much as they were people who held beliefs most of us abhor.  I don't think that those who oppose serving in wartime deserve harassment for that view either, and they've surely received it in the past.  Again, I could go on, but every time something like this comes up, it seems that the commentary tends towards marginalizing the deeply held beliefs which,  no matter their nature, is not usually fair.  I.e, I don't think on other issues that the Amish or  Quakers are baddies and I don't think that only Democrats and Republicans can love their country.  In this debate, therefore, I don't think that people should disregard the views of those who aren't being bigoted, but rather feel that they must act according to the dictates of their conscience on what are in fact very limited areas that for most people will never occur.  And in the debate, to at least grant an opponent the status of being informed on their position is always a more rational one than simply accusing them of something.

Indeed, as far back as Plato we were warned, through his recounting of the advice of Socrates, that once a debate descended to the shouting down level, nobody actually won them. 

Sunday Morning Scene: Camp Humphreys, South Korea (and a Happy Easter to all, everywhere).

The Evolution of Armor

Renault FT, introduced in 1917.  Some served all the way to 1949 even though they were really obsolete by 1930.

Soviet T33, served in the 1930s in Spain (photo courtesy of Daniel, in the photograph) and into World War Two, during which it quickly became obsolete.

M3 Stuart, produced from 1941 to 1944.  One of a series of light tanks that served in the U.S. Army during World War Two, all of which rapidly became obsolete.

M4 Sherman, it entered service in 1942 and was arguably approaching obsolescence by 1945.  Used by every Allied army during World War Two.

 

M18 Gun Motor Carriage, a "tank destroyer" which was really a sort of tank. Note the chassis evolution from the Sherman.

M48 "Patton" tank of the South Korean Army in 1987, this tank went into service in 1953 but was being replaced in U.S. service by the mid 1960 by what was essentially an upgraded model, the M60.

M60s.

Team Spirit, 1987

Team Spirit, 1987: Back in February 2012 I posted some photos of Team Spirit, 1987.  I did this in a slide show format. Today, I've reposted some (but no...

Farm size

Farm in Pennsylvania

Farming, rather obviously, got its start, as we conceive of it, in the East.  I suppose a person could argue, and some no doubt would, that this isn't completely true as various native groups farmed all over the region east of the Mississippi and down into Central America. And that would, of course, be true.  And it's significant in terms of how the landscape appeared, and even in terms of what was grown, in later times, but for our purposes here, we should really look at European American farming.

For somebody in agriculture in the West, looking at agriculture in the East is really a shock.  I've just had the opportunity to do that several times recently, as I flew in and out of Toronto, and  got a look at the area from the air, and then I flew the next week to Tampa and had to drive from there to New Port Ritchey.  This past week I flew into Baltimore and a friend and I drove up to Carlisle on the state highway, one of the ones that no doubt runs on the 19th Century pike. Very interesting.  Following that, I flew to Atlanta and then back over the south and the big grain belts of the nation.

Viewing the farm ground in Maryland and Pennsylvania was both a delight, and a surprise.  For one thing, there's a lot of it.  Just as Easterners have the erroneous view that the West is empty, Westerners, or at least native Westerners like myself, tend to believe that the East is one big city.  It isn't.  There's a lot of farm ground there.

However, even though I intellectually know better, it's weird to see it. The farms are, and have always been, so small by our standards out here.  Grain farms just east of this region, well in Nebraska and Kansas, are enormous.  Ranches are big, as they have to be.  These Eastern farms are small and you can almost always see a nearby farm.

But, as the countryside in Pennsylvania and Maryland demonstrates, it's been that way for an extremely long time.  Farms that are well over 150 years old are near others that are that age and older.  And this should be no surprise, as they were all farmed with horse, mule, or oxen, under less than ideal conditions.

Indeed, the soil appears very rocky in some places and stone walls are everywhere, with stones taken, of course, from the fields.  The land had to be first cleared of trees, and the forest continue to wage war against the fields and come back at the drop of a hat.

