Latest / Ridiculous History / Wyoming Tales, Part 2: Absaroka, the State That Almost Was

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Wyoming Tales, Part 2: Absaroka, the State That Almost Was · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
0:27
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank
0:30
Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in. Like we said in
0:34
Speaker 1: a previous episode, we're spending a little time in Wyoming.
0:39
Speaker 1: This is part two of our Tales from Wyoming. It
0:42
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with Big Nose George. But no,
0:46
Speaker 1: this does have a little bit of a connection to
0:49
Speaker 1: a previous episode we did why Omen where the sheriffs
0:54
Speaker 1: wear human leather shoes. Where there are failed states, And
0:59
Speaker 1: that's all I got. Failed states. That's the thing right
1:02
Speaker 1: in history. Boom, No nipples, No, there are no nipples
1:07
Speaker 1: on the shoes. Um. Yeah, it's it's not only reserved
1:11
Speaker 1: for like you know, Banana republics or places outside of
1:15
Speaker 1: the United States. There are in fact failed states within
1:19
Speaker 1: the United States. And that's what we're talking about today.
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Speaker 1: Portions of Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota back in nineteen
1:27
Speaker 1: thirty nine tried to secede from the Union and form
1:31
Speaker 1: their own state, which they called Absorca, which sounds like
1:37
Speaker 1: something out of like a science fiction novel er, like
1:39
Speaker 1: a like a Dune series, but it was in fact
1:42
Speaker 1: named after the abs Sorca Mountain Range in the Rockies. Yep. Oh.
1:48
Speaker 1: And by the way, I'm Ben shout out to our
1:51
Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegro and our guest producer Andrew Howard. Uh,
1:56
Speaker 1: neither of whom I believe have been to Absorca. Guys,
2:00
Speaker 1: set us straight. If that's an incorrect assumption, I know,
2:03
Speaker 1: by the way, if I didn't make that clear from
2:05
Speaker 1: the jump. Um and yeah, I mean Absorca, the you know,
2:09
Speaker 1: the state or the whatever you want to call it,
2:13
Speaker 1: never actually came into being, so I guess you couldn't. Really, Yeah,
2:17
Speaker 1: you still call it a failed to day. They did
2:18
Speaker 1: have license plates though, I but those are collector's items.
2:21
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. And the previous episode we did back in
2:23
Speaker 1: Get This two thousand and eighteen was called the United
2:27
Speaker 1: States That Never Were. We had a we had a
2:30
Speaker 1: special guest on UH and we talked a little bit.
2:34
Speaker 1: It was kind of a launch. It was the guest.
2:36
Speaker 1: It was my old man that's right, that's right, the
2:41
Speaker 1: colonel who says hi to everyone. By the way, Hello.
2:45
Speaker 1: So he took us on a journey through a number
2:50
Speaker 1: of different states or proposed states in the US. And
2:55
Speaker 1: today we want to do a deep dive on Absorca.
3:00
Speaker 1: Absorca is so fascinating to me. So it's this. The
3:05
Speaker 1: mountain range and the state were named after the Absorca Indians.
3:09
Speaker 1: The mountain range is named after the Absorca community. The
3:15
Speaker 1: name itself comes from the hiddatsa name for the crow people,
3:20
Speaker 1: and it means children of the large beaked bird. So
3:23
Speaker 1: that's that's the etymology. You guys know, we love etymology here. Yeah,
3:27
Speaker 1: and it's also gives what kind of gives it a
3:29
Speaker 1: little bit of a parallel flavor with big nose George. Yeah, hey,
3:35
Speaker 1: good call. I did not think about that part. Yeah.
3:38
Speaker 1: Absorca may sound obscure nowadays, but back in their glory
3:44
Speaker 1: days when they were trying to make a state called Absorca,
3:48
Speaker 1: they did a lot of stuff. They had license plates,
3:50
Speaker 1: and they even held a beauty pageant, Miss Absorca in nine.
3:55
Speaker 1: Today we're gonna we're gonna explore a little bit about
3:58
Speaker 1: how this came to form and why it is not
4:03
Speaker 1: a state or a star on the US flag today.
4:07
Speaker 1: This story had a kind of main character. That would
4:10
Speaker 1: be Street Commissioner A. R. Swickard. He is the guy
4:14
Speaker 1: who declared himself at one point governor of Absorka and
4:18
Speaker 1: began taking in grievances like hearing complaints from the locals.
4:24
Speaker 1: So how did we get here? Well, to answer that question,
4:28
Speaker 1: we have to go back to the American West in
4:31
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties. The fences that theoretically formed state borders
4:37
Speaker 1: had had been pretty finalized by this point. There were
4:41
Speaker 1: outliers Alaska and Hawaii. Of course, Alaska had been a
4:46
Speaker 1: Russian colony for a while, and Hawaii was the outlier
4:51
Speaker 1: because it was its own independent kingdom. If you'd like
4:56
Speaker 1: to learn more about that, please do check out. And
4:59
Speaker 1: at silent episode of stuff they don't want you to know,
5:03
Speaker 1: why are we saying it's excellent? Are we kissing our
5:05
Speaker 1: own butts? Absolutely not. That episode was hosted by Code
5:09
Speaker 1: Name Doc Holiday, our producer, and Danis Schwartz from Noble Blood.
5:15
Speaker 1: I thought was fantastic, so please give it a listen.
5:18
Speaker 1: And in nine Alaska Hawaii, as we all know, they
5:22
Speaker 1: became the forty ninth and fiftieth states. There hasn't been
5:25
Speaker 1: a fifty feet yet, but just twenty years before then,
5:28
Speaker 1: there was this real secessionist movement in Sheridan, Wyoming. And
5:34
Speaker 1: these people, like you just said earlier, these people wanted
5:37
Speaker 1: to make a new state, and they wanted it to
5:41
Speaker 1: be Absorca. It would have been the forty ninth state
5:44
Speaker 1: if if everything worked out the way they had hoped. Yes,
5:48
Speaker 1: that's right. There's a pretty visceral image in an article
5:51
Speaker 1: on Drake mag dot com UM describing the formation of
5:54
Speaker 1: Absorca as having been cut from the guts of northern Wyoming,
5:59
Speaker 1: southern Montana in western South Dakota. I mean, there's really
6:02
Speaker 1: no other way to read that than in that like
6:04
Speaker 1: you know, hardcore mad Maxie kind of voice, good from
6:07
Speaker 1: the goods, um. But yeah, you know, there was a
6:11
Speaker 1: part of Wyoming that was largely Democratic, in the southern half,
6:18
Speaker 1: and there was a sense that that part was not
6:22
Speaker 1: playing nice with the rest of the state. Uh. Therefore,
6:26
Speaker 1: a secessionist movement UM was launched by the northern portion
6:31
Speaker 1: of the state, which was made up of Republicans in
6:34
Speaker 1: nine nine. Their desire was to create a new state
6:38
Speaker 1: that would better serve its constituency. Uh it's more conservative population. Um.
