Tennessee Renaissance Festival 2013

Our day at Tenn-Renn

Welcome to Covington Glen!

We made our annual visit to the Tennessee Renaissance Festival on the third Sunday of May this year. Isaac, Rachel, and I arrived at the festival so early that we were able to park in the first row, directly in front of the gates.

Soon after we bought our wristbands, it was time for the faire to begin. To our surprise, the Queen and court assembled for an opening ceremony in front of the gates. They probably do this every morning of the faire, but it was new to us.

Fairies at play

A royal lineup

Talented minstrels

Inside the front gate, the fairies were already busily blowing bubbles. Isaac and Rachel wandered away, and I sat down to wait for Keely and Taurus who were a few minutes behind us. Some of the nobility stood nearby and observed the arrival of the day's guests.

A wizard and family put on
wristbands at the fair entrance.

When Keely called to tell me they had arrived, I went back to the ticket line to meet them and share my spray-on sun block. At the entrance to the festival, workers were checking armbands and looking carefully inside every bag. Many uniformed members of the sheriff's department were present throughout the day, and security seemed to be a little tighter than in the past.

Too Wet for Planting

Rainy, cool spring in Christian County, KY

We've had a difficult spring in Christian County, Kentucky. We hate to complain about rain, knowing how badly they need it in other areas, but it's so wet here that our farmers can't get the crops planted. The water puddles in this field near my home are typical for the area. Small lakes have formed in some fields that have pronounced low spots. The farmers who have managed to get their machinery in the fields and their seed in the ground are reporting mixed results. Some seed has failed to sprout, and some seedlings have been stunted or killed in water puddles.

Mogul This and Mogul That

Powerful "Moguls" of days gone by

Vintage image of a Mogul tractor  from dok1 

In 2013, the word "mogul" has a vaguely negative feel to it. We might speak of "shipping moguls" or "manufacturing moguls", meaning the powerful people who control those industries. But a hundred years ago, "mogul" was a positive word, often used as a brand name for powerful machines and equipment.

 Mogul Motor Trucks were manufactured in St. Louis and in Chicago.  The Mogul  Street Sprinkling Truck was probably made by that company. And certain large locomotives were called moguls.

Mogul 1629 locomotive. Image by tkksummers. Gene
Autry purchased this Mogul 1629 after it was retired
 from a long life of of service on the rails. It  was used
in several Western movies and shows. You may
remember seeing it on "Gunsmoke" or "Wyatt Earp."

Mogul tractors with kerosene engines were manufactured by the International Harvester Company of Chicago, Illinois, through 1924. (If you enjoy mechanical curiosities, watch this YouTube video:  Harry Henderson starting his old Mogul tractor.)

I've written several times on this blog about the hard-working Mogul Wagons that were manufactured in Hopkinsville, KY from the 1870s through 1925. Production was halted by a fire that destroyed the factory, but the Forbes Brothers sold their remaining inventory of Mogul wagons, wheels, axels, and other parts for another 25 years.

Moguls didn't always live up to the promise of their name. The Mogul Steamship Company is mainly remembered for a court case in England that concerned it. The Mogul Mining Company was declared a poor investment by a financial adviser of 1920.

How to look and feel like a Mogul yourself? Just light up a Mogul cigarette! (Ugh. I have a feeling they were terribly strong.)

The following definitions are from a dictionary of the period, The Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary of 1913

Mogul \Mo*gul"\, n. [From the Mongolian.]
1. A person of the Mongolian race.
2. (Railroad) A heavy locomotive for freight traffic, having three
pairs of connected driving wheels and a two-wheeled truck.

Mogul \Mo*gul"\, n.
A great personage; magnate; autocrat.

Related:
Mogul Wagons from Hopkinsville sold in Mississippi, North Carolina

I Say "Ky-oht" and You Say "Ky-oh-tee"

Coyotes, wolves, and coy-dogs

After hearing the coyotes howl for the last few nights, I read a little about the animal. One bit of trivia I picked up is that the word "coyote" comes from the Aztec word "coyotl", which is often translated as "trickster."

I came across some interesting spellings of the animal's name in old books: "cayute," "cayota," "cayeute," and so on. Today we have standardized the spelling, but pronunciations still vary. According to Merriam Webster's entry for the word, the primary pronunciation is \kī-ˈō-tē\ but in the West, it's sometimes pronounced \ˈkī-ˌōt\.

