Today In Wyoming's History: August 18: 1941 One hundred Casper men and boys enrolled in the Wyoming State Guard. State Guards were the wartime replacements for the National Guard, which had been Federalized in 1940, and therefore was no longer existent, now being part of the U.S. Army. The mission of the State Guard was to provide the services to the State that the National Guard did in peace time. Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Woodstock, Day 4. August 18, 1969
By the early morning hours of the forth day of Woodstock, the crowd was tiring of the event and began to leave at first light. Still, some remarkable acts played as the crowed dwindled.
Oddly enough, Roy Rogers was originally thought of to play the final number, which was to be Happy Trails, but he declined.
Johnny Winter. I don't think very many remember the young Winter as performing at Woodstock, but he did, along with his brother Edgar.
Blood Sweat & Tears, who went on at 1:30 a.m.
Crosby Still, Nash & Young. I've never cared for this band in any sense, and their Woodstock performance is no exception.
Paul Butterfield Blues Band. This band had been a blues band at one time but no longer was. Still, they opened with the blues number Born Under A Bad Sign which was most famously performed by Eric Clapton, who did not play at Woodstock.
Sha Na Na. This 50s revival band went on at 7:30 a.m. It's odd to think of them even playing at Woodstock and its particularly odd if its considered that their hyped up nostalgic performance was revising music that was only a decade old. Almost nothing about their performance seems to fit the era in which they were performing. They preformed twelve songs in 30 fast minutes.
Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was the closing act as he insisted on the position, which unfortunately put his epic performance at the point at which the crowd had very much dispersed. He played for two hours, playing nineteen songs, much longer than the few songs that are generally shown when Woodstock is recalled, and started off with his rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, one of fifty times he was recorded playing the national anthem. A lot of his songs were played back to back with no interruption between them whatsoever. His last song, Hey Joe, was played as an encore.
Hendrix had sought this position as it was the position of honor in a performance, the best band gong last. He may well have deserved that honor in spite of the diminished crowd. His rendition of
The Star Spangled Banner ended one of the newscasts nightly news that day, as I can recall watching it and asking my father what the event was. The performance was genuinely epic, which is all the more amazing as Hendrix had been at Woodstock the entire time up until his performance and had not slept at all.
Oddly enough, Roy Rogers was originally thought of to play the final number, which was to be Happy Trails, but he declined.
Johnny Winter. I don't think very many remember the young Winter as performing at Woodstock, but he did, along with his brother Edgar.
Blood Sweat & Tears, who went on at 1:30 a.m.
Crosby Still, Nash & Young. I've never cared for this band in any sense, and their Woodstock performance is no exception.
Paul Butterfield Blues Band. This band had been a blues band at one time but no longer was. Still, they opened with the blues number Born Under A Bad Sign which was most famously performed by Eric Clapton, who did not play at Woodstock.
Sha Na Na. This 50s revival band went on at 7:30 a.m. It's odd to think of them even playing at Woodstock and its particularly odd if its considered that their hyped up nostalgic performance was revising music that was only a decade old. Almost nothing about their performance seems to fit the era in which they were performing. They preformed twelve songs in 30 fast minutes.
Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was the closing act as he insisted on the position, which unfortunately put his epic performance at the point at which the crowd had very much dispersed. He played for two hours, playing nineteen songs, much longer than the few songs that are generally shown when Woodstock is recalled, and started off with his rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, one of fifty times he was recorded playing the national anthem. A lot of his songs were played back to back with no interruption between them whatsoever. His last song, Hey Joe, was played as an encore.
Hendrix had sought this position as it was the position of honor in a performance, the best band gong last. He may well have deserved that honor in spite of the diminished crowd. His rendition of
The Star Spangled Banner ended one of the newscasts nightly news that day, as I can recall watching it and asking my father what the event was. The performance was genuinely epic, which is all the more amazing as Hendrix had been at Woodstock the entire time up until his performance and had not slept at all.
Saturday, August 17, 2019
August 17, 1919. Evanston to Echo, Utah.
On this day in 1919 the Motor Transport Convoy left Wyoming and entered Utah.
