Derailed Union Pacific Grain (corn) train, Bosler Wyoming. August 22, 2020.

 

Lex Anteinternet: The Big Picture. Nashville Terminal, 1905.

Lex Anteinternet: The Big Picture. Nashville Terminal, 1905.:

The Big Picture. Nashville Terminal, 1905.

Nashville terminal, 1905

Lex Anteinternet: August 1, 1920. Denver Tramway workers go on strike.

Lex Anteinternet: August 1, 1920. Denver Tramway workers go on strike.:

August 1, 1920. Denver Tramway workers go on strike.

Denver Tramway Building in Denver, which now houses the giant Denver REI outlet.

Workers for Denver Tramway, the cities streetcar company, went on strike on this day in 1920.

Founded in 1886, Denver Tramway had expanded aggressively and become a monopoly in the city.  Its workers founded a union in 1918 and were demanding fare increases in order that their wages could be raised.  Denied their goal, they went out on strike on this day.

 Cable car barn on 14th and Arapahoe.

The company responded by bringing in strike breakers, with the first street car piloted from the cable car barn at 14th and Arapahoe by strike breaker John "Black Jack" Jerome, whom the company had hired to organize strike breakers.  The strike would soon turn violent and up to 1/3d of the cities police reported by August 6 to have received serious injuries.  Denver's mayor called for armed citizens to enforce the peace on that day and Federal troops arrived later that day and restored order.

Cheyenne State Leader from August 1, 1920, noting that strike breakers were being brought in.

The net result was that the union was broken and would not be reorganized until 1933.  Seven Denverites were dead, all of whom were in the nature of bystanders to the violence.

Jerome, who was born Yiannis Petrolekas in Greece, would go on to have a successful career in his dangerous profession.  A poor immigrant to the US who had arrived in 1905, he had first sought his fortune in aviation but in 1917 he changed his name and founded the Jerome Detective Agency.  Having worked in the streetcar industry, he offered its services to strike and union breaking, which made him a rich man.  His company expanded during this time and at one time even employed Dashiell Hammett, prior to his becoming famous.

He invested in real estate and, during the depression, in horse and dog racing.  In 1933 he returned to Greece a rich man, while still retaining business interests in the United States.  He died in San Francisco in 1953, his funeral delayed as an undertakers union went on strike in protest over his having broken a strike of theirs in prior years.

Lex Anteinternet: The Big Picture: Stockyards.

Lex Anteinternet: The Big Picture: Stockyards.:

The Big Picture: Stockyards.

South Omaha, Nebraska.  1908.

Same stockyard, September 1916.

Omaha stockyards, 1914.

Kansas City, 1909

Kansas City, 1907.

Union stockyards, Chicago.  September 1907.

Union stockyards, Chicago.  1899.

Union stockyards, Atlanta Georgia.  January 2, 1909.

Related threads:

Friday Farming: Denver Stockyards, 1939.

Lex Anteinternet: Cowgirls at the Pendleton Round Up, 1911

Lex Anteinternet: Cowgirls at the Pendleton Round Up, 1911

Cowgirls at the Pendleton Round Up, 1911

Blog Mirror: Don't let it end like this

Don't let it end like this

Lex Anteinternet: June 2, 1920. Ships and faraway places.

Note hte engine on the far left:

Lex Anteinternet: June 2, 1920. Ships and faraway places.:

June 2, 1920. Ships and faraway places.

Workmen posing before the launch of the USS Neches, Boston Navy Yard, June 2, 1920.  The ship was an oiler that would serve for 22 years until sunk by the Japanese submarine I-72 on January 23, 1942.

On the same day a Shia revolt commenced in Iraq.  Known as the Great Iraqi Revolt, the revolution would run its course for months before the British were able to put it down.  The British would deploy aircraft using air delivered poisonous gas during the war and at least 8,000 Iraqi lives were lost during the conflict, as well as 500 British lives.

The United States Congress rejected the proposal that the country engage in a League of Nations mandate over Armenia.

Lex Anteinternet: May 29, 1920. Good Roads Week.

Lex Anteinternet: May 29, 1920. Good Roads Week.:

May 29, 1920. Good Roads Week.