6:44
Speaker 1: So that state, Yeah, as you is, there is you know,
6:47
Speaker 1: and my constituency that's a My brother artou Ref I
6:50
Speaker 1: didn't make that up. Um. This state would have been
6:53
Speaker 1: called Absorca, and by the way. It's confusing because it's
6:56
Speaker 1: spelled like it's got an extra syllable. It doesn't exist
6:58
Speaker 1: like it should be absaroke, but it's absorca alternately absorca.
7:05
Speaker 1: There's a couple of different ways we've seen it recommended
7:08
Speaker 1: to be pronounced. And like we said, it was named
7:10
Speaker 1: by this nearby mountain range, so that would have been
7:13
Speaker 1: made up of northern Wyoming's, southeast Montana, and the western
7:16
Speaker 1: region of South Dakota, like you said at the top
7:19
Speaker 1: of the show, and yeah, imagine you're in Wyoming and
7:23
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties and you say this is just not conservative enough.
7:29
Speaker 1: So instead of operating within the usual mechanisms of government,
7:33
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna make my own thing. The temptation is,
7:36
Speaker 1: you know, is understandable. The exact genesis of the movement
7:42
Speaker 1: is a little bit difficult to pin down, but we
7:45
Speaker 1: know that rumors of secession were well received by a
7:49
Speaker 1: lot of folks in small towns, a lot of ranchers,
7:52
Speaker 1: because they had experienced years of droughts, there had been
7:57
Speaker 1: biblical level plagues of in sex and they were thinking,
8:02
Speaker 1: you know, again, understandably, they were thinking, look, I see
8:06
Speaker 1: this new deal and it's doing a lot of good
8:09
Speaker 1: for people who live in other states. Howcome Uncle Sam's
8:12
Speaker 1: bankroll isn't making it out here to us, we're suffering.
8:16
Speaker 1: There has to be a better way, some kind of alternative.
8:20
Speaker 1: And then that's when people started kind of co mingling
8:24
Speaker 1: across state lines. Like some South Dakotas would meet with
8:27
Speaker 1: some folks from northern Wyoming and they'd say, look, we're
8:30
Speaker 1: all on the same page, right we could make something
8:35
Speaker 1: that works better than than what we're stuck with right now. Yeah. Yeah,
8:41
Speaker 1: almost like a plot, uh starts to coalesce. So this
8:47
Speaker 1: contingent of Wyoming Heights, wyominger's I'm not really sure. Let
8:52
Speaker 1: us know. If you're a citizen of Wyoming, what do
8:55
Speaker 1: we call you? Um. They were really irritated by this
9:00
Speaker 1: level of what they saw as out of touch democratic
9:03
Speaker 1: control of the state legislature there in Cheyenne, which, if
9:07
Speaker 1: you've watched Deadwood, Cheyenne has always kind of stand in
9:11
Speaker 1: for like the man right they always say, you know,
9:13
Speaker 1: back in back in Cheyenne. They felt like they were
9:17
Speaker 1: being ignored, the forgotten men and women of Wyoming by
9:20
Speaker 1: that southern half of the state. They were not having
9:23
Speaker 1: their interests represented properly. Um. So this movement, this plot
9:28
Speaker 1: started to thicken the game momentum when the residents of
9:32
Speaker 1: the southeastern part of Montana joined in this little conspiracy.
9:37
Speaker 1: Let's not forget that this all happened during the height
9:40
Speaker 1: of the depression, when it was a lot more likely
9:46
Speaker 1: that state dollars would be funneled into UH towns that
9:51
Speaker 1: had infrastructure such as a college or a hospital and communities.
9:58
Speaker 1: UH in the part of of the of the state
10:01
Speaker 1: that we're talking about, they were really rural, They were
10:03
Speaker 1: sparsely populated. They would have been miles and miles away
10:06
Speaker 1: from any of those types of places. Therefore, they were
10:09
Speaker 1: not seen as priority to get that relief. And let's
10:13
Speaker 1: not forget these were in the early days of the automobile,
10:16
Speaker 1: when the Model A was kind of the you know,
10:19
Speaker 1: the most advanced vehicle around and ben your car stuff
10:23
Speaker 1: experience out of come in handy here. What would still
10:26
Speaker 1: that have been like to drive around in one of
10:29
Speaker 1: these cars like for these long, tedious trips. Oh, it's
10:34
Speaker 1: a great question. It's rough. So the US interstate system
10:38
Speaker 1: did not exist at this point, which meant that traveling
10:43
Speaker 1: even with a Model A, which was like the second
10:46
Speaker 1: biggest success forward encountered after the Model T. Even even
10:51
Speaker 1: if you had that car, it could still be, as
10:54
Speaker 1: you said, pretty tedious, especially in sparsely populated areas where
10:59
Speaker 1: you had to drive a long way from point A
11:01
Speaker 1: to point B in a Model A. It's not a
11:05
Speaker 1: super pleasant journey. And these institutions that other states or
11:11
Speaker 1: communities have are just not there. You don't run into
11:14
Speaker 1: them as often because frankly, there's not a huge population, right,
11:18
Speaker 1: So if you don't have tons and tons of people,
11:21
Speaker 1: then you probably won't have tons and tons of colleges
11:24
Speaker 1: and hospitals and so on. So we can understand what
11:29
Speaker 1: felt like an economic and cultural disconnect in this community.
11:36
Speaker 1: And they would say, like, look, it takes forever to
11:41
Speaker 1: drive to the state capital, and those aren't really our people, right,
11:45
Speaker 1: we have to drive all the way there for a check.
