Automotive Transportation III: Motorcyles

I started this series last summer, I think.  I started this entry on motorcycles months ago, and I'm only just finishing it now.  That probably reflects the degree of my knowledge on motorcycle, or perhaps where I place them in the story of transportation.

Racing motorcycle, 1914.

Which isn't to say that I despise motorcycles or something.  I don't. And indeed, when I was young I used to occasionally find them fascinating enough that I thought of buying one, and I did know quite a bit about certain ones.  I was fascinated with Harley Davidson's in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in an era when they were still a motorcycle that was associated only with hard core motorcyclists (now they've become sort of the default bike for hard core motorcycle fans and men in their late Middle Age for some reason).  I also once had quite a fascination with BMW motorcycles, and even knew a little about Triumph motorcycles.  I still find Harleys and offroad/street combo BMWs very interesting, but I've gotten over really wanting to buy a BMW or a Harley Sportster.  And that's a good thing.  Motorcycles are really dangerous.

Anyhow, while motorcycle fans would no doubt dispute it, no means of engined transportation has changed less than the motorcycle.  This doesn't mean that they haven't changed at all, they most certainly have, but if you look at a motorcycle from a century ago, it's obviously changed less than the automobile, or about anything else.

Motorcycles were an easy transition from the Safety Bicycle, and even now there's a class of two wheeled vehicle that's a cross between the two. When the internal combustion engine came on, motorizing the safety bike was an obvious thing to do.  Commercial motorcycles arrived as early as cars, and were offered commercially in the late 19th Century.  Royal Enfield, which still makes a motorcycle, albeit in India rather than the UK where it originated, started making motorcycles out of its bicycle shop in 1901.  Triumph had one a year later.  American bicycle racers formed the Indian Motorcycle Company in 1901.  Two years later Indian's big competitor, Harley Davidson, was founded by William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson who operated out of a back shop of a friend.  As with automobiles, there were a lot of early manufacturers, which is particularly not surprising with motorcycles, as they were easy to make.

Motorcycles were also comparatively cheap to make and they were fast (and dangerous).  They therefore had, right from the onset, all of the attributes they do now.  They were cheaper than cars (or could be), they were very versatile and could go anywhere. They were fast.  And they were dangerous.  They appealed to many of the same people to whom they appeal now, and many of the same things we associate with them now, even racing, existed from nearly the onset.

They did, however, have a wider appeal in certain quarters than they do now.  This was the case for a variety of reasons, with a significant one being that cars were enormously expensive prior to Henry Ford depressing the price. Even Ford, however, didn't depress the price of cars uniformly and globally, so in some regions of the globe the motorcycle, in spite of its one passenger, open air, two wheeled disadvantages, became competitive with cars.  This was particularly the case in Europe, which caused there to be a lot of early manufacturers of motorcycles in  Europe.

 U.S. Army Harley Davidson's during the Punitive Expedition.

The fascination with motorcycles lead quite quickly to their consideration as a service vehicle, and even before World War One various armies began to experiment with them in this capacity and police forces adopted them as an alternative to horses and cars.  World War One saw widespread use of motorcycles, and while we don't think of the Great War in this fashion, World War One may really be the high point of the military motorcycle, as the vehicle was sufficiently fully developed to offer any advantage then that it would later, which was not true of the automobile. At any rate, all sorts of use, and experimentation, with military motorcycles was seen during World War One.

U.S. Army motorcycle with sidecar in  France, World War One.

 

Harvard Military Motorcycle Club

And of course the use of motorcycles by police came fully on in this era, and thereafter, as well.

 Motorcycle policeman, 1923.

Motorcycle policeman, 1932.

Just as with cars, motorcycles took a hit during the Great Depression, although that is somewhat surprising given that they were cheaper than cars. Also following World War One, and into the 1920s and 1930s, the American motorcycle began to take on a family form that it retains to this day, in so far as big street bikes are concerned.  Harley introduced its teardrop shape gas tank in 1925, and it's retained the look ever since.  Big V Twin engines became a feature of American bikes, with Harley introducing its 45 cubic inch V twin in 1929, where as other options were explored elsewhere. BMW, for example, introduced its legendary horizontal opposed twin engine bike in 1923.  BMW also introduced dampered forks in 1935, a true advance in the motorcycle which oddly wasn't copied in bicycles for decades.

 

 1922 Harley Davidson with sidecar.  Note that in 1922 Harley s had not yet acquired the archetypical appearance that they would shortly have.

World War Two once again saw a lot of motorcycle use, although its somewhat misunderstood.  The U.S. Army did use motorcycles, for example, as did the British, but it was really the European armies that were transportation challenged that made large scale use of them. The Germans, for example, were heavy users of motorcycles, but they were also heavy uses of horses.  The Soviets used a lot of them too, and in both armies they were really an alternative to horses or, in the German case, bicycles.  The Germans used motorcycles, really, as they didn't have the production capacity to make something like the Jeep in sufficient numbers.

 

German, or perhaps East German, motorcycle and side car of the type used by the Germans during World War Two.  This design is unusual in that the sidecar had a powered axle.  This motorcycle was a hugely successful design and not only saw civilian application, but it was copied by the Soviets who made a basically identical version.  The same motorcycle was made in East Germany in a former BMW plant, under the BMW name, after the Soviets relinquished control of the plant.  A lawsuit ultimately caused the East German BMW to become EMW.

 Military Harley Davidson on display at the Pacific Aviation Museum in Oahu.  This type was widely used by the US Army during the war, but motorcycles have never seen the same extent of use in the U.S. armed forces that they have in other armies.

American motorcycles being used by the Australian army, 1943.  Its not immediately clear to me if these are Harley's or Indians.

Following World War Two when civilian production resumed, some interesting things began to happen. For one thing, and for the first time really, motorcycles in the US became associated with gangs. This was actually a direct byproduct of World War Two, as the early motorcycle gangs were made up of restless returning servicemen.  Indeed, the initial early appearance of the gangs reflected this, as surplus Army Air Corps flying jackets were pressed into service as motorcycle jackets.  The creation of the gangs proved to be enduring, and of course they are still with us.

Following the war, Harley Davidson dominated the American market for some time.  Indian ran into financial trouble immediately post war, and in 1950 it quit offering bikes.  Harley had the entire field to itself for a long time, in terms of American production.  It wasn't without competition, but the competition that did exist simply didn't offer a motorcycle that was really comparable.  Triumphs, for example, were imported into the US, but they weren't a heavy bike like the Harley Davidson.

 

Triumph cafe racer, probably of 1970s vintage.  Harley Davidson also made a cafe racer, but you very rarely see them.

In the early 60s, however, a revolution in motorcycles occurred when Honda began offering their really light and really cheap motorcycle in the US.  A global standard, and aimed at the bottom dollar, the Honda really took off in the US as it was so affordable.  Purely a town bike, the bike inspired an immediate follow8ing and even an enduring popular song by a band named after the company and which was covered by the Beach Boys.

I'm gonna wake you up early
Cause I'm gonna take a ride with you
We're going down to the Honda shop
I'll tell you what we're gonna do
Put on a ragged sweatshirt
I'll take you anywhere you want me to

First gear (Honda Honda) it's alright (faster faster)
Second gear (little Honda Honda) I lean right (faster faster)
Third gear (Honda Honda) hang on tight (faster faster)
Faster it's alright.

The song pretty much nailed the Honda's appeal.

It's not a big motorcycle
Just a groovy little motorbike
It's more fun that a barrel of monkeys
That two wheel bike
We'll ride on out of the town
To any place I know you like

The Honda was the Anti-Harley, and its appeal was huge.  Soon thereafter the Honda was joined by other cheap Japanese motorcycles, and Harley found itself competing in the American market with motorcycles that were originally aimed at an impoverished Asian market.  Harley took a pounding and by the 1970s it was in serious financial trouble.

At about the same time, the Japanese strongly entered the field with the "dirt bike", a type of motorcycle designed just for off road use. Hugely popular, Harley's attempt to enter the field failed, even though a Spanish manufacturer, Bultaco, was successful at the time.  The dirt bike gave rise to the Enduro, a type of dual use bike.  In recent years, BMW and Triumph has expanded this concept into a new type of motorcycle that can be used for absolutely everything.

 All purpose BMW. Street, touring, off road, it does it all.

Just as with automobiles, the Japanese motorcycle manufacturers were not content to allow Harley to dominate the big vehicle market and by the 1970s Honda had introduce a really large touring bike. The Super Glide found itself competing with the Golden Wing, and it still does today.  

Since the 1970s, Harley has gotten back on its feet, and in doing so it operated to attempt to shed itself of an outlaw image that it had never courted.  It now not only makes its classic cruisers and street bikes, but it competes with the Japanese under the name Buell with their style of motorcycle. The really cheap motorcycle era has ended, save for Royal Enfield which really produces for the Indian market but which imports into the United States.  All of the major players since 1950 are still around and some new ones are as well, so Harely, which is doing well, now competes once again against some American manufacturers.

Technologically, motorcycles  bear a striking resemblance to the original product, although there have been advances in the engines and a belt  has replaced the chain, and there have been other changes as well. Still, they very closely resemble the original products.

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Postscript

But wait, you didn't touch on motor scooters!  Aren't they motorcycles?

Modern motor scooter

I think they are, but as sort of a distinct category of the bike, apparently a lot of people don't.  At least in my state, you need a special license to operate a motorcycle, but not a motor scooter.  I have no idea why that's the case, but it is.  Somehow the authorities must not regard them as being as dangerous, although I'm sure they are or at least darned near are.

The scooter is a low powered motorcycle with a unique platform. They're just made for local transportation, not "over the road", as it were.  They date back to the teens, at least, and have a long history we really don't think of much.  

Cushman, a company that specialized in low powered vehicles, introduced a scooter into the American market in 1936.  It went on to produce one, the Model 53, that was designed for use by U.S. airborne troops during World War Two, although the extent to which they were used is something that I have no idea of.  Other Cushman scooters were purchased by the Army for local use in the United States.

Behind this military bicycle, a Cushman scooter is visilbe.

Another Cushman motor scooter, this one also showing World War Two colors for the U.S. Army.

It was really after World War Two, however, when we start to really think of scooters.  This is partially due, at least, to the introduction of the Vespa after World War Two. Somehow, a major reconsideration of the Italian culture in the US occurred in the 1950s, and the Italians went from being considered backwards and destitute to being the coolest thing ever.  This must have been a very odd experience for Italians, who went from being treated as cowardly peasants to the global standard setters for style in less than a generation, and who found that they were suddenly admired on everything, and this included their vehicles.  Vespas, a light scooter, were regarded as very cool.

Not too surprisingly, the Vespa craze died off, but it's revived in recent years and the popularity of scooters with it.  Now, once again, scooters are very common.  A while back on  a trip to Denver they were literally everywhere, although I'd personally live in fear of driving one in that big city.

While mentioning scooters, I probably ought to conclude with the other species in this genus, and there are  few.  Minibikes are one. These are simply miniature motorcycles that were designed for children.  These tiny motorcycles were hugely popular in the 1970s, but they've passed by the wayside now, and even though they still exist, they aren't as common as they once were, and I'm glad. They always struck me as really dangerous.

"Trikes", motorized three wheeled vehicles are also closely associated with motorcycles, probably because they were often originally built from one.  They're offered commercially now and you see variants of them around.  They're a vehicle I know very little about, other than that they've been around for quite awhile and are popular to some degree with those to whom motorcycles appeal, but who don't want a two wheeled vehicle.

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Related threads:

Automotive Transportation I:  Trucks and Lorries.

Automotive Transportation II:  Cars.

Air Transportation.

Horsepower

Riding Bicycles.

Rail Transportation

The Rise and Decline of the SUV

Water Transportation

Walking

Courthouses of the West: Federal Courthouse, Sheridan Wyoming

Courthouses of the West: Federal Courthouse, Sheridan Wyoming:

Now no longer a courthouse, but a private building.  Featured here on an earlier thread on that topic.

Why Must Americans Clean Up a Foreign Sport?

Why Must Americans Clean Up a Foreign Sport?

Saturday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: B'nai Israel Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah

Churches of the West: B'nai Israel Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah:

Overall readership

Overall readership here:

United States	57760
Russia	4948
France	2892
Germany	2423
Ukraine	1957
China	954
United Kingdom	923
Turkey	762
Poland	621
Canada	542

More people from the Ukraine have stopped in here than from Canada?  That's odd.

And Russia is a (distant) number two?

Hmm. . . sort of deflating statistics in some ways.

Why Do So Many Eggs Come From Iowa?

Why Do So Many Eggs Come From Iowa?

The "Avengers", seriously?

There's a new "Avengers" movie out that's receiving a lot of press.

And by that, I mean serious press. Serious film critics are reviewing it seriously.  In some quarters, it's receiving some (well deserved, by what I'm reading) critique on its symbolism. The movie, The Avengers:  Age of Ultron, is apparently a big cinematic deal.

Well, I say. . . seriously?

Just skip it.

I'm simply stunned that a movie based on Marvel's comic book characters merits any serious consideration and that anyone over twelve years old is interested in it.  Marvels super heros?  You know that they're aimed at a segment of the adolescent male demographic, don't you?

Maybe because I never liked these cartoons in the first place (I was never into comic books), but the real world and serious fiction are more than interesting enough to capture the imagination of any adult mind. That movies based on adolescent pulp are now big budget affairs for people who are presumably out there working, voting and raising families is simply mind boggling.

There are those who argue that the entire culture has been suffering from delayed development, and we've reached a point where adolescence now stretches out a good decade longer than the teen years.  The fact that movies like this are now regarded as a big thing is pretty good evidence that they're stretching out longer than that.

Posing for war relief.

Gentrification

This building was built as the Barteldes Seeds Warehouse in Denver Colorado.

Built in 1906, this building now features lofts.  The building is right on 16th Street, in what is now considered "lower downtown Denver".

Its interesting what the transition of this building tells us.  For one thing, the need for agricultural seed stock was so significant in this area that a warehouse dedicated to it was located right down town.  Having said that, this are of downtown Denver is only a block from the railroad, and there were other industrial buildings downtown, so perhaps its not as surprising as it might at first seem.  Like some other photos we put up of Salt Lake recently, the early 20th Century division between retail areas and industrial areas was slight. 

And I'm quite certain you can still get seeds in this region of Colorado, which in spite of the urban sprawl still features quite a bit of agriculture.

LoDo itself was pretty seedy some decades ago, but it's really turned around and is now a trendy urban area.  Hence, we see lofts in what was formerly a seed warehouse, something the builders of this building, over a century ago, would probably have found surprising.

Quite a bit of Denver history, all in one building.

Expatriates: Looking at it a bit differently.

Okay, I know that this is a history blog, and it's now been running so long as research for a book, that it's becoming historical in and of itself, but we do a lot of commentary.  Oh well.

Here's one, however, that has a real history to it, and which touches on an aspect of history.

Wyoming, for my entire adult life, has been worried about the young leaving the state.  But so often, the analysis isn't really quite on or perhaps it's not too deep.  Perhaps that is in part why we're still talking about it in 2015, as we have been for the past 30 years or more.  The Oil City News recently noted the following:

The outmigration isn’t as bad today as it was in the 1990s. Back then Wyoming’s sluggish economy spurred an exodus of young people that one reporter referred to as a “brain drain.” Census data from 2014 shows Wyoming’s population of young people age 25-34 has grown over the past decade, but mostly in the larger counties with active energy development.

Even so, young people continue to leave the state in droves — among 18-year-old workers in the year 2000, only four out of 10 were still in Wyoming a decade later, according to state data.

Who are they, and who are "we"?

Okay, first of all, what is the general topic. Well, it's long been noted that around 50% of Wyoming youth leave the state after high school graduation, and this is conceived of as a problem.  "We're" losing out young, is the thesis. And let's start with the thesis.

No doubt the figure is correct, but who is that "we"?  Almost never noted in that analysis is the fact that about 50% of Wyoming's residents at any one time are from somewhere else, and we have a high transient population. Given that, the "our young" we identify with to a certain extent aren't really "ours", but rather are people who likely already identify with some place else or don't identify with any place.  New residents from Colorado, New York, or Chihuahua.  If they pick up and leave, they aren't doing anything that unnatural and, frankly, perhaps we ought not to worry about it.

In any one high school class there's a fair number of students whose connection with Wyoming is pretty thin.  Many are very recent arrivals.  It isn't really realistic to think of them having a close connection with the state, and at least a few of those people no doubt retain a strong connection with where they were from to start with, or they have no real connection with any place at all.  Indeed, I once overheard an oilfield too salesman talking to another one, who was new to the job, in an airplane reflect that the city was basically two cities, one made up of people passing through, and another made up of people from here who knew they were going to stay.

This is even truer of college and university populations, I"d note, as Wyoming attracts a lot of out of state students, often from neighboring states.  Yes, these people graduate and move on, but they moved on when they entered school as well.

The transient economic model.

Indeed, if we are to worry about the young leaving their homes and families, perhaps we should worry about it nationally. The entire nation is transient to some extent, and missed in this analysis is that society in general, and quite frankly rural society in particular, has bought off on the idea that "success" means a transient job.  We tend not to think of it that way, but that's how we actually behave.

