Another interesting item about transportation a century ago. From a recent Casper Star Tribune article, quoting the Natrona County Tribune of 1909.
"A Dozen Will be in Service During This Summer.
"... J. P. Cantillon, superintendent of the Wyoming & Northwestern railroad company, ... was the first of Casper's citizens to start the fashion. Mr. Cantillon owns a Pope-Toledo, 20 horse power. ... (T)o its use is due the fact that very few of the ranchers about here now have any teams that are afraid to meet an auto in the road. ...
"C. M. Elgin ... has a Chalmers-Detroit 30-horse power," which he drove to Casper after purchase. "The time made on the trip ... (was) eighteen hours and forty-five minutes from Denver.
" ... M. N. Castle (Shorty) owns a 20-horse power Reo . ... (He) deserves credit for a new mixture ... for fuel for his machine, but he only used it once, and says that he will never do so again if he can help it. ... (H)e ran out of gasoline and could procure no more, but the ranch where he stopped had plenty of coal oil. Shorty tanked up with the coal oil and the mixture ... sufficed to run him into town, a distance of twelve miles."
The Reo in question appears here.
J. V. Puleo, on this topic on the Society of the Military Horse website, posted an interesting photograph of a little newer Reo here.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Transportation, Early 20th Century
Natrona County Tribune, 1909 A trip to write about -- "AN auto-stage line is to be established between Shoshoni and Thermopolis in the near future, and every editor in the state is hoping that the gasoline wagon will be in operation before the meeting of the Press association."
An item noted in today's Casper Star Tribune.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Niobrara County Courthouse
This is the Niobrara County Courthouse, one of the oldest courthouses still in use here. Perhaps its the oldest one still in use. Anyhow, this is an example of how they used to be.
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Postscript.
Perhaps simply because this is one of the first posts that I did on this blog it has remained, for some reason, one of the consistently most viewed. Anyhow, in checking back on it, I realized that I didn't post a link to the photo of this courthouse up on Courthouses of the West, our companion blog, in the main thread, although I did add it in a comment.
Also, since posting this, I've learned that at the time I posted this photo there were at least two, and probably three, courthouses then in use that are older than this one. One of those, the Johnson County Courthouse, just went out of use, as a new courthouse has been built. Another one, however, in Uinta County is much older than this one, having been actually built in the 1870s.
Transportation, late 19th Century
A modern highway map shows as distance of 211 miles from Worland, in the southern half of the basin, to Rawlins, and 293 miles from Cody to Green River, but modern transportation systems are not remotely like those of 1879. In practical terms, Green River and Rawlins were further from the Big Horn Basin in 1879 than they are now from Outer Mongolia, and criminal prosecution was nearly impossible.
There were no roads leading south from the basin, only trails. At least one yearly trip to the Union Pacific had to be made, though, because in the early 1880s this was the nearest railhead, the only real opening to a market to sell cattle and get supplies. E. W. Copps declared that the cattle drive from Buffalo to Rawlins, a trip that did not require a traverse of mountains, took eighteen days. Coming from the basin, however, a cattle owner first had to get out, and any exit required going over an 8,000-foot pass, such as Birdseye Pass or Cottonwood Pass; thus, David John Wasden's estimate of six weeks for a round trip seems about right. Of course, the return trip, when cattle were not being driven, did not take as long but was still arduous. Owen Wister describes a 263 mile excursion from Medicine Bow "deep into cattle land," a trip taking several days by wagon, while "swallowed in a vast solitude." His description sounds like a journey north into the Big Horn Basin.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Tuesday, April 13, 1909. The Aadna Massacre.
The Adna Massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which would kill over 20,000 people, commenced. Ottoman troops would participate in it.
Armenian orphans from the massacre.
The revolution was backed by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who sought to regain the absolute power. It wouldn't go well for him.
What would become the University of North Carolina was photographed.
State Normal School, #1, Greensboro, N.C., April 13, 1909.
State Normal School, #2, Greensboro, N.C., April 13, 1909.
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Monday, April 12, 1909. Doc Powers falls ill.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Monday, April 12, 1909. Doc Powers falls ill.