11:47
Speaker 1: They don't know what's going on here on the ground.
11:50
Speaker 1: They're short changing us, So we need to take the
11:53
Speaker 1: reins of statehood. South Dakota Magazine has a great quote
11:59
Speaker 1: from a journalist at the time who says unity was
12:03
Speaker 1: the dream, a vision of orphans bent on cutting the
12:06
Speaker 1: hot out of the watermelon. It's it's weird because, uh,
12:11
Speaker 1: you know, it's betraying this honestly, this secessionist movement in
12:17
Speaker 1: a really empathetic light because everybody, even if they didn't
12:21
Speaker 1: agree the the common person in this area at the time,
12:25
Speaker 1: would have understood what was driving people to make this decision. Right. No,
12:31
Speaker 1: it was tough times all around for most people. The
12:35
Speaker 1: residents of these counties that were far away from the
12:38
Speaker 1: state capitals of South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. They're called
12:42
Speaker 1: Wyomingites by the way, sense although apparently Supreme Court Justice
12:50
Speaker 1: former Supreme Court Justice Scalia is on record saying that
12:54
Speaker 1: he wanted it to be a different word. Yeah. But
12:57
Speaker 1: that's the thing though, Like there's no real grammatical rule
13:00
Speaker 1: was behind these like Michigander. There there's no hard and
13:03
Speaker 1: fast role that creates that suffix. Right. It seems like
13:07
Speaker 1: somebody just comes up with it and people just roll
13:09
Speaker 1: with it, right. I you know, I haven't looked into this,
13:13
Speaker 1: but it does feel somewhat arbitrary. Maybe you just go
13:17
Speaker 1: with the one that for some reason sounds better, feels natural.
13:21
Speaker 1: But if you want to be wyoming Er, then I say,
13:25
Speaker 1: full steam ahead, you know what I mean, Just get
13:27
Speaker 1: it to catch on with everybody else the way that
13:29
Speaker 1: these folks did with the idea of absorca. They felt alienated.
13:35
Speaker 1: And and and let's go back to drakemag dot com
13:38
Speaker 1: here because I love I love the way this one
13:41
Speaker 1: is is written. They described this guy a R. Swickerd
13:44
Speaker 1: that we mentioned earlier as a quote stir by nature,
13:50
Speaker 1: that's right. And he had bona fides. He was like
13:53
Speaker 1: a bona fide celebrity. Essentially. He was a former baseball player, um.
13:57
Speaker 1: And he was based in Sheridan as a street and
14:01
Speaker 1: water commissioner UM. So he you know, had kind of swaggered,
14:05
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like, and he had the
14:08
Speaker 1: gift of gab, and he knew how to kind of
14:09
Speaker 1: get people on board with his cause. So he led
14:13
Speaker 1: the charge in this idea, this notion of splitting off
14:17
Speaker 1: into a distinct state. And and you know, historians report
14:23
Speaker 1: that his main beef was that Sheridan County wasn't getting
14:27
Speaker 1: their fair share of the Republican Patronage Committee appointments. So
14:34
Speaker 1: to him it was almost more political. Uh, he was
14:37
Speaker 1: coming at it from a more political bent than maybe
14:40
Speaker 1: the average Joe's and Josephine's who were more concerned with
14:44
Speaker 1: they weren't getting their money, you know, they weren't getting
14:46
Speaker 1: that that subsidy to help them just you know, go
14:49
Speaker 1: about their lives, uh and having to go kiss the
14:51
Speaker 1: ring in Cheyenne in order to you know, beg for
14:54
Speaker 1: scraps and get that check. Can you imagine if we
14:56
Speaker 1: had to do that for our stimmies, you know, we
14:58
Speaker 1: had to like draw of to Washington and go in person,
15:03
Speaker 1: please sir, and then hold out a hand for a check.
15:05
Speaker 1: It's pretty demoralizing, right, Yeah, absolutely, I mean there is there.
15:10
Speaker 1: There is a real issue of personal agency and dignity
15:14
Speaker 1: that comes in here. We know that even even today
15:19
Speaker 1: you see similar observations from folks when when you look
15:24
Speaker 1: at one state over or you nowadays will be going online,
15:28
Speaker 1: but let's say read a newspaper and you're learning about
15:31
Speaker 1: all this all this cool stuff and very expensive stuff
15:35
Speaker 1: happening in other parts of the country, and then you think, well,
15:40
Speaker 1: do those parts of the country just matter more than
15:43
Speaker 1: me and my family and my community. Wyoming. A lot
15:48
Speaker 1: of ranchers in Wyoming specifically, I felt like they were
15:53
Speaker 1: not getting federal cash and they were being passed over
15:57
Speaker 1: in favor of things like the development of railroads and
16:00
Speaker 1: these huge public works projects irrigation or dams for instance.
