Yakima, Washington

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-a-week blog), I use an app that provides a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”

I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town or towns I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location. 

To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is) please see “About Landing” above.  To check out some relatively recent changes in how I do things, check out “About Landing (Revisited).”

Landing number 2464; A Landing A Day blog post number 900.  900!!!

Dan:  Let me start out with an apology.  A Landing A Day?  Fuhgeddaboutit.  A Landing A Week?  Fuhgeddaboutit.  It’s been over two weeks.  Well, my life has been a little crazy . . .

Anyway, today’s lat/long (N46^o 36.274’, W120^o 5.627’) puts me in south-central Washington:

Here’s my local landing map, showing my proximity to titular Yakima:

My streams-only map puts me in an ill-defined area where I could be in the Yakima River watershed, or my drainage could go directly to the Columbia River:

A quick visit to Google Earth (GE) eliminated any doubt:

 

I’m looking west, right down my landing valley towards the Yakima River (6^th hit; on to the Columbia (181^st hit).  But what tributary valley did I land in?  Well, I rousted the Orange Dude, and sent him over to the I-82 bridge that crosses said valley:

And, setting himself up on the approach to the bridge, here’s what the OD sees:

Selah Creek!  Thanks much to the Washington DOT for letting me know that I landed in the Selah Creek watershed. 

The OD made is way carefully out to the middle of the bridge, and looked up-valley:

Hmmm.  I wonder why there are wind indicators on the bridge?  So that those crazy guys who jump off bridges with parachutes know which way the wind is blowing?  I don’t think so . . .

While I’m at it, here’s a Wiki shot of the bridge:

Since I already had the OD’s attention, I sent him to a smaller bridge over the Yakima, not too far away.  He looked downstream:

And upstream (with the GoogleMobileCam kind of taking a selfie):

There’s really not much to say about Yakima per se.  So, I went right to Wiki’s list of Notable People.  Now I don’t generally feature sports figures, but every once in a while, something catches my eye.  Well, three somethings caught my eye for Yakima:  the Kupps, the Mahres and the Stottlemeyers.  And yes, they’re all plurals.  I’ll start with the Kupps.

Wiki lists three Kupps:  Cooper, Craig and Jake, each of whom is listed as an NFL football player, and yes, they’re related.  I’ll start with grandpa Jake, born in 1941.  Between 1964 and 1975, he played offensive guard for the Cowboys, the Redskins, the Falcons and the Saints.  He was named to the Pro Bowl as a Saint in 1969.

Jake had a son Craig, born 1967.  He had a brief professional career (just 1991), playing quarterback for the Phoenix Cardinals and the Dallas Cowboys.

Craig had a son Cooper, born 1993.  Cooper is a first-rate receiver for the Rams, who drafted him in 2017.

For the record, the Kupps are the only three-generational family to have each played in the NFL.

Next, the Mahre twins, Phil & Steve.  From Steve’s Wiki entry:

Steve Mahre (born May 10, 1957 in Yakima, Washington) is a former World Cup alpine ski racer and younger twin brother (by four minutes) of ski racer Phil Mahre.

Mahre won the silver medal in slalom at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, 0.21 seconds behind his more celebrated brother. He won the gold medal in giant slalom at the 1982 World Championships in Schladming, Austria.  His best finish in the overall standings was third in 1982 and fourth in 1981 (brother Phil was the overall World Cup champion in 1981, 1982, and 1983).

After nine seasons, the Mahre twins retired from the World Cup circuit following the 1984 season.

Here’s a 1984 Paraguary stamp featuring the Mahres:

After a little research, I found out that Paraguay has a long tradition of featuring Olympic athletes on stamps.  How about that . . .

So what about the Stottlemeyers?  Mel (the senior) was born in 1941 (the same year as Jake Kupp).  A brief summary from Wiki:

Melvin Stottlemyre Sr. (1941 – January 13, 2019) was an American professional baseball pitcher and pitching coach. He played for 11 seasons in Major League Baseball, all for the New York Yankees, and coached for 23 seasons, for the Yankees, New York Mets, Houston Astros, and Seattle Mariners. He was a five-time MLB All-Star as a player and a five-time World Series champion as a coach.

Mel Jr. had a less-than-notable major league career.  After several years with the Minors, he got his chance in 1990 with the Royals.  He played for them in 1990 only, pitched 31 innings and had an 0-1 record with 14 strikeouts.  In the 2000s, he has managed to put together a consistent career as a Major League pitching coach.