The 17th was a Sunday. This is remarkable as the Convoy's command chose not to stay in Evanston, Wyoming that Sunday but simply pushed on. No day of rest for the convoy. That had happened only once before in their trip, and on that occasion it had pretty clearly occurred because the convoy had experienced delays due to road conditions and mechanical problems. Here there's no evidence that had occurred.
Having said that, the convoy did get an unusually late start that day, starting at 12:30 p.m. While the diarist doesn't note it, chances are high that the late start was in order to allow men to attend local church services before the motor march was resumed.
The convoy experienced a plethora of problems, including the Lincoln Highway now being a bad mountain road as it crossed over from Wyoming. Carbon buildup in a cylinder was plaguing a Dodge, which is interesting in this household as the same thing recently afflicted one of our Dodge pickups. The engine of the Class B truck that was a machine shop was shot.
Echo Utah is a little tiny town today, and must have been the same in 1919. By stopping in Echo, they were effectively camping.
Having said that, the convoy did get an unusually late start that day, starting at 12:30 p.m. While the diarist doesn't note it, chances are high that the late start was in order to allow men to attend local church services before the motor march was resumed.
The convoy experienced a plethora of problems, including the Lincoln Highway now being a bad mountain road as it crossed over from Wyoming. Carbon buildup in a cylinder was plaguing a Dodge, which is interesting in this household as the same thing recently afflicted one of our Dodge pickups. The engine of the Class B truck that was a machine shop was shot.
Echo Utah is a little tiny town today, and must have been the same in 1919. By stopping in Echo, they were effectively camping.
Woodstock, day three
On day three of Woodstock, the following bands played:
Joe Cocker, whose With A Little Help From My Friends cover, is one of the best remembered numbers from the concert. He went on at 2:00 p.m.
Country Joe and the Fish, who uniquely played twice during the concert. Their first performance was not scheduled.
Ten Years After. Ten Years After was one of the most notable of the British blues bands and some regard its performance at Woodstock as the best performance of the concert.
The Band
Joe Cocker, whose With A Little Help From My Friends cover, is one of the best remembered numbers from the concert. He went on at 2:00 p.m.
Country Joe and the Fish, who uniquely played twice during the concert. Their first performance was not scheduled.
Ten Years After. Ten Years After was one of the most notable of the British blues bands and some regard its performance at Woodstock as the best performance of the concert.
The Band
Friday, August 16, 2019
Woodstock, day two.
We've already noted the commencement of the giant Woodstock music festival in 1969. This day was day two.
On this day the music opened at 12:15, and the following acts played:
Quill
Country Joe and the Fish, whose performance is well known for the Vietnam Rag.
Santana, whose performance was one of the best and whose drummer, 20 year old Michael Shrieve, was the youngest musician to preform by some accounts.
John Sebastian, who was not on the bill but actually in attendance but who was asked to play to make up for dead space by the promoters.
Keef Hartley Band
The Incredible String Band, who had refused to play due to the rain the prior day.
Canned Heat
Mountain
The Grateful Dead
Creedance Clearwater Revival CCR later wrote Who Stopped the Rain concerning the concert.
Janis Joplin
Sly and the Family Stone, who also had one of the best performances of the event.
The Who
Jefferson Airplane, who concluded at 9:40.
On this day the music opened at 12:15, and the following acts played:
Quill
Country Joe and the Fish, whose performance is well known for the Vietnam Rag.
Santana, whose performance was one of the best and whose drummer, 20 year old Michael Shrieve, was the youngest musician to preform by some accounts.
John Sebastian, who was not on the bill but actually in attendance but who was asked to play to make up for dead space by the promoters.
Keef Hartley Band
The Incredible String Band, who had refused to play due to the rain the prior day.
Canned Heat
Mountain
The Grateful Dead
Creedance Clearwater Revival CCR later wrote Who Stopped the Rain concerning the concert.
Janis Joplin
Sly and the Family Stone, who also had one of the best performances of the event.
The Who
Jefferson Airplane, who concluded at 9:40.
August 16, 1919. Steep grades for the Motor Transport Convoy, the 35 miles between Fort Bridger and Evanston Wyoming.
