While
researching the businesses that existed in 1874 Laramie City, Wyoming Territory,
I came across some interesting information about one of the buildings that
played an interesting role in both Laramie City and Wyoming Territory history.
One of the most prominent trading and freighting businesses
in Wyoming Territory in the 1860s and 1870s were the Trabing Brothers, Charles
and August. I have written other blog posts featuring these brothers and their
business enterprises, which you may find by clicking HERE and HERE
August, Ulrika—August’s first wife—and Charles arrived in
Laramie on June 18, 1868, five weeks after the arrival of the
transcontinental railroad. At the end of July, they bought vacant property and
buildings on First Street from W. B. Bent, who was a land agent for the Union
Pacific Railroad. Part of this purchase was The National Theater, which stood
on parts of two lots.
The couple refurbished the building—which they painted blue—and
opened a saloon and theater for traveling vaudeville acts which would come
through on the railroad. Since August was a singer, he might have performed
occasionally. This building became known as “the Old Blue Front.”
As August grew busy with his part of the Trabing Brothers
business filling a tie and wood contract, Ulrika tried to run the business. It
did not succeed. Then, after coal was discovered at Carbon, Wyoming Territory,
and the demand of cordwood, one of the major commodities they sold to the railroad
diminished, the Trabing brothers moved the center of their freighting business
elsewhere. Although they moved on, their connection to this building continued
for at least thirty-seven year.
In December of
1869, the Trabings leased their “Old Blue Front” building to an employee,
George Weiske. In March 1870, the building was sub-leased to Albany County as a
temporary courthouse.
This building
that started as a theater ended up being the courthouse in which served the
first jury in the world to impanel both men and women.
At the time Wyoming Territory was organized, the 1869 Territorial
Legislature passed a constitution that included a suffrage act granted women the
right to vote. One Laramie City woman, Louisa Swain, became the first Wyoming
Territory woman of a total of ninety-three women (some of them Black women) to
vote in a general election.
 |
| 1880s reenactment of first women jurors |
The suffrage act also included provisions for women to serve
on juries. For the first time in the world, in March of 1870, six women were selected
and served on a formal jury in spite of being subjected to considerable public
ridicule for doing so. The women selected came from several backgrounds.
Among those who
objected was the country prosecuting attorney, Col. Downey, who wrote to Judge
Howe for advice and direction as to the eligibility of women as jurors. After Judge
Howe ruled they were eligible, he again objected and was overruled. Later in
life, his daughter claimed his reasoning was that women should not be exposed
to the “grim and unpleasant” duty of serving on a jury. (Like women who
traveled through or lived on the American frontier were not exposed to “grim
and unpleasant.”)
Another source
of opposition came in the form of Nathan Baker, editor of the influential Cheyenne
Leader, who railed against women serving when their names were announced on
March 1, 1870. One of his arguments included the claim that
“the feminine mind is too susceptible to the influence of emotions to allow the
supreme control of the reason.” In spite of arguments to the contrary, the
women were empaneled.
This first jury was a grand jury presided over by Judge John
Howe. A grand jury has the power to investigate potentially criminal conduct
and decides whether criminal charges should be brought against a defendant or
group of defendants.
The first chosen was Eliza Stewart. She was born in
Pennsylvania in 1835 and graduated from Washington Female Seminary in
Washington, Pa. as a class valedictorian. For eight years, she taught school in
her native Crawford County, Pa. At the age of thirty-five and single, she arrived
in Laramie City to teach school. Not long after she completed her jury duty,
she married Stephen Boyd. She served again on a jury in 1871.
Elizabeth
Hatcher ran a millinery shop in downtown Laramie in 1870. Another Laramie City
milliner, Amelia Hatcher (later Heath) was born in England in 1842 of Scottish
parents. After the death of her first husband, she and her eight-year-old son
Robert lived in the house of her father, Robert Galbraith.
Mary
Jane Mackle was born in New York City in 1847 became the wife of a clerk at
Fort Sanders near Laramie City, Joseph Mackle, whom she married in 1862 at
Leavenworth, Kan. When she was about age fifteen.
Jane
Hilton was born in 1829 in New York. In 1870 she was living with her husband
George F. Hilton and daughter Nellie Hilton in Laramie City. They arrived in
1868 and her husband was a physician and a minister who organized the Methodist
church in Laramie. She served again on a grand jury in Laramie in February
1871.
Mrs.
Annie Monaghan was born in Ireland in 1845. Although not listed in all reports
of the first women on the grand jury, in her very detailed 1889 personal
remembrance of the jury, Mrs. Sarah Pease stated that she looked up the court
record of the jury proceeding and found Mrs. Monaghan as one of those who
served.
Some
accounts of the grand jury list Agnes Baker as one of the jurors. She was called
but released upon her request and replaced by Sarah Pease.
In her later
years, Sarah Pease served as superintendent of the Albany County schools. She
wrote a detailed account of her jury service. She claimed that the women were
called because the judges were tired of men not paying attention to the
proceedings in the prior session of court and were unwilling to convict their
acquaintances. Women did not suffer the same shortcomings.
Because the judge for the 1870 grand jury considered it
proper for a woman to guard the women jurors' hotel rooms overnight, Martha
Boies was selected to serve as bailiff.
 |
| Trabing Brothers Blue Front Store 1877 |
After the Old
Blue Front building was no longer needed as a courtroom, the Trabing Brothers
once again used it for storage for their growing freighting business. In 1877,
this building was remodeled and enlarged to be used as a wholesale and retail
store.
The “Old Blue
Front” building was still around in 1919 when this photograph of nationally
prominent suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, third from right, was in Wyoming to
lobby for ratification of the 19th Amendment and found a chapter of the new
League of Women Voters. Also present was local professor and suffragist Grace
Raymond Hebard, center.
My heroine and
her brother in my upcoming release, The Bride Who Step Dances, would have loved
for that theater to have still been open. Unfortunately, it was used for other
purposes by 1874. The best way to be notified of the release is by following me
by newsletter
HERE
Sources:
https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/women-jury-wyoming-makes-history-again
https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/territorial-empire-trabings-and-their-freight
https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/brief-history-laramie-wyoming
The 1870s photo of the Trabing store
in Laramie is from the collection of Nancy Trabing Mickelson. All other photos
are from the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming
.png)
