When agriculture was the industry in Wyoming

As any Wyoming resident knows today, mineral extraction, i.e., oil, gas, coal, etc., drive Wyoming's economy. But this wasn't the case. It was agriculture that really dominated the early economic history of the case, and still forms the essence of its image, as this UW article notes: Wyoming agriculture fashioned state’s national, international image

Oil and gas made an entry into the state as early as the 1890s, and newspaper reports at the time, particularly those of the Natrona County Tribune, were simply gushing over its prospects. Still, it would take some time for oil and gas to really take off, although take off it did. Nonetheless, agriculture was the dominant industry in every way in the late 19th Century and early 20th. It's difficult to overestimate how dominant it was, and how many industries it supported. A glimpse of one of those industries is provided below.

It's difficult in some ways for us today, even is a state that revers cowboys, to imagine what the agricultural Wyoming was like. The average town resident is aware of it, and not. And certainly most people are not aware of it to the same extent that the 19th Century and early 20th Century Wyomingite was.

Old Hotels

Room in the Plains Hotel

This is a room in a renovated century old hotel in Cheyenne Wyoming. I recently stayed there while traveling for work.

I've stayed in a few very old hotels before. Many years ago I spent a night in the Virginian in Medacine Bow, but it's frankly so long ago, I don't really recall it all that well. I was quite young at the time, and what I recall about that is that every room did not have bathroom, something that I found very odd at the time, and which I bet is no longer the case.

The Virginian

Much more recently I've stayed at the Hotel Higgins in Glenrock, a nice local older hotel. I don't know the age for sure, but it's probably approaching a century in age. About 17 years ago I spent a night in the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. The Stanley is famous for being used as the set of the film The Shining, but it also had some preexisting fame for being the location of the founding of the American Dental Association.

The reason I note all of this is because it's my observation, and one of the types of changes we note here, that hotel rooms were once pretty darned small. The rooms of the The Plains Hotel, where I just stayed, are very small. This isn't to say they were bad, they were just small. I don't recall the rooms in the Virginian, but the room we stayed in at the Hotel Higgins was small. The rooms at The Stanley were larger, however, but they weren't enormous either.

Apparently hotel rooms of an earlier era were just smaller. But then, why wouldn't they be? Most people weren't traveling with their families (and still aren't, for the most part, most are business travelers) and before television, and even before radio, what would you actually stay in your room to do? No TV, no radio, no internet, back when they were built. You could read, but then it doesn't take a very big room to do that.

Lobby of the Plains Hotel

A friend of mine pointed out that the major room in older hotels was the lobby. Above is the lobby of the Plains. I can see where that would have been true. After walking over from the train station, back way back when, and checking in, why not hang out in the lobby? The Stanley has a palatial lobby. The lobby of the Plains is pretty big. The lobby of the old Hotel Townsend, now the courthouse for Wyoming's Seventh Judicial District, was not unsubstantial.

It also occurs to me that then restaurants were a pretty significant feature for hotels, and bars. They still are for some hotels, but much less so for "Business Hotels" or "Business Motels". Reflecting the era, Business Motels usually have a breakfast room with easy to go breakfast items, but no restaurant. Older hotels, however, usually had a good enough restaurant that it drew town trade, and often still does. The Plains Hotel, The Virginian, or The Brown Palace in Denver, for example, all have restaurants or bars that draw in town trade.

I should note here that I'm not giving a negative review to The Plains Hotel. Its been renovated and it's not bad. It's just that the rooms are small.

MeridethinWyoming: In the Span of a Lifetime

MeridethinWyoming: In the Span of a Lifetime

Courthouses of the West: Jackson federal court among 60 on chopping block

Courthouses of the West: Jackson federal court among 60 on chopping block: While news isn't our regular feature here, here's something that's topical for this site: Jackson federal court among 60 on chopping block...

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Prices at the Dawn of the Gasoline Age, Dusk of the Equine

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Prices at the Dawn of the Gasoline Age, Dusk of the Equine

 This was originally posted over on SMH, as:

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Prices at the Dawn of the Gasoline Age, Dusk of the Equine

I'm reposting it here, as it related into the topics addressed here.  Here's the post:

This is a bit off topic for the forum (of course the thread in general is) but it's a question I have that maybe Joe or one of the other folks knowledgeable on vintage autos can answer.

For years, I drove a single cab truck. But, with two kids, it became impossible. Now I drive a crewcab truck, and I hardly ever run across a true single cab anymore. When I do, it's usually a company truck. I also have an old Mercury Cougar "Sport Coupe" which I bought well used as it has a 4 cyl engine, was cheap, and gets good gas mileage. It's a "sport coupe" as it has a hatch back and back seats, but my son can hardly sit back there now, and it's not practical if more than two of us are going anywhere. As its' a daily driver for me (and I'm really cheap. . .I haven't fixed the heater in the past two years, which if you know our winters. . .) it works out okay.

