Mid Week at Work: Combat photographer.

"William Fox of the Underwood Photo News Service, official photographer with the U.S. Expeditionary Force in Mexico. Mexican-U.S. campaign after Villa, 1916"  Library of Congress

Casper Daily Press: April 12, 1916

The Punitive Expedition: The Battle of Parral. April 12, 1916

 Corporal Richard Tannous, 13th Cavalry, wounded at Parral.

U.S. cavalry under Major Frank Tompkins, who had been at Columbus the day it was raided and who had first lead U.S. troops across the border, entered Parral Mexico. At this point, the Punitive Expedition reached its deepest point in Mexico.

The entry was met with hostility right from the onset.  Warned by an officer of Carranzas that his Constitutionalist troops fire on American forces, Tompkins immediately started to withdraw them  During the withdraw, with hostile Mexican demonstrators jeering the U.S. forces, Mexican troops fired on the American forces and a battle ensued.  While Mexican forces started the battle, it was lopsided with the Mexicans suffering about sixty deaths to an American two.  Tompkins withdrew his troops from the town under fire and sought to take them to Santa Cruz de Villegas, a fortified town better suited for a defense.  There Tompkins sent dispatch riders for reinforcements which soon arrived in the form of more cavalrymen of the all black 10th Cavalry Regiment. 

This marked the high water mark of the Punitive Expedition.

LoC caption:  "Removing Sgt. Benjamin McGhee of the 13th Cavalry who was badly wounded at Parral, Mexico."

Lex Anteinternet: Marathon, Peabody and the airlines

And the news came today that Marathon has found a buyer for its Wyoming assets, the  topic we first touched upon here:

Lex Anteinternet: Marathon, Peabody and the airlines: This past week the state received the bad news that Marathon Oil Company, formerly Ohio Oil Company, which was once headquartered in Casper...

The buyer is Merit Energy.

All in all, this is good news for the state.  Merit's had along presence here and is a substantial operation, so  this would indicate that they are doing well and banking on the future of the petroleum industry in the state.

Casper Daily Press: April 11, 1916

The British commence to occupy the Sinai: April 11, 1916

On this date in 1916, the British commenced to occupy the Sinai.  The territory was held by the Ottoman Empire, which of course was fighting with the Central Powers in the Great War.

The Sinai is a daunting region today, and was much more so in 1916, given the limitations of technology.

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Old Sweetwater County Courthouse, Green River Wyoming

Courthouses of the West: Old Sweetwater County Courthouse, Green River Wyom...: 

This is the old Sweetwater County Courthouse in Green River Wyoming.  This courthouse, built in 1906, is on the same block as the new courthouse that replaced it. Fortunately, this attractive originalcourthouse was preserved when the new one was built.  I don't know what use this courthouse serves today.

The Punitive Expedition: Howze clashes with Villistas, April 10, 1916.

Cavalry under R. L. Howze engaged Villistas near La Joya de Herrera and dispersed them, killing their commander, a Captain Silva.  The battle happened in the early evening.

In Memorium

My mother.  April 23, 1925-April 9, 2016.

The Laramie Republican: April 10, 1916

Let's take a look at a smaller town paper today, the Laramie daily paper for the day.  Note that even this paper proudly indicated that it was part of the Associated Press. That is, it received news by wire and was up to date.

This paper isn't the surviving one in Laramie today.  The other paper, the Laramie Boomerang, is, even though it was a semi weekly paper in 1916.

Sunday morning Scene: Churches of the West: Church of the Holy Family, Anglican Church, Casper Wyoming

Churches of the West: Church of the Holy Family, Anglican Church, Casper, Wyoming

A Strange fanaticism

A strange fanaticism fills our time: the fanatical hatred of morality, especially of Christian morality.

The Moral Philosophy of Meredith, A Handful of Authors.  G. K. Chesterton

The Best Posts of the Week of April 3, 2016

The Telegraph

 

Sunday State Leader: April 9, 1916

April 9 was a Sunday in 1916.  The Casper papers didn't print an edition on Sundays at that time.  Indeed, the big paper, if we'd call it that, for the Casper Daily Press was the Friday edition, which recapped the news of the week.