Without Mel Jr. I wouldn’t have featured Mel Sr.  It goes without saying that without Mel Sr., Mel Jr. had no chance . . .

Leaving sports behind, let’s move on to Mary Jo Estep.  From Wiki:

Mary Jo Estep (1909  —  1992) was a Bannock Indian child survivor of the Battle of Kelley Creek, “the last massacre” of Native Americans in the United States, in 1911.

The Battle of Kelley Creek was Wiki-clickable:

The Battle of Kelley Creek, also known as the Last Massacre, is often considered as the last known massacre carried out between Native Americans and forces of the United States, and was a closing event to occur near the end of the American Indian warfare era.

Mike Daggett, or Shoshone Mike, was the chief of a small Shoshone band.  In the spring of 1910, he led his group of eleven off the Fort Hall Reservation at Rock Creek, Idaho. In January 1911 the Daggett party was running low on food, so they abducted and butchered some cattle belonging to a local rancher. A sheepherder named Bert Indiano witnessed the event and alerted the people of Surprise Valley, California, who sent a posse of four men to investigate the incident and protect the ranch.

The Daggetts had apparently realized the posse would be coming to find them, so when the posse entered a canyon, the natives opened fire with rifles and pistols, killing all four of them. The bodies were allegedly picked clean and found with numerous gunwounds on a creekbed, weeks later.

The Nevada and California State Police organized a posse to find the suspects.  A large cash bounty was promised to anyone who managed to arrest or kill the fugitives.

Donnelly’s posse included at least five policemen, a few armed civilians, and the “county coroner and physician.  On February 25 (two weeks into their search) the posse found Daggett and his family hiding in an area known as Kelley Creek, northeast of Winnemucca NV. It is unclear which side shot first, but a battle erupted that lasted for around three hours.

The women reportedly fought equally alongside the men. Father and chief Mike Daggett was one of the first casualties during the battle, but his death only made the members of his family desperately fight back harder even as they were inevitably forced back.

At some point during the conflict the remaining Daggetts had run out of ammunition for their guns and were forced to resort to bows, spears and tomahawks. By the end of the battle only four of the original twelve Dagget family members were still alive: a sixteen-year-old girl and three young children.   One member of the posse was mortally wounded during the fight.

By 1913, The sixteen year old and two of the younger children had died of natural causes, and only one of the survivors, Mary Jo Estep was still alive.  The reward offered to anyone who could catch or kill the Daggett party was initially denied to the posse, but the case was later settled in favor of the posse by the Supreme Court.

Wow.  What a story . . .

Next comes Floyd Paxton.  Wiki doesn’t have much to say:

Floyd Paxton (1918 – 1975) was a manufacturer of ball bearings during World War II and later inventor of the bread clip, a notched plastic tag used for sealing bags of bread worldwide.

Paxton conceived the notion of the bread clip when he was flying in 1952; this resulted later in him founding the company Kwik Lok, in Yakima, Washington.

And yes, Yours Truly looked at a loaf of bread in his kitchen (on top of the microwave, where he keeps his bread) and found this:

It’s time for Gary Puckett.  All of you Boomers out there in the ALAD nation (probably the majority of my readers), should know Gary Puckett.  He of the “Gary Puckett and the Union Gap” fame.  OK, Boomers . . .

I didn’t like them back then, and I don’t like them now.  But I found a video of their two biggest hits, “Young Girl” and “Lady Will Power.”  Hang in there for at least few seconds to get the sense of late 60s pop music outside the stuff that I really liked:  the Beatles, the Stones, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Crosby Stills and Nash, Simon & Garfunkle, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, etc., etc:

 

Oh, and yea.  “Union Gap” is a community just south of Yakima:

My last Yakima native is one Arvo ojala.  From Wiki:

Arvo Ojala (1920 – 2005) was a Hollywood technical advisor on the subject of quick-draw with a revolver.  He also worked as an actor; his most famous role was that of the unnamed man shot by Marshal Matt Dillon in the opening sequences of the long-running television series Gunsmoke. Here’s the video:

 

Now wait a second on two counts.  First, how our ideas of politically correct have changed!  It’s OK for our hero to shoot some dude on the street!  And secondly:  it appears that he’s unarmed!

As a joke on the producers, James Arness and Arvo actually did the opener thusly:

     

I broke out laughing while sitting alone in my kitchen . . .

