In 1859 four prospectors discovered gold in a shallow California valley north of Mono Lake where tales of riches had drawn them from their homes in the Mother Lode region. Joined by other gold hunters they mined briefly until an unexpected November blizzard overtook the remote mining outpost and killed one of the discoverers. W.S. Body's wintry death gave the diggings its name. The spelling changed when a painter in the nearest town lettered a sign "Bodie Stables" and area residents thought it looked so much better than other phonetic variations that by 1862 Bodie had become the accepted name. Several financially backed companies acquired claims at Bodie but by 1868 they had abandoned their mines along with the district's first two stamp mills. Bleak terrain and meager returns prevented even the glimmer of gold from attracting much interest and Bodie District languished for the next seven years, yielding only enough yellow metal to tempt a few hopeful prospectors and sustain a scattering of destitute miners. Some steadfast inhabitants washed placer gravel while the most hearty drove tunnels or sunk shafts to follow low-grade quartz veins into the earth. Then, in 1875, a mine called the Bunker Hill caved, exposing an ore body that attracted San Francisco speculators. One group of capitalists purchased the claim and organized a company that set up industrial-scale mining. Their gamble paid off. The Standard Company produced $784,523 in gold and silver bullion during 1877 and rewarded stockholders with four consecutive monthly dividends. People of all descriptions poured into Bodie, each hoping to find a fortune. Their excitement gave rise to one of the West's wildest boomtowns, earning the community a reputation for frontier violence that rivaled Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City. "Saloons and gambling hells abound," reported San Francisco's Daily Alta California in June 1879. "There are at least sixty saloons in the place and not a single church." Tall tales about "The Bad Man from Bodie" entertained readers nationwide, while seemingly daily stories of stagecoach holdups, shootouts, saloon brawls, and other forms of deadly mayhem almost eclipsed reports of developments in the mines. Miners, tradesmen, businessmen, wives and others, some desperate, all hopeful, flooded into the booming town until the mid 1880s when residents estimated the population had grown to 7,000 or 8,000 and Main Street stretched more than a mile. Bodie also boasted a brass band, two banks, a Chinatown, and a red-light district. Bodie's confirmed status as a gold-producing community inspired its historically-minded citizens to wonder about the unfortunate prospector who had succumbed in a snowstorm some 20 years earlier and became the town's namesake. They located his shallow grave and dug up his bones. One area pioneer said the remains were those of W.S. Body from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., but a former partner said he was William S. Bodey. Records in New York say his name was really Wakeman S. Body (sometimes spelled "Bodey"). Despite uncertainty, citizens organized a grand funeral procession and formally interred the bones in the town cemetery but they failed to mark the new grave and quickly forgot its location. The first signs of an official decline occurred in 1912 with the printing of the last newspaper, The Bodie Miner. In 1913, the Standard Consolidated Mine closed. Mining profits in 1914 were at a low of $6,821. James S. Cain was buying up everything from the town lots to the mining claims and reopened the Standard mill to former employees which resulted in an over $100,000 profit in 1915. However, this financial growth was not in time to stop the town's decline. In 1917, the Bodie Railway was abandoned and its iron tracks were scrapped. The last mine closed in 1942 due to War Production Board order L-208, shutting down all nonessential gold mines in the United States. Mining never resumed.
By 1920, Bodie's population was recorded by the US Federal Census at a total of 120 people. Despite the decline, Bodie had permanent residents through most of the 20th century, even after a fire ravaged much of the downtown business district in 1932. A post office operated at Bodie from 1877 to 1942. The town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and in 1962 it became Bodie State Historic Park. A total of 170 buildings remained.
William H. Carney was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was a member of Company C, 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry. On July 18, 1863, during the Battle of Fort Wagner, South Carolina, he was cited for military valor. During the engagement by the all-Black 54th and 55th Massachusetts Colored Regiments, Commander Robert G. Shaw was shot down. A few feet from where he fell laid Sergeant Carney. Summoning all of his strength, Carney held aloft the colors and continued the charge. Having been shot several times, he kept the colors flying high, and miraculously retreated his regiments. Although he survived, many of his comrades did not for in the deadly battle, over 1,500 Black troops died. On July 18, 1900, 37 years after the Battle of Fort Wagner, Sergeant William H. Carney was issued the Congressional Medal of Honor, making him the first Black to ever win the coveted award. It should be noted that sixteen other Black soldiers and four Black sailors eventually received the Congressional Medal of Honor for their heroics during the Civil War.