A 12% grade is incredibly steep.
In other vehicle news, the first automobile race at the Orange County California Fair was held.
Back home, Frank Hadsell was so impressed with the recent cover photograph on the August issue of the Wyoming Stockman Farmer, he was hoping to buy fifty copies.
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Woodstock. August 15 through 18, 1969
If, as we've defined it, the 1960s as a decade began on March 8, 1965, when the Marines waded ashore at Danang, Republic of Vietnam, and ended on August 9, 1974, with the resignation of President Richard Nixon, then the mid point, and the high point, in more than one way occurred on August 15 through 17, at Woodstock, New York.
Original anticipated Woodstock lineup, which proved to be somewhat inaccurate.
Woodstock was a giant undertaking, and one for which nothing whatsoever went right, by any measure. It's both justifiably celebrated and somewhat inaccurately remembered, as any giant event of this sort would be.
Intended from the onset to be a very large music festival, of which the 1960s featured several, it grew totally out of control and the producers soon lost control of the event, making it a free concert in the end. It became more than that, and in some ways came to define the 1960s counter culture movement.
It may very well also mark the high point in Rock and Roll music. At this point in time, Rock and Roll still very much showed its blues roots and the music, while not as serious as a rule as the blues, reached its high point in being serious music. Outlandish clothing had already come in, but after this point Rock and Roll would start to be highly gimmicky, something it has never recovered from. Within a few years it would no longer be as serious, or be taken as seriously, as it was at this point.
It may very well also mark the high point in Rock and Roll music. At this point in time, Rock and Roll still very much showed its blues roots and the music, while not as serious as a rule as the blues, reached its high point in being serious music. Outlandish clothing had already come in, but after this point Rock and Roll would start to be highly gimmicky, something it has never recovered from. Within a few years it would no longer be as serious, or be taken as seriously, as it was at this point.
On this day, the following acts played:
Richie Havens, who went on at 5:07 p.m and played for nearly two hours, and who was early on stage as Sweetwater, the opening act, had been stopped and delayed by the police. Havens was a folk musician.
Sweetwater. This band was a large ensemble, which some Rock bands of this period were, and is little remembered today. Being omitted from the Woodstock movie and the band's sort career no doubt contributed to that.
Bert Sommer. Sommer isn't well known today, but he received the first standing ovation at Woodstock for his cover of Simon and Garfunkel's America.
Tim Hardin
Ravi Shankar, who played through the rain.
Melanie, was 22 years old at the time and who went on after the Incredible String Band declined to play in the rain. She was invited as Woodstock's producers had an office in the same building which she did and was better known in Europe than the United States at this time. One of three female acts at Woodstock, she later wrote her first hit song, Lay Down, Candles In The Rain, based on the concert. Her career would later be virtually defined by her 1972 song Brand New Key, which was a song that came to her when she broke a vegetarian fast to have a hamburger at McDonald's after a twenty seven day fast.
Arlo Guthrie
Joan Baez, who was six months pregnant at the time and who concluded the first day's acts at 12:25.
Some Gave All: Henry B. Joy Memorial, Interstate 80, Albany County, Wyoming.
And another one in light of the recent emphasis here on the Lincoln Highway: Some Gave All: Henry B. Joy Memorial, Interstate 80, Albany Count...:
While this blog started out with war memorials, it's covered quite a few trail markers over the years, and indeed I will now be adding that as a category here, meaning I have to go back and edit quite a few old posts. This marker, however, is only the second one I've posted on any of my blogs to highways, the other being the Black and Yellow Road near Gillette.
Henry B. Joy Memorial, Interstate 80, Albany County Wyoming.
This is a monument to one of the founders of the Lincoln Highway, located along its successor, Interstate 80. The art deco memorial was created in 1938, the "L" cement markers are markers for the Lincoln Highway that can be found here and there along its route.
While this blog started out with war memorials, it's covered quite a few trail markers over the years, and indeed I will now be adding that as a category here, meaning I have to go back and edit quite a few old posts. This marker, however, is only the second one I've posted on any of my blogs to highways, the other being the Black and Yellow Road near Gillette.
This marker is quite elaborate and very nice, being both a suitable marker for the Lincoln Highway and a nice example of an art deco piece of art.
Wyoming has also commemorated the highway, the noted individual, and the marker, with its own highway sign.
All of this is located at the same rest stop on Albany County that the Lincoln Memorial is located at. Of note, this marker was moved from its original location, which might have been one that was preferred by the individual commemorated by the marker.
August 15, 1919. The Motor Transport Convoy reaches Ft. Bridger and tensions rise on the border.
The Motor Transport Convoy left Green River and made 63 miles to Ft. Bridger, opting to stay on the location of that former post. The post had been occupied intermittently since the 1840s, but had been last abandoned by the Army in 1890.
The entry that day was the longest to date because of the diarist interest in a significant engineering project the party undertook.
The trip made the local papers retrospectively.
At the same time, it looked like the tensions on the border with Mexico were about to erupt into war once again. The Cheyenne, Casper and Laramie newspapers took note of the renewed tensions and didn't take note of the Motor Convoy at all.
Closer to that border, an item for today?
The trip made the local papers retrospectively.
At the same time, it looked like the tensions on the border with Mexico were about to erupt into war once again. The Cheyenne, Casper and Laramie newspapers took note of the renewed tensions and didn't take note of the Motor Convoy at all.
Closer to that border, an item for today?
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Some Gave All: Abraham Lincoln Memorial, Interstate 80, Wyoming
Given all the recent entries here about the 1919 Motor Transport Convoy's trip on the Lincoln Highway: Some Gave All: Abraham Lincoln Memorial, Interstate 80, Wyoming:
Abraham Lincoln Memorial, Interstate 80, Wyoming
This is the very large bronze of Abraham Lincoln located on Interstate 80 just east of Laramie, Wyoming. Interstate 80 is located on what was once the Lincoln Highway, hence explaining the very large bronze, which is otherwise somewhat unusual for a Wyoming monument.
August 14, 1919. The Red Desert "exerting a depressing influence" on the personnel of the 1919 Motor Transport Convoy.
On this day in 1919, the diarist for the 1919 Motor Transport Convoy reported that parched landscape of the Red Desert was exhibiting a "depressing influence on personnel".
And they had a fair amount of trouble including a breakdown that required an Indian motorcycle to be loaded into the Militor.
You'd see a lot of motorcycles on the same stretch of lonely highway today. The highway itself is unyielding busy but the desert is still a long stretch in Wyoming. People either love it or find it dispiriting even now.
Oddly, Rock Springs hardly obtained mention in today's entry, even though it is now a larger city than nearby Green River, which is the county seat. But it is remarkable to note that the convoy was able to stop, grind a valve, and get back on the road, which is what they did, having the valve ground (or probably grinding it themselves, in Rock Springs.
The final destination that day was Green River, which they arrived in relatively late in the evening, in comparison with other days reported in the diary, after a 13.5 hour day.
Rawlins was the last substantial town that the convoy had passed through prior to this day, and its paper memorialized their stay in the and through the town with a series of photographs in the paper that was issued on this day.
The Casper paper mentioned another momentous event, the transfer of 14,000 acres from the Wind River Indian Reservation to be open for homesteading, a post World War One effort to find homesteads for returning soldiers.
That act was part of a series of similar ones that had chipped away at the size of the Reservation since its founding in the 1860s. While the Reservation remains large, it was once larger until events like this slowly reduced its overall extent.
14,000 acres is actually not that much acreage, but what this further indicates is an appreciation on the part of the government that the land around Riverton Wyoming was suitable for farming, as opposed to grazing. The various homestead acts remained fully in effect in 1919 and indeed 1919 was not surprisingly the peak year for homesteading in the United States, as well as the last year in American history in which farmers had economic parity with urban dwellers. But the land remaining in the West that was suitable for farming, as opposed to grazing, was now quite limited. Some of that land was opening up with irrigation projects, however.
None of this took into mind, really, what was just for the native residents of the Reservation and that lead to the protests in Chicago. Interestingly, those protests do not seem to have been undertaken by Arapaho and Shoshone tribal members, who indeed would have been a long way from home, but rather from Indians who were living in those areas, showing how the the efficient development of the spreading of news was impacting things.
