Fort Laramie - The First Commander

I have not been very active on this site the past few months. But, with this blog in its 13^th year, I am not giving up, only taking a break. Today’s post will be number 297, meaning through the blogs 12-year run I have been posting, on average, twice each month. That now will be my goal to post twice each month, maybe I will get on a good run and post three sometime.

From a recent hike in Guernsey, Wyoming State Park

I have been spending most of my writing time, researching and writing a nonfiction book about Fort Laramie. What follows is a selection from one of the tales of Fort Laramie Commanders that found its way into my new book.

Sitting in a dead Cottonwood

Major Winslow F. Sanderson had the honor of being the first to command Fort Laramie. Major Sanderson received the commission of Brevet-Major, August 20, 1847, for meritorious conduct in the Mexican War. Sanderson was part of the mounted rifles who prided in being part cavalry, and part infantry, a specialty group of mobile infantry. 

Major Sanderson reached Fort Laramie on June 16, 1849, the date now recognized as the opening of Fort Laramie as a military fort. Sanderson arrived at the fort after traveling more than 600 miles from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and remained in command until September 4, 1850.[i]

After his time at Fort Laramie, Winslow Sanderson never returned to the west and died under mysterious circumstances three years after leaving Fort Laramie. Officially the cause of his death, in Galveston, Texas was listed as a recurrence of Yellow Fever, but his family and friends suspected he was poisoned.[ii] After Sanderson’s death, his family accused several household servants from the Palmetto House in Galveston where he died, of stealing his money. Nothing came of the murder or theft claims. The claims were based on the fact that although Sanderson was traveling no money was found on him or in his possessions after his death. Meanwhile, one household servant made a small purchase with a $100, Bank of Alabama bill, and two other similar bills were found. No evidence ever connected the bills to Sanderson, and the case quietly went away.[iii] 

 

Drink time from the river

In Other News

On Turning 70 – My newest book and my shortest is out. It is a story of reflection on turning 70 years of age. The book is not only reflective but full of humor and nostalgia. If you are getting, as we used to hear, “up there in years,” give it a try, it’s a quick hour or hour and a half read. This one, like all of my books, is available in soft cover or as an eBook. Here is the link to the $1.99 eBook.

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[i] John Dishon McDermott & Gordon Chappell, Annals of Wyoming, Vol 38, No 1, 5-48

[ii] Daniel, C. (n.d.). Letter from Charles Daniel to Thomas Daniel on the death of Major Sanderson of yellow fever. Retrieved April 15, 2017, from http://hdl.handle.net/1911/37311.

(1853) Rice University

[iii] Ibid

A Busy Summer

This has been a very busy summer – not sure why. I have spent precious little time researching the two nonfiction books I am working on, and too few hours out with my cameras.  Now with school back in session, and the summer winding down. it is time to get back in the groove.

This week I thought I might post a few Wyoming wildlife photos I have managed the past few weeks.

I spent some time at an event in Sunrise, Wyoming last weekend and will be heading back there this Saturday for another event. It is terrific to see this old place being brought back to life. It also gives me a chance to sell a few books and talk with many interesting people. 

Meanwhile, two of my Wyoming historical mysteries are selling at a record (for me) pace. If you have a chance take a look here at my Amazon author page and take a look at, Commitment, and The Ghost Dance, and read a free sample of Wyoming fiction.

And at the end of the day a wonderful sunset - this one from last evening in beautiful Guernsey State Park.

A Sunday Drive

Working on a re-do of how this site looks. So far, a lot of do-overs, but I will get there soon.   

Sunning

We took an enjoyable drive yesterday and were once again reminded of how beautiful Wyoming can be. To some it looks terribly empty, to others, there is too much to see. 

Playing with the colors a bit

Snow in the mountains

If this one is blurry, they were in an all out run - 55, or so MPH

All of the photos are from that two hour and ten-minute drive. 

Young Mule Deer

Horses enjoying the new growth grass

Thoughts on a Warm March Day

Interesting to see the big storm in the east when here in Wyoming I spent three hours sitting on the deck in a short sleeve shirt drinking iced tea. Hope all is well on the coast, and no one is injured by the storm, looks like a bad one.

We often get a bad rap for our terrible Wyoming weather, but not so bad today. In my little part of the state, the weather is our well-kept secret. With mountains a few miles to the west, we seem to live in a moderate climate, not much wind and much warmer than most non-Wyomingites would guess. I have played golf at least twice in 34 of the past 36 months. Today my tomato plants are eight days old and sitting in the sun on the deck. Enough bragging about the weather.

When I was researching my newest novel, I am waiting for the proof now.  I read through many pages of material about the closing of Fort Laramie, The Wounded Knee massacre and Wyoming statehood, all which took place in 1890.

Oddly of all the forts in Wyoming, the 41 years, that Fort Laramie existed was the longest of any fort in the state. It shows the short amount of years that passed with westward expansion, the 49ers, the Indian wars, the transcontinental railroad, the telegraph and the pony express. What a time in Wyoming and what a time in the west.

Cover of my new book - Photo from Fort Laramie
If the proof is good the book will  be available in a few days

  

For many years I had my students do a paper on, What time in history would you go back to, if time travel were possible? They could pick any time period in American history and surprisingly quite a few picked the 1950s and 1960s, my time – maybe I talked too much about my growing up years. Of course, many picked the Oregon Trail or 49ers time. A few always wanted early America and the founding fathers. I told them I wanted the 1820-1840 mountain man time, I always wanted to be a mountain man, but now looking at the time, 1849-1890 of Fort Laramie, that would have been historically fascinating.

Photo from last year at Fort Laramie - Fur Trade Days

Speaking of interesting times in history, in the photo below I am standing by, what I believe, is the only remaining cap house, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, in America. This one is in great shape in Guernsey State Park. Oh, by the way, a cap house stored dynamite caps, far away from the dynamite.

This photo was taken early this week on a terrific day to be in the park.

So ends my thoughts on a beautiful Wyoming day. 

Wyoming Mule Deer

Battle Mountain Wyoming

The Tale of Two Mountains Named Battle

Wyoming boasts, not one but two Battle Mountains. One of the  Battle Mountain’s and the more famous of the two is in the Medicine Bow Range on Wyoming’s southern border and sits near the tiny hamlet of Savery, peaking at a bit over 9,100 feet, about 3,000 feet more than the surrounding area. The second is in Sublette County south and east of Jackson and is described more often as a hill than a mountain with an elevation of 7,100 feet.

As readers might guess, each was named after a famous battle. Or in the case of the Sublette Mountain a bit of a disturbance. In reality, the battle was but a misunderstanding of hunting rights in the area. In 1895 a posse from Jackson was sent to arrest a small party of Bannocks for game law violations. Seems the area had been a long time hunting ground for the tribe, but now with Wyoming being a state for five years there were rules about hunting. Never mind that the Bannock tribe had hunted the area for generations.

The Battle Mountain in southern Carbon County boasts a much better reason for its name.  It was the setting for an 1841 battle between 35 members of the American Fur Company and what has been described as a large group of Cheyenne and Sioux. Several trappers, including Henry Fraeb (also spelled as Frapp), the group’s leader, were killed. Beloved Wyoming mountain man, Jim Baker at age 21,  became the new leader of the trapper bunch when Fraeb was killed, and barely escaped with his life. The furious battle led to the changing of Bastion Mountain’s name, to Battle Mountain.

Battle Mountain and Battle Lake - Site of the 1841 battle

                   

Note – There is also a nice Wyoming legend of Thomas Edison camping at the foot of Battle Mountain and fishing in Battle Lake when he was struck with the inspiration to create an electric light. Great story if it’s true!

Wyoming Wildlife

Random Thoughts on a Windy Wyoming Day

Today in my little part of Wyoming we are experiencing warm weather, in the mid-fifties, and incredible wind. Weather app says winds are blowing 25-45 with gusts to 60. Good day to stay inside.

Bison - The two main species of Buffalo in the world reside in Africa. In America we have Bison, and lots of them, over a half million by recent count.  For some odd reason, in the past two years sportscasters have started to pronounce Bison when talking about the North Dakota State Bison as if it were – Bye -zzon, instead of the correct Bye-son. Drives me nuts, but since they keep doing it, I guess no one else either notices or cares. Hope I never read a novel with hunters or native tribes are off, hunting bizzon.

Pronghorn - In that same vain people in the west have referred to Pronghorn as Antelope for years. There are 91 species of Antelope but none in the western hemisphere. As for the Pronghorn there is only one, and in Wyoming, we have a varied population that now numbers around 400,000, it was as high as 600,000 plus, as recently as 2005, but drought and bad winters have moved the total lower. I hunted Pronghorn for years and enjoyed it, but now hunt only with my camera and they are a most interesting subject.

American Sagebrush Ecosystem – Looks like sagebrush is on the decline in the west. At first, this may look to not be a problem, but like all ecosystem’s destroying or greatly changing one will gradually change others, much more than at first believed.

Wyoming is also home to 50,000 or so, Mule Deer. We have a terrific population around here, even in town. They can be a menace, especially when they eat the blooms from my strawberries and tops from my tomatoes. They also love to take a bite from green tomatoes, sorry deer it’s not an apple, then spit it out. How many albino mule deer are there in the state? Well, that’s a good question. I have found researchers that say one in 500,000 others that say it could be much lower, one in 20,000. That means we, have two at any one time or one every ten years. Either way, it is exciting to see one. 

Wyoming Day and Books For Sale

Looks to me like I missed the only specific Wyoming Holiday – Wyoming Day, which is celebrated each year on December 10.  On that date in 1869 Territorial Governor John Campbell signed the bill that granted women the right to vote. The new law made Wyoming the first to allow the vote and the ability to legally hold elected office to women.

The bill originated because legislators believed the idea of women suffrage would be good publicity for the territory and might bring more single women to the state.

By Wyoming Statute, Wyoming Day, is supposed to be observed in schools and by other groups around the state each year. I am afraid that practice has long since fallen by the wayside. Too bad, this was a most significant step in American rights.

So How Cold Was It? - Seems like this time of year I normally post something about the weather and how tough the cold was on early settlers. I suppose that will be coming soon, but for now, I will only say, “I cannot imagine how early trappers could survive the cold like we had last week with temperatures plunging to double digits below zero.” BURR!

Thank You, Readers - Many thanks to all of the readers that have pushed my latest Wyoming novel, Ghost of the Fawn, up to number 30 in its category in softcover and number 91 in its eBook category.

If you have not given it a look yet, you can read a free sample here. The book was originally written for teenage readers, but it has found a terrific audience with adults. Thanks!

Meanwhile stay warm and keep reading and watching Christmas movies, we watch one nearly every evening. Christmas movies may be mostly sappy, but we need them, we need the feel good and warmth of the stories. I hope they keep them coming for many years to come.

A Nice Christmas Gift – Speaking of Christmas stories, here is the link to my book, from last year, of Christmas stories, you can read the entire first story for free, enjoy. UnderWestern Skies – 14 Tales of Christmas.

*All photos were taken on our Sunday trip to Laramie, Laramie City, in the old days, 100 miles away.

Traveling Back Country Highways

I write fifty, or so, posts each year on this blog and they are all about Wyoming. Now we are leaving for a couple of weeks.

What? You two are leaving? Again?

So here we go again – off on our annual fall trip. This trip will make four of the past five years that we have taken a break and got out of Dodge in late October. It is not because of the weather, which has been unbelievable, just time to do what us old people do – travel a bit. And speaking of Dodge, this will be our second day stop, the old town in Dodge City for the third time. Many think it is over the top touristy, but it is still, fun, interesting, educational and helps with writing inspiration.

My Reto Photo Attempt - I Like It

We will be spending time in Oklahoma, on Route 66 in Texas and then a week in Lousiana. We will also make a trip over to Vicksburg, Mississippi to tour, for the second time, the Civil War Battle Site. Then two or three days to take in some of the shows in Branson, Missouri, followed by a day with family in Nebraska and we will head back home to Wyoming.  Looks like we will be gone two weeks, maybe a few days more. Depending on how much fun we are having and how much money we have left.

I am not sure if I will post anything while we are on the trip, other than a few photos here or on Twitter, but I will get some writing done. We have a few days of rest scheduled where I will sit in the sun, or shade and write, edit, format and all the other things I am behind on.

Maybe I Will Find a Spot Like This

 We schedule our trips well in advance and always have a few things we wish we could be home for. My son coaching his football team in the playoffs, and what looks to be a good Wyoming game this weekend, but I will follow the updates and enjoy the south. Speaking of enjoying, I can hardly wait to get into southern Oklahoma or Northern Texas where many eating places feature fried pies. Not the best thing for my diet, but it only happens once each year.

Meanwhile enjoy the terrific fall weather, winter is not far away.

Last night I had a wonderful time speaking about the Civilian Conservation Corps and the building of Guernsey State Park with the Platte County Historical Society. A truly great evening. 

A Month of Writing

I knew it would happen sooner or later and today is the day. I posted on the wrong site. This post was meant for my writing site but is live here now. I will be posting my normal Wyoming blog post here soon. 