Time for some Yakima-area photos posted on GE.  I’ll start with this shot of a valley just north of my landing where the water heads towards the Columbia (by Kenny Collins):

I’ll close with this, of theYakima River shot by Aaron Bender:

That’ll do it . . .

KS

Greg

 

© 2019 A Landing A Day

A Plethora of Towns in West-Central Michigan

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-a-week blog), I use an app that provides a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”

I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town or towns I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location. 

To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is) please see “About Landing” above.  To check out some relatively recent changes in how I do things, check out “About Landing (Revisited).”

Landing number 2463; A Landing A Day blog post number 899.

Dan:  Today’s lat/long (N43^o 40.577’, W85^o 47.964’) puts me in west-central Michigan:

Here’s my local landing map:

Egads!  Thatsallotta little towns!

Here’s my streams-only map, showing that I landed in the watershed of the S Br of the White River (2^nd hit); on to the White River (2^nd hit); on to Lake Michigan (40^th hit).  Of course, Lake Michigan’s water makes its way to Lake Huron, to Lake Erie, to Lake Ontario, and then, finally, to the St. Lawrence River (113^th hit).

Although I landed in the woods (so a clear view of my landing on StreetView won’t be possible), I was able to put the Orange Dude pretty close:

And here’s what he sees:

I had the OD head south (to just south of White Cloud) to get a look at the South Branch of the White River.  Trouble is, here’s what he sees:

Hmmm.  You can see the problem – according to my StreetAtlas streams-only map, this should be the South Branch of the White River.  Oh, well . . .

So let me tell you.  At this juncture, I would usually say something like “I spent an inordinate amount of time checking out each of the small towns you can see on my local landing map.”  This statement is certainly true, but I feel like I have never spent as much fruitless time pouring over Wikipedia entries, looking for something.  Anything.  But, sorry west-central Michigan.  You are veritably:

 

However.  As you’ll see below, as I started actually writing this post, some of these apparently hookless towns somehow developed some at-least-quasi-hooks.  So, here goes:

White Cloud

From Wiki:

White Cloud (pop 1400) is designated a trail town by the North Country Trail Association.

The North Country Trail was wiki-clickable:

The North Country National Scenic Trail, generally known as the North Country Trail or simply the N.C.T., is a footpath stretching approximately 4,600 miles from Crown Point in eastern New York to Lake Sakakawea State Park in central North Dakota.   As of early 2019, 3,129 miles (5,036 km) of the trail is in place.

Here’s a map:

How about that.  I’ve never heard of this trail, but here it is.  Too bad it’s missing 1,500 miles . . .

Idlewild

From Wiki:

During the first half of the 20th century, it was one of the few resorts in the country where African-Americans were allowed to vacation and purchase property, before discrimination was outlawed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Called the “Black Eden of Michigan”,from 1912 through the mid-1960s, Idlewild was an active year-round community and was visited by well-known entertainers and professionals from throughout the country.  The list included Della Reese, Al Hibbler, Bill Doggett, Jackie Wilson, T-Bone Walker, George Kirby, The Four Tops, Roy Hamilton, Brook Benton, Choker Campbell, Lottie “the Body” Graves, the Rhythm Kings, Sarah Vaughan, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Fats Waller, and Billy Eckstein.

At its peak, it was one of the most popular resorts in the Midwest and as many as 25,000 would come to Idlewild in the height of the summer season to enjoy camping, swimming, boating, fishing, hunting, horseback riding, roller skating, and night-time entertainment. When the 1964 Civil Rights Act opened up other resorts in many states to African-Americans, Idlewild’s boomtown period subsided.

Morley

Wiki notes that Morley is the hometown of one Maude Farris-Luse, “supercentarian.”  It turns out that Ms. Farris-Luse was born in 1887 and died in 2002, at the age of 115.  This puts her at #19 on the U.S. all-time list.  Interesting factoids:

• Of the top 99, three (all currently 114) are still alive, and could threaten to move our Maude down the list a notch or two (or three).
• Of the top 99, an amazing 93 are women!

Big Rapids

For some reason, Big Rapids doesn’t show up on my local landing map.  It’s located due east of my landing, under the “131B” highway label on my local landing map. 