Locally Judge Winters was stepping down as he felt that private practice would be more lucrative and he'd be better able to support his family Judge Winter was a legendary local judge and his son also entered the practice of law. While I may be mistaken, Judge Winter came back on the bench later, perhaps after his children were older. His son was a great University of Wyoming track and field athlete and graduated from the University of Wyoming's law school in the 1930s. Because of the Great Depression, he was unable to find work at first and therefore only took up practicing law after the Depression eased. He was still practicing, at nearly 100 years old, when I first was practicing law and he had an office in our building. He and his wife never had any children.
You'd see a lot of motorcycles on the same stretch of lonely highway today. The highway itself is unyielding busy but the desert is still a long stretch in Wyoming. People either love it or find it dispiriting even now.
Classic, retired, Union Pacific Depot in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
Union Pacific freight station, Rock Springs.
Oddly, Rock Springs hardly obtained mention in today's entry, even though it is now a larger city than nearby Green River, which is the county seat. But it is remarkable to note that the convoy was able to stop, grind a valve, and get back on the road, which is what they did, having the valve ground (or probably grinding it themselves, in Rock Springs.
Rawlins was the last substantial town that the convoy had passed through prior to this day, and its paper memorialized their stay in the and through the town with a series of photographs in the paper that was issued on this day.
The Casper paper mentioned another momentous event, the transfer of 14,000 acres from the Wind River Indian Reservation to be open for homesteading, a post World War One effort to find homesteads for returning soldiers.
That act was part of a series of similar ones that had chipped away at the size of the Reservation since its founding in the 1860s. While the Reservation remains large, it was once larger until events like this slowly reduced its overall extent.
14,000 acres is actually not that much acreage, but what this further indicates is an appreciation on the part of the government that the land around Riverton Wyoming was suitable for farming, as opposed to grazing. The various homestead acts remained fully in effect in 1919 and indeed 1919 was not surprisingly the peak year for homesteading in the United States, as well as the last year in American history in which farmers had economic parity with urban dwellers. But the land remaining in the West that was suitable for farming, as opposed to grazing, was now quite limited. Some of that land was opening up with irrigation projects, however.
None of this took into mind, really, what was just for the native residents of the Reservation and that lead to the protests in Chicago. Interestingly, those protests do not seem to have been undertaken by Arapaho and Shoshone tribal members, who indeed would have been a long way from home, but rather from Indians who were living in those areas, showing how the the efficient development of the spreading of news was impacting things.
Locally Judge Winters was stepping down as he felt that private practice would be more lucrative and he'd be better able to support his family Judge Winter was a legendary local judge and his son also entered the practice of law. While I may be mistaken, Judge Winter came back on the bench later, perhaps after his children were older. His son was a great University of Wyoming track and field athlete and graduated from the University of Wyoming's law school in the 1930s. Because of the Great Depression, he was unable to find work at first and therefore only took up practicing law after the Depression eased. He was still practicing, at nearly 100 years old, when I first was practicing law and he had an office in our building. He and his wife never had any children.
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
Today In Wyoming's History: The Spring Creek Raid.
Today In Wyoming's History: The Spring Creek Raid.:
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.
Echoes of Elbert County: Going To Yellowstone (1919) by Lila Tyler
Echoes of Elbert County: Going To Yellowstone (1919) by Lila Tyler: In 1919, my husband's grandfather's family drove to Yellowstone in Model T Fords. Merle Adams was twelve when they made the trip....
August 13, 1919. Rawlins to the Red Desert.
If the diarist had found the prior day a bleak one, he most definitely did today.
The roads in Wyoming were, simply put, bad and the Lincoln Highway at this time made wide use of an an abandoned Union Pacific railroad bed, that being, undoubtedly, the bed of the original transcontinental rail line which is visible throughout its old course, both in the form of the bed itself and on the ash path on either side of it. So going was slow, and at one point a very wide detour had to be made.
At the end of the day, for the first time on the trip, the convoy camped out in an unoccupied area with no nearby towns or cities. This is probably the camp at which Dwight Eisenhower famously told the party to expect an Indian attack as a joke.