Now, here's my question. In the early auto days families were generally larger, and I'm under the impression that most families had a car. But I know that coups were popular.

Why?


A car owned by my grandfather.

Pat 

A couple of replies:

 They were nearly always called "business coupes" or "doctor's coupes"...a two passenger car with a trunk rather than a rumble seat. Doctor's were especially early and enthusiastic users of the automobile and a car specially suited to their needs was very good marketing. This begs the question of why? Because in the day of house calls, which ray right up to the 30s at least, the expense of keeping a horse - or more likely two horses, feed stabling and other services was a real drain. They were an ideal market in that they needed what the automobile provided and usually could afford the initial investment.

Business men were another major targeted market... presumably they could afford a car and a good many of them could afford to keep a car for business purposes... If they had a family they could have a sedan or touring car as well. My mom's godfather, a wealthy man who was an adult when the automobile was a new invention, kept a car at his summer home so the chauffeur could drive him to the train every morning... a distance of about 1/4 mile!

There are probably many more reasons, not the least of which was that they "looked good" in the popular mind and that frequently took precedence over practicality - as it still does.

 It's interesting that you note that they were called "business coupes". That's how my father referred this car, of his father's. It was a "business coupe".

I think they do look sharp. I once passed on a 1939 Plymouth Coupe that was a very reasonable price, and I really regret it. Pat

 It was my understanding that a lot of the coupes were used by salesmen because of their tremendous trunk space. They could carry their merchandise and deliver their goods saving the shipping charges for themselves.

Irish Canadian Rangers

On a day in which things Irish are generally celebrated, some posters for the battalion my great grandfather and his sons helped organize and equip. . .the Irish Canadian Rangers.

They were recruited from Irish Canadians in Montreal, but they were not able to bring the unit up to full strength. Therefore they ultimately also recruited in Ireland. In the end, they were folded into an other Irish unit in the Empire's forces.

Definitely a slice of days gone by. World War One saw the last of the privately raised, privately equipped efforts in the Empire, and the same is true in the US in regards to just prior to the war. Theodore Roosevelt would have repeated his Spanish American role of raising a special unit if allowed, but Woodrow Wilson disallowed it, and the Army frankly wasn't keen on it being done.

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Scenes of the U.S. Army in the Punitive Exp. Era

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Scenes of the U.S. Army in the Punitive Exp. Era

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Armour Rations

A look at canned rations of old:

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Armour Rations

‘I ain’t Dutch’: Doug Crowe

‘I ain’t Dutch’

Disappearing Homesteads

This is a 20th Century homestead located in Natrona County, Wyoming. And it's a nice one.

It was probably built in the teens or twenties. The house is small, but it had steam heat. It also had a concrete cistern. The small stout barn has the name of the owners proudly burnt into the beams. In short, the homesteaders were prosperous. . . but only for awhile.

The Great Depression did this homestead in. It failed, and a neighboring rancher bought it from the bank. This is the story of homesteading all over the West in the 1930s. Thousands of small homesteads were consolidated into larger, neighboring ones. While I've never seen any figures on it, it would be my guess that the average actual working ranch in Wyoming today is probably made up of the remnants of at least five other ranches, all of which would have gone belly up during the Great Depression.

There was a lot at work creating this. The weather, the economy, and mechanization. The impact on the land, however, was enormous. Hundreds of families moved off the land, and into towns and cities, forever.

Casper Fire truck of old

426288_312739632117526_284375484953941_899303_185799387_n.jpg (JPEG Image, 960 × 901 pixels) - Scaled (63%)

The Migrating Memorial: Some Gave All: World War One Memorial, Laramie Wyoming

This is our entry for the World War One Memorial in Laramie, Wyoming: Some Gave All: World War One Memorial, Laramie Wyoming:

The memorial is impressive in that it lists everyone from Albany County or from the University of Wyoming (students) who was killed during World War One. Quite a list of names. That really says something about the Great War.

The reason I've cross posted this over here is that, as this entry reveals, and with links, this memorial was once in the middle of a prominent intersection in downtown Laramie. It was essentially the psychological center of the town. But only for a few years. By 1929 it had been moved to its current location.

I'm not sure what, if anything, this says. It certainly would seem to indicate that at one time the memory of the Great War was of central importance to the residents of Albany County, which actually has two WWI memorials. Now, it's on a corner of the courthouse block, which is not uncommon anywhere, but the corner is the back corner actually, which is a semi quiet residential street corner.

On the other hand, it would have been necessary to move it. Maybe when it was put up right after World War One an intersection could have a memorial dead center, but no way that one could have after the mid 1920s. It would have been destroyed in traffic accidents.

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Long Cavalry Maneuvers.

A look at the sad AT of 1923

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Long Cavalry Maneuvers.