Michael Riley "Doc" Powers, catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics and a physician, became seriously ill during a game. He'd ultimately die of peritonitis a few days later, after three intestinal operation. He blamed his condition on earthing a cheese sandwich during the game, while some though he'd been injured straining to catch a foul ball, or by crashing into a wall during the game.
He was 38 years old at the time of his death.
I’m guessing the cheese sandwich was right. Having been a victim of the dreaded gasoline station sandwich, and having witnesses my son virtually rendered comatose due to one, I think Doc was right.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Sunday, April 11, 1909. Tel Aviv founded.
Settlers drawing lots for plots, April 1909.
100 Jewish settlers living in Jaffa founded a 12 acre village located in sand dunes, dividing the property into 60 lots. It was called Ahuzzat Bayit, but only for a year, after which it was renamed Tel Aviv.
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Saturday, April 10, 1909 Finnish, Métis Tragedy, and Arctic Tragedy.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Saturday, April 10, 1909 Finnish, Métis Tragedy, and Arctic Tragedy.
Czar Nicholas II approved a recommendation that "laws of general Imperial interest concerning Finland" be enacted by the Duma, in which Finland had a single representative, rather than its own legislative assemble. It was part of the process of Russification of the country which had commenced in 1899, reversing the original imperial policy put in place in 1808 when Sweden had lost Finland to Russia.
The Finn's have inhabited Finland since at least 9,000 BC, and probably longer. The first references to it as an entity come from Catholic sources in the 12th Century as the Church began to Christianize the country, but it had no real political organization. It came under the control of Sweden the following century, with Sweden losing it to Russia in the Finnish War of 1808-1809. The Russification policy, something the Russians have exhibited ever since the 19th Century wherever it has control, and which effectively continues to the present day, would result in the Finnish independence movement.
Canada opened up the Métis lands in Alberta to homesteaders. 250 claims by French Canadians were registered on the first day.
Professor Ross G. Marvin of Cornell became Admiral Peary's Eighth Arctic Expedition's only fatality when he drowned, maybe.
His body was found floating and appeared to have gone through thin ice, as reported by Inuit guide Kudlookto. However, in 1926 Kudlookto claimed he had shot and killed Marvin, either because Marvin had started acting irrationally, or because Marvin refused to let Kudlookto's cousin, another member of the expedition, rest. Peary's daughter (as you'll recall his sons were by his native mistress and were left up in the Arctic in the abandoned care of their mother), discounted the story, although how she would know what happened in reality is another matter. Presumably from information supplied by her father.
It's hard to imagine why Kudlookto would make the story of killing Marvin up, although people do odd things.
Peary's account.
He had been on a prior expedition. He was 29 years old at the time of his death.
Cipriano Castoro, the former President of Venezuela, was forcibly ejected from Martinique by the French.
Jonesboro, Tenn, April 10, 1909.
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Friday, April 9, 1909. Establishing Mother's Day.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Friday, April 9, 1909. Establishing Mother's Day.
South Dakota became the first state to officially recognize Mother's Day, with a proclamation by Gov. Robert S. Vessy that designated "the second Sabbath in our national memorial month of May" for the same.
This followed the first church service recognizing the day, which had been in 1907 as prat of Anna Jarvis' effort to establish the holiday, which she had been working on since 1905. The first service for the day was at Andrews Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia.
This brings to mind something we posted last week:
Blog Mirror: Family Values
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Thursday, April 8, 1909. Creation of Japanese Corporations
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Thursday, April 8, 1909. Creation of Japanese Corporations
The Japanese Diet passed a law for the Japanese equivalent of corporations.
The United Kingdom and France accepted the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Chickasha Oklahoma, April 8, 1909.
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Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Wednesday, April 7, 1909. A busy day for the Tafts.
President Taft issued an executive order that deaf mutes and deaf persons be allowed to take the civil service examination.
Some of the Tafts went riding.
Helen Taft became a professor of history and college dean.
The third Taft child, Robert, not pictured here, went on to become a U.S. Senator from Ohio.
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Tuesday, April 6, 1909. Peary claims the North Pole.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Tuesday, April 6, 1909. Peary claims the North Pole.
Adm. Robert E. Peary, Matthew Henson, Ootah, Ooqueah, Egingwah, and Seegloo, reached the northernmost point of their expedition, which Peary believed to be the North Pole. They would remain there for thirty hours.