Anyway, Big Rapids was featured in an April 2009 ALAD post.  From that post:

The significant town in the vicinity is Big Rapids. We’ve all heard of Grand Rapids, but Big Rapids? Well, it’s a decent-sized town (pop 11,000). It turns out that Grand Rapids is named because of rapids on the Grand River. Big Rapids is named because of big rapids on the Muskegon River.

I then quoted the town’s website:

The early history of Big Rapids [and in fact this whole area] was associated with the logging industry. The Muskegon River was used as a transportation artery moving logs downstream to the mills located in Muskegon. Swift currents near the City’s present location were referred to by early lumbermen as “the big rapids” and was adopted as the name of the City.

I closed that post with this:

I hate to admit it, but I can’t find much else . . .Oh well.

Evart

From the town’s website:

At the town’s organizational meeting in 1870, they wanted to name the township for the earliest settler and a Civil War veteran, John Smith.  But Smith was such a common name that the honor passed to Frank Everts as the next settler (and also a veteran) in the township.

Everts’ name was misspelled and that misspelling was allowed to stand.

Oh, come on!  The misspelling was allowed to stand!?!  Doesn’t say much for the English-language skills of the founders . . .

Evart has a classy website:

Great drone shot!  I wonder why all those people are on Main Street?  My guess is that the 4^th of July (or Memorial Day) parade is getting ready to start . . .

Oceana County

I landed in Newaygo County (presumably named after an Ojibwe Chief, Nuwagon who signed the Treaty of Saginaw in 1819, which ceded more than six million acres of Indian land to the US government, “reserving several smaller tracts for Indian use in the ceded territory.”  I wonder how that worked out for the Indians?).

But anyway, west of Newago County is Oceana County, which includes the lake shore region.  From ReferenceDesk.com:

Oceana County is thought to be named for Lake Michigan, a freshwater “ocean.” However, some apparently have speculated that the name may be related to the title of a controversial 1656 book by James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana.

I’m not buying that the county was named “Oceana” because of Lake Michigan.  Every settler in this area knew that Lake Michigan was not an ocean.  So that leaves the 1656 book.  Let’s check it out.

I found an article entitled “Commonwealthmen” by Clement Fatovic.  In it, he defines Commonwealthmen as “British political writers of the late-17th and 18th centuries who championed the cause of limited government, individual freedom, and religious toleration.”

From the article:

The 17th-century English republican James Harrington’s fictionalized Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) was a touchstone for many Commonwealthmen. Harrington argued that the independence of citizens ultimately depends on their ownership of sufficient land and use of their own arms. In order to prevent tyranny arising from abuses of power or concentrations of wealth, Harrington recommended a balanced or mixed, government of law, not of men.

[This sounds like the credo of the traditional conservative, except the part about concentration of wealth . . . ]

Inspired by these and other ideas found in Harrington’s work, Commonwealthmen generally opposed the establishment of a standing army; favoured the use of the secret ballot; supported the exclusion of privileged officeholders dependent on ministerial appointment; and advocated rotation in office, preferably through annual elections.

So there’s your choice.  Oceana County was named by a geographically-challenged uncreative nincompoop; or by an erudite, well-read, principled Commonwealthman.

Stony Lake

From a history of Stony Lake from StonyLakePropertyOwners.com:

Much of the early 20th century history of Stony Lake was documented by Shelby photographer Harlo Elliott, who sold his distinctive work as postcards, easily identified by an “e” with a circle around it, and his handwritten captions.

The card pictured here is a good example of Elliot’s eye for composition and subject, and for the beauty of Stony Lake:

OK, I must break in here, editorially speaking.  Sure, it’s a nice picture of a boat on Stony Lake, but where’s the sail?  Or the oars?  Or any visible means of propulsion?  And, it appears that the boat is just sitting there, not moving at all.  My guess is that the picture is posed – the photographer’s on the dock, and the boat was gently pushed off . . .

Back to the article:

Perhaps the most colorful character in Stony Lake history was Charlie Jameson, a Toledo grifter, rumrunner, bootlegger and racketeer who had ties to the notorious Detroit Purple Gang. He married a Shelby woman and built a cottage on the northeast end of the lake in 1922. He brought liquor across Michigan to Stony Lake and shipped it out from the channel on Lake Michigan to customers throughout the Midwest. Many stories are told about Charlie’s business sense, his fishing obsession, and his generosity to area residents.

So, ol’ Charlie was one of that rare breed of criminal:  a really great guy . . .

So what about the Detroit Purple Gang that Charlie apparently cozied up to?