First East Bay Ship by Truck Tour, May 17-22, 1920, Robert W. Martland, Train Commander.  Copyright deposit, May 29, 1920.  Not juxtaposition next to railroad. . . a sign of things to come.  The five day tour, which included military and civilian trucks, was part of Good Roads Week.

Lex Anteinternet: A Memorial Day Reflection on the Second World War....

Lex Anteinternet: A Memorial Day Reflection on the Second World War....:

Rio Grande terminal in a less than nifty part of Salt Lake City.

 A  need for an Interstate Highway System, by which is meant a good one, was also noted.

This is one of those things where I'd disagree.  It's often stated that Eisenhower was really impressed with the German Autobahn, which was really a massive German public works project during the pre war Nazi years there, and he may have really been. But I think it was the ongoing evolution of the automobile that made the Interstate Highway System come in.  It was billed a defense program but that was, quite frankly, a funding charade.

What that does bring up, however, is the massive expansion of government that started with the Great Depression and which kept on keeping on during World War Two and which never went away thereafter.  It wasn't until the Reagan administration of the 1980s that contraction of any kind started, and its never contracted to its pre 1932 level.  Prior to the Great Depression the nation would never have undertaken a highway construction project on a national level, and not until World War Two would the country thought of trying to pass it off as a defense measure.

That act, of course, lead to the demise of passenger rail in US, so its another thing that had a mixed result.

Lex Anteinternet: Burlington Northern to layoff 130 and to close two...

Lex Anteinternet: Burlington Northern to layoff 130 and to close two...:

Burlington Northern to layoff 130 and to close two maintenance facilities in Wyoming.

The facilities are in Rozet and Guernsey.  

The slow down in the economy is being cited for the reason, brought about by the COVID 19 pandemic. Combined with that, the BNSF heavily relies upon coal hauling, which has been in decline with the decline in coal.

Suffice it to say, bad news for the employees and for the state as well.

Lex Anteinternet: Trains, Planes and Automobiles. . . and the Coronavirus

Lex Anteinternet: Trains, Planes and Automobiles. . . and the Corona...:

Trains, Planes and Automobiles. . . and the Coronavirus Pandemic

Unless you have a special interest in them, you probably haven't been thinking much about means of transportation lately.



Indeed, you probably haven't been going anywhere much, for that matter.



But because we have a special interest in the topic, and have dedicated blogs on two of the three title items here, we've been thinking about them a little, and we're seeing some interesting things going on.

Burlington Northern Train in Wyoming.

Let's take the oldest topic first, trains.  We have a companion blog that's just dedicated to that topic.  Have the railroad been impacted by the COVID 19 Pandemic? We'll, here's a recent industry magazine headline on what's going on.

US rail traffic falls off a cliff

AAR information shows Intermodal traffic dropped 20% and carloads plunged more than 23% for the week ended April 11

So indeed, it would appear so.



Regionally, at least one of the railroads has been furloughing employees.  Coal is collapsing, there isn't really anywhere near as much oil shipped by rail as there once was and oil is down anyway, and we're entering what appears to be a pretty deep recession.



Not a cheery scenario for the railroads right now at all.



So what about air then?

Denver International Airport B Concourse.

Not looking super either.

Air travel has decreased 96% due to COVID 19.  That's a whopping  huge decrease to say the least.

96%.

Flights locally have been reduced 50%.  No need for all of the old ones, and it's not like they were flying out of here every few minutes as it was.  Cheyenne cancelled a run to Dallas it had (until they cancelled it, I didn't know that they even had one).  

As a minor plus, Cody's airport is going to receive $18,000,000 in the form of a grant, which was a surprise to them, but that is fairly minor in comparison to what's otherwise going on.

Well, all this shouldn't impact automobiles, that old standby, right?

Pontiac Super Chief

Well there'd certainly be good reason to suspect it wouldn't.  Oil is below $20bbl and now at an all time historic low.  Prices at the pump have been dropping.  Should be great for cars, right?

Nope.  Sales of automobiles have crashed.  People just aren't going out and buying, and in a lot of places, of course, they can't.  And they likely don't want to either.

Hired automobile rides, such as Uber, are also down, not surprisingly.

Interesting times.

Lex Anteinternet: The Wyoming Legislature 2020, Part Two

Lex Anteinternet: The Wyoming Legislature 2020, Part Two: March 7, 2020

A lot of bills died this past week, some of which died through a parliamentary move of legislative leaders just not assigning a bill that passed the other house to a committee.  Stuff like that tends to make the bills supporters mad, but its a long established legislative practice and it demonstrates why a leadership position has real power.