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Off Topic: World War One Made British Eats Bad

A thesis recently advanced on NPR, but fairly questionable in our view, as discussed here:

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - Off Topic: World War One Made British Eats Bad

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - oldtime packers

Society of the Military Horse • View topic - oldtime packers

Indian Ice Delivery Trucks, Casper Wyoming

420512_310334369024719_284375484953941_892138_2113709836_n.jpg (JPEG Image, 960 × 651 pixels)

Ice delivery vehicles. Pretty advanced for the time, in many locations this would still be done by horse drawn wagon for another two decades.

Ice was a big deal in this era. Refrigeration mostly wasn't. People kept "Ice Boxes" in their houses. My father stilled called the refrigerator the "Ice Box" well into the 70s, having become acclimated to that term in his early years even though he probably grew up in a house with a refrigerator.

Pay Scale, World War Two.

A pay scale table for the U.S. Army in World War Two. A thread on this topic is running on the SMH site.

Lots of interesting odds and ends an item like this brings up.

Connectivity

In the past couple of days, I have had instances in which I have been sitting in my office, with my computer connected to the net, and I have found it necessary to text message somebody using my cell phone.

Indeed, over the past year, not only have I found that it continues to be necessary (no surprise) to own a cell phone, but I am now text messaging on my cell phone as a work necessity. Text messaging tends to be associated with teenagers at the mall, but at least in my recent experience it's gone on to be a feature of at least the legal work place. Not all that long ago I found myself walking through Denver getting and receiving text messages pertaining to a deposition that was going on in Texas.

Here at my office, where I am right now (taking a break for lunch) I have, right where I am, a laptop computer, a telephone, a second miniature laptop, a cell phone, and an Ipod that's jacked into the computer, which allows me not only to send and receive email (including work email, and I've done that) but to keep my calendar and contacts electronically.

When I started this profession a little over twenty years ago, my office was equipped, as all our offices were, with a phone and a computer. The computer did not have net access. I don't really recall what I used that computer for, but chances are that I didn't use it all that much on a daily basis. I did write legal memos on it, and it had some programs that were used to substitute for casebooks we had in our library. It was probably three or four years after that when we purchased a computer that had net access, and we obtained West Law in our office for the first time. Before that, most local lawyers had a West Law account at the County Law Library, which was in the old County Courthouse. Having a good fax machine in that era seemed pretty neat. Now all this seems quite quaint.

It does make me wonder about the earlier era, however. Twenty years ago we were already on the cusp of a technological revolution. Even ten years before that we sort of were. But what about before that?

From probably the mid 1920s through to about 1980 the telephone was the only piece of connected technology any law office had. Fax machines hadn't arrived. If you wanted to send something, you did it by mail. Or if you wanted quick contact, you called. What was office work like then? It no doubt involved a lot of dictation of correspondence, and indeed we dictated when I first started out. Some people still do that. But we all did. And dictation in that era did place a bit of a premium on avoiding revisions, although we all revised. Revisions in that era were truly manual, and the result was, the further you go back, that the product had to be regenerated.

What about before 1920? At some time prior to that, most offices didn't have phones. How different office work must have been then. Quick contact just wasn't going to happen. Contact would have mostly been through the mail. Dictation would have been all direct. Everything was much more hands on and manual.

It'd be interesting, if we could, to go back to one of those offices, say an office of 1912, and see how they really worked, what somebody in our profession (assuming that there is a 1912 equivalent) actually did, on a daily basis, and how they did it, before communications became so instant over vast distances.

The speed of offical Justice, from Today In Wyoming's History: February 15

Today In Wyoming's History: February 15: 1933 President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami but which claimed the life of Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak.

The attempted assassin in this matter was Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian veteran of World War One who was fairly clearly in poor health and increasingly suffering from delusions to some extent. The wounded Mayor Cermak survived until March 6, 1933. By that time, Zangara had already been sentenced for four counts of attempted murder, and was given 20 years for each count.

That is, he had been sentenced in less than a month.

He was charged with homicide on March 8, 1933, due to Cermak's death. He plead guilty and was executed on March 20, 1933.

Cermak never contested his responsibility for the crimes. He was increasingly ill and suffering from delusions, but his statements made it fairly clear that he conceived of his actions as some sort of radical anti-capitalist action. What strikes me as amazing, however, is that he went from arrest to execution in a little over a month. Indeed, he went from arrest for homicide to execution in 14 days.

I am not noting this in order to make a comment about the death penalty. That's an entirely different topic and frankly addressing it in the context of 2012 in comparison to 1933 isn't really even possible. But what is really striking is that the criminal process played itself out so very rapidly. Now I would have expected a process of examination to determine if Zangara was sane or even competent to make a confession, and there's no way on earth that the process would have occurred so very rapidly

Some Gave All: Miner's Memorial, Rock Springs Wyoming

A look at mining, when it was horse powered:

Some Gave All: Miner's Memorial, Rock Springs Wyoming: