Sunday, May 10, 1942. The Battle of Malta and P40s to Ghana.

Operation Bowery sees British Spitfires delivered to Malta, quickly refuel, and take flight again.  The action was the turning point in the air battle over Malta that had been going on for months.  On this day, in fact, in the  Battle of Malta, an Italian bombing mission on Malta sustained heavy losses and daytime raids on Malta ceased.

Spitfire being readied to take off from the USS Wasp.

The mission was the successor to one which had only recently taken place, in which all of the Spitfires had been destroyed on the ground immediately after landing in Malta.

On the same day, 60 P40s were launched from the USS Ranger to take up station at Accra in Ghana.

P40s on the USS Wasp.

This is an aspect of a truly world war that we don't consider.  Probably even many people who are highly literate on the history of the Second World War don't know that the United States Army Air Corp stationed fighters in a West African nation, or rather British colony, but it did. These no doubt served principally as a deterrant to German submraines operating off of the South Atlantic coast, but also as a deterrant to the threat of Vichy operations in Africa.

Churchill, on the occasion of the second anniversary of his taking office as Prime Minister, declared that if the Germans used poison gas against the Soviets, the United Kingdom would regard it as having been used against it.

In spite of the fear that the Germans would use poison gas, they in fact never did, and the only incident of combat theater gas deaths during the war came when the Luftwaffe hit a ship of the US Navy off of Italy later in the war which was carrying a supply of poison gas.

Sarah Sundin notes on her blog the following:

Today in World War II History—May 10, 1942: Assembly center for Japanese-Americans opens at Stockton, CA. US celebrates Mother’s Day.

Noting that it was Mothers Day for 1942, she also had this interesting poster on her blog:

 

Wednesday, May 10, 1922. First call to the bar for English women.

Ivy Williams was called to the bar, making her the first English woman "barred" and thereby able to practice law.

Perhaps ironically, she did not, going on instead to be a professor of law, being the first English woman to achieve that status as well.  She never married, and died at age 88 in 1966.

Germany was ordered to pay 9 million marks in compensation to the Allied powers for zeppelins it had destroyed rather than surrender to the Allies pursuant to the Versailles Treaty.

The United States annexed Kingman Reef in the Pacific.  Not much is there.

Elihu Root gave a speech at the Russell Sage Foundation in which he outlined his vision of managed growth for New York City to the year 2022.

Some Mothers Day then and now statistics and figures.

The current median age for giving birth in the United States is age 30.  

Yes, you've seen these couples here before.

For women born in the 1910 to 1935 time frame, having a first birth over age 30 was fairly rare, with less than 10% of women falling into that category.  This was up to 20% by the 1960s. 

Women born in 1935 had the lowest average age of first birth for the 20th Century, with the same being 20.8 years of age. This supports, FWIW, what we earlier noted about average marriage ages, which dropped in the 1950s, before climbing back up to the usual historic norms, contrary to the assumption that marriage ages were historically low, which is incorrect.

The average first age for women born in 1910 was 21.1.  The average for women born in 1960 was 22.7. 

As of 2018, in the US, it was 26.9 years of age.  How this correlates to the "women born" statistic we're otherwise using is a little dicey, even though it would appear to be a simple application of math, but it would be basically women born in the 2000s.

That is, in other words, way up.

In Europe, currently, first time mothers are on average 27 to 29 years of age, up from 23 to 25 years of age in the 1970s.  In Spain, the median age is over 30 for first births.

Women born in 1935 had on average three births, the highest of the following three generational cohorts. 

Births per woman Year cohort completed fertility 

1910 cohort: 2.4 

1935 cohort: 3.0 

1960 cohort: 2.0

This is, I'd note, considerably lower than is often presumed.  Having said that, family sizes were larger in prior years.

During the 1920s in the United States, the average age at which a woman would have her last child was 42.

In France, as sort of a random statistic, the current abortion rate mirrors the children lost in childbirth rate of approximately a century ago.  I don't know what a person makes of that, if anything, but as this is a statistical thread, there's that stat.

In the US, along a similar line, at least as of about a decade ago, the number of "single mothers" due to a father not having a role, for one reason or another, actually equated with the same figure in the late 19th Century due to male accidental deaths.

My own mother was 37 when she had me, an age that seems pretty old in context.  She's just turned that age, actually.

She was one of seven children.

When she and my father married, in 1958, she was 32, above the median age that women tended to marry at the time.  Her mother and my grandfather on her side were also above the median age when they married, actually.  Her mother's first name was Leocadia, a name that hasn't repeated in the family since then.  People tend to call her "Leo", which we of course tend to think of as a male name.  Oddly my father's mother, whose first name was Katheryn (a name which has repeated quite a bit in the family), was usually called "Bob".  My father, in contrast to my mother, was one of four children, a more typical family size for people born in the 1920s.

Friday, May 8, 1942. Strategic victory at Coral Sea, Mutiny in the Cocos, World War One hero commissioned for the Second World War.

On this day in 1942 the Japanese were turned around for the first time since December 7, and gave up their attempt to land at Port Morseby. The Battle of Coral Sea resulted, therefore, in a strategic victory for the United States.

It was a victory that cost the US the USS Lexington, which was badly hit in the battle and had to be scuttled.

Explosion on board the Lexington.

The Lexington was a major loss for the US, which was still trying to recover from Pearl Harbor at the time, but as was often the case, the Japanese came out of the battle believing they'd done better than they had.  During the battle the US lost, in addition to the Lexington, one destroyer, one oiler and 69 aircraft. The USS Yorktown had been badly damaged, but not sunk. The Japanese lost a light carrier, a destroyer, and three minesweepers, and well as having a fleet carrier damaged, a destoyer damaged, a small warship damaged, a transport ship damaged and between 69 to 97 aircraft lost.  In terms of men killed, the US lost 656 while the Japanese lost 966.

The Japanse believed, however, that they'd sunk the Yorktown

Japanese cartoon in an English language newspaper reflecting the ships that they thought they'd sunk to date. The English ships are accurate, but the Japanese had not sunk the fleet carriers Saratoga and Yorktown during the Battle of the Coral Sea and the battleship California had been sunk at Pearl Harbor but had been raised in March 1942 and was under reconstruction.

This event and others that occurred on this day in 1942 are detailed on Sarah Sundin's blog here:

Today in World War II History—May 8, 1942: Battle of the Coral Sea concludes: US deters Japanese landing at Port Moresby, New Guinea.

Failing to land at Port Morseby, it should be noted, did not cause the Japanese to give up on the objective of Port Morseby. They committed instead to a much more difficult ground offensive.

As Sundin also notes on her blog, the Japanese took Myitkyina in Burma, severing the air route to China temporarily.

Sri Lankan soldiers mutinied in the Cocos Islands with the intent to hand the islands over to the Japanese.  The mutineers were artillerymen and proved to be poor fighters with small arms, resulting in their being overcome.  The leaders of the mutiny were ultimately executed.  While an isolated event, it demonstrated that the loyalty of Central Asian troops under British command was questionable.

World War One hero Alvin York is commissioned in the U.S. Army as a Major.  He desired an active role in the war, but he was actually quite ill and at age 54 he was suffering from chronic illnesses in an era in which they were much more difficult to treat.  He was out of shape and approaching having diabetes and had chronic arthritis.  He was used essentially as a war bonds and recruiting personality.  In spite of ill health, he lived until 1964.

Monday, May 8, 1922. The Spread of Soviet Terroristic Justice.

Monument to the victims of the Soviet confiscation in Shuya on Wikipedia. By Сергей Дорогань - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62975457

In the Russian city of Shuya, eight Russian Orthodox priests, two laymen, and one woman were sentenced to death for resisting the state confiscation of church property.

The episode was part of the cynical 1922 Soviet campaign to confiscate the wealth of the Russian Orthodox Church on the pretext of famine relief, a famine that Soviet policies and ineptitude had itself brought about.  No amount of stored church wealth was going to address what the Soviets had brought about and the effort has been argued simply as an excuse to attempt to break the back of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Lenin demanded the death penalty and Trotsky, who of course would ultimately lose his life as well at the hands of Soviet policy, concurred, but Politburo member Lev Kamenev intervened, saving the lives of the laypersons and three of the priests.  While Lenin was the dictator of the Soviet Union at the time, Soviet power was not yet as fully concentrated as it would become under Stalin, such that Kamenev could intervene.

Lenin was days away from a stroke at the time, and Kamenev would rise to be the acting head of the Soviet Union as a result in 1923 and 1924.  In that role, he sided with Stalin against Trotsky.  In 1936, he was a victim of one of Stalin's purges.

Rich Strike

80 to 1 odd at the Kentucky Derby, and wins.

Wow.

Blog Mirror: Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter Turns One Hundred

 

Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter Turns One Hundred

Thursday, May 7, 1942. Things that fly.

82nd Infantry Division standing "Retreat" following Sgt. Alvin C. York's address to the Division at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana on this day in 1942. The event was the first assembly of the Division since reactivation.

 

The 82nd had been Sgt. Alvin York's division in World War One, at which time it acquired the nickname the "All American" division, as its members were conscripts from around the United States.  It was, at that time, simply the 82nd Division.

At the time of this photograph, it was the 82nd Infantry Division, but that was about to change.  In August, it would become the 82nd Airborne Division. The change came about due to a variety of factors, including that it was once again made up of conscripts, and many Regular Army officers did not trust the airborne concept.

In the Battle of the Coral Sea the Japanese aircraft carrier Shoho was sunk.

The British took Diego Suarez in Madagascar.

For the first time in 100 years a river otter has been sighted in the Detroit River.

 Something that was made possible by the river being cleaned up.

Wednesday, May 6, 1942. The fall of Corregador

On this date in 1942, US and Filipino forces surrendered to the Japanese at Corregador.

The loss of the island fortress was inevitable, and in many ways the amazing thing was how long the final stages of the conquest of the Philippines took.

Saturday May 6, 1922. Before the invention of safety.

I don't know what the article had to state about "safe farming", but a kid with a straight razor sure isn't safe.

Safety razors had existed for some time by the time this cover was out, but they were slow to gain widespread acceptance.  The turning point had been World War One, as the Army had issued them to troops and allowed them to keep them when they left the service, so the straight razor was in fact on its way out as the principal shaving tool by 1922.

Gillette's patent for their safety razor from early in the 20th Century.

The safety razor was a factor in the rise of women shaving, something that had not been at all common until the World War One era.  The introduction of the safety razor coincided with women shaving their arm pits, the new tool obviously being much more suited to that task than a straight razor, which would be down right dangerous.  Women also started shaving their legs, somewhat, in the 1920s, but the introduction of nylons limited that practice. With their shortage during World War Two, the practice greatly expanded.

KSL in Salt Lake City, Utah's first licensed radio station, when on the air.

Related threads:

Shaving

Shaving sure has gotten expensive.

100 Years Old This Year. Barbasol

Lex Anteinternet: Shaving

Roads to the Great War: Shaving, Disposability and the First World War

Looking like a bum. A "No Shave November" Rant.

Caffeine in shaving cream?

Tuesday, May 5, 1942. The beginning of the end for the US at Corregidor and Vichy France on Madagascar.

Today in World War II History—May 5, 1942: First 29 Navajo recruits begin boot camp with the US Marine Corps; they will pioneer code-talking.

Sarah Sundin's blog catalogs a lot of significant Second World War Events for today's date, including the Japanese landing on Corregidor, the beginning of the end of the Battle for the Philippines, as well as the British Commonwealth invasion of Vichy France's colony of Madagascar, the latter undertaken out of fear that the Japanese would land there.

The Germans, it might be noted, had urged the Japanese to do just that.  The Japanese, for their part, had acknowledged that the island was strategically important, but had not committed to landing there, perhaps realizing that by this point they were at the absolute limits of their logistical abilities and such an operation would have been massively exposed to Allied strikes.

The action was at least the third time that the British had attacked the French in the war, which is of note. The French had resisted every time, but up to that point they had not declared war against the United Kingdom in spite of it. This invasion was undoubtedly a massive violation of French neutrality, but would not lead to such a declaration.  Of course, by this point, the Vichy French had sustained a similar usurpation of their sovereignty in Indochina by the Japanese. 

The Germans relieved the Kholm pocket in the Soviet Union.  The German troops there had been encircled since January and had been resupplied by air, something that would make the Germans overconfident about the ability to accomplish that for surrounded troops.  During the long siege the Germans had sustained 3,500 casualties including 1,500 dead, meaning that well over 50% of the surrounded force had become casualties.  The Red Army, however, sustained 20,000 casualties attempting to take the city.

Sundin also note the commencement of sugar rationing in the United States on this date.

Friday, May 5, 1922. Aeromarine at work.

A photographer caught passengers disembarking from an Aeromarine biplane. Aeromarine ran seasonally on the East Coast.

 

Seaplanes are something we don't think about much now, in terms of transportation, although they still exist in other uses.  Their use is, however ,much diminished in comparison to their heyday of the late 1930s.  Their passenger use was really only just beginning at the point at which these photographs were taken.

Why the Leak Matters

Some liberal pundits, including Robert Reich the economist, whose really misguided comments on inflation are causing me to respect him less and less, are using the oddly illogical argument that those outraged by the leaking of the Supreme Court opinion which, in draft form, reverses Roe v. Wade have misplaced outrage and its merely camouflage for not being properly outraged about the opinion.

We'll comment more on the opinion in the future, but this is a very badly illogical argument that people like Reich and Kasie Hunt (whom I do like) are making.

Here's why the leak matters in regard to this opinion in particular.

In spite of what people may think, there's no real basis to believe that this is the final opinion. Draft opinions famously don't end up as final opinions fairly frequently.  

Now, if that happens, the final opinion will receive no respect at all.  In a highly polarized environment in which about 1/3d of the country already believes, wrongly, that Democrats conspired to steal the last election, if this doesn't go the way it seems to be headed in the draft, the argument will be "well, there you go again, they conspired to leak the opinion to pressure the justices".

We don't need that.

Additionally, if the opinion does change, it'll forever be presumed that whomever change their view, and however it changed, was a result of the public protest.  Courts should be immune to protest.  Politicians, who depend on the voters' votes, can react to protest, but courts should not.

Indeed, courts shouldn't be persuaded by trends either, which has been part of the problem here in the first instance.  We'll get to it later, but the draft assertion that Roe was always wrong isn't wrong itself.  But that brings up other issues, better addressed elsewhere.

For those who hope that the leak will pressure somebody to change their mind, the justices have shown an inclination to go the opposite direction of where they are pushed, just like mules.  Earlier this year, there was a leak that suggested that two of the justices were on the outs about something.  In reaction, they pulled together.  This is a 5 to 4 decision, apparently, but we really don't know what the remaining four think, yet.  If somebody hasn't penned their dissent, they might not, choosing instead to issue a concurring opinion on different grounds, or a partially concurring opinion.  In other words, while we know what the presumed majority thinks, we don't know what the presumed minority thinks, and they can move in secret.

Indeed, the presumed majority might already have done so.  If one of the five is pondering changing his opinion, perhaps to align more with Chief Justice Roberts, and indeed if one may already have done so, the desire not to appear subject to public protest may push them right back.  The intent of the leaker, therefore, which is presumably to torpedo the opinion, may result in the polar opposite.

And then there are the implications to the system.  We don't know who the leaker is, but its probably not a Justice.  If it were, and of course there's the chance that it is, that person will be discovered, probably, and will be sidelined to irrelevance forever.  They won't resign, Supreme Court justices don't do that, but they'll not much matter after this. They won't be assigned opinions, they won't really be consulted much, by anyone.

Of course, it's pretty unlikely a Justice is the leaker.  Somebody in the loop is, and it's probably a clerk.  That person's clerking days are over, if discovered. They'll go on, however, to a position in some left wing cause type of law firm, but the damage they will have done will be significant.  The habit of hiring clerks and how it is done will be reassessed.  Clerks will remain, but they'll be vetted to the n'th degree.  Perhaps the lock on clerkships by the Ivy Leagues will end, which will be welcome.   Perhaps it'll become the job of established lawyers, professionals who can be relied on not to be swayed by their political views and emotions, which in states courts has been the trend for many years.

And then there's the press. This is a press coup, to be sure, but the press taking a role that's ultimately destructive, really.  A draft opinion isn't the Pentagon Papers.

And that leads to the political process.  Right now, this is being used as fodder by politicians, some of whom know better and some who do not.  Vice President Harris was heard to say yesterday:

How dare they? How dare they tell a woman what she can do and not do with her own body? How dare they? How dare they try to stop her in determining her own future?

Harris is a lawyer, and she knows this is a falsehood.  What the draft opinion would do is to send this issue back to the state legislatures, or potentially to the national legislature, so that the legislators have to vote on the issue.  That's it.  A rational response by somebody with her views would be to state "well, here's a difference between us and the GOP and this is a reason to vote for Democrats.".  That's not my view, but that would be a rational response.  Instead, it's going to result in months of more false arguments before we needed to be hearing them, inserted into a political era in which boatloads of false arguments are already in circulation.  The entire country didn't need that.

Monday, May 4, 1942. The Battle of Coral Sea commences.

Today in World War II History—May 4, 1942: Battle of the Coral Sea begins: US Navy intercepts Japanese fleet set to invade Port Moresby, New Guinea: first carrier vs. carrier battle in history.

It was, as noted, the first carrier task force v. carrier task force naval engagement in history, and the first engagement between two fleets in which the opposing forces never had visible surface engagement with each other.  It would run until May 8, and result in more US losses than Japanese ones, but it would frustrate Japanese attempts to take Port Morseby and therefore was an American strategic victory.  Indeed, it was the first time in the war that the Japanese had to withdraw without achieving their objective.

Thursday May 4, 1922. Austin Texas hit by twin tornadoes.

Life came out on this day of May, 1922, featuring a Coles Phillips illustration of a "leading lady".

A photographer shot an irrigation scene in Utah.

Irrigation Canals in the Uinta Basin, Duchesne, Duchesne County, UT

On this day in 1922, Austin, Texas was hit by two tornadoes, one rated at F2 and another at F4.  Thirteen people were killed in the storms.

 

Blog Mirror: BEFORE THE LAW

 

BEFORE THE LAW

Well, he couldn't have been all bad.

FLORIDA MAN SEPT. 3, 2014

Suspect Stops in Middle of Police Chase to Pet Cats

Court has voted to overturn Roe, according to draft opinion published by Politico

Court has voted to overturn Roe, according to draft opinion published by Politico: The Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, according to a copy of an apparent draft opinion obtained by Politico. Obtained by reporters Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward, the 98-page draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito is dated Feb. 10, 2022. It is style

Almost as big of news, this news comes via a Supreme Court leak, something that almost never happens.

In other words, somebody close to the inner circle, no doubt an opponent of this opinion, has leaked it in order to give those on the majority grief. 

The Draft Opinion is here.  Opinion.

It's 98 pages long, so it won't be light reading.  I noted that one paragraph starts off with "All of Roe's reasoning was exceedingly weak, . . ." going on to note that even supporters of the result frequently held that opinion, which is correct. This decision was anticipated, so both the leak and the surprise are, in someways, anticlimactic.

I don't know if it is quoted in the opinion, but its worth noting that it was none other than Ruth Bader Ginsberg who stated that Roe was "heavy-handed judicial intervention [that] was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict.”  The Roe opinion doesn't really have very made friends from a jurisprudential standpoint, irrespective of a person's views on the topic otherwise.

Page 67 states the result.  The issue is returned to the states.

Epilogue 1.

It should be noted that Wyoming has a trigger law, so when the opinion is published, assuming that it's unchanged, it will outlaw (most?) abortions in the state upon publication.

I'll publish the text of the statute when I have a chance.

Apparently, according to news articles, Wyoming only has one "abortion provider", which is a tribute to those opposing it in that over time they were able to get it down to one simply through their arguments.  Some organization was going to put an abortion clinic in Casper in the near future, but this will obviously stop that.

Epilogue 2.

I saw a comment on Twitter already pointing to the staff of one of the Democratic appointed Justices, based solely on their (cited) political leanings.

So the finger pointing has begun.

It's not without some merit, however.  Somebody leaked a draft opinion, which is pretty shocking.  Who, though?

It's not surprising that people have focused right away in this direction.  A justice may have the most left leaning staff, but a person shouldn't presume too much.  It could just as easily have come, quite frankly, from a member of one of the conservative justice's staffs who disagree with the opinion.  Where people divide on this issue isn't as clean as supposed, and forty years of left leaning arguments on the case have led some to accept it pretty unthinkingly.

I really doubt that it's a justice.

I'm not sure, quite frankly, that there would be any crime.

I do agree with the comment, however, that such a leak is designed to "blow up" the court.  And I can see how that fact would have lead to suspicion in the camp looked at, given a really anemic argument made during oral arguments by the justice.  And some effort should be undertaken to figure out who the leaker was, and to punish them in some form, with that form depending upon their position in regard to the court.

Epilogue 3

Epilogue 4

The text of the Wyoming "trigger law".

ORIGINAL HOUSE ENGROSSED

BILL NO. HB0092

 

ENROLLED ACT NO. 57, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 

SIXTY-SIXTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

2022 BUDGET SESSION

 

 

 

 

AN ACT relating to abortion; limiting the circumstances under which an abortion may be performed; limiting the use of appropriated funds; providing a delayed effective date pending certification by the governor of actions of the United States supreme court; requiring reports; and providing for an effective date.