Detroit Purple Gang

From Wiki:

The Purple Gang, also known as the Sugar House Gang, was a criminal mob of bootleggers and hijackers, with predominantly Jewish members. They operated in Detroit, Michigan during the 1920s and came to be Detroit’s dominant criminal gang, but ultimately excessive violence, arrogance and in-fighting caused the gang to destroy itself in the 1930s.

[Oh my.  I wasn’t aware of Jewish mobsters . . .]

Liquor became illegal in Michigan in 1917, three years before national Prohibition.  Henry Ford desired a sober workforce, so he backed the state law that prohibited virtually all possession, manufacture, or sale of alcohol starting in 1918.  Detroit is close to Ohio, so bootleggers and others would import liquor from Toledo where it was still legal.  Judges took a lenient view of offenders, and the Michigan prohibition act was declared unconstitutional in 1919.

In 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted, and prohibition took effect throughout the United States.  Canada became a major point for running alcohol products, particularly the city of Windsor, Ontario directly across the Detroit River from Detroit. This was partly because the Canadian government had also banned the use of alcoholic beverages but still approved and licensed distilleries and breweries to manufacture and export alcohol.

[Those pesky Canadians!]

Detroit’s immigrant neighborhoods were stricken with poverty like most major cities at the beginning of the 20th century, and some became breeding grounds for crime and violence.  For the most part, gang members were the children of Jewish immigrants, primarily from Russia and Poland, who had come to the United States in the great immigration wave from 1881 to 1914.  The gang was led by brothers Abe, Joe, Raymond, and Izzy Bernstein, who had moved to Detroit from New York City.

The Purple Gang started off as petty thieves and extortionists, but they quickly progressed to more violent crimes such as armed robbery.  They received notoriety for their operations and savagery, and they imported gangsters from other cities to work as “muscle” for the gang.

There are numerous theories as to the origin of the name “Purple Gang”. One explanation is that a member of the gang was a boxer who wore purple shorts during his bouts.  Another explanation is that the name came from a conversation between two shop keepers:

“These boys are not like other children of their age, they’re tainted, off color.”

“Yes,” replied the other shopkeeper. “They’re rotten, purple like the color of bad meat, they’re a Purple Gang.”

Their reputation for terror increased, and people began to fear them. Al Capone was against expanding his rackets in Detroit, so he began a business accommodation with the Purple Gang in order to prevent a bloody war.

For several years, the gang managed the prosperous business of supplying Canadian whisky to the Capone organization in Chicago.  The Purple Gang was involved in various criminal enterprises, such as kidnapping other gangsters for ransom, which had become very popular during this era, and the FBI suspected that they were involved with the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.

[Say what?  The Lindbergh baby kidnapping!  It just so happens that I live within a few miles of the scene of that crime, and featured the kidnapping in a marvelous ALAD post.  Just type Little Falls (that would be Little Falls, Minnesota, Charles’ hometown) into the search box.]

By the late 1920s, the Purple Gang reigned supreme over the Detroit underworld, controlling the city’s vice, gambling, liquor, and drug trade.

Wiki goes on and on, discussing the various nefarious goings-on with the infamous Purple Gang.  As mentioned above: “But ultimately excessive violence arrogance and in-fighting caused the gang to destroy itself in the 1930s.”  Back to Wiki:

The Mafia [perhaps you’ve heard of them] stepped in to fill the vacuum left behind.

Time to close this down, with a lovely shot posted on GE by Stephanie Craft of Indian Lake, just one mile SW of my landing:

 

That’ll do it . . .

KS

Greg

 

© 2019 A Landing A Day

Lockwood, California

First timer?  In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-a-week blog), I use an app that provides a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48).  I call this “landing.”

I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town or towns I land near.  I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location. 

To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is) please see “About Landing” above.  To check out some relatively recent changes in how I do things, check out “About Landing (Revisited).”

Landing number 2462; A Landing A Day blog post number 898.

Dan:  Today’s lat/long (N35^o 58.449’, W121^o 7.395’) puts me in central coastal California:

Here’s my local landing map:

One might think that “central coastal California” would be a relatively populated area.  But my local landing map belies one’s surmise.  After all, the four towns on my map have the following populations:  Lockwood (379); San Lucas (269); San Ardo (517). Jolon (teeny, not reported).

Before moving on, I must highlight my turn of phrase:  “belies one’s surmise.”  According to the generic Google dictionary, a synonymous phrase might be something like “calls into question one’s supposition that initially appears to be true.”

Of course, the fact that it’s a rhyme is sublime.

My watershed analysis:

Although not apparent, I landed in the watershed of the San Antonio River (which is manifested by the San Antonio Reservoir on the map – first hit ever!); on to the Salinas River (only my second hit). 

See the gap in the river course?  That’s because almost always, the river dries up for a substantial portion of its length – due primarily to the use of water for irrigation.

And an interesting sidelight involves that S-shaped estuary you can see on the streams-only map just north of the mouth of the Salinas.  This is the historic location of the mouth of the Salinas (it’s now known as the Elkhorn Slough).  The internet presents three possible scenarios for this relocation:  1) farmers filled in the lower course of the river in the early 1900s to create more farm land, re-routing the river to discharge further south; 2) the 1906 earthquake shifted the land so much that the river changed course; or 3) a combination of the two.

Moving on to Google Earth (GE), here’s where I could place the Orange Dude to get a look at my landing location:

And here’s what the OD sees:

I was also able to find a bridge over the San Antonio River with Street View coverage:

Here’s a lovely upstream view:

And a lovely downstream view:

So of course, I checked out the four potentially-titular towns, and as you can tell by my eventual title, I found only one hook.  Let’s get a GE look at Lockwood:

Not much, eh?  To be fair, this is the central intersection only, and the “town” includes a larger area (thus the population of 379 hardy souls).  But here where GE puts the dot on the map, there are only four residential properties, an elementary school and a mobile home park, the “Valley Oaks Mobile Home Park:”

What does Wiki have to say?  Not much:

Lockwood is in southern Monterey County and is a small community consisting of farms, ranches, and vineyards, on a vast prairie encompassed by the coastal mountains.

The first post office opened in 1888.  The name honors Belva Lockwood, candidate for President of the United States in 1884 and 1888 on the Equal Rights Party ticket.

Belva was Wiki-clickable, but I quickly skated over to a piece on the National Women’s Hall of Fame website (and yes, she’s an honoree).  From that website:

Belva Lockwood (1830-1917) began to teach school at fifteen and married at nineteen. When her husband died soon after, she was left with an infant daughter to support. She returned to teaching and determined to continue her education.

In 1857 she graduated with honors from Genesee College (later Syracuse University). After a move to Washington, D.C., she married Ezekiel Lockwood. She was nearly forty when she decided to study the law. She finally found a law school (what is now the George Washington University Law School) that would admit her, but even there her diploma was held up until she demanded action.

Lockwood was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia, but was refused admission to practice before the Supreme Court. She spent five years energetically lobbying a bill through Congress, and in 1879 Belva Lockwood became the first woman to practice law before the US Supreme Court.

In 1884 she accepted the nomination of the National Equal Rights Party and ran for president. She polled over 4,000 votes and ran again in 1888.

Using her knowledge of the law, she worked to secure woman suffrage, property law reforms, equal pay for equal work, and world peace. Thriving on publicity and partisanship, and encouraging other women to pursue legal careers, Lockwood helped to open the legal profession to women.

Wow.  That’s a helluva resume, eh?

A quick word about the 1884 and 1888 elections.  In 1884, in a very close election, Grover Cleveland (Democrat, back when Democrats were the conservatives) squeaked by James Blaine (Republican I never heard of) by 4,914,482 to 4,856,905 votes (219 vs 182 in the absolutely-stupid-to-this-day Electoral College). 

In 1888, Grover ran again, but this time he was beaten by Benjamin Harrison.  Grover won the popular vote, but for the third time in US History, lost the election based on the absolutely-stupid-to-this-day Electoral College, (233 vs 168).

Just for the record (even though Belva wasn’t running this time), in 1892, Grover won both the popular vote and the absolutely-stupid-to-this-day Electoral College vote – beating Benjamin Harrison.

So here’s an interesting query when you’re socializing with friends or family:  Name the presidential candidate (not named Roosevelt) who won the popular vote for president in three consecutive elections . . .

It’s that time for me to search GE looking for posted pictures to post in my post.  But alas (and alack), I couldn’t find any worthy candidates within a reasonable distance from my landing.  But I did find a GE Street View shot of this barn in Lockwood:

I must confess that I made some adjustments using a photo editor . . .

That’ll do it . . .

KS

Greg

 

© 2019 A Landing A Day