16:06
Speaker 1: That was a specific example, but you see, Wyoming had
16:11
Speaker 1: a secret beneath that sparsely populated grazing land, there was
16:16
Speaker 1: a ton of coal and this this could be a
16:20
Speaker 1: huge advantage for some of these smaller towns in Montana
16:25
Speaker 1: on the periphery if they joined up with this ab
16:29
Speaker 1: sort of movement. The folks in western South Dakota were
16:34
Speaker 1: mainly beefed up against the politicians on the east side
16:39
Speaker 1: of the state because they were running the state government
16:43
Speaker 1: and they used that control of the government to take
16:47
Speaker 1: advantage of the ore industry. Right they taxed it pretty heavily,
16:52
Speaker 1: and more and more members of you know, South Dakota
16:57
Speaker 1: in the western side are starting to say, like East
17:00
Speaker 1: eastern South Dakotans are completely different people, and they've got
17:04
Speaker 1: us over a barrel. There has to be a better way,
17:08
Speaker 1: and a picture like absorca monorail exactly monorail um ben
17:15
Speaker 1: Would there have been things like mineral rights at the time,
17:19
Speaker 1: or the notion of you know, ownership over these kind
17:21
Speaker 1: of resources, like would it have belonged to the state
17:24
Speaker 1: or would it have belonged to like the region. I'm curious. Yeah,
17:29
Speaker 1: that's a great question. So this stuff kind of goes
17:31
Speaker 1: state by state. We know that we know that mineral
17:34
Speaker 1: rights definitely existed in the US, right, Texas has those
17:39
Speaker 1: for sure. The thing is, again, you know, I don't
17:44
Speaker 1: want to fall into the stereotype of like cunning, lawful,
17:48
Speaker 1: evil politician, but a lot of these ranchers, a lot
17:52
Speaker 1: of people in these communities feel like the government is
17:56
Speaker 1: using legislation in a predatory where and taking advantage of
18:01
Speaker 1: stuff that shouldn't belong to them, right, or their their
18:06
Speaker 1: rent seeking because they're grabbing so much in taxes every
18:09
Speaker 1: time somebody tries to conduct business. And then in this phray,
18:16
Speaker 1: in this economic cultural fray, in these desperate times, Absorca
18:21
Speaker 1: seems like a shining new solution and so swickered. When
18:28
Speaker 1: he's the monorail dude in this story, he gets a
18:32
Speaker 1: lot like he he has an audience that is totally
18:36
Speaker 1: on board. They're gonna hear him out. It does. It's
18:39
Speaker 1: sound things are so When things are so crazy and
18:42
Speaker 1: so unpleasant at their baseline normal, then ideas that you
18:46
Speaker 1: would have once thought were crazy sound increasingly plausible. So
18:51
Speaker 1: the concept of saying, hey, we're gonna make our own
18:54
Speaker 1: state sounded less and less like a pipe dream and
18:58
Speaker 1: more and more like something that could be a real plan. Absolutely,
19:03
Speaker 1: and a lot of these meetings took place in the
19:05
Speaker 1: basement of the Sheridan Rotary Club. UM. But one of
19:09
Speaker 1: the early meetings, when Swigert was trying to get people
19:12
Speaker 1: on board, UM, he said something along the lines of,
19:16
Speaker 1: you know, as governor, we will make our own laws
19:19
Speaker 1: like the fat cats and Wyoming legislature do in the
19:23
Speaker 1: big Hotel at Cheyenne. You know there there's that Cheyenne again,
19:27
Speaker 1: as like a term of abuse. You know, it's like
19:29
Speaker 1: these are the out of touch, you know, fat cats
19:31
Speaker 1: over there, the big Hotel. I wonder what that's reference.
19:34
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's the fancy way of referring to the
19:37
Speaker 1: state House or something like that, like almost like a
19:40
Speaker 1: you know, like they're they're so out of touch and
19:41
Speaker 1: their fancy hotel, you know, and they're they're nice digs
19:44
Speaker 1: over there in Cheyenne. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a good point.
19:50
Speaker 1: I'm wondering. Was the big Hotel the only hotel in town?
19:54
Speaker 1: It could well have been. I mean, this was I mean, now,
19:56
Speaker 1: this is like in the thirties, and this is like
19:58
Speaker 1: the way past early like Deadwood era that they would
20:02
Speaker 1: have had, like infrastructure. I'm sure the big hotel was
20:04
Speaker 1: some sort of uh slang for for the state house
20:08
Speaker 1: or or something like that. That's just me guest gu estimating.
20:12
Speaker 1: But he did end up meeting with Gwyoming's actual governor,
20:16
Speaker 1: nels H. Smith. I love the name Nells by the way,
20:19
Speaker 1: I used that as a pseudonym sometimes if I'm trying
20:21
Speaker 1: to make a fake email or something like that, like, uh,
20:24
Speaker 1: why why did you make a fake email? Noel, you
20:26
Speaker 1: might ask, don't worry about it. I tend to use
20:29
Speaker 1: the name nels. But yeah, he met with the governor
20:33
Speaker 1: for a closed door session, a little rap session at
20:37
Speaker 1: the capitol, and apparently it went okay. Uh, it was friendly. Reportedly,
20:44
Speaker 1: um he was quoted as saying, I told the governor
20:46
Speaker 1: of our sister state to the south of Buffalo that
20:49
Speaker 1: we had no warlike designs and that rumors we might
20:52
Speaker 1: succeed by force were erroneous. He had it, uh. And
20:56
Speaker 1: then he coins another thing, which I love, We absto
20:59
Speaker 1: Rodin's which literally sounds like a species of alien from
21:03
Speaker 1: Star Wars still has that extra syllable just movie silence.
21:07
Speaker 1: Maybe it's Absordins then, because the ABSA is not present
21:12
Speaker 1: in the real princia, so I'm thinking it might be Absordin.
21:15
Speaker 1: Still sounds like Rhodans or whatever. Um. We Absordins are
21:19
Speaker 1: a peace loving lot. And while we think we really
21:22
Speaker 1: need the state of Absorca, we are not inclined to
21:26
Speaker 1: a revolution. M So he's saying something very important here,
21:30
Speaker 1: even if it's couched and like folk see comfy terms.
21:34
Speaker 1: He's saying, listen, uncle Sam, federal government, no need to
21:41
Speaker 1: send federal troops here. We're we're peaceful, We're not raising
21:45
Speaker 1: a militia against you. But we are going to draw
21:50
Speaker 1: a map. So Slickered and his crew at the Rotary
21:58
Speaker 1: Club draw this proposed map of ABSWORKA, and they do
22:04
Speaker 1: a couple of provocative things. The map creates a boundary
22:08
Speaker 1: straight through northern Wyoming and then uh, it cuts a
22:12
Speaker 1: line through western South Dakota, and it takes this kind
22:16
Speaker 1: of like square, like if you're looking at a brownie pan.
22:20
Speaker 1: It takes like a corner piece brownie chunk out of
22:23
Speaker 1: southeastern Montana, and it doesn't pay a lot of heed
22:28
Speaker 1: to existing geological boundaries, right, like the Missouri Rivers. Not
22:34
Speaker 1: only does it not pay attention to those boundaries, it
22:37
Speaker 1: like literally takes some pretty big tourist destinations and just
22:43
Speaker 1: like ropes it into the territory, things like the as
22:47
Speaker 1: yet still under construction, uh Mount Rushmore. You know, the
22:51
Speaker 1: president faces on the mountain. Everyone knows that one. And
22:55
Speaker 1: Yellowstone uh not to mention the Black Hills. So that's
22:59
Speaker 1: a pretty sis flex there. I don't think that would
23:01
Speaker 1: have gone unnoticed or you know, give it up without
23:05
Speaker 1: a fight. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so the borders are established,
23:10
Speaker 1: at least in the minds of Swickard and co. And
23:13
Speaker 1: they decided that rather than just focusing on sorting out
23:16
Speaker 1: all the paperwork that they would need, they're going to
23:20
Speaker 1: start behaving as though they already are an extant state.