The Cheyenne paper, which Casperites would likely not be getting, did print a Sunday edition however.  This is it, for that day.

The Punitive Expedition, Railroads, and the Presidential Election of 1916: The Casper Daily Press of April 8, 1916

Lots of big news in this evening edition.

Theodore Roosevelt announced that he was throwing his hat in the ring, rather late, for the 1916 Presidential election.  Sort of.  He would not really end up being a candidate, and in fact, he was wearing down physically at this time, having never recovered from earlier serious health bouts and injuries.

Locally, the Northwestern Railroad story was indeed big news.  And apparently Frederick Funston was talking about railroads in connection with the expedition in Mexico.

The Punitive Expedition: A near clash with Carranza's troops on April 8, 1916

 Robert Lee Howze, as a Major General.

As reported by Major Robert Lee Howze:

At about l0:30 a.m.,April 8th, at a point about ten miles south of San Borja, my command was charged by the mounted forces of General Cavazos, his platoon in advance was reinforced by 50 or 60 men, and all took up the gallop, yelled and drew their rifles as they approached us. In the meantime our men were promptly being placed in an erroyo which afforded a splendid field of fire and excellent cover. I personally moved between the two lines waving my hat and calling in Spanish that we were Americans.  About 100 of Cavacos' men reached a point within 50 yards of me before they stopped. If one shot had been fired, I feel convinced that we would have destroyed half of Cavacos' 300 men. The control which our officers exercised over their men and the display of splendid judgment by officers and non-commissioned officers in a delicate situation, saved what came near being a serious complication.  Our officers were left generally with the convictions that General Cavazoa was seeking conflict.  His manner and tone were quite offensive.

Broadcast Radio (for the second time).

Quite awhile back, in 2012, I posted this item on Wyoming's first commercial radio station:

Today In Wyoming's History: January 2. It must have been quiet, or at least different, before that.

Today In Wyoming's History: January 2: 1930 First commercial radio station in Wyoming begins operation. KDFN later became KTWO and is still in operation.

Hard to imagine an era with no radio. But Wyoming lacked a commercial radio station until 1930. This was a Central Wyoming station (or is, rather, it still exists). I'd guess Cheyenne could have picked up Denver stations by then, but in Central Wyoming, having an AM radio prior to 1930 must have been pointless.

Since that time, I posted the item about the use of radio by the Army in 1916, and got to rethinking this topic, amongst other communication topics.

In doing that, I went back as I thought I'd posted before on broadcast radio.

And, indeed I did, but what I didn't do is label it, so it was hard to find.  Indeed, that's been a problem with my earlier blogging. By failing to label things correctly, old posts are easy to loose.  In this particular case, not only did I loose it, but I'd forgotten as a result, that I had done a particular post.  Usually I recall my older posts and I was very surprised that I hadn't posted on this topic. Turns out that I did.  I new I had posted on some single episodes of radio shows from the glory days of radio and when I couldn't find them I did a search on the raw data section of this site and found those posts, and my first one on broadcast radio as well.  So I've edited them all and now radio as a label has tripled in frequency here.  Anyhow, at that point, I thought about axing this post, but as it was mostly already done, and as it actually adds content, I have not.  My original post is here:

Radio

When I was young, my father listed to the radio a fair amount. What I really recall about that in particular is that he'd listen to Denver's KOA, which was an all talk radio station, but not like the ones we have now that are all right or left political talk.  It had a lot of different radio programs, and sports.  He particularly listened to the Denver Broncos and Denver Bears (their minor league baseball team at that time) broadcasts, and the radio shows that they had which discussed those teams. That certainly wasn't all they aired, however, and at one time, when I was fairly young, I used to listen to a fair amount of KOA myself.

The first radio tube, circa 1898.