It was of course this sort of farming environment that the drafters of the Homestead Act were familiar with, and that's why the original homestead was only 40 acres in size.  That was extremely unrealistic for this country, where it's always been the case that thousands of acres are needed to run cattle.  What a shock it must have been to the first homesteaders.

And it continues to impact us today, as the unrealistically small homestead allotments yielded to the system we have in the West today by default, rather than by design, in spite of the views that anti ranching elements may hold about them.  The system works, but it was based on a broken model to start with, and had to be repaired to work.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Cattle Drive

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: The Cattle Drive

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Collecting Wood Wheeled History

Here's a recent post on Wheels That Won The West on collecting wooden wheels:

WHEELS THAT WON THE WEST®: Collecting Wood Wheeled History: Since I publish this blog on the same day each week it’s inevitable that, as the years pass, some postings will land on Christmas, New Year...

On that topic, here's something that suprrisngly has a set of wooden wheels:

This is a Renault tank from World War One.  Arguably the best tank of that war (not that there a lot to chose from) the large front wheel of this tank was wood.

The Weary Business Travelers Comments on Air Travel

Zone 2 boards a plane.

I suppose that this will come across as crabby, but I do a lot of flying, and hence, I see a lot of airports and the inside of airplanes.

We are told there was once an era when air travel was glamorous and romantic.  For some it still is, no doubt. But for the business traveler, those days are long gone. What air travel is, is convenient.

It's safe, relatively fast, and all that. But fun it isn't.  At least not after you have quite a bit of it down. And, quite frankly, while I like airplanes, I don't like riding in airplanes, so that impacts my view a fair amount, I'll admit.

But I'm sure I'm not alone. So, hence a few observations.

1.  Business travelers probably aren't having fun on the plane, aren't on vacation, and may be cutting their schedule pretty tight.

One of the things I generally note about people travelling in airplanes is they're very polite as a rule.  And there's good reason to be very patient, and people nearly always are.  Some people have a hard time getting on and off of planes, and that's perfectly understandable and most people, indeed maybe all people, understand that.

But conversely, it's not uncommon for a business traveler to have very little time leeway.  He needs to catch another flight, or a taxi downtown, or something, to make his schedule. 

I note that, as there's some casual travelers who are really oblivious to this. The other day, for example, I was on a plane in which a nicely dressed young woman and her very well-behaved young children encountered another nicely dressed young woman and her very well-behaved young children, and they recognized each other. With about a third of the plane still needing to disembark, they stopped and had a protracted reunion conversation.  Nobody yelled or screamed, but when she finally resumed her progress towards the door, I could hear the businessman seated across the aisle saying, under his breath "don't stop, don't stop."  As this plane was late, and my connection not too distant, I shared that view.

2.  Zone 2 is the Thundering Herd.

Aircraft board by zone.  Generally, the first zone is made up of people who need help boarding and then a premium, or multiple premium, zones. Then zone 1.

Then zone 2.

For some reason, things generally go well until zone 2 boards.  I'm nearly always in zone 2.  Zone 1 forms an orderly line and progresses in that fashion. By the time they get to zone 2, every single person in the zone is convinced they're never going to get to board, and they start pushing, cow herd style, towards the gate.

Everyone is getting in the same plane, and this makes no sense, but it's really common.  People cut in line, muscle their way in, etc.

Ironically, it's not uncommon for one of the herd to slow everything up, once he's on the plane. That's the guy who decided to bring his walrus for the overhead bin storage.  He can't get it in, and has to try and try while the rest of the herd is stuck behind him.

United Airlines, I'll note, does a really good job of preventing this by having extra places for zone 2 to line up early.  Once they're in a narrow line, they behave, again much like cattle.  It's having no line to form up in as zone 1 moves ahead that seems to create this problem.

3.  The window bogarters

I like to get a window seat, even if I don't like flying.  That's because I do like scenery. 