Success, in the modern economy, means getting a job that takes you to that in place, and moving up the ladder to that next place, and so on.  When Wyoming, including the governor's office, worries about that, it's actually arguing against the prevailing economic model, including the one that's basically taught to high achievers in school.  Do "well" and you can get a "good job". That good job is going to be in Denver, or Chicago, until it takes you to Houston, or so on.  Interestingly, here in the state, while we promote that, we also argue against it, and interestingly sort of pitch a distributist economic model of "we can have good jobs locally". We can, but we need to be what those are, and we tend not to.

“Any given year, we have about 50 percent of youth leaving the state,” Gov. Matt Mead (R) said at a recent press conference. “We have great career opportunities and they are leaving the state

The governor's statement here is the typical one. So what are those "great career opportunities"?  Well, perhaps not that great really.

I'll start here by noting that Governor Mead was born into a well connected political and ranching family.   That isn't saying anything against him, but things are different for people like him than they are for somebody whose father was a laborer.  Mead has a landed connection to the state and political ones as well.  Most people would like to have the landed connection (more on that later), but really don't, other than maybe their parents' home.  So they get an education, and they have to apply it.

Mead's concept on good jobs was spelled out in his statement on the topic in which the Oil City News noted:

In response, Mead recently rolled out a Department of Workforce Services website called Wyoming Grown. The program touts a high quality of life in hopes of enticing Wyomingites living out of state to move back home, no matter what age. Mead said the program is aimed at recruiting workers for in-demand positions like computer programmers, doctors, welders, engineers and others.

So, great, right. Ever young person can just get a job like that?

Well, quite a few can actually, and quite a few actually have.  My father had a professional degree as did one of my local uncles, which allowed both of them to stay here. I have one as well, and likewise I've been able to stay here.  Yesterday I was at an event where four out of the six lawyers on the location were all from the state and a fifth one had grown up here, but wasn't born here.  Only one had moved in as an adult.   And were in fact plenty of opportunities like that.  Doctors, lawyers, accountants, mechanics; there really are a lot of local opportunities.

Wait, did you just say were up there somewhere?

Yes I did, were. As this is changing and we best be aware of it.

I don't want to exaggerate this too much, as that would suggest something that isn't true, but something that should be kept in mind is that at the same time the state makes pronouncements like this it actively operates to hurt some local professions.  For example, there's the UBE.

Governor Mead, in addition to being from a ranching family, is a lawyer.  But when he practiced law we didn't have the UBE.  Now we do, and the effect of the UBE has been to cause a swell of admissions to the state bar of lawyers who live in Denver.  This is only one example, of course, but its not insignificant.  The profession of lawyer in a rural state has always attracted a different type of person that it does elsewhere.  Lawyers in Wyoming have tended to be from the state, rarely does somebody move into Wyoming to practice law, although it does happen.  Now, however, people can practice without moving here at all.  This is happening to a notable extent, and over time, and it won't take much time, this will impact the nature and even the ability to practice law in the state, to the detriment of Wyomingites.  

As another example, a profession that at one time attracted a lot of locals, that of Game Warden, is now being filled by out of staters.  The field has always been very competitive, but in some ways it was a natural Wyoming profession for a lot of people here.  So much so that its probable that most people who pursued a degree in wildlife management weren't able to obtain a job.  At any rate, for a long time the way it worked is a person applied to take a test administered by the agency, and if they passed that qualified them to be hired. The test was administered annually in  Cheyenne.  It was possible for an out of state resident to take it, but it wasn't really easy.

Now it is. The test has even been given out of state recently and a person can apply for the position on line, making it easy to do so. The new hires that the Game and Fish announce, I've noted, are almost 100% out of state residents.  Now, I have nothing against these bright happy new faces, but when we tell our own residents that opportunities are available here, and for something a lot of them would like to do, and they help cut them out, we're not thinking things through.  In comparison Alaska requires a game warden applicant to be a resident of Alaska.

We could easily do things just like that.  A game warden applicant could be required to be a resident of Wyoming. A lawyer could be required to take a real state bar and have a real office in the state, and so on.  But instead, while we decry the loss of our young, we set out making it difficult for them to stay with policies that tend to operate against them.

State v. Region

And just where are they leaving anyway?

That may sound like a strange question, and I'll start expanding on it with this.  I love Wyoming, and very strongly identify with it.  My love of Wyoming is like the Dr. Zhivago like love of Russia in the movie.  When Laura turns to Komarovski and says "he'll never leave Russia", that's pretty much how I feel.

But even at that, I have to note that Wyoming is an American state, and most American states have sort of arbitrary borders.  Not all.  Some actually have natural boundaries, but most do not.  Wyoming, like Colorado, or North Dakota, is a big rectangle, and that's not a natural boundary.

This isn't to say that there isn't actually a distinctiveness to Wyoming, or Colorado, or North Dakota, but we need to be aware that there are actually regional boundaries naturally formed in the United States, and they play into this in a huge way.  While people may be leaving the state, quite frankly, a lot are not moving out of the region, and for that matter, there's a lot of movement within the region into Wyoming.

Of my four really good high school friends, two are still right here in town. So, out of the four of us, three have statistically beat the odds.  Of the other two, one lives in Colorado.  Indeed, he lives in norther Colorado, just 50 miles away from where we attended university and where his Wyomingite wife grew up.  He didn't really move far, but he isn't in the state.  The other friend has been more of a traveler, having worked in California for quite awhile. But he also moved back here in town and worked for a very long time, before just taking a job in Utah. Again, he's left the state, for the second work life time, but he's not really far outside the state.  Of the five of us, four were from Wyoming, indeed this town, but the fifth was from Bartlesville Oklahoma.