In other military endeavors, ammunition ships that were started before the war continued to be finished.
Man-o-War, the racehorse named after a type of ship, was defeated for the first time on this day in 1919 by a horse named, appropriately enough, Upset
The roads in Wyoming were, simply put, bad and the Lincoln Highway at this time made wide use of an an abandoned Union Pacific railroad bed, that being, undoubtedly, the bed of the original transcontinental rail line which is visible throughout its old course, both in the form of the bed itself and on the ash path on either side of it. So going was slow, and at one point a very wide detour had to be made.
At the end of the day, for the first time on the trip, the convoy camped out in an unoccupied area with no nearby towns or cities. This is probably the camp at which Dwight Eisenhower famously told the party to expect an Indian attack as a joke.
In other military endeavors, ammunition ships that were started before the war continued to be finished.
Monday, August 12, 2019
Transportation and Subsidies. Forgetting they're out there.
Advertisement for an Owen Magnetic, an early electric car manufactured from 1915 to 1921. Early on there were a lot of electric automobiles offered for sale before they lost out to gasoline powered vehicles.
Readers of the Tribune have probably noticed that actions by our local politicians sometimes only really show up in the news when they draw the opposition of some national body. The effort, for example, to tax retailers with multi state operations that looked like it was going to pass drew the opposition of some organization that billed itself as promoting "modern taxation", or something like that, at that point. That bill died soon thereafter, although it may be back in the coming legislative session.
In this weekend's Tribune, Wyoming Senator Barasso has drawn rare opposition from a group associated in some fashion with petroleum. The organization's nature isn't clear to me, and I'm not criticizing it (and it doesn't have a camouflaged name, to its credit) but what is clear is that its spokesman, Thomas J. Pyle, is opposed to a highway infrastructure bill that Senator Barasso sponsored which would provide 1 billion dollars in subsidies to electric car charging stations. The bill itself is a $287 billion infrastructure bill. The opposition is framed in the form of one promoting free enterprise. Mr. Pyle states, in his op-ed, the gist of his argument as follows:
Again, I'm not arguing one way or another here, but it should be obvious to everyone that transportation is already subsidized in innumerable ways. Indeed, anyone reading our series of posts on the 1919 Army transcontinental motor transport convoy will have noticed that. The trip was on the Lincoln Highway, which was nothing much more than a designation of a route at that point, but even then a lot of public money was going into it. It was mostly state money at that point, but its interesting to note how the Army was repairing and improving the road it was testing as it moved along.
Soon after that state funds for highways would become a feature of American life. Nobody today thinks of that as a subsidy, but in fact it is. It's an automobile subsidy. The country could have relied upon unimproved roads indefinitely, or it could have made the roads pay for themselves as toll roads, but it didn't. Public monies started being spent on roads in massive amounts in the 1910s and its never stopped. After World War Two Federal money came in in a massive way and that's never stopped. Wyoming may decry the influence of the Federal government on various things routinely, but we never decry receiving Federal highway dollars.
The subsidization of highways is directly harmful to another industry, the railroads. Railroad were so good in the U.S. in the 1910s that they'd actually caused prior roads, albeit wagon roads, to atrophy. But public funding for highways reversed that and harmed railroads in a way that they've never really recovered from. There's no reason at all that almost all ground interstate transportation couldn't be by rail. . . except for the subsidization of the highways.
The railroads themselves, however, were in fact subsidized early on through the provision of land grands to railroads in order to encourage them to expand. This started in the 1860s and it didn't last long, but it didn't need to as an incentive. The provision of land to railroads in the West made them rich in land to sell and in mineral rights associated with the land.
That incentivizing feature is significant here in that both the highway system and the railroad grants were designed in order to boost the industries that used them, which was thought of as beneficial to the nation. Railroads acquired eminent domain from governments and then land grands from the Federal Government as the nation wanted to promote rail transportation. Without those, it would have been very slow to advance, if it would have at all. Highways were likewise thought of as advancing the cause of transportation, something not lost on the automobile industry which even sent its own vehicles along on the 1919 convoy.