KOA is still around, but those days are really gone, as are the days of all local radio.  We picked up KOA. . . .

Frankly, even when I posted the item above, I didn't really appreciate the rapid onset of radio, or how late it really came into being.  I knew that there weren't home radios in 1916 and that during the Great War people didn't get their news that way. But when did commercial broadcast begin?

Well, 1920. Sort of suddenly and in a lot of places at first.

I referenced Denver above. Denver had a commercial broadcast radio station in 1920. That's' really early if you consider that 1920 was the year that the first commercial broadcast station began operation in the United States.  And for that matter, it was that year for the United Kingdom as well. So that Wyoming wouldn't have a station until 1930 really isn't surprising.  So Colorado had a commercial station the very year that commercial radio started in the United States.

As for Colorado, I was correct in my supposition about it probably having stations prior to Wyoming, as noted, but I am amazed by how quickly radio came on there.  Colorado had 94 stations by 1922.  So, one in 1920, and then 94 in 1922. The first one, KLZ, is still in operation.  For that matter, KTWO is also still in operation.

Still, let's consider that.  Up until 1930, there was no radio in Wyoming, unless of course you could pick up a Denver channel from Cheyenne (and I don't know if you could, or not).  1930 is within the lives of our older citizens, although that's a decreasing number of them given the year.  My late father was born in 1929.  My mother in 1925.  One of the local high schools was built in 1923.  The building I work in was built in 1917.

So, prior to 1930 in Wyoming, as in much of the US, there was no radio.  Now, 1929 is hardly the ancient world.  And important things were happening in the teens and twenties to be sure. World War One, the stock market crash, etc.  People didn't get the news of those things by way of radio.  Newspapers, which often were published twice a day in that era, were the quickest means of news delivery for the average person where radio was not.

And, of course, prior to 1920, there was no commercial radio at all.

And not only is this significant as to news, but entertainment.  Popular music existed, but the knowledge of it came by way of friends and associates, not radio.  You could buy records, but you weren't hearing them on the radio.  There was even a top 100 for years in the teens, but those records didn't get on that list by way of radio play.  Sales, then as now, determined that, but the decision to purchase didn't come from hearing a song played on the radio.  You'd heard that song played on somebody's record player.

When radio came in, in the 1920s in many places, and starting in 1930 in Wyoming, as we've seen, it made a huge change.  People took to home radios really quickly and they became an institution.  It's odd to think, in that context, of how new they really were

Well, there's a lot more about all that on my post Radio.

Oddly, one thing I didn't cover in that first post, was car radios.  Radios have been, as odd as it may seem, a big part of a car my entire life.  Indeed, when I was a teenager and in my early twenties everyone wanted to have a really nice stereo in their cars.  Some pretty junky cars had some pretty nice radios, which of course were also tape player.  That hasn't really changed over the years, although car radios have gotten really good so that the need to change them is smaller than it once was.  The newest ones in a lot of vehicles also play CDs, Itunes libraries and, via Bluetooth, can act as telephone receivers.  It won't be long until every vehicle has, effectively, a car phone, something that was once quite a rarity.

So its odd to realize that early cars didn't have radios.  Indeed, I own one truck made in 1962 that didn't come equipped with a radio.  I added one, but I sort of regret doing that now.  But I was about 20 at t he time.  When I had a 1945 CJ2A I did not equip it with a radio, and it didn't have one.  Anyhow, the first car radios were an add on and were so expensive that they nearly rivaled a fair percentage of the value of a typical average American car itself.  Early Motorola car radios, first offered in 1930, cost $130.  Crossley Motors, a British manufacturer, offered the first car to have a regular factory installed radio in 1933, although Chevrolet offered a radio option in 1922. The Chevrolet radio however, was impractical due to its massive antenna and large speakers.  Contrary to some assertions, there were other cars manufactured in the 1920s with radio options, but they were unusual and not standard on any car.

Radios themselves didn't become suddenly standard in the 1930s for automobiles.  That wouldn't happen until after World War Two, and even then some things that are standard now remained options. The radio in my 1954 Chevrolet Deluxe Sedan, for example, had push buttons. The regular 54 had a radio, but no buttons.

Anyhow, I don't mean to divert this to a discussion about cars and radios, rather than just radio, but this serves to illustrate how new radio really was.  In the 1920s there were a lot of places in the US where having a radio would have been pointless, as there were no stations. By the 1930s, radio was everywhere and radios were coming into automobiles, in spite of the limitations of tube technology.  By the 1950s, when television was starting to come in, radios were a standard feature in cars, but not necessarily trucks.  Now, in an age when we listen to less radio thanks to other forms of audio information and entertainment, radios are still everywhere.

In the 1940s and 1950s one thing that established people had was a really nice home stereo, with radio and turn table.  Now, these big old pieces of furniture seem odd to us.  How things have changed.

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Related threads:

Radio

Friday Farming: Women Farmers Band Together To Vent, Seek Support And Exchange Ideas

Women Farmers Band Together To Vent, Seek Support And Exchange Ideas 

Interesting article.

Almost as interesting is the collection of mean snarky comments that follow.

As an observation, it's also interesting to note that the comments on what would generally be regarded as erudite news sources, including the better known major newspapers, are every bit as nasty, egocentric and snarky as on any other source.  Go to the New York Times, for example, and you'll find a collection of self assured snots commenting on news articles as if they possess all the knowledge on the planet.  Same, on occasion, with NPR comments.

It's deflating.  The "liberal" end of the upper echelon readers of American media likes to imagine the conservative mass sources as being silly howling cartoons, but their comments aren't much different.  A person has to presume that most of the thoughtful readers on both ends of the spectrum simply do not comment.

Casper Weekly Press: April 7, 1916

The Casper Weekly Press was apparently the Friday edition of the paper.

What the Crud, is this the Casper Daily Press day by day page or something?

I've been posting, as readers are aware, the century old issues of The Casper Daily Press on the anniversary of their publication.  This probably seemed obviously related to the Punitive Expedition of 1916 up until yesterday, when I ran this one:

The Casper Daily Press for April 6, 1916

This evening issue is inserted here not for what is on the front  page, but for what isn't. 

For the first time since the Columbus Raid, the Punitive Expedition didn't make the front page for the Casper Daily Press.

Well, rest assured, I have been running them due to the entries we've been having on the Punitive Expedition, which as this entry, What the Crud? Is this the Punitive Expedition Day by Day Blog or something? makes clear, we've been marking the centenary  of various events as they occurred.  The newspaper entries are part of that, and are part of our A Day In The Life series, being posted for Wyoming on the 100 year anniversary of their publication on the theory that this is something a local person would have read as they came out.  How they would have received the news.  This squares with the purpose of the blog to explore what life was like in the early 20th Century.  

And it has been really interesting. For one thing, it has shown how a variety of concerns, not just one, expressed themselves day after day.  This is, indeed, how real life is, but it isn't how we typically think of a historical era.  While we're focused on the Punitive Expedition in these posts, at the time the readers of the Casper Daily Press were also focused on World War One, an outbreak of train robbery, the price of gasoline, and the local economy.  The flavor of the times comes across a bit differently than we might have suspected.

For those who are tired of the daily newspaper electronic delivery, a century late, it won't go on forever.  And indeed, I know when it'll stop on a daily basis as these posts are teed up to be posted already, well ahead of when they actually will appear.  As the Punitive Expedition was what brought them to our attention, when the expedition really disappears from an issue of the paper, I'll quit posting them everyday.  Some might might miss them at that time (and some big events will occur before they disappear), but converting them from pdf to jpeg is actually quite a chore so it'd be difficult to keep it up, and of course at some point it would distract from the blog, if it isn't already.

But it has been interesting. And its drawn our attention to a lot of things we've missed.  Papers will continue to appear from time to time and some of the aspects of life that we'd missed from the era that we haven't commented on yet, will be topics of future posts.