They would learn, upon their return, that Frederick Cook had claimed the prize of reaching the North Pole first already, although his claim could not be substantiated. In 1989 the National Geographic Society determined that Peary had dome within 5 miles of the North Pole, which may or may not be close enough if it really matters.
The claim of who was first led into a bitter contest, in which Peary prevailed. Cook went on to a sad life, going into the oil business in Texas and Wyoming, where he'd be accused of fraud. He was convicted, after which his Texas claims proved to be in one biggest oil pools in the state. He died in 1940, at age 75, after having just been pardoned by Franklin Roosevelt.
As noted, I'm not a fan of Peary's. Ironically, the US flag he hoisted at the presumed pole had been sewn by his wife, whom he was cheating on in the Arctic. Peary quit talking about his trip after he took questions he received to be hostile. He died, leaving an abandoned family in the Arctic, at age 63 in 1920.
As or the first, Cook could well have been first, or not. Same with Peary, depending upon how you determine the pinpoint spot. It seems reasonably to say they were both pretty close to the North Pole, which in the context of the time, may be close enough.
The first undisputed trip to the North Pole was made in 1968.
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Monday, April 5, 1909. Sensational news.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Monday, April 5, 1909. Sensational news.
A hoax with long legs started on this day when the Phoenix Gazette published "Explorations in Grand Canyon: Mysteries of Immense Rich Cavern Brought to Light" claiming that S. A. Jordan of the Smithsonian Institute had found a network of interlinking tunnels filled with Egyptian artifacts and mummies. The entire matter was a hoax, but the Internet, amazingly, has kept it alive.
Seemingly all of it, including the names of the discoverer, were simply made up by reporters having some fun.
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Friday, April 2, 1909., The Spring Creek Raid.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Friday, April 2, 1909., The Spring Creek Raid.
Today In Wyoming's History: The Spring Creek Raid.:
Arrests soon followed and five of the assailants were ultimately charged with murder. Two turned states' evidence. The trials were not consolidated and only Herbert Brink's case went to trial. To the surprise of some, he was convicted by the jury. Due to prior trials for the killing of sheepmen being both unsuccessful and unpopular, Wyoming took the step of deploying National Guardsmen to Basin to provide security for the trial, which proved unnecessary. The conviction was the first one in the area for a cattleman v. sheepman murder( Tom Horn had earlier been convicted for the 1903 killing of Willie Nickell, but that killing took place in southern Wyoming.
The killings were, quite rankly, uniquely cold blooded and gruesome, involving shooting into the wagons and setting them on fire. Because of that, and the Brink conviction, the remaining four charged men plead guilty, rather than face trial. Two plead guilty to arson, and two to second degree murder.
The Spring Creek Raid.
Students of Wyoming's history are well familiar with the story of the Spring Creek Raid, which occurred on April 2, 1909, on the Nowood River outside of Ten Sleep, Wyoming. The tragedy has been the subject of at least three well known books, including the excellent A Vast Amount of Trouble, Goodbye Judge Lynch, and Ten Sleep and No Rest, the first two by lawyer and historian John W. Davis and the third, and earlier work, by Jack Gage, a former Governor of Wyoming.
The raid is justifiably famous for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it may be the sheepman murder that most closely fits the way that we imagine the cattlemen v. sheepmen war of the late 19th and early 20th Century being. Of course, the fact that it was an outright cold blooded killing no doubt causes it to be well remembered as well. And then that the killings actually resulted in a trial which convicted the assassins is also worth remembering, as it demonstrated the turn of the tide of the public view on such matters.
The Wyoming historical marker sign that describes the killings does a good job of it, with perhaps the only thing omitted is that one of the ambushing party was armed with a semi automatic Remington Model 8 in .35 Remington, a very distinct arm for the time. In basic terms, the raid occurred as several men connected with cattle raising in the area decided to enforce the "Deadline", a topographic feature of the Big Horn Mountains which meant it was a literal dead line.