And of course, more recently we have the example of the Federal administration of air travel. That really commenced with the Air Commerce Act of 1926, but here too, it's a subsidy to air travel.
Should the government fund electric car charging stations? I don't know, but the thought is clearly to put them in places that they aren't going to get to quickly in order to boost the advancement of electric vehicles. And electric vehicles are coming. They've already reached the point where they are a very expensive alternative to fuel burning vehicles and they're out there. Ford has announced that its introducing an electric version of the F150 in the very near future. Harley Davidson has an electric motorcycle that its made and its just waiting.
Part of what everyone in the automobile industry is waiting for is the spread of charging stations. Right now, it takes about ten hours to completely recharge a depleted Tesla battery. That's probably no big deal if you are only driving your Tesla locally, but it is a big deal if you are trying to make highway miles anywhere.
There actually are more Tesla charging stations in the West than a person might suppose, including in Wyoming. To my surprise, in looking it up, there's a complete set of them along I80 and another on I25. On state highways, Riverton, Lusk and (not surprisingly) Jackson have them. So they're getting out there. Having adequate charging stations are undoubtedly a key part of the advancement of the design. Longer battery life, however, and quicker charging times, will really be the key to the real advancement of electric vehicles, but that day is very rapidly coming.
Should Congress try to speed up that advance? Well, it is, assuming that the bill makes it through Congress. A person can of course debate whether the subsidy is a good thing or not, and why it is a good thing or not. But in Pyle's conclusion, there's something missing:
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*E85 is a type of Ethanol, and Ethanol has been subsidized by the Federal Government in the past. Legislation is what made ethanol as common as it now is as a fuel.
In this weekend's Tribune, Wyoming Senator Barasso has drawn rare opposition from a group associated in some fashion with petroleum. The organization's nature isn't clear to me, and I'm not criticizing it (and it doesn't have a camouflaged name, to its credit) but what is clear is that its spokesman, Thomas J. Pyle, is opposed to a highway infrastructure bill that Senator Barasso sponsored which would provide 1 billion dollars in subsidies to electric car charging stations. The bill itself is a $287 billion infrastructure bill. The opposition is framed in the form of one promoting free enterprise. Mr. Pyle states, in his op-ed, the gist of his argument as follows:
Fundamentally, taxpayers should not be paying for private infrastructure. Where there is a need for electric vehicle infrastructure, private companies can provide it. Electric vehicles should be no exception.He goes on to make these points:
It should be obvious that subsidizing retail outlets for a particular product is not a proper role for government, but since we seem to be heading in that direction, let’s look at it in other contexts.
Should federal taxpayers subsidize the construction of gas stations? After all, the vast majority of cars are gasoline-powered.
Or, speaking of niche products, should we subsidize the construction of E85 pumps, which can dispense fuel with up to 85 percent ethanol? There are far more flex-fuel capable vehicles on the road than there are electric vehicles.
I'm not going to comment on this particular subsidy one way or another. People can make up their own minds about that. But the thing I think is interesting here is the degree to which Americans disassociate the subsidization of transportation infrastructure from their stated beliefs about the "free market". Indeed, I've often thought that Americans support the free market, except where it applies to them personally, in which case whatever it is should be free. Automobile transportation, which is what Mr. Pyle is addressing, already is subsidized, although not in the fashion he noted (although on E85, that was the product of a type of subsidization).*Or more speculatively, compressed natural gas is a potential transportation fuel, so why not include that as well?
Again, I'm not arguing one way or another here, but it should be obvious to everyone that transportation is already subsidized in innumerable ways. Indeed, anyone reading our series of posts on the 1919 Army transcontinental motor transport convoy will have noticed that. The trip was on the Lincoln Highway, which was nothing much more than a designation of a route at that point, but even then a lot of public money was going into it. It was mostly state money at that point, but its interesting to note how the Army was repairing and improving the road it was testing as it moved along.
Soon after that state funds for highways would become a feature of American life. Nobody today thinks of that as a subsidy, but in fact it is. It's an automobile subsidy. The country could have relied upon unimproved roads indefinitely, or it could have made the roads pay for themselves as toll roads, but it didn't. Public monies started being spent on roads in massive amounts in the 1910s and its never stopped. After World War Two Federal money came in in a massive way and that's never stopped. Wyoming may decry the influence of the Federal government on various things routinely, but we never decry receiving Federal highway dollars.