So, as to bills that didn't make it.

* * *

And the House bill that required two man train crews died in the Senate.

Lex Anteinternet: March 1, 2020. Railroads Revert To Civilian Control.

Lex Anteinternet: March 1, 2020. Railroads Revert To Civilian Contro...:

March 1, 2020. Railroads Revert To Civilian Control, Caroline Lockhart hits the Screen.

On this day in 1920, the railroads, which had been taken over by the U.S. Government during World War One reverted to civilian control.



The country's rail had been nationalized during the war and then run by the United States Railroad Administration as the system was proving to not be up to the tasks that were imposed upon it due to the crisis of World War One.  Additionally, concerns over pricing and labor unrest called for the action.  Following the war there was some serious consideration given to retaining national control over the lines, which labor favored, but in the end the government returned the system to its owners.

While U.S. administration of the railroad infrastructure was a success, it was not repeated during the Second World War when the rail system was just as heavily taxed by an even heavier wartime demand.  There proved to be no need to do it during World War Two.



Not too surprisingly, the news featured prominently on the cover of Laramie's newspapers, as the Laramie was, and is, a major Union Pacific Railroad town.

Union Pacific Depot in Laramie, Wyoming.

On the same day a movie featuring Wyoming as the location (which doesn't mean it was filmed here), was released.

The 1916 vintage Burlington Northern depot in Casper, Wyoming.

Likewise, the reversion was big news to the double railhead town of Casper.

Former Great Northwestern Depot in Casper.

The Fighting Sheperdess was the story of just that, a fighting female sheep rancher was was struggling to keep her sheep ranch against raiding cattlemen.

In reality, the sheep wars in Wyoming had largely come to an end by this time, although it was definitely within living memory.  The Spring Creek Raid of 1909 had only been a decade prior, and there had been two more raids in 1911 and 1912, although nobody had been killed in those two latter events.  The peace was, however, still an uneasy one, perhaps oddly aided by a massive decline in sheep, which still were vast in number, caused by economic conditions during the 1910s.  By 1914, the number of sheep on Wyoming's ranges had been cut 40% from recent numbers. World War One reversed the decline, and then dumped the industry flat, as the war increased the demand for wool uniforms and then the demand suddenly ended with the end of Germany's fortunes.  Colorado, however, would see a sheep raid as late as this year, 1920.



The novel the movie was based on was by author, Caroline Lockhart, a figure who is still recalled and celebrated in Cody, Wyoming.

Illinois born Lockhart had been raised on a ranch in Kansas and was college educated.  She had aspired to be an actress but turned to writing and became a newspaper reporter in Boston and Philadelphia before moving to Cody, Wyoming in 1904 at age 33, where she soon became a novelist.  During the war years she relocated to Denver, but was back in Cody shortly thereafter, until she purchased a ranch in Montana, showing how successful her writing had become.  She ranched and wrote from there, spending winters in Cody until she retired there in 1950.  She passed away in 1962.



The Fighting Shepherdess was her fifth of seven published novels, the last being published in 1933.

Lex Anteinternet: The Wyoming Legislature 2020, Part Two: Wyoming legislature passes bill requiring trains to have two crewmen.

Lex Anteinternet: The Wyoming Legislature 2020, Part Two: February 28, 2020

In other legislative news, a bill that would require train crews to be no less than two passed.

Former Chicago & Northwester Depot, Lander Wyoming.

Up until now, I've somehow managed to miss putting up a photograph of this former Chicago & Northwestern Depot in Lander, Wyoming, which now serves as the Lander Chamber of Commerce building.  That may be because, as these photos suggest, downtown Lander, in spite of Lander being a small town, is pretty crowded in some ways and I missed the depot early on, and had a hard time catching it in a photographic state later.

Indeed, I never really did catch it in an ideal state to be photographed.

Lander was the western most stop on the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad.  The line sometimes called itself the "Cowboy Line" and this lent itself to the slogan "where the rails end, the trails begin".  In 1973 the railroad abandoned the stretch of the line between Riverton and Lander, and since then of course it's ceased operation entirely.  The railroad, which like many railroads, was the product of mergers and acquisitions and was doing that right up to the late 1960s when its fortunes began to change.