For some reason, however, there are people who take window seats, and then immediately close the shade.  Hey man, if you didn't want to look out the window, why take a window seat?

4. The stenchy messy food girl.

Recently I've been noticing a trend for messy eating young girls on planes. This is a new one.

When I came back from Toronto recently, a young woman, nicely dressed, sat next to me. But she was an amazingly sloppy eater and had brought a sandwich on with her.  She made a mess of that, and to make it worse, left her drink bottle on the airplane floor when she deplaned.

Not cool.

On the way back from Atlanta the other day, a high school aged girl sat next to me. She was industrious, and was writing a report on All Quiet On The Western Front on the plane, but she also came on with an Italian food special she'd gotten in the terminal.  It was apparently the Spicy Noodle In Limburger Cheese Sauce special, and it was rank and stanky.  Uff.  Not good for an enclosed environment.

5.  The drink people.

Every airplane flight in North America offers a beverage service. I am sure that if there was a commercial flight from Casper to Douglas, it would offer a beverage.

I get that in part.  Flights are long, and people might need something to drink. And at least by common belief, some drinks settle the stomach, or so we're told.  I've always been told that ginger ale does that, and I see a lot of ginger ale being drunk in airplanes.

But there are a lot of people who take drinks, because they are free.  I’m always amazed when people take drinks routinely between Casper and Denver, for example. The flight is only 45 minutes long, having  a drink is hardly worth bothering with.

This is particularly the case because the last few minutes into Denver is often rough, and the area right around Casper often is, both due to the atmospheric conditions associated with mountains.  But, people trust their trays and place the drinks down even when the plane is bouncing around.  Maybe they should trust them too, as I've never seen a drink bounce off a tray, but I've worried about it.

6.  The talkative traveler.

I travel in aircraft a lot, and I always bring a book or work on the plane.  I don't like traveling on planes, and so this serves to distract me, I suppose, although looking out the window, which I also like to do, probably works against that.

Every now and then, however, you get seated next to somebody very nervous or very talkative, or both.  They want to talk, and they're going to.  I've had an oil field consultant quiz me on towns to live in, in depth, all over the Rocky Mountain west, as if I am well suited to tell somebody where they ought to live.  Some people want to tell you their life's story, or others, if you are reading a book, want to discuss it, rather than let you read it.

In other situations, I might find that interesting, but in an airplane, not so much.  Something to do with the plane, I'm sure.

7. The dimwitted joke people.

One thing I've noticed is that every time there's an air disaster, or even a natural disaster, somebody in line wants to make a joke based on it.  This is not amusing at all.

Recently for example I was in line when a passenger on a Delta flight tried to engage the Captain of the plane in some banter based on the recent suicidal crash caused by the Germanair co-pilot.  This isn't funny, and won't ever be funny.  I'd have tossed her off the plane, but he only gave her a nasty glare.  Clearly he's more of a gentleman than I.

What's with all those dire warnings. . . .

and why are they on a blog that supposedly looks at history around the turn of the prior century?

St. Francis Mission, Midwest Wyoming.

Well, as for the second question, we stray off topic a lot. But as for the first, this is something we've witnessed before, and which makes up pat of the history of this state.  A history we've experienced first hand.

I just posted an item on this, and I should note that I'd started this entry prior to writing the short one I just did.  I didn't post this one when I wrote it last week (often the posts here are delayed days, or years, before they're posted) as I'm busy and I was traveling as well.  Anyhow, those who haven't experienced, and there are a lot of people in that category, have a hard time accepting that things can really dramatically turn around here.  Employment in the extractive industries includes a lot of young people, so that means right now there are a lot of people born after 1990, as amazing as that now seems to me, who are fully adults, and have no personal experience with events of this type really.  Oh, we had a downturn around 2008, but it was nothing like those we experienced earlier.