The subsidization of highways is directly harmful to another industry, the railroads. Railroad were so good in the U.S. in the 1910s that they'd actually caused prior roads, albeit wagon roads, to atrophy. But public funding for highways reversed that and harmed railroads in a way that they've never really recovered from. There's no reason at all that almost all ground interstate transportation couldn't be by rail. . . except for the subsidization of the highways.
The railroads themselves, however, were in fact subsidized early on through the provision of land grands to railroads in order to encourage them to expand. This started in the 1860s and it didn't last long, but it didn't need to as an incentive. The provision of land to railroads in the West made them rich in land to sell and in mineral rights associated with the land.
That incentivizing feature is significant here in that both the highway system and the railroad grants were designed in order to boost the industries that used them, which was thought of as beneficial to the nation. Railroads acquired eminent domain from governments and then land grands from the Federal Government as the nation wanted to promote rail transportation. Without those, it would have been very slow to advance, if it would have at all. Highways were likewise thought of as advancing the cause of transportation, something not lost on the automobile industry which even sent its own vehicles along on the 1919 convoy.
And of course, more recently we have the example of the Federal administration of air travel. That really commenced with the Air Commerce Act of 1926, but here too, it's a subsidy to air travel.
Should the government fund electric car charging stations? I don't know, but the thought is clearly to put them in places that they aren't going to get to quickly in order to boost the advancement of electric vehicles. And electric vehicles are coming. They've already reached the point where they are a very expensive alternative to fuel burning vehicles and they're out there. Ford has announced that its introducing an electric version of the F150 in the very near future. Harley Davidson has an electric motorcycle that its made and its just waiting.
Part of what everyone in the automobile industry is waiting for is the spread of charging stations. Right now, it takes about ten hours to completely recharge a depleted Tesla battery. That's probably no big deal if you are only driving your Tesla locally, but it is a big deal if you are trying to make highway miles anywhere.
There actually are more Tesla charging stations in the West than a person might suppose, including in Wyoming. To my surprise, in looking it up, there's a complete set of them along I80 and another on I25. On state highways, Riverton, Lusk and (not surprisingly) Jackson have them. So they're getting out there. Having adequate charging stations are undoubtedly a key part of the advancement of the design. Longer battery life, however, and quicker charging times, will really be the key to the real advancement of electric vehicles, but that day is very rapidly coming.
Should Congress try to speed up that advance? Well, it is, assuming that the bill makes it through Congress. A person can of course debate whether the subsidy is a good thing or not, and why it is a good thing or not. But in Pyle's conclusion, there's something missing:
So, if you see Sen. Barrasso at the coffee shop this summer, tell him to pull the plug on the giveaway for electric vehicle charging stations. We shouldn’t let the Democrats inject their Green New Deal into the highway bill.And that thing would be, if we're already subsidizing transportation massively, favoring ground road transportation over everything else, and favoring retaining viable air service, shouldn't we at least recognize that?
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*E85 is a type of Ethanol, and Ethanol has been subsidized by the Federal Government in the past. Legislation is what made ethanol as common as it now is as a fuel.
August 12, 1919 Medicine Bow to Rawlins, Wyoming on the Motor Transport Convoy
Lincoln Highway marker at Ft. Fred Steele.
The diarist wasn't impressed with the roads or the conditions in any fashion. Indeed, he reported Ft. Steele as being the only pleasant spot on the journey.
Today the highway doesn't pass through Ft. Steele as it once did, but is located several miles to the south. Interestingly, there is a campground near the current Interstate Highway.
Union Pacific depot in Rawlins. This would have been a busy depot in 1919.
On the same day, men were busy at work elsewhere in the West.
Water troughs at Thompsons Cattle Camp. Wenaha N.F. 43264A. USDA, Forest Service, Umatilla National Forest, Oregon. August 12, 1919.
And overseas, a photographer took a reminder of the cost of the recent war.
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