"Three Wounds in Head and Two in Body of S. S. Combs"
Recently retired Casper City Attorney Sewell Stanley Combs, 50, was found shot to death in his car June 10 at his ranch near Granite Canyon.
"The bullets that literally riddled his body were fired by a 'cowardly murderer' who shot the unsuspecting victim in the back of the head and body," a sheriff said.
Combs' widow, Hazel, "(h)er face ... drawn by grief, her eyes tortured by unshed tears and sleeplessness ... seemed overnight to have aged many years. She was haunted by the knowledge that while she lay asleep in their ranch home between Alcova and Leo, ... her husband was brutally murdered in his car--not a quarter of a mile away! ...
"The position of the body and other details indicated ... that Combs had been ... unaware of the menace hovering over his life when the assailant, in the back seat, shot him through the head, then emptying the gun as the man's body slumped over. ...
"Credence was ... given today to the theory that he was slain by an assailant harboring a bitter, personal grudge. ... This theory was a source of mystification, ... it being heard on every side: 'We didn't know Stan Combs had an enemy in the world.' ... Rumor was rife today that the trail of the murderer had led to Casper.
Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Dual Careered lawyer
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Casper, Natrona County, 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.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Monday, May 10, 1909. The Carters.
Maybelle Carter of Carter Family musical fame was born as Maybelle Addington in Nickelsville, Virginia.
Last prior edition:
Thursday, May 6, 1909. Developments in the Episcopal Church of Wyoming.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Thursday, May 6, 1909. Developments in the Episcopal Church of Wyoming.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Wednesday, May 5, 1909. The Saxon vote.
The German free state of Saxony changed its election laws providing for four different classes of voters, those being; taxpaying men, 25 or older, one vote, men with higher incomes, two votes, three or four votes. Men reaching 50 years of age acquired another vote.
Which takes us to stuff we're not supposed to say.
This weighting of the vote was obviously based on the concept that society should be governed by men of means. Current American politics would suggest that this certainly isn't the case. Donald Trump is reputedly as rich as Midas, although how rich he really is, isn't clear, and he clearly shouldn't be in politics and no deliberative person should vote for him. Many, however, are going to.
And that raises a question. In 2024, as opposed, let's say, to 2016, or even 2020, after he attempted to defeat the results of an election, and after those who support him have gone increasingly hardcore populist (not conservative) is there something wrong with the American electorate? It would appear so, and what it would appear to be, is ignorance. That's an ignorance that's reinforcing itself. We'll deal with it elsewhere, but what questions does that raise about who really should have the franchise?
Jackson County, Colorado, was created from western Larimer County.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Transportation, Early 20th Century
Tuesday, May 4, 1909. Acquitted over Pat Garrett.
Wayne Brazel was acquitted of the murder for the February 29, 1908, killing of Pat Garrett, the famous New Mexico lawman.
Brazel was the lessee of the ranch of Pat Garrett's son, Dudley. The killing seems to have involved the bringing on of a large herd of goats onto the ranch, but who the killer actually was, and exactly what happened, remains a mystery.
Last prior edition:
Sunday, May 2, 1909
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Niobrara County Courthouse
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Postscript.
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.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Saturday, May 1, 1909. May Day.
A major parade protesting child labor, and generally celebrating the cause of labor, was held in New York City.
The parade had a heavily ethnic character to it, and the day was regarded as "Labor Day", before that holiday was officially created as an American one in contrast to May Day.
Walter Reed Medical Center opened as Walter Reed General Hospital.
San Franciscans turned out in huge numbers to visit the Aso and Soya which had been captured by Japan in the Russo Japanese War.
The Aso, which had been the Bayan was sunk as a target ship in 1932. The Soya, which had been the Varyag, was given back to the Imperial Russian Navy in 1916 during the Great War, was seized by the British in 1918, sold to the Germans for scrap in 1920, but ran aground whiel being towed, and was scrapped in place, the process being completed in 1925.
Last prior edition:
Friday, .April 30, 1909.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Thursday, April 29, 1909. Tornado devestation.
Tornadoes killed 125 in the South East.
April 29, 1909 Tornado Outbreak
Russia invaded Persia and occupied Tabriz. The incursion was in aid of hte Shah against constitutionalist rebels.
Last prior edition:
Wednesday, April 28, 1909. Liberating the Harem.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Wednesday, April 28, 1909. Liberating the Harem.
Deposed Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II was packed up and sent to Salonika. Francis McCullagh, the adventuresome Irish journalist, reported, further:
The instant Yildiz surrendered... All who were not women were immediately summoned to leave the Harem, and nearly all obeyed the summons voluntarily. The eunuchs hesitated but were bodily cast forth by the more energetic of the young ladies inside. On being helped to their feet by the soldiers, these unhappy Nubians manifested as much fear as if they were about to be hanged on the spot. But they were not treated harshly on the whole. A military commission, after having controlled their identity and their number according to list which they possessed, sent some of them to the above-mentioned camp and others to the Old Seraglio in Stamboul.
The harem itself was also broken up, and from the sounds of it, some of its members were happy with that result.
Executions commenced of the mutineers who had supported him. The former Sultan would live until 1918.
Last prior edition:
Tuesday, April 27, 1909. Fall of the Sultan.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Tuesday, April 27, 1909. Fall of the Sultan.
Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II was deposed by unanimous vote of the Turkish parliament, after a fatwa was approved by Sheik ul Islam. A fatwa was necessary as he was the Caliph and, therefore, both a civil and a religious figure.
Rechad Effendi, the Sultan's brother, a prisoner of the deposed monarch since 1876, was invited to be the new Sultan, which he became as Sultan Mehmed V.
It was quite a promotion, at least for the time being.
And folks were photographing Arizona.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Monday, April 26, 1909. The barbarity of the day.
California joined Indiana and Washington in providing a law to force the sterilization of mentally retarded persons.
A growing movement at the time, this is universally regarded as a horror now, but largely because the Nazis would adopt a policy to murder people in the same category, revealing such actions for what they are.
The Hungarian cabinet resigned in protest of the Austro-Hungarian Viennese government's lack of support for universal suffrage for Hungarians, use of Magyar in Army regiments, and Hungarian bank independence.
Harrison County, Texas, Deputy Sheriff Lewis Markham Huffman, age 27, was shot and killed investigating a railroad camp disturbance. His partner was shot but survived.The offender was lynched.
Last prior edition:
Saturday, April 24, 1909. Driving.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Friday, April 23, 1909. Lethal politics in Kentucky.
Governor of Kentucky, Augustus E. Willson, pardoned former Governor of Kentucky, William S. Taylor for assessor to the murder, which he denied, of William Goebel, who had been declared to be the lawful winner of the 1899 gubernatorial election.
Very MAGAesque.
Taylor had taken up residence in another state, where he practiced law, and he rarely returned to Kentucky.
The horrors taking place in Turkey were noted.
The Acting Secretary of State to Ambassador Reid.
Department of State,
Washington, April 23, 1909.
Referring to department’s telegram of the 18th, Mr. Wilson asks if a fleet adequate for the protection of foreign life has been sent to the disturbed regions in Turkey, and if American citizens are in jeopardy whether we can rely upon the doing of all that is feasible for their protection. Says, in view of the humanitarian concern felt by the President and because of the distressed interest of naturalized Armenians in the United States, the department would be glad to learn if possible what is being done under the Berlin act to check the massacre of Armenians in Turkey. Quotes telegram of this date from Turkey.
Gimbels signed a 105-year lease for property at New York Herald Square. This provided for $60,000,000 in rent until 2014.
The 1909 Benavente earthquake in the Santarém District of the Central Region, Portugal. Sixty people were killed in the incident.
Child labor was photographed in Lewiston, Maine.
Sunday, April 18, 1909. St. Joan d'Arc beatified.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Sunday, April 18, 1909. St. Joan d'Arc beatified.
St. Joan d'Arc was beatified by Pope Pius X before a crowed of 30,000 in St. Peter's Square.