In Wyoming its line ran astride the Burlington Northern's in many locations but it alone ran on to Lander.  Starting in the early 70s, it began to contract in Wyoming and then pulled out altogether.  The Union Pacific purchased its assets at some point, although its now the case that all of its old rail has been pulled.  Indeed, unless you know that the CNW had once run to Lander, you wouldn't know that Lander had once had rail service at all, let alone that it had it as far back as 1906.

Holscher's Hub: Pentax: Built like a tank

Holscher's Hub: Pentax: Built like a tank: So states a professional photography blog naming the Pentax K1 full frame one of the three bests cameras of 2019. And they are. The revi...

Lex Anteinternet: November 28, 1919. The Union Pacific Gives Up, Me...

Lex Anteinternet: November 28, 1919. The Union Pacific Gives Up, Me...:

November 28, 1919. The Union Pacific Gives Up, Mexico erupts, Ships launched and Heroines

The Union Pacific declared that it was giving up the search for Bill Carlisle on this post Thanksgiving Day (prior to it being Black Friday) and it was blaming Wyomingites for that.  It held that they were too sympathetic to the train robber and lambasted the state's residents for that in no uncertain terms.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 21. Trains and Depots in the news.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 21:

Trains and depots figure in Wyoming's history for this day.

November 21

1887  The Wyoming Central Railway opened its line between Douglas and Glenrock, thereby extending its rail service to the state line.

1919  Chasing Carlisle. November 21, 1919

The Hole In the Wall Country, November 2019.

On this day in 1919, the newspapers were reporting that Bill Carlisle was headed for a location that was the archtype of destination for regional bands. . . some twenty years prior.

The Hole In the Wall.

After all, where would a Wyoming train robber on the lam go, other than to the same place that Butch and Sundance had?

Scene from the Red Wall Country, November 2019.

Well, it was a romantic notion.  Wyoming in 1919 wasn't the Wyoming of 1899, or even 1909, no matter how much the thought of a wild flight to the Hole In The Wall might have been fancied the imagination of a people for whom that region had been an impenetrable criminal fortress only a couple of decades prior.

In 1919, the territory was still wild in many ways.  Indeed, the first decade of the 20th Century saw an ongoing range war in the form of a cattlemen v. sheepmen killings.  As late as the latter part of the first decade of the 20th Century a criminal escapee simply disappeared forever.

But by the same token, by 1919 the criminal sanctuary no longer was one. There was no more Hole In The Wall Gang.  Most of the former members of that group were dead, in prison, or reformed.  Following the Tipton train robbery by The Wild Bunch, the authorities were no longer willing to tolerate the lack of law enforcement that allowed it to continue to exist and were willing to expend the resources necessary to penetrate it.  Prior to that happening, the badmen dispersed. Some would return, and as late as the 00s, but they weren't hitting trains.

Carlisle was.

Buffalo Creek Canyon, December 2019.

Indeed, part of the appeal of the Carlisle story is that he was already an anachronism, in his own time.  In 1919, the year after the Great War had ended, a war which had featured aircraft and submarines and mass violence on a mass scale, Carlisle was out on his own, in the vast countryside, raiding trains, badly.

People were sort of rooting for him.

Even as they knew, he'd be caught.

1940  Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn were married in Cheyenne.  The wedding took place at the Union Pacific Depot dining room.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Lex Anteinternet: November 19, 1919. Robbing No. 19 and Rejecting t...

Lex Anteinternet: November 19, 1919. Robbing No. 19 and Rejecting t...:

November 19, 1919. Robbing No. 19 and Rejecting the Versailles Treaty

Robbing a train as soon as you escape the pen for robbing trains does seem like a pretty bad idea.  At least one paper wondered if it was actually him.

You have to wonder what Carlisle was thinking.  How did he plan on getting away with this?

By this time, it was also clear that the proposed Versailles Peace Treaty was in real trouble in the U.S. Senate.

Indeed, it was in so much trouble that on this day in 1919, the Senate voted to reject the Treaty, with Republican opposition to the League of Nations being a major cause of that vote.

There would be a couple of more attempts, but the United States never did ratify the treaty, passing instead a peace treaty with Germany later that adopted much of it, but not all of it. The US would not join the League of Nations.