In my own family, my grandmother was from Leadville Colorado, but spent quite a few of her formative years in Denver.  My family has strong connections with the Scotsbluff Nebraska area.  Of my cousins, one set of cousins has moved all over the country, but another set has basically moved north of this city, with most of them now living in Buffalo, a really neat Wyoming town, but one of them having gone as far north as Montana, with that all being, however, on one long highway drive.  One of my late partners also had strong connections with Nebraska, even though he'd been born here in the early 1920s.  Of my son's friends, yet another has very strong connections with Nebraska, where he's from. One of the local Federal judges is from western Nebraska and his father is a practicing lawyer in western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming.  Here in the office, one of my partners is from North Dakota.  We had a paralegal at one time that was from North Dakota and has returned there.  Another paralegal was married to a man from North Dakota.  

We see a lot of Colorado law firms practicing in the state (and at least one Montana one).  I've noted that before, and complained about it, but I should further note that of the Colorado lawyers I work with, two are actually from Wyoming originally.  We at one time had a lawyer who was from Colorado who worked here, before returning to Colorado.

So, what's all this have to do with anything? Well, one thing that is rarely noted is that young people may be moving out of the state, but they tend not to be moving out of the region. The region may actually be a more "natural" entity than the state. Perhaps, put another way, the state is a natural and political entity within a larger natural region.  That changes things quite a bit, and the fact is that its well demonstrated that most of the young people who move out move to a neighboring state, usually Colorado.

Part of what makes this all the more interesting is that the nature of the region in contemporary terms has rarely been explored.  We will hear of the "Rocky Mountain Region", but I"d submit that while there is such a thing, it isn't accurate in this context.  The cultural region is larger, and it somewhat omits at least one of the states in the Rocky Mountain region, that being Idaho. We find some Wyomingites moving to Idaho, and vice versa, but not many. Idaho is really part of the Pacific Northwest.

If we look at cultural and demographic ties, the region that Wyoming is in would include, really, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, and even to some extent New Mexico and Oklahoma. It also includes Alberta and Saskatchewan.  People in these areas share a lot of mutual identity and tend to recognize a lot in each other, and in their localities. They also travel to each others states and provinces like there is no tomorrow.  It's nothing for a Casperite to travel to Billings Montana or Sidney Nebraska for sporting goods.  Wyomingites travel up to Alberta to hunt waterfowl, where the hunting is better for ducks and geese, just as they also go to Nebraska for the same.  Quite a few people from neighboring states will hunt antelope here.  Residents of rural Saskatchewan tend to occupy the same professions and have the same hobbies as residents of rural Wyoming.  Rodeo, the regional sport, stretches south to the Mexican border and north to the Arctic circle.

As regions are natural, whereas political boundaries are not always natural, that may be more significant than we think, and we ought to take that into consideration.  If we consider the area mentioned a vast region, what we would tend to observe is a different pattern.  Young people might move out of the state, but they don't tend to move out of the region as much.  Moreover, much of the movement pattern reflects a big type of movement that's been going on since the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

What we tend to see in Wyoming is what we've seen everywhere since industry converted our economy from an agrarian one to an industrial one.  People have been moving from the fields to the towns, and from the towns to the cities.  We see that a lot in a Wyoming context.  It's not unusual to find people from Thermopolis or Greybull living in Casper.  They grew up in those smaller towns, graduated high school, went to university, and then pretty much had to relocate in one of the larger cities in the state. Just the other day I was working with a lawyer who was from Buffalo but whom had spent his entire working life in Cheyenne, which isn't even remotely similar in location or character.  A lawyer he's related to is from Sundance, a small Wyoming town, but has practiced his entire life in Sheridan, which isn't large, but which is the largest town in north central Wyoming.  We had a lawyer who was from Laramie (but whom moved back there) and we have another who is from Greybull.  And I know two lawyers from very small Wyoming towns who work in Denver.

This is the classic American, indeed Western World, situation.  If a person grows up in a very small town their economic options are very limited.  If they obtain an education, ironically the options shrink.  If a person gets a law degree, for example, and comes from a town like Medicine Bow, he can't go back there.  It's impossible.  His choices are to look for a job in one of the larger towns or cities, or to go to a big city, which quite a few do, but with the typical option being Denver.

Expanding this out, and looked at regionally, what we'd see is that in this region there are a lot of little towns, but most of them have very limited economies.  Economies that are, in fact, much more limited now than they were 50 years ago, in spite of the recent oil boom which has impacted some of them in the other direction.  Every 200 miles or so, there's a sizable city.  In Wyoming there's Casper and Cheyenne that are fairly sizable cities.  North of the state border there's Billings, which is also a fairly sizable city, and is a city which in fact residents of northern Wyoming look up on as the "big city".  For southwest Wyoming there's Salt Lake City.  For northeast Wyoming, there's Rapid City.  For the "Wyobraksa" region, there's Scottsbluff.

All of the region, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, etc., look to Denver as the true big city, and for anyone doing business, they're going to do business in Denver to at least some extent. Salt Lake City stands in as distant second in those regards, but it does stand in.  For people associated with the oil and gas industry in any sense, Tulsa Oklahoma and Houston Texas are also "must go to" cities.

The point of all of this is that a pattern naturally exists, with the economy we ave, which will draw a large segment of our population in this state, as well as that of Montana and Colorado, to Denver.  It just will.  The same is true of Salt Lake.  There's absolutely nothing that can be done about that.  The young from really small towns sometimes go to larger towns or local cities, but those we send into certain industries or whom we send through with university degrees stand a really good chance, indeed an in creasing chance, of being "from Wyoming", but living in Denver or Salt Lake City.

So, what can Wyoming do?

So what of that?  Considering the last item first, but approaching the overall topic as well, what does that leave us with.  Should we just abandon the whole topic?

I'd say no, but at the same time we need to realize that failure in this area is not only a possibility, but perhaps a high likelihood.  Or maybe not. But in order to really address things, the typical solutions of funding local starts ups and the like is a waste of time, in my view.

Some fixes are pretty easy, if we'd only do them.  Part of the problem in doing them, however, is that Wyoming has a massive inferiority complex.  For some reason, we feel that bringing in outsiders is always the solution to any problem, and as already noted, we actually gear some industries that way. We should stop that.

A good way to stop that would be to stop actually exporting jobs.  Can the UBE, require lawyers to have real offices here.  Require that game warden applicants, and law enforcement applicants, actually live here.  This won't create a massive number of jobs for locals, but it will create some, and not an insignificant some.

Next, however, perhaps its time to look towards what we have, rather than look at other towns and cities elsewhere and wish we had what they do.  Not that swiping good ideas isn't a good idea.

What we do have, is what we've always had. We have a lot of agriculture.  While we've been wringing out hands on this topic and the demise of the most recent oil boom, agriculture just keeps on keeping on, not that it doesn't have problems.  The big problem it has, like everything else, is that while at the same time agriculture is boosting the economies of the Mid West massively, we're exporting it here.  That is, we're exporting the ownership of our ag lands.

We should stop that, and realize that agriculture is actually the one economic constant we've always had.  If we took some steps to require, as Iowa has, that land be held be held by local corporations, we could work towards supporting local ownership, and that supports local farmers and ranchers.  It also supports local jobs, albeit typically low paying, for those who work for them.  

And we might also consider that we are exporting nearly 100% of the agriculture products we produce.  As late as the 1970s, there was a large packing plant here in Natrona County (my family owned it in the 1940s).  Now there isn't a large one in the entire state.  Indeed, I can't think of there being any facility in the state that actually produces any locally grown or raised agricultural product on a large scale, other than sugar (and one of the sugar processing plants just closed).  We grow wheat, but we don't refine it. We raise cattle, but we don't pack them. We raise sheep, but we don't process wool.  We grow barley, but we don't brew beer on a large scale.  We timber, but we have few timber processing plants.  In short, we just export everything.

Now, some would say that the day of local processing of these items is over. But it doesn't really seem to be on a regional scale.  Colorado has a large meat processing facility in Greeley and three substantial breweries, in addition to a fairly large commercial canning facility.  We just don't do this.

Now, at this point, doing something along these lines would require some thinking out of the box, and that would require state assistance.  That usually makes Wyomingites cringe, but the state already provides seed money to other industries (there's some, for example, being provided to our local airport for a large new hanger).  Doing something to get a local packing plant going, or to get Budweiser or Coors up here brewing beer, etc., would be a good idea, even if we have to take the approach that North Dakota, which has a state owned flour mill, did.  I.e., if we can fund a lot of peculiar business propositions as start ups, we can look towards some of the ancient ones that actually have a direct and strong connection with the state.

Not that this is the only thing we can do.  Wyoming has a law school (and the UBE), but it has no medical school, no dental school, and no veterinary school.  We import a lot of doctors from all over, when we could simply educate our own.  Those who go off to study in these areas do in fact often come back, but not always.  Indeed, life is what it is, and if you are in medical school and meet an attractive opposite, whose from Wichita and who wants to go back there, chances are good that that's where you are going to go.  Accepting life as it is and having that medical school in Laramie makes more sense.

And it would be better for the state as well.  I've long been baffled by why Wyoming thinks it needs a law school in this day and age, when there are so many, and while its seeking to export the practice of law elsewhere anyhow, but it doesn't have any sort of medical, dental, or veterinary school.  Everyone gets sick, and most people own cats and dogs.  Making it easier for Wyomingites to enter these fields would be a good idea.

And maybe boosting the non Laramie campuses of the University of Wyoming would be as well.  That's already been a huge success, and something that's changed things enormously since I was 18, and encouraging the further expansion of the University of Wyoming outside of Laramie would appear to be a win win proposition.  One of the really attractive things about UW, truth be told, is that for Wyomingites its not only an excellent education, but it's cheap.  If you can attend where you already live, it's cheaper yet.  And if you attend where you have a connection, you're more likely to stay there.  Indeed, while its a bit counter-intuitive based on he supposed statistics, quite a few people who graduate in Laramie never get any further than that.  Indeed, just yesterday I was working with a lawyer from Casper who grew up here, but met his spouse who was from Laramie.  When he graduated, they both found jobs there.  One good friend of mine, while he didn't stay in Laramie, stayed in nearby Fort Collins, only fifty miles away, which is another sort of example.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts on these thorny issues.  This is another one of those areas where we seem to repeat the old ideas to our detriment.  Maybe its time to look around at what we have, and what we don't, and do something with it.

"Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel". Musical references and economic trouble.

When I ran this yesterday: 

Lex Anteinternet: Coal in the ICU:    Mine haul truck on display in Wright Wyoming. Wyoming has had a long association with coal. The first coal mines in the state date...

I resisted the temptation to quote from John Prine's "New Grass" song "Paradise".

I'll note that the Tribune, while it didn't actually name the song, couldn't, and the reporter today started off his article about the Peabody Coal Company noting the sad song, and then turned to it again a second time.  Interesting.

For those who haven't heard it, the really sad song involves the demise of an actual Kentucky town named Paradise, and features the chorus:

And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Well, the Peabody Coal Company won't be hauling Gillette away, although coal mining, as the article details, is really in huge long term trouble.   That doesn't help Gillette much either, rather obviously, but that's not Peabody's fault.

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Coal in the ICU

 

 Mine haul truck on display in Wright Wyoming.

Wyoming has had a long association with coal. The first coal mines in the state date back to the Union Pacific Railroad which, coming through as it did during the 1860s, needed sources of coal to fuel its trains.  Mining near the railroad started contemporaneously with the laying down of the tracks.

Coal's been in ill health for quite awhile, and it's been suffering of late along with petroleum oil.  More than oil really.  This makes a big difference to the state, as the state is funded on mineral severance taxes which have accordingly been declining.  And it makes a big difference to coal mining towns, like Gillette.  And, of course, the decline in coal fuels some delusional thinking in which "if only" the Federal government wasn't doing this or that, the market would recover.

Well, in today's Tribune, there's a double whammy for coal.

First, Peabody, the legendary coal mining concern, is laying off 250 people in Gillette from a corporate office its closing there. That's a significant thing for Peabody to do, as the area features a number of huge coal mines, albeit ones that have been suffering lately.  For an outfit with a history that is coal to signal that it's giving up on its local office is not only a personal disaster for the people who worked there, it's a huge signal of what going on in coal.

If that signal wasn't clear enough, also in today's paper we learn that Rocky Mountain Power, a large regional electrical generation company, has determined to switch away from coal over the next couple of decades. For a power company centered in a coal producing region that owns many coal fired power plants, and its own mines, that's a huge decision.  It will be going to alternative means of generation, such as wind.  It's announcement wasn't that it's "supplementing", or something, its coal fired plants with alternative means of generation, but that it actually anticipates replacing them.  That's a pretty stunning position assuming it was accurately reported, for a regional power generator.

This would seem to be a pretty clear indicator that coal's in a long term decline.  And with that, so are the state's revenues.  It's not as if coal is going to disappear, but it does seem to be slowly reducing in significance with no likely reversal of that trend in sight.  And that reduction in significance has been fairly dramatic and observable.

The expansion of coal mines into the Powder River Basin is something that really came on during my lifetime, and it built Gillette into what it currently is.  The decline will likely occur over the rest of my life time, but that it would become so evident, while not really a surprise, is fairly dramatic. 

I should note that it's hard to write something like this and not sound as if you are coming off as "anti coal".  In reality, however, I haven't said anything of the sort. When I was a geology student, eons ago, my specialty was in coal, simply because it seemed stable while petroleum was in decline.  But I was wrong about that stability, and the changes we now see are ones that I've been predicting for some time.  Being right about a trend tends to be confused with being partisan in a debate, but it isn't.

 

Geology classroom, University of Wyoming, 1986.

Lex Anteinternet: "This land is my land, but shouldn't be your land"...

 

 Grass Creek Oilfield in the early days.  At the time of this photo, oil entrants could still patent their claims, in the same way that mining claims could be patented, and indeed as "placer oil claims".

The incredibly bad idea that is circulating on both the Congressional level and the local legislative level that we spoke about here, (and elsewhere):

Lex Anteinternet: "This land is my land, but shouldn't be your land"...: 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 ...

turns out to have even seeped down to the county level.

We learn in today's Star Tribune that, in spite of the fact that the majority of Wyomingites oppose the concept, Natrona County is one of four Wyoming counties that have sent money to an entity called the American Lands Council, headquartered in Utah, backing this bad idea.  Big Horn, Lincoln, and Weston also have.  Two other counties, Teton and Albany, have gone on record opposing it, and a third, the heavily mining district of Sweetwater County, earlier sent a resolution to the Legislature opposing it.

An interesting thing about this is that it would seem to reflect an ancient split in Wyoming's politics.  At least two of these counties, Natrona and Sweetwater, have traditionally been dominated by the extractive industries in terms of their economies, but politically Sweetwater has traditionally been dominated by the rank and file of the mining industry, i.e., the miners.  In the 1932 Presidential election a majority of Sweetwater County votes went to the Socialist candidate that year, and the county has tended to be fairly Democratic up until very recently (and perhaps remains somewhat old school Democrat today).  Natrona, which is the local petroleum industry center, together with Fremont County (whose local GOP, the only real party there following the demise of the Democratic Party in Wyoming) at this point in time feature politics which tend to reflect the views of the industry itself, although the influence of mining in Fremont County meant that it was actually a conservative Democratic county up until some point in the late 1980s, when mining there shut down and the national Democratic Party began increasingly to loose its conservative wing.  

Note, I'm not arguing about this, merely noting that it tends to be the case.  History and reality are what they are, so there's no point in arguing about this.  Locally, however, the average citizen in Natrona County would most likely be very much against this view, and occasionally the county's sportsmen have really risen up when provoked. This happened in the early 1990s, when that was seen statewide in an effort to privatize wildlife in the state, and it also happened in reaction to the earlier Sagebrush Rebellion, which had very little sympathy in the towns and cities.  Indeed, for that matter, the rank and file of the petroleum industry, i.e., the guys on the rigs, if they are local (and often if they are not) are outdoorsmen themselves and aren't really keen on anything that might disrupt that.

One additional thing I should note is that the last time this sort of idea went around it was really spearheaded by the ranching industry.  No longer.  Agriculture really has more reason to be worried about the Federal government and its regulations than anyone else, and last time this movement expressed that. Since then, however, the real threat to agriculture has become increasingly clear, and that's the sale of ranch land to developers, often out of state, and to very well monied out of state interests.  This has caused local ranchers to no longer really conceive of the Federal government as a threat and it further has slowly started to recognize that keeping Federal lands in Federal hands also keeps that land in local ranching hands as well. So, this time, we don't see any angry ranchers in the mix.  What sportsmen have long dreamed of, an alliance of sportsmen, conservationist, and agriculture has actually occurred, although in the Taylor Grazing Act era, it took nearly 80 years for it to become a reality.

Anyhow, this story is particularly interesting in terms of Natrona County, as at the same time that the commissioners voted in favor of backing this concept, reflecting the view that what's good for the local industry is good for the county, the county has supposedly been undergoing a major demographic and economic shift which would, in the relatively short term, make that industry much less significant.  Indeed, the county is boosting its natural (i.e, sporting and wild) attributes as part of this, which would mean that the residents who are attracted to this county now, as the oil industry goes into a slump, would tend to not be particularly sympathetic with it.  Acts like this are therefore likely, in very short order, to be dimly viewed, and the politicians who support them likewise dimly viewed.  Something local politicians never seem to be able to grasp is that encouraging new industries, and new residents, means the importation of new political ideas, and those ideas are often totally opposite of their own. As a rule, new residents to Natrona County aren't likely to be from Niobrara County, and are more likely to be from the Napa Valley.  Whether this is good or bad can be debated, but a person can't really simultaneously back the county as a good place to live due to its natural attributes while also backing an idea that would possibly imperil them, and then have the people you induced to move look at you charitably.

Indeed, one of the original drafters of the act that passed the State Legislature to study transferring management of the lands did not specifically mention it in his post legislative success sheet.  That he'd omit it should not be regarded as an accident.  He's from this county, and he's no doubt already gotten an unhappy earful from sportsmen and conservationist.  He's likely to keep getting one, in spite of not mentioning this in his recent sheet.

Now, I'm not seeking to pick on the oil industry here, and the national industry didn't ask for this at all and is probably regarding it as absurdly naive. The local industry hasn't openly supported it.  So this tends to be a bill backed by the locally naive, who have so poorly thought this all out that should it pass, in the future they'll look very poor indeed.  But they may look very poor in the short term as well. With Natrona County changing its economy rapidly, Sweetwater County returning to its traditional politics, and Fremont County, where one of the major backers resides, is involved in a huge struggle with the Democratic Wind River Reservation which may shrink the practical impact of the county politically.  Riding the crest of this waive may end up getting some of the riders drowned. That tended to be the case a couple of decades ago, the last time this happened.

And if they do drown, perhaps its somewhat deserved.  One of the penalties for riding the waive of trends is not being able to recognize the swell behind them.  And one of the penalties for failing to have learned history is not grasping when something fundamental has changed. The Taylor Grazing Act brought in an 80 year history of slight antagonism between agriculture and conservationist in this state, or perhaps more accurately between ranchers and townsfolk, over the public land.  But that struggle has now really ended.  The state was built by agriculture, but it hasn't done much to assist and support it over the years, and various counties, including Natrona County, certainly have not.  The petroleum and mining industries have been the heavy employers, but they tend not to be local and are buffeted by the swings of the international economy.  The political swing to the right nationally and locally in recent years didn't really reflect much of a change on many key local issues, and all politics is local.  The Democratic Party in Wyoming may not be dead, but it's a mere shawdow of its former self, but those who looked to middle of the road Republicans and Democrats for protection of public lands are still there, but are seemingly being ignored.  Last time that happened, they rose up and slapped the politicians who forgot that.

Monday at the bar: Courthouses of the West: Sheridan County Wyoming Courthouse, Sheridan Wyomi...

Courthouses of the West: Sheridan County Wyoming Courthouse, Sheridan Wyomi...:

Lex Anteinternet: UW Foundation intent on cashing-in gift of Y Cross...

This past week the respective Wyoming and Colorado university benefactors (or actually the Colorado one, in what I read) of this substantial ranch land gift indicated that, having prevailed in their lawsuit with the donor, and having failed to reach an accommodation that would have otherwise helped preserved the donor's intent, announced that it's going up for sale.

Lex Anteinternet: UW Foundation intent on cashing-in gift of Y Cross...: UW Foundation intent on cashing-in gift of Y Cross ranch We've commented on this before , but an ongoing "boo hiss" is in or...

Well, once again, but Boo Hiss.

And people wonder why the Wyoming average citizen and sporting public is skeptical about the state acquiring the Federal domain.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First Methodist (First Methodist Episcopal), Salt Lake City, Utah.

Churches of the West: First Methodist (First Methodist Episcopal), Salt ...:

William G. McAdoo, Former Secretary of the Treasury – 1919

William G. McAdoo, Former Secretary of the Treasury – 1919

From when 78s were a means of mass communication. Really weird to think of people buying or recording a political speech such as this, let alone one by somebody who was the "former Secretary of the Treasury".

Visiting the battlefield

 

 "Last Stand Hill", Little Big Horn.

You can't understand a battlefield, really, unless you've visited it. You certainly can't as a writer, anyhow.

Now that's a dispiritiing thing for a writer to admit, but it's quite true.  You just can't.  Yet some try to do it.

 

 Fetterman Fight battleground.

Relatively recently work took me on a trip which put me within easy driving range of a very famous Civil War battlefield.  I'd read about it many times before, but I'd never seen it.  Quite a shock to actually see the field, it wasn't really what I'd expected, even after having read the books, seen it depicted in film, and having reviewed the maps many times.  Seeing, I realized what a desperate confusing affair it was, and what the overall conditions must have been like.

Likewise, there's several Indian Wars battlefields I'm quite familiar with, and several of those are repeatedly written about, not always very intelligently.  The prime example of that would be the Battle of the Little Big Horn, which is oddly subject to a lot of discussion about "why did this happen?".  Well, visit the battlefield and what happened is pretty obvious.

Today In Wyoming's History: The Casper Star Tribune decides to put out a book ...

Today In Wyoming's History: The Casper Star Tribune decides to put out a book ...: The Casper Star Tribune is collection pre 1940s photographs for a book on Casper's history up through 1939 that it's putting out.  I...

An example of your public lands

 

The Trapper's Route landing, a location on Bureau of Land Management property.

This land of multiple use is leased for grazing, and is near a trail still used by cattlemen. The area is frequented by hunters and fishermen, and there are camping spots not far off.

Here, however, is a boat landing, used extensively by fishermen on this blue ribbon trout stream.

Federal land. The land that some in Wyoming want to take away from the Federal government and have the state administer.  Or even own.  There's no reason that to believe the state could do any better. 

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Sheridan County Drug Court, Sheridan Wyoming

Courthouses of the West: Sheridan County Drug Court, Sheridan Wyoming:

This court is now the "drug court", but it was pretty clearly an early courthouse in Sheridan that was preserved and later converted t this use. As the existing courthouse in Sheridan is quite old, my guess that this one doesn't predate the other (maybe) but that it might have served some other court rather than the district court.