Coyote in Yosemite National Park
Photo source: Wikipedia

Well, I grew up using the Western pronunciation \ˈkī-ˌōt\ . To me, "coyote" rhymed with "my oat." And I was equally comfortable with \ˈkī-ˌyüt\  (rhymes with "my boot".) These were the pronunciations of northern Nebraska.

On the rare occasion that I heard someone say \kī-ˈō-tē\ , it was obvious to me that they knew coyotes only from watching "Wile E. Coyote" on TV. To me, the three-syllable pronunciation was an overly-fancy version that only a dude would say.

Over the years, I've amended that preconceived notion because I've learned that many rural folks in other parts do say \kī-ˈō-tē\.  However, I haven't changed my own way of saying the word. The three-syllable pronunciation will never feel right in my mouth.

I've also heard lots of people call them "wolves." But in my internal dictionary, the word "wolf" is used only for the larger wild dogs. To me, calling them "wolves" would feel just as silly as calling them \kī-ˈō-tēs\.

I base my mental image of a coyote on the animal I knew during my Nebraska childhood. The average male coyote there weighed  maybe 30 lbs. But in the eastern U.S., the native coyote is a bigger animal -- at least a third bigger on average (10 to 15 lbs. heavier) -- than the Nebraska coyote. DNA testing has revealed that some eastern coyotes carry wolf genes as a result of coyotes and wolves mating with each other.

So my notion that no coyote should be called a wolf is probably wrong, too. I read that these crossbreed coyotes are called "coy-wolves." Now I wonder how they pronounce that first syllable, "coy."  Is it \ˈkī\ or is it  \ˈkȯi\?

Range map of the coyote
Image from Wikimedia

Related:
Website of Jonathan Way, Ph.D., a Coy-Wolf expert

Crime in 1921, Laramie, Wyoming

Keeping the peace on the High Plains

Laramie's downtown historic district in 2004

On January 3, 1922, City Marshall J. W. Sigman reported to the city council of Laramie, Wyoming, about police activity during 1921. During the year, he stated, seventeen officers made a total of 321 arrests for offenses that included the following:

• Drunks, 84
• Breaches of the peace, 42
• Prostitution, 25
• Gambling, 35
• Burglary, 2
• Robbery, 3
• Forgery, 4
• Larceny, 2
• Rape, 2
• Assault and battery, 3
• Speeding, 62
• Bright lights, 2
• Wrongful turning of corners, 3
• Wrongful parking, 3
• Running with mufflers open, 2
• Lights out, 5
• Reckless driving, 1
• Riding on sidewalks, 4
• Running on lawns, 1
• Vagrancy, 6
• Boys frequenting pool halls, 1
• Making whisky, 4
• Trespassing, 1
• Refusing to pay occupation tax, 2
• Blocking crossing, 1
• Beating board bill, 2
• Concerning rubbish, l
• Interfering with officer, 1
• Destruction of property, 1
• Permitting unlawful cesspool, 1
• Allowing dogs to run at large, 10
• Using water unlawfully, 6
• Keeping pool hall open, 1
• Others, 2

(Source: Laramie Republican [Daily Edition] no. 123 January 04, 1922, page 5)

In 1921, traffic in Laramie would have been a mixture of horseback riders, horse-drawn vehicles, motor vehicles, and possibly bicycles. I'm guessing that the speeding violations primarily involved automobiles, but most of the riding-on-sidewalk violations involved horses.

William Conners, husband of Philena Baily (my first cousin 2x removed), was one of the policemen who kept the peace in Laramie in 1921. With 83 arrests, he was the most active officer of the Laramie law enforcement team for the year. I was a little surprised to find him on the police force, because he had been working for the Union Pacific railroad as a fireman. But maybe his wife wanted him to be at home, or maybe he was laid off as Union Pacific downsized after World War I.

Copyright 2013 by Genevieve Hill Netz. All rights reserved. Permission is granted for attaching this article to family trees, but this notice must remain with the article. Any other use requires written permission; please contact gnetz51@gmail.com. This article was published originally at http://prairiebluestem.blogspot.com/2013/04/crime-in-1921-laramie-wyoming.html.

See also:

• The 1920s in Wyoming 
• 1920s images of Laramie, Wyoming

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons by Matthew Trump