This Day…

1805-Meriwether Lewis acts as the midwife at the birth of a child to Sacajawea, a Shoshone squaw who will act as a guide for the expedition.

1881 – Luke Short killed Charlie Storms at the Oriental Saloon in Tombstone, Arizona.

1897-Respected lawman Les Dow was reading a letter in front of the post office in Carlsbad, NM when Dave Kemp stepped up and shot him in the face.  He died the next morning.

1802 – Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, proposes that an allotment be made from the sales of public lands for the construction of roads from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ohio River.

1886 – The California orange groves send the first trainload of fruit to Eastern markets – the beginning of Western ‘agri-business.’

1888 – The famous Western painter and illustrator, Frederic Remington, first gains public recognition with publication of his drawings in a book by Theodore Roosevelt, Ranch Life and Hunting Trails.

1901 – In Utah, Joseph Fielding Smith is elected president of the Mormons.  The Wyoming state legislature passes an anti-gambling law that will become effective in 1902.

1850-The Illinois Central Railroad is chartered with a grant of 2.7 million acres of land from Cairo to Galena, by Governor August C. French.

1845-The House passes a bill to establish a government for Oregon with a northern border of 54 degrees 40′.  The Senate refuses to consider the bill because it would prohibit slavery.

Thousands of Oklahomans illegally occupy sections of the so-called Cherokee Strip, land set aside for Indians, after a rumor circulates that the area is open for settlement.