The .35 Remington turned out to be critical in the story of the raid as it was an unusual cartridge for what was, at the time, an unusual arm. The Remington 08 had only been introduced in 1905 and was a semi automatic rifle in an era in which the lever action predominated. A lot of .35 Remington cartridges were left at the scene of the murders and investigation very rapidly revealed that a Farney Cole had left his Remington 08 at the home of Bill Keyes, which was quite near the location of the assault. One of the assailants, George Saban, was known to not carry a gun and was also known to have been at the Saban residence the day of the assault. Subsequent investigation matched other cartridges found on the location to rifles and pistols known to have been carried by the attackers.
Arrests soon followed and five of the assailants were ultimately charged with murder. Two turned states' evidence. The trials were not consolidated and only Herbert Brink's case went to trial. To the surprise of some, he was convicted by the jury. Due to prior trials for the killing of sheepmen being both unsuccessful and unpopular, Wyoming took the step of deploying National Guardsmen to Basin to provide security for the trial, which proved unnecessary. The conviction was the first one in the area for a cattleman v. sheepman murder( Tom Horn had earlier been convicted for the 1903 killing of Willie Nickell, but that killing took place in southern Wyoming.
The killings were, quite rankly, uniquely cold blooded and gruesome, involving shooting into the wagons and setting them on fire. Because of that, and the Brink conviction, the remaining four charged men plead guilty, rather than face trial. Two plead guilty to arson, and two to second degree murder.
All were sentenced together, and Brink was sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted, however, and he was released from prison, together with another one of the party, in 1914. Another, George Saban, who was deeply affected by his conviction, escaped while out of the penitentiary and under guard, after being allowed to stay over in Basin in order to allegedly conduct some of his affairs. His escape was successful and he disappeared from the face of the earth.
Interestingly, the Casper Press had an advertisement aimed at range dwelling stockmen on its cover the same day.
The Jewish Territorialist Organization, which sought to find a location for a Jewish homeland outside of Palestine, released its report from its expedition to Cyrenaica (Libya), concluding that the lack of water made it impracticable as a Jewish homeland.
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Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Thursday, April 1, 1909. Leaving Cuba.
American troops left Cuba where they had been since 1906, due to the Second Intervention in Cuba which saw the US intervene, which it had a treaty right to do, over an attempt to overthrow an elected government.
A law banning the importation of opium into the US went into effect.
In the United Kingdom, the Children Act 1908 went into effect, establishing juvenile courts, registration of foster parents, prohibiting children, under the age of 16 from working in dangerous trades, purchasing cigarettes, entering brothels, or the bars of trading pubs, and prohibiting the consumption of alcohol, for non-medicinal purposes, before the age of five.
The US polar expedition saw Robert Peary, Matthew Henson, Ootah, Ooqueah, Egingwah, and Seegloo, set off from a point 153 miles from the North Pole as their last supply team turned back.
As noted earlier, I frankly miss the point of these polar expeditions, and I think Peary was a louse.
The local agricultural newspaper, the Stockgrower and Farmer, was out. I'm only putting up the first two pages, but it was a very well done ag newspaper.
Note that tourism was already being boosted.
I think I likely missed it, but this noted the February 15, 1909, formation of Park County, Wyoming. It would take until 1911 to organize the county. The county's formation and that it was noted in the journal may explain the number of Cody lawyers advertising in it.
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Wednesday, March 31, 1909. Common Cup.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Wednesday, March 31, 1909. Common Cup.
The Kansas State Board of Health banned the "common drinking cup" on trains and in public schools.
1919 Red Cross poster instructing parents to teach their children to never use a common drinking cup.
Common drinking cups were very common and it would take years to really fully prohibit their use. Their elimination gave rise to the water fountain, which had no cup, and to disposable cups.
Georgian ended its "convict lease system" with 1,200 convicted felons thereby returned from private stockades to county jails.
The Serbian ambassador to Austro Hungaria presented his government's formal acceptance of the Austrian annexation of Bosnia.
Hull No. 401, the keel of the RMS Titanic, was laid at the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast.
The company still exists and still has a shipyard in Belfast. Founded in 1861, it was nationalized in 1977, and then privatized again in 1989.
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Tuesday, March 30, 1909. The Army abandons Ft. Washakie.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Tuesday, March 30, 1909. The Army abandons Ft. Washakie.
Today In Wyoming's History: March 30:
1909. On this day, the U.S. Army abandoned Ft. Washakie. The post had previously been also known as Camp Brown and Camp Augar.. The post had lately been a 9th Cavalry post.