When I was in the National Guard in the early 1980 the unit was filled with men who were using their military experience to tide them over, hopefully, until better times arrived.  Lots of those men were Vietnam veterans who had returned home after their service and then had entered the work force in the 1970s, when times were good here. They weren't all in the oilfield to be sure, but some were, and quite a few others worked skilled labor jobs of some other type.  A few of the enlisted men were, however, professionals.  One fellow was an accountant, or had been (he was working as a carpenter).  Another had an advanced degree in Spanish and at one time had been a teacher.  Quite a few of those guys were struggling to get by, and their service in the Guard was providing much needed income to their families.

One of those men had a teaching job in Jeffrey City, Wyoming.  He was an officer, but he was sort of an unusual one as he was much more like the enlisted men than the other officers and addressed us in that fashion all of the time.  He'd been a Marine prior to having gone to college and perhaps that explained it somewhat.

Jeffrey City provides a bit of a window into the concern that some of us have now.  In the 1970s it had been a booming town.  By the 1980s, it was struggling as the industry that supported it, uranium mining, was declining.  It's still a town, but certainly not a city, now, but it's a mere shadow of its former self.  It's barely there.  It is there, but it's hardly active. The uranium mines are closed.

Gillette forms another example.  When I was in high school, it was a booming coal town.  It was also really rough.  Going there during high school swim meets was always an experience.  But, by the mid 80s, it had fallen on tough times and was fairly quiet.  It started turning around dramatically with coal bed methane exploration in the 1990s, but now there's a fair amount of concern there over the future of coal, and the coal bed methane industry has pretty much completely shut down.

Wight gives us another example.  A mere road stop in the 80s, it's now a real town with lots of nice new construction. But the economy is completely based on extractive industries.  Residents of the town, if they're familiar with the histories of Gillette and Jeffrey City, must be concerned.

Further down the road are Midwest and Edgerton.  These towns are within a couple of miles of each other, with Midwest having been a Standard Oil company town that also supported the Naval Petroleum Oil Reserve.  One of the streets in Midwest is called "Navy Row", as it at one time housed U.S. Navy personnel stationed at the petroleum reserve.  The reserve has long quit being a Naval facility and the sailors are all gone.  The facility itself, an experimental oilfield facility, was recently sold.  The oilfield is still active, and through the advance of technology oil wells drilled in the 1920s are still producing, but both Midwest and Edgerton have really had their ups and downs.  In the 1940s they were booming.  They were again in the 1970s.  In the 80s they were really suffering, but in the past decade they boomed again.  Now, things are starting to go the other way.

Or take the town of Lance Creek.  Lance Creek was an earlier participant in oil exploration in the state, with oil claims actually filed as placer mining claims.  The field was extensively explored during the 1920s. During World War Two the town ballooned to 4,000 or more people. The population of the town collapsed after the war, and its never recovered. There's still oil that's produced in Niobrara County, but the least populace county in the state has never seen a recovery of an oilfield economy.

The recent article in the Tribune took an interesting look at past ups and downs.  I noted, in reviewing them, that one of them drew some reader comments.  Reader comments to the Tribune tend to draw a lot of snark, but in this case they didn't seem to.  Here's what one reader had to say:

Many of us went through more busts than booms in Wyoming working the oil patch.The current slowdown pales in comparison to the bust of the 1980's.Do yourselves a big favor ...get out of the oil patch while you still can,or pay the price later,in more ways than one.

So far, I'd note, this writer is correct, and I've heard others note this as well. This slow down is less severe than the one in 1983. . . so far. But that one started out milder than it ended up. With these collapses, the collapse doesn't come overnight.  Another reader commented:

We've lived in Wyoming for six decades. We love this state but hate its busts. We were one of many families who were victims of the bust in the early 80's. Lost our jobs, lost our house...lost everything. Though we've recovered it's been a long, long road. I'll never be able to retire comfortably due to the lost time and income. Take it from a man who's been in the fire: save your money now and don't wait!

Dire warning indeed.

The point is that things can really turn around here.  But when you live through them for the first time, it doesn't seem quite real at first.  Here, in the early 80s, in this town, we saw the oilfield collapse and the Standard Oil Refinery close.  Ultimately, the Texaco refinery also closed.  This is and was a small city, but the impact was truly devastating.  Maybe we need not fear that again, but we should be aware that it happened.

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.

This past weekend, the week after I posted this

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.: And following on this: Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on. : Saudi production has reached 10,000,000 bbl per day, near (or perha...

the Tribune made the topic of a possible oil collapse its Sunday feature.  I was out of town, so I didn't read it in depth, although I tried to on my app for that.  The Tribune did a nice job, in one article, of listing all the prior collapses, which is something I've written about here in the past (again, you heard it here first) but which the Tribune, having full time staff et all, did a nice job on. They listed the prior ups and downs as follows: 

The Star-Tribune compiled a brief timeline of oil in Wyoming from the first sale to its current situation.

• 1863: “The first recorded oil sale in Wyoming, however, happened along the Oregon Trail when, in 1863, enterprising entrepreneurs sold oil as a lubricant to wagon train travelers. The oil came from Oil Mountain Springs, some 20 miles west of present-day Casper. ” -- Phil Roberts on wyohistory.org.
• 1883: Mike Murphy drills the first oil well in Wyoming south of Lander at Dallas Dome.
• Fall 1888: Casper’s first well is drilled 3 miles northwest of town.
• 1895: Pennsylvania Oil Company builds the first refinery in Casper.
• April 5, 1889: “The town was swarming with oil men. Something will evidently be doing soon.” – The Casper Tribune
• 1910: Franco-Wyoming Oil Co. is created. Construction on a refinery begins a year later.
• 1911: The Midwest Oil Co. begins construction of another refinery in Casper.
• 1914: Standard Oil moves into Casper, buying land to build a refinery.
• 1916 to 1917: "During the latter part of 1916 and for nine months in 1917 Casper experienced a wonderful oil boom,” according to a 1990 Gillette News Record article citing a historian.
• 1916: The Big Muddy Oil Field is discovered near Glenrock on a land grant section randomly chosen by a government surveyor for the University of Wyoming. Royalties from the oil field in the 1920s are used to build Half Acre, the current gymnasium, and the library, now the Aven Nelson Building. The building comes amid a statewide depression. 
• June 17, 1921: A fire erupts at the Midwest Refinery Tank Farm in Casper, in what is widely considered one of the major disasters of the time.
• 1923: “The Producers and Refiners Company (PARCO) built a refinery and a complete town for its employees on the Union Pacific line in Carbon County. When the firm went into bankruptcy in the early 1930s, oilman Harry Sinclair bought the town on April 12, 1934, and renamed it ‘Sinclair’.” -- Phil Roberts on wyohistory.org.
• 1925: “It was 1925, the peak of the Salt Creek oil boom in Casper. ‘Smoke of prosperity hangs over Casper Refineries,’ said the headline in the 1926 annual ‘industrial edition’ of the Casper Tribune-Herald.” More than 23,200 people lived in Casper and Natrona County, beating Cheyenne and Laramie County by about 5,000 people. Some people predicted Natrona County’s population would reach 40,000 within a year. – “Boom overshadowed gloom in ‘25” by Irving Garbutt.
• Late 1920s: Crude oil prices peak in 1920 at $3 for a 42-gallon barrel before sinking to as low as 19 cents in 1931.
• 1940s: World War II boosts Wyoming oil production.
• 1946: Major oil companies move regional headquarters to Casper, which is, once again, coined “Oil Capital of the Rocky Mountains.”
• 1947: “Casper listed 55 oil field service, supply, and trucking companies. In 1953, this list showed 196 such firms. Stanolind Oil Company, with division and district headquarters in Casper, had 70 employees in 1947. In 1953, the company employed 316 people. Ohio Oil Company had increased from 104 employees to 167. The total number of companies and individuals listed as engaged in oil production and exploration increased from 27 in 1947 to 81 in 1953.” – “Casper, Wyoming, Oil Center of the Rockies” September 1954 edition of Out West Magazine.
• 1950s: Most small towns in Wyoming have their own refineries, including ones in Cody, Thermopolis, Torrington and Lusk.
• Late 1960s: Oil production continues to be strong, but Wyoming’s overall economy is in a period of “malaise,” said Phil Roberts. “By the end of the ‘60s, we were flat broke.”