23:25
Speaker 1: So they make the license plates which you mentioned. These
23:27
Speaker 1: are distributed to friends of the Rotary Club, right. And
23:31
Speaker 1: they also have that beauty contest. So we know that
23:36
Speaker 1: this beauty pageant was kind of a kind of a
23:40
Speaker 1: big deal because you can see photos of the winner
23:43
Speaker 1: one Dorothy Fellows, and Dorothy Fellows also got you know,
23:49
Speaker 1: post winning this beauty contest. She got roped into being
23:53
Speaker 1: a kind of like um, an active member of the movement,
23:57
Speaker 1: or at least a publicity draw because she went with
24:02
Speaker 1: Swicker in kind of a march to Billions, Montana. Uh.
24:07
Speaker 1: And it's it's funny because they got the local high
24:11
Speaker 1: school band or the Sheridan High School band. We should
24:14
Speaker 1: say they got the American Legion Drum and Bugle Corps,
24:17
Speaker 1: and they kind of I don't know, maybe I shouldn't
24:20
Speaker 1: call the march. It was more like a parade. That's
24:22
Speaker 1: the since I get what do you think? Yeah, that
24:25
Speaker 1: sounds about right. Once again, excellent turns of phrase in
24:28
Speaker 1: this Drake mag article. It's really more of a blog
24:31
Speaker 1: post because unfortunately doesn't list the writer. Uh, it's an
24:35
Speaker 1: official Absorca is the name. Oh, it says Drake Magazine
24:39
Speaker 1: back issue content winneren Um, but does not credit the writer.
24:43
Speaker 1: But there's some fabulous terms of phrase here. With borders established,
24:46
Speaker 1: the secession has turned to the obvious next steps to
24:49
Speaker 1: forming a new state, pressing license plates which were distributed
24:52
Speaker 1: to supporters and holding a Misobsorca beauty pageant. Old black
24:55
Speaker 1: and white photos show as sultry Dorothy Fellows wrapped shoulder
24:59
Speaker 1: to hip in a missub Sorcus sash with fellows in
25:02
Speaker 1: tow Swickard led a noisy procession to Billings, Montana in
25:05
Speaker 1: the spring of nine that included the Sheridan High School
25:08
Speaker 1: Band and the local American Legion Drum and Bugle Corps.
25:11
Speaker 1: And sorry to be redundant, their folks. I just wanted
25:13
Speaker 1: to read that quote because I think the writing of
25:15
Speaker 1: this Drake mag article is fabulous and I wish they
25:18
Speaker 1: credited the author um. But then at the end of
25:21
Speaker 1: this procession, of this parade, they actually link up with
25:25
Speaker 1: Prince Olave and Princess Martha of Norway who were in
25:29
Speaker 1: town for the Viking League of America reception. UH and UH.
25:34
Speaker 1: Swickard also supposedly met with King hack in the seventh
25:38
Speaker 1: of hak Kan h a a Ko and the seventh
25:42
Speaker 1: of Norway in Wyoming as well. So he's already laying
25:46
Speaker 1: the groundwork for like international affairs here, really trying to
25:50
Speaker 1: to make a show of him of himself as some
25:53
Speaker 1: sort of like great diplomat and states. Right. Yeah, and
25:56
Speaker 1: that's interesting. So one big thing about the formation of
26:01
Speaker 1: a new country is always recognition by other existing countries.
26:06
Speaker 1: So he's taking a strategy that people use on an
26:09
Speaker 1: international level and applying it to the proposed state of Absorca.
26:18
Speaker 1: And and you know it's clever because the royalty here
26:24
Speaker 1: the clearly they didn't know what they were being used
26:28
Speaker 1: for a lot. This guy is very savvy when it
26:31
Speaker 1: comes to publicity. And before he continue, yeah, agreed, Drake
26:36
Speaker 1: mag is awesome. It's started as a fly fishing magazine.
26:40
Speaker 1: M hmm. Yeah, the article really about Obstorca. They were
26:44
Speaker 1: talking about. The center piece of it is the trout
26:49
Speaker 1: there exact. So here's what he does. He shows off
26:53
Speaker 1: these license plates and he wants everybody who has a
26:57
Speaker 1: Model A or a Model T, you know, no discrimination,
27:01
Speaker 1: to show their support for apps work of by rocking
27:03
Speaker 1: these plates. And then, of course, what's the next step
27:07
Speaker 1: in publicizing your perspective. State, You gotta get a flag.
27:11
Speaker 1: Got to get a flag. What's a what's the state
27:14
Speaker 1: without a flag? The flag is red and white. And
27:17
Speaker 1: they've sown a big forty nine in their forty nine
27:21
Speaker 1: standing for the forty nine state. And he also started
27:26
Speaker 1: pitching it as the vacationist paradise because, as you said,
27:31
Speaker 1: with that potential map, they did purposely include a lot
27:35
Speaker 1: of like tourist destinations, outdoor landmarks, things like that Big
27:39
Speaker 1: Horn Mountains, Big Horn Basin, Yellowstone Parks, Black Hills. They
27:43
Speaker 1: were gonna try to It's like they were gonna try
27:46
Speaker 1: to make their main export tourism or their main industry
27:49
Speaker 1: tourism at some point. Yeah, but they had no claim
27:52
Speaker 1: to any of that stuff. Total flex. But are you
27:57
Speaker 1: are you familiar with um the very very popular Twitch
28:01
Speaker 1: streamer by the name of Dream. He goes by Dream.
28:06
Speaker 1: I only I only know about this because of my kid. Uh.
