A Mixed Bag for April

April 2014

This month we offer an eclectic selection of new stuff: a bio of the contradictory Calamity Jane; an interview with longtime Secretary of State Thyra Thompson; a history of an often forgotten Indian Wars campaign; an item on state promotion of dry farming methods early in the 1900s; a brief history of Pathfinder Dam on the North Platte River—and finally, some thoughts from the editors on how we manage, when lucky enough to hear about them from our readers, to learn from our mistakes. Enjoy!

Calamity Jane
Was she a hard-drinking, swashbuckling mule skinner and Indian fighter? Or an alcoholic prostitute, stuck in menial jobs in a life both dreary and mundane? Calamity Jane's life is two stories: the facts of her biography, and the romantic tales that came to comprise the Calamity Jane legend. Read writer Rebecca Hein’s article at www.wyohistory.org/essays/calamity-jane.

Thyra Thomson
WyoHistory.org recently posted the audio and transcript of an interview with five-term Wyoming Secretary of State Thyra Thomson, who died last year at the age of 96. Listen to or read her remarkable story at www.wyohistory.org/oral-histories/thyra-thomson-wyoming-secretary-state-1963-1987.

Connor’s Powder River Expedition of 1865
On Aug. 29, 1865, troops under Brig. Gen. Patrick E. Connor attacked an Arapaho village near present Ranchester, Wyo. Connor’s detachment was part of a much larger expedition ordered to subjugate the warring Cheyenne, Sioux and Arapaho in the Powder River Basin. Overall success was mixed. Connor was relieved of his command. Read writer Ellis Hein’s article atwww.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/connor’s-powder-river-expedition-1865.

Dry Farming
In Wyoming, dry farming—growing crops without irrigation—began to become popular in the early 1900s. Vernon T. Cooke, first state director of dry farming, was extremely influential in promoting the method. Today, the University of Wyoming’s experimental agricultural station continues to develop dry farming techniques. Read Carl V. Hallberg’s article at www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/dry-farming-wyoming.

Dams
Wyoming’s Pathfinder Dam was named for the explorer John C. Frémont, “the great pathfinder,” but the name could apply as well to the engineering trail blazed there in the early years of the Bureau of Reclamation. When completed in 1909 on the North Platte River, 47 miles southwest of Casper, Pathfinder Dam was a triumph of early 20th century design. This article, supplied by the National Park Service, completes our series on Wyoming’s dams. Read more about Pathfinder at www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/pathfinder-dam.

Getting Things Right
We had the good luck recently to learn of errors in two WyoHistory.org articles published some time ago. We’ve fixed them, but if it weren’t for alert readers who took the trouble to let us know, we’d never have learned of these mistakes in the first place.

Until now, the fifth paragraph of Emilene Ostlind’s natural history of the North Platte River Basin began “Prehistoric people didn’t leave much evidence in Wyoming …” Wrong. An archeologist friend reminded us there are thousands of archeological sites in Wyoming. We think of big, rare spectacular ones—like the Medicine Wheel, for example, the Vore Buffalo Jump or Legend Rock. But our friend reminded us there are thousands more places where early people left not just stone tools or arrowheads but fire pits, campsites, midden heaps (garbage dumps), and scatterings of rock chips left behind when someone makes a stone point.

Ostlind is primarily a nature and science writer. She’s a quick study who knows a great deal about Wyoming’s history and natural history. But she’s no archeologist, and the text of this passage was written primarily by her editors, who thought they knew more than they did.

Last week, another reader informed us that our biography of former Wyoming House Speaker Verda James was wrong “or at least misleading” in its claim that James was the first woman speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives. The reader included a list of speakers from the Wyoming secretary of state’s office to support her contention. We checked out more sources and phoned our friend Phil Roberts, professor of history at the University of Wyoming. Besides learning we were wrong, we learned some interesting other things, as well. Phil, as usual, had some stories to tell.

The reader who contacted us has recently been researching Edness Kimball Wilkins, who like Verda James was a longtime legislator from Natrona County in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. In the mid-1960s, Wilkins was serving as majority leader, the number two position in the House, when the speaker, Walter Phelan, died in office. That made it nearly automatic that her Democratic colleagues would name her speaker after Phelan’s death. This was in May 1966, and the Legislature would not return for another session until the following winter, in 1967. That fall, however, Wilkins ran for the Senate, and won, and so she never actually acted as speaker of the House—holding the gavel, running the debates, etc.

Phil Roberts remembers Wilkins was testy on this subject, and never much liked it when James was named, as she often was, as first woman speaker. The fact that they were from opposite parties and the same town may have added to the friction. So now we have an article that says James was the first woman to serve a full term as speaker of the House. True enough, but it begs for Wilkins bio, too, which we’ll get to sooner than we would have otherwise.

All because we got something wrong, and a reader was kind enough to let us know about it. So please, if you find a mistake, drop us a note: editor@wyohistory.org. Thanks!