The facilities for the post remain in large part today, having gone over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Ft. Washakie, the town, is the seat of government for the Wind River Indian Reservation. The structures provide good examples of the period stone construction used by the Army at that time.
Ft. Washakie during a visit by President Arthur in 1883.
1909. On this day, the U.S. Army abandoned Ft. Washakie. The post had previously been also known as Camp Brown and Camp Augar.. The post had lately been a 9th Cavalry post.
The facilities for the post remain in large part today, having gone over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Ft. Washakie, the town, is the seat of government for the Wind River Indian Reservation. The structures provide good examples of the period stone construction used by the Army at that time.
Some former cavalry structures at Ft. Washakie now in use as industrial or storage buildings.
Last prior edition:
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Monday, March 29, 1909 Nibelungentreue
While already articulated in other ways, and the subject of a prior war, German Chancellor Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin, Prince of Bülow announced the doctrine of Nibelungentreue, that being that the German and Austrian empires were united by their common language and heritage.
It really meant more than that.
Individual nationalism was rising in this era in any event, with Austria struggling against it. Imperial Germany seemingly was a nation state, but only because it had suppressed the numerous nationalities, some large and some small, living within its borders. Unlike the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which acknowledged its polyglot nature while being principally of one faith, Imperial Germany, which included those of Westphalian, Dutch Dane, Swabian, French, and Polish nationalities, was a Prussian Empire which imposed, or tried to impose, its concept of a "German" nationalism upon its distinct regions which varied in faith. Seemingly settled in the Franco Prussian War, as late as 1909 the reluctant acceptance of Prussian dominance still was unsettled.
Nibelungentreue would give rise to militant, and malevolent, German nationalism by 1914, which would have disastrous consequences in the 1930s and 1940s. Germany as a state, however, was already accepted, even though even to this day some regions of Germany would make as much sense in a neighboring country as they do in Germany.
Cordell Hull had something else on his mind, which he discussed in a speech on this day:
I desire in this connection to direct the attention of the House to the best, the fairest, the most equitable system of taxation that has yet been devised—the taxation of incomes. Adam Smith, the father of political economy, laid down this rule of taxation:
The subjects of every State ought to contribute toward the support of the Government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities—that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the States. . . .
I have no disposition to tax wealth unnecessarily or unjustly, but I do believe that the wealth of the country should bear its just share of the burden of taxation and that it should not be permitted to shirk that duty. Anyone at all familiar with the legislative history of the Nation must admit that the chief burdens of the government have long been borne by those least able to bear them, while accumulated wealth has enjoyed the protection and other blessings of the Government and thus far escaped most of its accompanying burdens. . . .
Heretofore any suggestion from this side of the House that our system of taxation should be so adjusted as to require the aggregated wealth of the country to bear a fair share of the burden of taxation has usually met the disapproval of the other side upon the ground that such course would be socialistic, if not unconstitutional. . . .
I agree that Members of Congress are under oath to support the Constitution, and that it is the duty of the Supreme Court, under proper circumstances, to construe and expound that instrument; but I submit that where, in the judgment of Members of Congress, a palpably erroneous decision has been rendered by the Supreme Court, stripping the coordinate legislative branch of the Government of one of its strong arms of power and duty—a decision overturning a line of decisions extending over a hundred years of the Nation’s history . . . . It is entirely proper that Congress should pass another income-tax act, again raising the important questions deemed to have been erroneously decided by the Supreme Court heretofore, and by this course secure a rehearing upon these controverted questions. . . .
The world has never seen such colossal fortunes as we behold in the present age. Their owners are richly able to pay taxes. Why does the Government, founded as it was upon the doctrine of equality, persist in taxing every article of necessity which the poor widow must buy, while it permits citizens residing in other countries to hold property here of probably $100,000,000 in value on which the Government declines to levy even a single cent of tax? . . . Public sentiment is becoming aroused. The American people are loudly, insistently demanding that this infamous system of class legislation shall cease, and unless this Congress regards their wishes they will soon compel compliance, even if they have to resort to a renovated Congress.
Last prior edition:
Thursday March 25, 1909. The Crazy Snake Rebellion.
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