28:09
Speaker 1: It's it's a world that she's all of a sudden,
28:11
Speaker 1: mega mega entrenched in. But it's all about Minecraft. And
28:16
Speaker 1: in Minecraft, the SMPS, which is basically like a special
28:20
Speaker 1: invite only server, they have like literal states and boundaries
28:24
Speaker 1: and like different countries that people have created. Uh. And
28:27
Speaker 1: Dream has a feud with this dude who goes by
28:31
Speaker 1: wilbur Soot, who is a British young man, Um who
28:35
Speaker 1: is he writes kind of funny songs and he's a
28:38
Speaker 1: Twitch streamer and does uh and does all this uh
28:41
Speaker 1: this Minecraft stuff on YouTube and he basically like seceded
28:47
Speaker 1: from Dreams SMP country and started his own country called
28:52
Speaker 1: laman berg l apostrophe m A N b U r G.
28:56
Speaker 1: And it has a flag and it's like a big
28:59
Speaker 1: it's a flag. It's like, I think it's sort of
29:02
Speaker 1: a disk to dream because Dreams logo is like a
29:05
Speaker 1: black smiley face and so like the left hand corner
29:08
Speaker 1: of the of the flag is a black circle with
29:10
Speaker 1: an X in it and then two more excess and
29:12
Speaker 1: then blue, white and red. So the flag is very important.
29:16
Speaker 1: They describe it as a horizontal tricolor with a yellow
29:19
Speaker 1: arc filled with black and three crosses in the style
29:21
Speaker 1: of the Amsterdam flag. The blue stands for freedom, the
29:25
Speaker 1: red stands for the fighting and the blood spilled for
29:27
Speaker 1: the country. The white stands for peace. The yellow black
29:30
Speaker 1: denote the wall which stands between I think dreams, country
29:35
Speaker 1: and Laman Bird. But it is interesting, like these things matter. Uh,
29:38
Speaker 1: these thing the idea of borders even in fictional universes. Yeah, yeah,
29:43
Speaker 1: this is this is a discussion for all the amateur
29:46
Speaker 1: vexillologists in the crowd, which is a word I never
29:50
Speaker 1: get to use. Man, it's the study of flags vexillology,
29:55
Speaker 1: which is a super cool word that sounds like it
29:58
Speaker 1: should describe something. Don't know a little more space age.
30:01
Speaker 1: But yeah, flags are important, boundaries are important, and public
30:07
Speaker 1: awareness is important. And since Swickard is not trying to
30:11
Speaker 1: raise an army, he is instead focused on trying to
30:15
Speaker 1: win the hearts and the minds of the public. Sounds
30:18
Speaker 1: like a crazy idea, yeah, but is it just crazy
30:22
Speaker 1: enough to work? It turns out this Absorca movement had
30:27
Speaker 1: a pretty hefty impact before it began to fade away.
30:33
Speaker 1: This this is where Governor Swickard, as he calls himself
30:38
Speaker 1: self appointed Governor Swickard is right and high on the
30:41
Speaker 1: publicity from that beauty contest, from the parade, from tricking
30:46
Speaker 1: these European royalties into a period to support his state.
30:49
Speaker 1: Uh So he starts holding what are called grievance hearings.
30:54
Speaker 1: He says, come to Sheridan, people of Absorca, come to Sheridan,
30:59
Speaker 1: tell me what's going on in your neck of the woods,
31:01
Speaker 1: and let's see if we can fix some stuff. What
31:04
Speaker 1: has Whyoming done to you? And people do show up.
31:10
Speaker 1: People show up and they're like, hey, Governor, uh Swickard,
31:14
Speaker 1: Wyoming has been a real pill to me about you know,
31:17
Speaker 1: mineral rights are about taxation, things like that. And the
31:23
Speaker 1: hearings make it into the news and way over and shy,
31:28
Speaker 1: and someone at that big hotel is listening, and the
31:33
Speaker 1: big hotel, yeah, and they're they're they're reading this, and
31:37
Speaker 1: imagine how they feel. They're like, wow, this, this guy
31:42
Speaker 1: is really getting a lot of press, and it's making
31:45
Speaker 1: it look like we are not doing a particularly great
31:49
Speaker 1: job for parts of our constituency. And so leaders in
31:53
Speaker 1: both Wyoming and Montana began to pay much more attention.
31:58
Speaker 1: They started to keep their eyes on this, and the
32:02
Speaker 1: attention for some reason, maybe the attention resulted in actual
32:07
Speaker 1: better legislation because people who were part of this secessionist
32:12
Speaker 1: movement started to walk it back a little bit because
32:17
Speaker 1: they felt like the leaders of their existing states were
32:20
Speaker 1: finally starting to listen to their problems. And then, of course,
32:27
Speaker 1: World War Two hits the global stage, and the spirit,
32:32
Speaker 1: I would argue, the spirit of like maintaining domestic unity
32:37
Speaker 1: took precedent over the idea of creating your own state.
32:41
Speaker 1: So people were like, Okay, Avsorka will save this for now,
32:45
Speaker 1: Let's all get together as Americans for for at least
32:49
Speaker 1: the you know, the state of the war. And then
32:53
Speaker 1: after World War Two, it was kind of I don't know.
32:56
Speaker 1: In many ways, it was kind of a forgotten issue.
32:58
Speaker 1: So much stuff had happened. We're we're in the Eisenhower era.
33:01
Speaker 1: Now you can have your license plate, but you'll also
33:05
Speaker 1: have a you know, a real US license plate. Yeah,
33:08
Speaker 1: I mean, lets let's think of whatever the hot news
33:10
Speaker 1: item was before the pandemic. I don't know what it was.
33:14
Speaker 1: It's sort of like that World War two sort of
33:16
Speaker 1: like overshadows literally everything. Uh, and all of the momentum
33:20
Speaker 1: that he had gained um in this quest to succeed
33:24
Speaker 1: just kind of fizzled because you know, we've got bigger
33:27
Speaker 1: fish to fry here, guys. You know, we've got a
33:30
Speaker 1: lot more important things to do with our time. Yeah,
33:33
Speaker 1: we've got We've got way better trout. Let's focus on
33:36
Speaker 1: the track. So it's it's weird. This movement had a
33:44
Speaker 1: very h strong chance being lost to history and kind
33:48
Speaker 1: of relegated to the archives of various newspapers at the time,
33:53
Speaker 1: were it not for another new deal project, the Federal
33:57
Speaker 1: Writers Project. This is an amazing story all its own
34:02
Speaker 1: that comes from the Depression era. A lot of writers
34:06
Speaker 1: were sent out all across the US to create a
34:10
Speaker 1: series of travel guides and also to learn more about
34:14
Speaker 1: local folk ways like cooking culture and so on. And
34:19
Speaker 1: during the collection process for the Federal Writers Project, they
34:24
Speaker 1: found the Absorker story and they published it in nineteen
34:28
Speaker 1: forty one. Is kind of kind of a novelty, like, hey,
34:31
Speaker 1: look at this that you didn't know about this. It
34:33
Speaker 1: kind of had that that mental philosoph vibe or atlas
34:37
Speaker 1: obscura vibe, a predecessor of those at least, And there
34:41
Speaker 1: are numerous examples of the contributors that worked worked in
34:48
Speaker 1: this regard. And the thing was in the nineties there
34:51
Speaker 1: were a ton of what you might call professional authors
34:56
Speaker 1: in in the area at the time, so people who
34:59
Speaker 1: are leading the Wyoming aspects of the Federal Writers Project
35:03
Speaker 1: started looking for just anyone who could put some words
35:08
Speaker 1: on paper in a good sounding way. So that's where
35:11
Speaker 1: you find interviews with really eccentric characters. Uh, there's one
35:16
Speaker 1: contributor who was writing from jail, and there was there
35:20
Speaker 1: was another who was interviewing people at the frontier and
35:25
Speaker 1: delivering her manuscripts on horseback. Very odd bedfellows came together
35:31
Speaker 1: and the weirdest partment Obsorca or the territory that wanted
35:36
Speaker 1: to be Absorca once upon a time. Remember they're pretty conservative,
35:39
Speaker 1: and they thought, or many in the community thought it
35:43
Speaker 1: was kind of weird and maybe foolish for the government
35:47
Speaker 1: to pay writers at all. And so because they didn't
35:51
Speaker 1: value that as a as a trade or something, or
35:54
Speaker 1: as a as a skill. I guess so, yeah, or
35:56
Speaker 1: maybe saw the mentality kind of yeah, maybe saw it
35:59
Speaker 1: as a waste of money or being frivolous. So the
36:03
Speaker 1: state director of the of the project in Wyoming did
36:08
Speaker 1: something really really cool, and it was it was kind
36:12
Speaker 1: of in the spirit of Absorca. She just made up
36:16
Speaker 1: a publication that didn't exist, the Wyoming Stockman Farmer, and
36:20
Speaker 1: then she passed herself off as a reporter for that publication.
36:25
Speaker 1: There's a great article about that in the New York
36:27
Speaker 1: Times by Kirk Johnson, a state that never was in Wyoming.
36:31
Speaker 1: But that's so funny to me too. Like you go
36:35
Speaker 1: to someone, you say, hey, I'm part of the Federal
36:37
Speaker 1: Writers Project, uh, and I'm here to interview you. And
36:41
Speaker 1: then someone says, oh, I don't need some fancy Washington
36:47
Speaker 1: writer coming in and trying to steal my stories the
36:50
Speaker 1: way those folks in Cheyenne steal the coal. But then
36:53
Speaker 1: they come back and they say, sorry, my bad, I'm
36:56
Speaker 1: actually a reporter for a magazine about ranching. Is that
37:03
Speaker 1: that that passed the stiff test? And they're like, oh yeah, sorry,
37:05
Speaker 1: come on in, come on in. Indeed, and it's interesting
37:12
Speaker 1: because people who live in the regions that we've been
37:16
Speaker 1: talking about today that would have made up absorca uh
37:19
Speaker 1: still heavily debate the geographic and cultural disconnect between the
37:26
Speaker 1: east and the west of the region of the state,
37:30
Speaker 1: UM and whether the people are just fundamentally different because
37:35
Speaker 1: of these things. And Nate Peterson of South Dakota Magazine
37:40
Speaker 1: puts it this way. Is West River a land of
37:44
Speaker 1: rough and ready ranchers and libertarians? Is East River the
37:47
Speaker 1: place for farm populace and business types who more willingly
37:50
Speaker 1: embrace government as a means to solve problems. And you know,
37:54
Speaker 1: we know that Swickard was absolutely trying to capitalize on
37:59
Speaker 1: the these differences, on these this dis divide that apparently
38:04
Speaker 1: still exists today. UM. And it certainly seems that he
38:08
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff and the state did kind
38:10
Speaker 1: of exist largely in the imagination of a R. Swickerd
38:15
Speaker 1: um And and perhaps the imagination of the people, um
38:18
Speaker 1: who wanted it to to who wanted to will it
38:21
Speaker 1: into existence, right to make this new state a reality
38:24
Speaker 1: that ultimately was never to be. So it's a failed
38:28
Speaker 1: it's the failed state that never was. Yeah. Yeah, and
38:33
Speaker 1: it's in it's a response again, it's a It is
38:36
Speaker 1: a valid response, an understandable response, too deep and troubling
38:42
Speaker 1: problems that people in the area were experiencing. But should
38:48
Speaker 1: it have should it have succeeded? I mean, did they
38:51
Speaker 1: seriously wanted to succeed or was it all just a
38:56
Speaker 1: very clever publicity stunt, you know what I mean. I
38:59
Speaker 1: think people who consider themselves part of the movement of
39:02
Speaker 1: ABSORCA were probably at different opinions on that. Like I
39:06
Speaker 1: think there are some people who genuinely believed, yes, this
39:09
Speaker 1: will be the forty ninth state. There are other people
39:12
Speaker 1: who thought this is this is a fun in joke
39:15
Speaker 1: and it's a smart, non violent way to confront these
39:18
Speaker 1: serious problems. Last fun fact for me, No, I I'm
39:23
Speaker 1: still baffled by this. I think we may have mentioned
39:25
Speaker 1: it before, but you know, apparently Wyoming only has two
39:28
Speaker 1: escalators in the entire state. That's crazy. Well, I don't
39:34
Speaker 1: understand I'm confused. Uh, maybe it's just population. We know
39:39
Speaker 1: that The Atlantic and MPR have written about this, uh,
39:43
Speaker 1: saying that it's home to Well, I guess you could
39:46
Speaker 1: say four escalators because it's two sets of escalators. But
39:50
Speaker 1: there are escalator experts, self professed kind of the same
39:54
Speaker 1: way Swickard was a self professed governor that say there's
39:57
Speaker 1: no there's no real explanation for why there are no escalators. Still,
40:04
Speaker 1: let us know what you think about escalators, and let
40:07
Speaker 1: us know if what you think about the idea of
40:10
Speaker 1: forming one's own state. Secessionist movements never went away, there's
40:16
Speaker 1: still around. I mean, keep in mind that Noel Casey,
40:19
Speaker 1: Andrew and I and many of our colleagues are in
40:23
Speaker 1: the Southeast US, and then the southeast US has no
40:27
Speaker 1: uh dearth of would be secessionist movements. Right, Like there
40:32
Speaker 1: was a thing called calling itself the Sovereign State of Georgia. Uh,
40:36
Speaker 1: they were motivated by very different reasons. But I don't know, man,
40:39
Speaker 1: it just it doesn't seem like the smartest or most
40:42
Speaker 1: practical solution to solve problems by like saying, like, you know,
40:47
Speaker 1: Atlanta traffic is terrible, Does that mean we should form
40:50
Speaker 1: a different state. I don't know, man, Yeah, it's sort
40:54
Speaker 1: of the whole like I'm taking my ball and going
40:56
Speaker 1: home mentality as opposed to trying to band together and
40:59
Speaker 1: work with people that are different than you to make change.
41:01
Speaker 1: But we also know that that's really difficult, especially nowadays
41:05
Speaker 1: as we live in a more and more divided country,
41:07
Speaker 1: even a divided state. Knowing that Georgia, you know, went
41:10
Speaker 1: blue by a razor thin margin, which means that you know,
41:15
Speaker 1: we're probably about split down the middle, aren't we, in
41:18
Speaker 1: terms of like a conservative and a little more liberal. Yeah. Absolutely,
41:24
Speaker 1: And I think that's I think that's an important takeaway.
41:28
Speaker 1: I like the way you put it there, that we
41:30
Speaker 1: get long lasting, better results as a community when we
41:35
Speaker 1: work together, you know what I mean, instead of taking
41:38
Speaker 1: the ball, whatever the ball is and just going home.
41:42
Speaker 1: But still, it's it's fascinating so many like if every
41:46
Speaker 1: single statehood movement that we've talked about was successful, how
41:52
Speaker 1: many stars would be on the flag today? Are? You know,
41:56
Speaker 1: we've got a couple of places that may become US
41:59
Speaker 1: states with thin our lifetimes, like Puerto Rico, for instance,
42:02
Speaker 1: has a strong movement to become the fifty one U
42:05
Speaker 1: s state. We hope you enjoyed today's episode, folks, and
42:09
Speaker 1: if you live in Wyoming, let us know if you've
42:12
Speaker 1: seen an escalator. I don't know why this is the
42:15
Speaker 1: This has become like a focus point for me. It's
42:17
Speaker 1: just a weird fact. Uh. And then let us know
42:20
Speaker 1: if you have heard of other secessionist movements or proposed
42:24
Speaker 1: states in your neck of the woods. We'd love to
42:28
Speaker 1: hear from you. We try to be easy to find online.
42:31
Speaker 1: Shout out to ridiculous historians our Facebook page, but breaking
42:35
Speaker 1: news this just in. You can also contact us as
42:38
Speaker 1: individuals online. That's right. You can find me on Instagram
42:43
Speaker 1: where I am at how now Noel Brown not much
42:46
Speaker 1: of a tweeter, but Ben prolific and high quality tweeter.
42:49
Speaker 1: Where can folks find you, Sir Chucks thinks no. Well,
42:53
Speaker 1: if the spirit so moves you, you can always find
42:55
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Ben Bulan hs W. You can
42:59
Speaker 1: also find me on Instagram at Ben Bowling bo w
43:04
Speaker 1: l I N. Thanks as always to our super producer
43:08
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram and our guest producer Andrew Howard. Huge thanks
43:12
Speaker 1: to research or extraordinaire Gabe Louisier. Gabe Louizier Gabe blues
43:16
Speaker 1: g L. Thanks Bud. We have to have you back
43:19
Speaker 1: again very soon. I think we we sort of made
43:21
Speaker 1: a pact, a blood pact in fact of sorts to
43:24
Speaker 1: have him back, uh you know, a very least quarterly,
43:27
Speaker 1: if not once every couple of months or so. If
43:29
Speaker 1: that the same as quarterly, I don't know. Um. Thanks
43:32
Speaker 1: to Christopher haciotas here in spirit Jonathan Strickland, the notorious Quister.
43:37
Speaker 1: That's sketchy, dude. Um, we hope to have him back again.
43:40
Speaker 1: To that, we got got a soft spot in my
43:41
Speaker 1: heart for the Quister. How about you been? Uh yeah,
43:44
Speaker 1: I was just thinking he would totally make his own state.
43:47
Speaker 1: So what would the name of the Quister state be?
43:50
Speaker 1: Quiz Topia, quiz Topia, Quisitaria, Uh yeah yeah, Quizzica, Yeah
43:58
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, I like those. I feel like he would
44:00
Speaker 1: choose a very British or at least very European sounding named.
44:05
Speaker 1: And you know what, I am sure Noel that if
44:07
Speaker 1: we ask him the next time he's on air, he'll
44:09
Speaker 1: tell us that's not that I'm getting too close today,
44:14
Speaker 1: more of the precipice. Yeah. So that's that's our show.
44:17
Speaker 1: And of course also thanks to Alex Williams who composed
44:20
Speaker 1: that beautiful theme song that you hear at the beginning
44:24
Speaker 1: end of every show and no thanks to you, I
44:27
Speaker 1: I can't would you? Would you ever? Start? A state?
44:29
Speaker 1: Man asks a lot of work. I just gotta stick
44:33
Speaker 1: with this podcast game to get an island, run this
44:36
Speaker 1: thing into the ground, and then and then try to,
44:38
Speaker 1: you know, diversify it. We'll see you next time. For
44:57
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
44:59
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
45:02
Speaker 1: favorite shows.