Another month has passed, fall is here, and the colors are terrific.

Writing totals for the Month

I had hoped September would see an uptick in my writing, but instead, I wrote a bit less than last month. This month totaled 17 blog posts and 11,291 words on all of my projects. This brings my total for the year to just under 167,000. I need to pick it up to reach my goal of a quarter of a million words, right now it looks like I will come in around 200,000. My original goal was 350,000 then lowered to 250,000. I am not sure if I set my goals too high, or if I have become lazy. This year is the first that I have kept exact totals so maybe next year will tell the tale of how many words I write each day, month or year.

Sales are up

Although my word total was lacking, my book sales were and still are up. I have three new books nearly ready to go and hope to update my Christmas book to a second edition and get it out before Thanksgiving.  If I do all of that, I should have a good writing month in October.

Saw these little guys in the park yesterday

What a September

Not much writing in September but it was a great month for everything else. We went back to southeast Nebraska for our 50-year high school class reunion – Class of 1966. I also spend some time in the Laramie Range, visited the old Iron mining town of Sunrise, spent a day at the world famous Spanish Diggings and half a day at one of my favorite places, Fort Laramie. My wife and I also, with the cooler temperatures, started our fall hiking at Guernsey State Park.

Sitting on rocks quarried thousands of years ago at the Spanish Diggings

Garden Book 

Oh, and the garden is looking good. Which reminds me, I have not mentioned that one of my works in progress is a gardening book. Tips for beginning gardeners at altitude, and a collection of short murder mysteries that take place in – you guessed it - the garden. It will be a short book, coming in at around 100 pages, but so far I like it. The others will be my second Blade Holms western mystery and the third in my series of children’s books.

No frost yet - but it is October, and coming soon

My two latest published projects, a book and short story, along with my other four books can be found here.

Thanks for keeping, Ghost of the Fawn, and Interview with a Gunfighter, consistently in the top 200 the past month, it is appreciated more than I can ever say.

Oh What Can We Do

A little different slant on today’s posting. I seldom post anything, on any of my blogs, about political goings on. No, not the presidential race, actually no race at all, but instead the all-important money. In politics, money matters.

Wyoming as I am sure all readers of this blog know is going through some tough times, extremely tough. Natural gas prices are down, crude prices are low and for all practical purposes, it looks like the coal industry may be on its last legs. So what can we do?

I, like most, am not sure, but what I do feel strongly about is where we are cutting money. Now don’t take this wrong, we need to cut, what we once had may be gone forever. In the last day or two, I have read several articles about cuts, most talking of why every area needs to be cut.

Every area, really – WHY? This is turning into the equivalent of the modern-day idea that everyone is a winner. Which by the way, they are not. We do not need to keep everyone happy by cutting something from everyone. Cut where and what we must, but not everything.

Tourism

Yesterday I read of deep cuts to the tourism advertising budget. Tourism is fast becoming our number one industry and soon will be. Instead of cuts, this is the one area where we need to spend more, not less. Tourists and their money is Wyoming’s lifeline, and we need it now more than ever.

If we take money from tourism, especially from advertising, or from State Parks and Cultural Resources, we are giving up. Might as well just throw up our hands and ask Washington for money, like so many others.

Just my thoughts but remember the old saying – Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is? We talk about the importance of tourism and supporting our parks and cultural areas because they bring money into the state and reflect well on Wyoming. It is time to back it up.

Oh – Oh – Where Should We Go?

Nearly everyone has heard of Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Jackson Hole and Devils Tower, I have visited and love everyone, but we have more, so much more. How about a trip to see one of the following.·        Hot Springs State Park·        Buffalo, Wyoming and the area around·        Cody, the city, and Museum·        The Trails Center in Casper·        Cheyenne, the capital and Frontier Days·        Any and all of Wyoming’s National Forests and Mountain Ranges·        Fort Laramie – The fort that opened the West·        The incredible Civilian Conservation Corps Museum at Guernsey State Park·        Wild horses, Buffalo, Bears, Elk, Deer and other wildlife·      Hunting, Fishing, backpacking, camping, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, snow machining or how about a Cowboy or Cowgirl game in Laramie?

That is just ten quick things off the top of my rather worn out mind. I am sure there are many more, people, places and things that need to be visited in our great state. Things to do year round, summer, fall winter, spring. We need to keep this in the minds of tourists everywhere, it might be our lifeline to the future.

**All photos today are things I believe everyone enjoys about Wyoming

There you have it, Now if I can just get down from my pedestal . .