The "Old Blue Front" and World's First Women Jury Members by Zina Abbott

 

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