Nearly sixteen months after the end of the Civil War, Section 3 of an Act of Congress entitled "An Act to Increase and Fix the Military Peace Establishment of the United States" authorized the formation of two regiments of cavalry composed of "colored" men. The act was approved on July 28, 1866. On September 21, 1866, the 9th Cavalry Regiment was activated at Greenville, Louisiana, and the 10th Cavalry Regiment was activated at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Under the competent leadership of Colonel Edward Hatch and Colonel Benjamin Grierson, first Regimental Commanders of the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, respectively, both regiments were trained and equipped and began a long and proud history. For over two decades, the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments conducted campaigns against American Indian tribes on a western frontier that extended from Montana in the northwest to Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona in the southwest. They engaged in several skirmishes against such great Indian Chiefs as Victorio, Geronimo, and Nana. "Buffalo Soldiers" was the name given the black cavalrymen by the Plains Indians. Reason for the name is uncertain. One view is that the Indians saw a resemblance between the black man's hair and the mane of a buffalo. Another view is that when a buffalo was wounded or cornered, it fought ferociously, displaying unusual stamina and courage. This was the same fighting spirit Indians saw in combat with black cavalrymen. Since Indians held the buffalo in such high regard, it was felt that the name was not given in contempt. When not engaged in combat with Indians, both regiments built forts and roads, installed telegraph lines, located water holes, escorted wagon trains and cattle drives, rode shotgun on stagecoach and mail runs, and protected settlers from renegade Indians, outlaws, and Mexican revolutionaries. Elements of both regiments fought in Cuba during the War with Spain and participated in the famous charge on San Juan Hill. Troopers of the 10th Cavalry Regiment rode with General John J. Pershing during the Punitive Expedition in Mexico in search of Pancho Villa. In 1941, the two regiments formed the 4th Cavalry Brigade, commanded by General Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., at Camp Funston, Kansas. In 1944, the end came to the horse cavalry regiments and the curtain was lowered on the long and glorious past of The Buffalo Soldiers.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre, located about 35 miles southwest of Cedar City, Utah, was the killing on September 11, 1857, of roughly 120 emigrants who were passing through Southern Utah. The emigrants--men, women, and children--were traveling from Arkansas to California, part of the Baker-Fancher wagon train. They were killed by a group of Mormons with the help of local Paiute Indians. After leaving Arkansas, the Fancher party traveled west through Kansas and Nebraska territories before entering Utah territory. In Utah, the party passed Fort Bridger and Salt Lake City, traveling southwest until reaching Cedar City. Cedar City was the last stop before California. In Cedar City, the Fancher party attempted to buy grain and supplies but was refused by the local Mormons due to the Mormons' suspicion of aiding potential enemies. After the Fancher party left Cedar City, frustrated with the refusal of local Mormons to sell them needed goods, they continued southwest through the mountain pass called Mountain Meadows. There they were attacked by Mormon assailants, some of them killed. The remaining emigrants pulled their wagons into a tight circle for protection. Over the next five days, the emigrants were held at siege in their wagon circle. During this period they were attacked two more times. On September 11, 1857, John D. Lee entered the wagon circle with a white flag, convincing the emigrants to surrender peacefully. Required to put down their guns, the women and children were escorted out first, then the men and boys. Each man and boy was escorted by an armed militiaman. They walked about a mile when, upon a predetermined signal, the militiamen turned and fired on each man and boy. Indians who had been convinced to participate in the massacre came out from their hiding places to attack the women and children. While most of the Fancher party was killed (about 120 people) there were 17 young children who survived. These 17 children were adopted by local families. Two years later in 1859, the U.S. government reunited the children with their extended families in Arkansas.