 

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

 

Section 1.  W.S. 35‑6‑102 and 35‑6‑117 are amended to read:

 

35‑6‑102.  Abortion restrictions; exception.

 

(a)  An abortion shall not be performed after the embryo or fetus has reached viability except when necessary to preserve the woman from an imminent peril that substantially endangers her life or health, according to appropriate medical judgment. This subsection is repealed on the date that subsection (b) of this section becomes effective.

 

(b)  An abortion shall not be performed except when necessary to preserve the woman from a serious risk of death or of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function, not including any psychological or emotional conditions, or the pregnancy is the result of incest as defined by W.S. 6-4-402 or sexual assault as defined by W.S. 6-2-301. This subsection shall be effective five (5) days after the date that the governor, on advice of the attorney general, certifies to the secretary of state that the supreme court of the United States has overruled Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) in a manner that would authorize the enforcement of this subsection or has otherwise issued a final decision related to abortion that would authorize the enforcement of this subsection in accordance with that decision and without violating any conditions, rights or restrictions recognized by the supreme court.

 

(c)  For purposes of subsection (b) of this section the attorney general shall review any final decisions of the supreme court of the United States related to Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) or otherwise related to abortion to determine whether the enforcement of subsection (b) of this section would be fully authorized under that decision. The attorney general shall, within thirty (30) days of the date of the final decision of the supreme court, report the results of each review under this subsection to the joint judiciary interim committee and the governor who may, if applicable, certify the results of the review to the office of the secretary of state.

 

35‑6‑117.  Use of appropriated funds for abortion prohibited; exceptions.

 

(a)  No funds appropriated by the legislature of the state of Wyoming shall be used to pay for abortions except when the pregnancy is the result of incest as defined by W.S. 6‑4‑402 or sexual assault as defined by W.S. 6‑2‑301 if the assault is reported to a law enforcement agency within five (5) days after the assault or within five (5) days after the time the victim is capable of reporting the assault, or when the life of the mother would be endangered if the unborn child was carried to full term. This subsection is repealed on the date that subsection (b) of this section becomes effective.

 

(b)  No funds appropriated by the legislature of the state of Wyoming shall be used to pay for abortions except when necessary to preserve the woman from a serious risk of death or of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function, not including any psychological or emotional conditions, or the pregnancy is the result of incest as defined by W.S. 6-4-402 or sexual assault as defined by W.S. 6-2-301. This subsection is effective on the same date that W.S. 35‑6‑102(b) is effective.

 

Section 2.  

 

(a)  After receiving certification from the governor that W.S. 35‑6‑102(b) is effective as provided in that subsection, the secretary of state shall report that fact to the management council of the legislature, the joint judiciary interim committee and the Wyoming state board of medicine and shall immediately publish the effective date of W.S. 35‑6‑102(b) and 35‑6‑117(b) on the website of the secretary of state's office, which effective date shall be five (5) days after the date that the secretary of state received the certification. The publication under this section shall also provide that W.S. 35‑6‑102(a) and 35‑6‑117(a) are repealed on that date.

 

(b)  After receiving a report under subsection (a) of this section, the joint judiciary interim committee shall review the provisions of title 35, chapter 6 of the Wyoming statutes to determine if any additional revisions to the statutes are advisable and to develop any necessary legislation.

 

Section 3.  This act is effective immediately upon completion of all acts necessary for a bill to become law as provided by Article 4, Section 8 of the Wyoming Constitution.

 

(END)

 

 

Speaker of the House			President of the Senate

 

	Governor
	TIME APPROVED: _________
	DATE APPROVED: _________

 

I hereby certify that this act originated in the House.

 

 

 

Chief Clerk

Sunday, May 3, 1942. A gloomy Sunday poster.

Versions of the poster above seem to have been issued on a nearly constant basis, rather than one being issued at one time.  We posted a version of this just the other day, and then here's this one dated with today's date.

On the same day, the Japanese invaded Tulagi, north of Guadalcanal.  They also took Bhamo in Burma.

Left leaning Alfonso Lopez Pumarego was returned to the office of the Presidency in Columbia.

Today In Wyoming's History: Tumble Inn Powder River, Wyoming

Today In Wyoming's History: Tumble Inn Powder River, Wyoming: 

Tumble Inn Powder River, Wyoming

\

A familiar Natrona County landmark's history.

As noted on this entry, this is a familiar Natrona County landmark.

As also noted in the comments to this video, it may contain some errors.  One definite error is the attribution of its decline to the Interstate Highway.  That's not the case.  In Wyoming, I80 goes on the path of the old Lincoln Highway which, while it does bypass some towns the Lincoln Highway went through, doesn't run anywhere near Power River.  Nor does I25 or I90.  So whatever the source of the demise may be, that isn't it.

One of the commentors on the video is, moreover, well situated to know the history of the Tumble Inn and if that person feels there are errors, there most probably are.

It's still pretty good, however.

One thing I would note is that the story isn't completed.  Rather, the story runs through one of the last owners.  After they left it, it did continue on, but it went rapidly downhill.  The facility converted into a strip bar, an odd choice for an establishment in a small, unincorporated town some 40 miles away from Casper.  As heavy drinking is a factor in any such establishment, the trouble having a distant "boobie bar", as my wife calls them, in the county is obvious.  Particularly when the nearest competitor at the time was ten miles out of town and on a divided highway.  It doesn't seem like a sound economic choice.

Then the Inn lost its liquor license.  The allure of youthful partially clad dancers aside (the one time they were the subject of a news story a dancer looked suspiciously underage), such establishments are apparently too tied to alcohol to do without it, and it closed for good.

I was in the Tumble Inn twice, both well before the strip club era, and most likely during the era that the video closes out with.  We stopped in for dinner with in laws.  I recall rattlesnake was on the menu, as were Rocky Mountain Oysters, but they were out.

The second time was after that, when my father-in-law and I stopped to buy beer there for some function, although I don't recall what it was.  I do recall it was in the winter, as it was good and cold. The bar was crowded, full of locals, and a couple of guys somewhere between 40 and 70 who looked like they lived at the bar.

And that gets to another aspect of its decline and fall.  Having a small rural restaurant and bar is hard enough in the Wyoming of our current era.  But once you lose the locals, you're done for.

The establishment apparently dates back to the 1920s, although I couldn't find any references to it from that time period.  It turns out the name "Tumble Inn" was popular at the time, and there was another bar in the Salt Creek oilfield in the 1920s called that.  In addition, somebody's house in Casper was referred to that way, being the property of an oilman who had a lot of social events there.  The video says the restaurant/bar in Powder River dates back to the 1920s, and it might, but as noted, the only references from the 20s I could find were to the two other Tumble Inns.

At any rate, in the 1920s Powder River's 40 miles from Casper was a longer distance, in real terms, than it is now.  And Power River went through some oil booms, including one about that time, and again in the 1940s.  Indeed, at one time the town was on both sides of the highway and was actually an incorporated town, which it isn't now.

For that matter, Natrona County had several locations that were much more viable towns than the are now.  Arminto Wyoming, which is off the main highway but not far from Powder River, was a thriving sheep shipping point and railroad town.  It had a legendary bar in a hotel located there, and the bar still existed into my adult years, before a fire took the building down.  Locals attempted to drag the bar out of the burning building, but failed.

Waltman and Hiland were two other such tiny, but real towns.  They're still there, but they're shadows of their former selves.  Waltman is really a small oilfield camp south of the highway and south of the old townsite now.  Again, into my adult years, its gas station, which is now a residence, was in business, and it had a small café in it.  Hiland's gas station still operates as does its store, café, hotel and bar, its business probably saved by the fact that it's on the highway, but so distant from anything, there's nothing else nearby.

The Salt Creek Tumble Inn was in a town called Snyder, I've never even heard of.  At some point, Salt Creek itself was a small town, and no longer is.  Both would have been in the eastern part of the county.

North of Casper, there's Midwest and Edgerton, which are still there. They were much more substantial towns in their day, and in the 1920s Midwest, a Standard Oil town, very much was.  Both towns are still oilfield towns today, but they've likewise declined as oil facilities near them shut down or automated, and the U.S. Navy moved out of the former strategic reserve near there.

Of course, as automobiles and highways improved, the communities around Casper boomed and grew, and today that's where the county's population is.

Still, even as late as the 1950s, it seems that Wyomingites were willing to drive huge distances for a dinner.  Driving to Power River from Casper was no big deal to eat, it seems. And I recall people talking about going to the Little Bear Inn near Cheyenne on dinner dates, which means that the drove something like 140 miles to do that.  Likewise, people used to drive to El Torro and Svilars in Hudson, in Fremont County, to do the same, which is about the same distance.  

Nobody does that now.