“In 1968, Gov. Stan Hathaway discovered that Wyoming had the grand sum of $80 in the general fund. 'That scared the hell out of me,' said Hathaway. 'I had to do something.'” -- Sam Western, “Pushed Off the Mountain, Sold Down the River: Wyoming’s Search for Its Soul.”

• 1969: Wyoming creates a severance tax to build state coffers.
• 1973: Arab oil embargo. Prices skyrocket to $40 a barrel. Gas prices nearly double.
• 1982: World price of energy crashes.
• Early 1980s: Headquarters of major companies, including Chevron and Exxon, move from Casper to Denver and then many to Houston or Tulsa, Oklahoma. Most small refineries, operating off of even slimmer margins, close.
• 1991: Amoco Refinery closes in Casper. “Had they stayed, they would have had to weather, how many years before it turned around? As a business decision, it was something they had to do looking down the road. But on the other hand, with the changing energy economy by the end of the 20th century, it would have been pretty profitable for them to stay in business.” – Phil Roberts
• Early 2000s: Enhanced oil recovery breathes new life into the Salt Creek Field. Horizontal drilling unlocks previously hard-to-tap shale reserves.
• Late 2014: Slow international growth and a rising tide of production from OPEC creates a slump in oil prices from $107 a barrel to below $50 a barrel in 2015.

* Historical information from Phil Roberts, a Wyoming historian and professor at the University of Wyoming, or the Western History Center at Casper College.

Casper Star Tribune and Phil Robertson.  Again, really nice job!

Points go to the Tribune for running such an article, but I can't help but note how much this feels like 1983 all over again.  I still have friends and colleagues outside of the oil industry who are trying to convince themselves it won't be that bad.  At the same time, as I have a lot of oil industry contacts, I can see what's occurring.  Lots of men I knew who were employed in the oil industry now are not. A good friend of mine in the financial world tells me that Texas expects 100,000 lost jobs in this sector this year.  Texas has a population of 24,000,000 of course, basically rivaling the population of Canada, so that may not be devastating to its economy, but a decline in this sector here, where this is the single largest industry, is going to have a major impact.  It simply will.

Not that there aren't opposing indicators people can point to, and do.  Things are still being built, businesses are still going in.

Just like last time.

Writing is five percent inspiration. The rest is brute force. « M J Wright

Writing is five percent inspiration. The rest is brute force. « M J Wright

Today In Wyoming's History: Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, ...

Today In Wyoming's History: Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, ...: While the Indian Wars smouldering in Wyoming, and state volunteer units were patrolling the Oregon Trail: Some Gave All: Gettysburg Nation...

Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg Penn...

Some Gave All: Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg Penn...: The photographs below are of the Gettysburg National Military Park. I only recently saw the park, and as I was traveling for business, I...

The Big Picture: U.S. Army Tank Corps, Camp Meade, Maryland.

Monday at the bar: Courthouses of the West: Federal District Courthouse, Denver Colorado

Courthouses of the West: Federal District Courthouse, Denver Colorado:

 

The Big Speech: Become such as you are.

ένοι' οἷος ἐσσὶ μαθών

Become such as you are, having learned what that is.

Pindar

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Holy Ghost Roman Catholic Church, Denver Colorado

Churches of the West: Holy Ghost Roman Catholic Church, Denver Colorado:

Why I think Mars One is a really stupid notion « M J Wright

Why I think Mars One is a really stupid notion « M J Wright

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26

Today In Wyoming's History: March 26: 1895  University of Wyoming Alumni Association founded.

Amazing to think that it's that old, or that it was founded so soon after the University was established.