Alvin Cullum York ended the First World War as one of America's most famous soldiers, with fame and popular recognition assured following a remarkable act of courage and coolness in October 1918. Having grown up in poverty in rural Tennessee, York honed his skills as a crack marksman, a useful talent for use in hunting food for himself and his family and one put to high effect during the war. Despite his remarkable reputation for bravery and the win-at-all-costs attitude displayed during his wartime service York was and remained a pacifist. Following a religious conversion in 1911 he became lay deacon of a local pacifist sect and declared himself a convinced pacifist. Consequently, with the U.S. entry into World War I, York initially returned his draft papers before they were summarily resent to him by the draft board at which stage he was drafted into 328th Regiment, 82nd Infantry. During training however he was convinced by his battalion commander, Gonzalo Edward Buxton, a fellow Bible student, that the Bible sanctioned active service. Once in France the semi-literate York earned lifetime fame for his part in an attack in the Argonne Forest against German machine gun positions on 8 October 1918. York, an acting Corporal, led 17 men in action against a German stronghold, the aim being to secure the position and return with German prisoners. Initially successful without coming under fire, the small expedition took a number of prisoners before the Germans launched a heavy counterattack. With 11 of York's men guarding the captured prisoners (and with the other six killed) York resolved to proceed alone and tackle the German gunners ranged against them. Having shot some 17 gunners via sniping, York was charged by seven German soldiers who realized that he was operating on his own. He killed them all with his pistol. With the aid of a German Major captured earlier, York brought in a total of 132 German prisoners. He received lavish press coverage at home and the Congressional Medal of Honor, in addition to the French Croix de Guerre (and a fulsome citation from Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch). Returning home to a New York City parade, York was awarded a gift of a farm by his home state of Tennessee. In the 1920s, York formed the Alvin C. York Foundation with the mission of increasing education opportunities in his region of Tennessee. Plans called for a non-sectarian institution providing vocational training to be called the York Agricultural Institute. York suffered from health problems throughout his life. He had gall bladder surgery in the 1920s and suffered from pneumonia in 1942. By 1945 he weighed 250 pounds and in 1948 he had a stroke. More strokes and another case of pneumonia followed and he was confined to bed from 1954, further handicapped by failing eyesight. He was hospitalized several times during his last two years. Alvin York died at the Veterans Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 2, 1964, of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Francis H. Pierpont was a lawyer, early coal industrialist, governor of the Restored government of Virginia during the Civil War, governor of Virginia during the first years of Reconstruction, and a state senator representing Marion County, West Virginia. Pierpont was an antislavery member of the Whig Party and delegate to the First and Second Wheeling Conventions in 1861, during which Unionist politicians in western Virginia resisted the state's vote to secede by establishing the Restored government of Virginia. The second convention unanimously elected him governor. Although never actually governor of West Virginia, he is still remembered as one of the state's founding fathers. Francis Harrison Pierpont was born in Monongalia County, Virginia (now West Virginia), in 1814. He spent his youth in Fairmont, Virginia, and attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. After a brief stint as a teacher, Pierpont began his legal career in trans-Allegheny Virginia representing such influential clients as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Pierpont, along with partner James Otis Watson, became one of Virginia's earliest coal operators. Pierpont's political career began in 1840 when he made speeches across western Virginia in support of Whig presidential nominees William Henry Harrison of Ohio and fellow Virginian John Tyler. During the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861, Pierpont delivered pro-Union, anti-slavery addresses to large crowds across northwestern Virginia. After meeting since February 1861, the Convention in Richmond voted to secede from the union in April 1861. This prompted the still-Unionist western delegates of the state to organize the First Wheeling Convention from May 13–15, 1861. During the meeting, Pierpont promoted the reorganization of the state government and following the passage of the Virginia Ordinance of Secession by statewide referendum on May 23 Pierpont was elected to attend the Second Wheeling Convention from June 11–25, 1861. On June 20, he was unanimously elected governor of the Restored government of Virginia.
The city of Wheeling initially served as the headquarters of the Restored government of Virginia, but after the formation of West Virginia on June 20, 1863, and Pierpont's reelection as governor that December (governor, that is, of the Restored government and not of West Virginia), the reorganized state government relocated to Alexandria. Pierpont dedicated his energies to raising troops and funds for the Union war effort, coordinating with President Abraham Lincoln's administration, combating Confederate sympathizers, and working to return Virginia to the Union. Pierpont promoted the creation of "free schools," the extension of constitutional rights to freedmen, and in 1864 the convening of a state constitutional convention aimed at abolishing slavery. After the conclusion of the Civil War, the Alexandria government moved to Richmond, where Pierpont began the process of reconstructing Virginia. Pierpont and his civilian administration oversaw local and state elections, promoted the rights of freedmen, and worked to rebuild the state's economy. Due to his conciliatory policies toward ex-Confederates, Pierpont was criticized by Radical Republicans. In March 1867, the United States Congress, as part of its new Reconstruction policy, placed Virginia under the military command of General John M. Schofield. Despite his protestations, Pierpont was removed from office on April 4, 1868. After his ouster, Pierpont quietly returned to Fairmont, where his support for the statehood movement earned him election by Marion County voters to the West Virginia state senate in 1869. Due to the increasing Democratic control of the state government, he was not reelected in 1870 and subsequently retired from politics. Pierpont spent the final years of his life as a founder and member of the West Virginia Historical Society. He died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on March 24, 1899.
Meyer Lansky is one of the legendary figures of 20th century organized crime in America. Lansky was born Meyer Suchowljansky in 1902 in Grodno, Russia. He came to America in 1911 where his father found work as a garment presser in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York. In 1914 financial hardship forced the family to move to Manhattan's Lower East Side where Lansky got involved in street-corner craps games and teamed up with other boys to form a juvenile gang that included Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and Joseph "Doc" Stacher. Eventually he also met Charles "Lucky" Luciano, then the leader of a gang of Sicilian immigrant boys who ran an extortion racket preying on Jewish children. Lansky and Lucky Luciano immediately had a liking for each other. After graduating from 8th grade, Lansky took his first job at a tool-and-die shop. After work, despite his small stature of about five foot four, he served as a strong-arm man for a gambling establishment and in this capacity he was also hired by a union to help solve a labor dispute. Meyer Lansky turned into a full-time gangster with the advent of Prohibition. He went into bootlegging under the protection of underworld kingpin Arnold Rothstein, whom he had previously met at the Bar Mitzvah of the son of mutual friends. Lansky's front was a car and truck rental business he ran with Bugsy Siegel as one of his partners. Numerous ventures involved cooperation with Lucky Luciano. In addition to his bootlegging, Meyer Lansky extended his involvement in gambling to operating and owning craps games, a line of business he expanded after Prohibition was repealed.
Lansky excelled in the world of crime not only because he was bright and tough but also because he was honest and reliable. He operated gambling as he had his bootlegging, in joint-venture partnerships in which his main role was to organize the money and the share-out. His first great project, launched in partnership with Frank Costello and Joe Adonis, involved a casino in Saratoga Springs, New York, the Piping Rock, which enjoyed the protection of local politicians. This was followed by the opening of a string of gambling establishments in Hallendale and other communities in Florida and a nightclub outside New Orleans. In Hallendale, gambling was conducted on a grand scale with the tacit agreement of the local government. Mutually beneficial, gambling was tolerated in exchange for covert taxation in the form of forfeited bonds and fines which by the mid 1940s had developed into a major source of income for the municipality. In 1941, Lansky and a partner, Bill Syms, were officially invited to operate greyhound racing in Council Bluffs, Iowa, to help repay a municipal debt from a failed fairground project. Three years earlier, Lansky had begun to work on rebuilding Cuba's ailing gambling business. Along with racetrack owner Lou Smith, who had a contract with the Cuban government to clean up and operate the racing on the island, Lansky reorganized casino gambling with personnel brought over from New York. It was the first time Lansky could work as a gambling entrepreneur in an open and legal fashion and without the need for protection. During WW II, Lansky contributed to the war effort in various ways, including a part in the cooperation between naval intelligence and underworld to expose German spies and saboteurs. Toward the end of the 1940s the climate for illegal gambling changed. Citizens' crime commissions and the press began to expose "wide open" gambling and corruption. Meyer Lansky for the first time received media attention and his name and picture began to appear in the papers. In 1950 he was called before the Kefauver committee to testify on his relationship with Frank Costello and other underworld figures. During the same year he pleaded guilty to felony gambling charges in Hallendale, where two of his co-owned clubs had to be closed down, and in 1952, following a grand jury investigation, he was sentenced to three months in jail for his gambling activities in Saratoga Springs. Lansky's luck changed when Cuban President Fulgencio Batista invited him to become adviser on gambling reform and to carry out a cleanup job like the one he had performed in the late 1930s. Lansky himself took over as operator of a newly established casino at the Hotel Nacional which was managed by International Hotels, Inc., a subsidiary of Pan Am, and a year later, in 1956, he started work on his own hotel-casino, the Riviera. The Riviera Hotel opened in December 1957 with a floor show headed by Ginger Rogers that was carried in part on American network television. The hotel-casino turned out to be an immense success. Asked why all the gangsters were tolerated in Cuban casinos, the U.S. ambassador Earl Smith reportedly explained, "it seems to be the only way to get honest casinos". Lansky's days in Cuba, however, were numbered when Fidel Castro took power. In October 1960 the Riviera Hotel and 165 other American enterprises were confiscated and nationalized. Back in the states Lansky became the target of FBI surveillance. In a bugged hotel room he was overheard commenting on a televised discussion on organized crime. The FBI report notes that when a panelist referred to organized crime as only being second in size to the government, Lansky remarked to his wife that organized crime was bigger than U.S. Steel. In the 1960s, what Lansky had left were his gambling interests in Nevada. He had invested in Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo Hotel Casino but had never been actively involved with the management and had visited Las Vegas only infrequently, making his last visit ever in 1956. Nevertheless, Lansky held a crucial position as the conduit for Las Vegas casino investments. With media and law enforcement attention increasing, Lansky sought to take refuge in Israel but his application for Israeli citizenship was denied on grounds that because of his criminal past he would be likely to endanger the public welfare. Once again returning to the states, Lansky faced a series of indictments, one for tax evasion based on testimony provided by Mafia informer Vincent "Fat Vinnie" Teresa who claimed to have delivered profits from gambling directly to Lansky in Florida at times when Lansky was obviously at other places. Consequently, the jury found him not guilty. The last case brought against Lansky, which pertained to the skimming of Las Vegas casino profits, was dismissed by the judge because of Lansky's poor health and age in 1976. Lansky died from cancer some six years later, on January 15, 1983, in a Miami hospital.
