Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Telephone
Concerning changes between then and now, something that occurs to me is that those practicing a century ago were much less impacted, if impacted at all, by the telephone.
That may sound obvious, but the impact would be huge.
There are days that I hardly get off the phone. And as I try to take my phone calls, even if really busy, it means that the phone impacts the flow of my work a great deal. This would not have been the case at one time.
It's really difficult to imagine, actually. A day without phone calls and without email. Communications would come solely by mail or by direct contact. I suppose if people had a question, they dropped by to ask it or to make an appointment, and most contacts would have been very much local.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Slow medicine
Slow ambulance -- "Broke Her Arm.
"Mrs. Frank Jameson of Ervay was kicked on the left arm by a horse Sunday and sustained a fractured bone, and she passed through this city Monday on her way to the Douglas hospital, where she will have the fracture reduced. She was accompanied by her son Lawrence.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The Speed of Cooking
Last week I happened to have to go to Safeway to buy some odds and ends, one of which was breakfast cereal. I'm bad about buying the same kinds again and again, so I decided to add some variety. It's been fall like here, so I decided to go with hot cereals for a change.
But not only did I decide to go with hot cereals, but I bought Cream of the West and Irish Oatmeal. That is, I did not buy instant Cream of Wheat, instant Oatmeal or quick oats.
Cream of the West is like old fashioned Cream of Wheat, except its whole wheat. Frankly, the taste is identical to "regular" Cream of Wheat. Irish Oatmeal, however, is really porridge, and it has to be cooked. It actually has to be cooked and allowed to stand, so it isn't speedy.
Anyhow, my kids have never had "regular" Cream of Wheat. They like "instant" Cream of Wheat, which has an odd texture and taste in my view. Sort of wall paper paste like. Anyhow, my son cooked some Cream of the West the first day I did, with us both using the microwave instructions.
He hated it. He's so acclimated to the pasty instant kind, he finds the cooked kind really bad.
Both kids found the porridge appalling. They're only familiar with instant oatmeal, and they porridge was not met with favor at all. I really liked it. It's a lot more favorable than even cooked oatmeal.
Anyhow, the point of all of this is that all this quick instant stuff is really recent, but we're really used to it. During the school year my wife makes sure the kids have a good breakfast every day, which she gets up and cooks for them. But it never really sank in for me how much our everyday cooking has benefited from "instant" and pre made. Even a thing like pancakes provides an example. My whole life if a person wanted pancakes, they had the benefit of mixes out of a box. More recently, for camping, there's a pre measured deal in a plastic bottle that I use, as you need only add water. A century ago, I suppose, you made the pancakes truly from scratch, which I'll bet hardly anyone does now.
A revolution in the kitchen.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Scenes from days gone by.
Interesting for a variety of reasons. One, the then existing variety of American automobiles. Two, that fairly small towns (although the area was fairly well populated, due to mining, at that time), with a fairly substantial automobile dealership.
Monday, July 20, 2009
More tiny, but viable, towns
Commenting on this on SMH, I noted:
A Casper Star Tribune article that sort of sheds light on some of the topics discussed here:
http://www.trib.com/articles/2009/07/19 ... 0157b9.txt
This article discusses an entire town disappearing. But it misses part of the reason for that. The town was only a few miles from another, that being the town of Midwest. Midwest is just about four or five miles from another, Edgerton. And Midwest is only about 50 miles from Casper. So the town in the article was probably only about 30 or 40 miles from Casper.
When it was founded, travel conditions would have made the town probably both necessary and viable. But by the 30s, when it disappeared, it was really redundant and inefficient, it's role having been taken over by older and slightly larger Midwest.
Today, Midwest and Edgerton are sort of shadows of their former selves as well.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
1920, law, and the Geology Museum
Shoot, that's a lot earlier than I thought. I had thought, for some reason, that the College of Law dated from after World War Two. It sort of redefines my concepts of what the university regarded as worthwhile or important early on. When the College of Law was founded, I think the school was about 30 years old.
In other news, the University has had to cut its budget fairly significantly due to the decline in mineral revenues. Nearly the entire state budget is funded through severance taxes, which have taken a real hit in the last year. The change in economic fortunes has been massive, due to the national slow down, and the regional decline in the value of natural gas. So, as a result, Gov. Freudenthal has ordered ever state agency to cut back, and also enacted a general hiring freeze.
The University has taken the ax to distance programs, I guess (I'm not really up on that). But as part of the cutbacks, the very old Geology Museum is being closed.
It's a shame. I'll admit that I find it sad, as I'm a graduate of the Geology Department. I hate to see it close. I don't know how old it is, but it's real darned old. I don't disagree with the need to cut back, but I find it very difficult to accept that a cut back in a feature of a hard science department is academically sound.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Followup to the Combs murder, discussed below
Casper Tribune-Herald, 1934
Evidence piles up -- Throughout the week of June 15, excited headlines screamed of the presumed solution to the previous week's top story. "MRS. COMBS ARRESTED
"WIDOW FACES FIRST DEGREE MURDER CHARGE
"In a startling climax to investigation into the murder of S. S. Combs, his widow, Mrs. Hazel Combs, was placed under arrest. ... A warrant charging the first degree murder of the former (Casper) city attorney was served on the slight, steel-nerved woman. ...
"(Combs) had been shot five times at such close range that powder burns were left by some of the shots. ...
"Prisoner Visibly Shaken When Shown Weapon
"To the rear of the (Combs) cabin, about 50 feet distant, is the outhouse where an important discovery was made. Beneath fresh wood ashes ... was found the revolver with which, the officers said, the murder was committed. It contained six empty shells. ...
"MURDER WEAPON IDENTIFIED
"EXPERT LINKS REVOLVER WITH BULLETS FOUND
"Insurance Collection Is Held Motive
"... Mr. Combs was husband No. 4. ... He was an attorney who represented her in divorce proceedings against husband number 3. ... Harley Atwood, the second husband of Mrs. Combs, died ... from asphyxiation by gas, when a coffee pot boiled over on a gas stove in the room where he lay asleep on a couch
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Modern Transportation
On Tuesday of this past week I drove 140 miles to Rawlins Wyoming, worked all day, and returned home that evening. 140 miles isn't a long distance in modern terms. My route took me past Independence Rock, where I stopped at the rest station as I always do. Then, resuming travel, down the Oregon Trail a ways further, and then across some desert country to Ten Mile Hill, a huge topographic rise just outside of Rawlins. Then into Rawlins, whose Union Pacific station is depicted above.
I have no idea if this station is still there. A lot of Rawlin's older buildings are. Rawlins itself, still on the main line of the UP, has seen some very hard times in recent years, but it seems to be rebounding, it's recovery fueled, as it were by natural gas exploration, as well as some wind energy development.
When I wrapped up my work, I turned around and was home in the early evening. A typical day's work for a litigator in Wyoming. It was an enjoyable trip really. Armed with my company supplied Ipod, I finished the book on tape version of Alexander Hamilton for the third time, and listened to a selection of episodes of "The News From Lake Woebegone".
I was to return to Rawlins on Thursday. I didn't, as I came down with the flu. Before somebody asks, no I don't know if it was the "Swine Flu". Whatever it was, it was fast moving, and I am over it now. I crawled into work on Thursday, but a partner of mine very graciously volunteered to take my place, so he repeated by Tuesday travel on Thursday.
I was very grateful for this, as I had a motion hearing in Douglas Wyoming, fifty miles a way, on Friday. I went home on Thursday and slept most of the day. The next day, however, I was back on the road to Douglas.
The courthouse depicted above is no longer in use, and I don't even know where it was. Douglas has a nice new courthouse, built, I think, in the 1970s, or maybe 80s.
This trip too was pleasant and uneventful, except for loosing my motion (rats). On the way to Douglas, I listed to an Ipod interview of H. W. Brands, speaking about Franklin Roosevelt. On the way back, I finished up the last downloaded News From Lake Woebegone I had.
What's the point of this? Modern easy of travel.
Could I have done this a century ago? I doubt it. Even had I owned a car in 1909, there's no way that I could have traveled to Rawlins and back in a day. I wouldn't have tried. It would have been much more likely that, if I had to do that, I would have taken the train from Casper to North Platte NE, and then switched on to the UP line and rode to Rawlins on Monday. I'd have stayed over in Rawlins Tuesday evening. I wouldn't have been able to have a back to back event in Rawlins and Douglas, in all likelihood.
But what does that mean? In part, it probably means that a lawyer, in this context, a century ago, would have gone to Rawlins on a Monday, and came back on a Friday. On Wednesday, he probably wouldn't have had much to do. Perhaps, were it me, I would have gone down to Parco for amusement. If I had to go to Douglas for Friday, I would have had to catch a night train.
What about, say 1939. I could have driven then, road travel was much improved. Even so, it would have been a bit of a brutal trip.
I suspect this also shows that, while travel is easier, life is faster paced. Probably nobody would have tried to schedule back to back travel plans like this "back in the day". Now, I'll often travel up to 600 miles in a day. If something is no further than 300 miles away, I don't stay, usually. That certainly wasn't the case at one time.
History of Natrona County
Granted, it is one of the dullest books ever written. But what an amazing tribute to the internet in that what is truly a rare book is so easily available in this form.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Dual Careered lawyer
"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.
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.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Transportation, Early 20th Century
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Niobrara County Courthouse
__________________________________________________________________________
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.
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.
Saturday, April 17, 1909. Soccer riots.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Saturday, April 17, 1909. Soccer riots.
Thousands of angry soccer fans attacked the stadium at Hampden Park after a replay of the Scottish Cup between the Rangers and Celtics ended in a draw.
Soccer riots aren't a new thing.
The Scottish Football Association did not award the prize cup to any team.
Helen and William Howard Taft opened West Potomac Park to the public.
Child laborers were photographed in Rhode Island on this day in 1909.
Wednesday, April 14, 1909. The Adana Massacre continues.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Wednesday, April 14, 1909. The Adana Massacre continues.
The slaughter of Armenian Christians by Ottoman soldier began in earnest in Adana, Ottoman Empire.
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.
The Armenians had the first Christian kingdom in the world, and have had a state of one kind or another since 860 BC. Since the conquest of Anatolia by the Turks, they've been subject to repeated atrocities.
The Anglo Persian Oil Company was incorporated. The company became a power in its own right, and extensively exploited what became Iran, setting the stage for what we have today, unfortunately.
Minnesota passed a law banning cigarettes, effective August 1. Too bad that didn't stick.
Tuesday, April 13, 1909. The Aadna Massacre.
1900s, 1909, Adana Massacre, Armenian Genocide, Education, North Carolina, Ottoman Empire, panoramic, The Big Picture
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.
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.
Last prior edition: