Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
It was hot in Riverton. The temperature hit 92 degrees, with no wind or rain. As midnight approached the stars were bright above the city on Independence Day 1923, when a spark lit up the night sky to the northwest. The growing agricultural town of 2000 people witnessed an event that many residents would never forget, a giant cross, 35 feet high and 20 feet wide burst into flame on top of Griffey Hill.
The cross burning was celebrated by 50 robed, and hooded members of the Riverton chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The location of the burning cross made it clearly visible to everyone in town. It had a dual message, first to let Riverton know the Klan was active in their town, and second to send a statement to the Arapaho people living just across the Wind River on the Wind River Indian Reservation that the Klan was alive and well in Fremont County.
For many years rumors of Klan activity permeated Fremont County. There were whispered comments of Klan activity in Shoshoni, Hudson, Riverton, Lander and Dubois. The “Invisible Empire” as the Klan often referred to itself marked the rise of the Second Klan.
The first Ku Klux Klan was formed in Mississippi after the Civil War and quickly spread across the former Confederacy with the goal of driving Union occupation forces from the defeated South and to terrorize and hold the recently freed black slaves in terror. The First Klan accomplished its mission when federal troops began to exit the South and Jim Crow Laws went into effect to hold the freed slaves under often cruel control by white supremacists.
The first Klan never burned crosses, preferring instead, the “Midnight Ride” where they would swoop down on an isolated cabin, torture and kill the man inside and then go to church the following Sunday.
A nationwide effort was made by Republican politicians to end the Klan, but it proved futile in the former Confederacy where it quietly existed until it emerged when it was time to lynch or torture a local brown-skinned, Jewish, or Catholic person who “stepped out of line.”
The Federal occupation of the former confederacy ended on April 24, 1877, when President Rutherford B. Hayes ordered the last federal troops to leave the Louisiana State House. It officially ended the post-Civil War Reconstruction period in the American South.
Though the Ku Klux Klan and similar organizations such as the Knights of the White Camelia orchestrated “Midnight Rides” killing isolated dark-skinned individuals and often tar and feathering sympathetic white people, large-scale lynchings were kept in check by the United States Army.
That quickly ended once federal occupation ended.
Between 1882 and 1964, an estimated 3,445 black people were lynched nationwide, most in southern states. During the same period, 1,297 white people were lynched. The peak year was 1892 when 161 black men were either hanged in lynchings or burned alive.
The lynchings began to decrease until a popular film was released on February 8, 1915. “Birth of a Nation” was a nationwide hit. The 12-reel silent film set standards never before seen in a motion picture. On December 15, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson watched it in a private screening at the White House. It was the first film ever shown there to an American President.
The film cost $110,000 for producer D.W. Griffith to make, but it eventually grossed $100,000,000 worldwide. It remained the most successful film until Disney Studios released “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” in 1937. Two years later, the first non-animated film to surpass Birth of a Nation came in a similar theme with “Gone with the Wind.” Pinocchio, released in 1940, was the only other film to outgross “Birth of a Nation” before films went mainstream after World War II.
The film grossed somewhere between thirteen and eighteen million dollars in the United States alone, almost half a billion dollars in today’s terms.
What does Hollywood have to do with the existence of the Klan in Fremont County? It represents a nationwide trend that began shortly after the release of Birth of a Nation, with the creation of the Second Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta soon after the film shown there in 1915. It coincided with the creation of a smaller Klan organization called the Knights of Mary Phagan, named after the young murder victim, allegedly killed by Leo Frank, a Jewish man, who was then lynched in Marietta, Georgia.
The Second Klan arrived on Thanksgiving Day 1915, in Atlanta, the brainchild of an itinerant protestant preacher, William J. Simmons. Simmons preached “fire and brimstone” gospel, but he didn’t live it. A chronic alcoholic, who nearly beat his wife to death, he frequented prostitutes and was an avid collector of pornography.
As with every extremist, his personal habits didn’t matter, it was the message he sent to followers. Simmons and 15 other men, climbed to the top of Stone Mountain where they built an alter, placed a bible, an American flag and a sword on it and burned a cross, the first of thousands that would terrorize America. Simmons made this statement, “The Ku Klux Klan has risen, awakened from a slumber of 50 years.”
The revived Klan membership spread like wildfire. By 1928, an estimated 5,000,000 Americans had joined the Klan.
Coinciding with the rise of the “New Klan” were lynchings of black men. The ratio of roughly 2 to 1 dark-skinned versus white lynchings before the release of the film jumped to 10 to 1 over the next decade. From 1915 to 1925 there were 53 white people lynched in the United States and 503 black individuals.
Fremont County was in the midst of this nationwide trend, and Riverton was the center of Klan activity in central Wyoming.
On June 18, 19 and 20, 1916, the Dixie Theater in Lander showed the Birth of a Nation twice a day, to sold out crowds.
Belle Mote in nearby Riverton tried to get the film but underhanded promoters claimed Riverton wasn’t large enough to show it, instead moving the film to the Dixie Theater and to special showings in Shoshoni.
The Klan was about to go mainstream, and the national headquarters in Atlanta set their sights on expansion into the Great Lakes, Midwest, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. They began opening regional offices, including one in Denver which was responsible for Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and the Dakotas.
Riverton was selected as a likely location for the Klan.
The Second Ku Klux Klan remained a secretive organization with members almost always covering their faces in public, but the recruitment process was very public. They often sought out local newspapers for free recruitment as in this story printed on the opinion page of the Riverton Review.
Riverton Review June 15, 1921
TO ORGANIZE BRANCH OF THE KU KLUX KLAN
According to Information received this week from Colonel William J Hammons, of Atlanta, an Imperial Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan the work of organizing the Klan in this state has been put underway and representatives of the organization are in this city now, or will be here shortly, to assist in establishing a branch of the order.
The work of organizing the Klan in this territory will be conducted from the central office, or headquarters, which have been established in Denver, the territory, to be known as the Northwestern Domain, including the following states: Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
The Klux Klan Is now being organized in practically every state in the Union. It is said a number of well known citizens of this city have interested themselves in the organization and that the Kian In response to their request, has come here to assist them in putting the organization under way.
According to the Imperial Wizard the modern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was organized in Atlanta on Thanksgiving night, 1915, with thirty-four members. Since several of these charter members belonged to the original Klan of the Reconstruction period It was held to be the legitimate heir of the original Kian and in its charter from the State of Georgia and the Superior Court of the State It was granted all the rights of the original order with exclusive use of its sign, symbols, regalia, etc.
“The modern Knights of Ku Klux Klan,” says Col. Simmons, “is a legally chartered patriotic and fraternal organization. It is non-sectional, nonpartisan, non-sectarian and non-political. It stands uncompromisingly for imperial enforcement of all laws and stands ready at any and all times to assist if called upon in aiding properly constitutional authorities in suppressing outbreaks against law and order. It Is the duty of all Klansmen at all times to lend their moral and physical support to all movements tending to the betterment of the interest of the community, the state and the nation. The Ku Klux Klan stands for the separation of church and state, limitation of immigration, freedom of speech and press, prevention insofar as possible the causes that lead to lynching, control of the white race in all governmental affairs, but without Injustice to any race or creed.
“Its purpose is to inculcate the sacred principles and noble Ideals of protection of the home and the chastity of womanhood, exemplification of chivalry, development of character, a pure patriotism and preservation of American ideals and institutions. Being strictly an American institution only one hundred per rent American citizens are eligible for membership.
They must be white, native born adhere to the tenets of the Christian religion and owe no allegiance of any degree or nature to any foreign government, political or religious Institution, sect or people.”
What the Ku Klux Klan claimed to represent
What the Ku Klux Klan actually did
While some newspapers supported the Klan, the overwhelming majority did not.
Riverton Review October 5, 1921
The Klan claims a total membership of 500,000 and says it Is calling 1000 fresh recruits to the colors every week. Its officers say It Is a fraternal patriotic organization based on the tradition of the Ku Klux Klan which flourished in the South during the reconstruction period following the Civil War. They say it is dedicated to loyal Americanism, white supremacy and the protection of American womanhood.
But the opponents of the Klan declare that It Is an anti-negro, anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-alien body and that it plans by insidious propaganda to stir up racial and religious hatred and Internal strife. It Is upon these charges that federal investigation will be based.
Riverton was the center of Klan activity in Fremont County, but a recruitment effort was uncovered in Dubois during July 1922, with members of the Riverton Klan visiting the High Country and pledging a handful of prospective Klansmen.
Rumors abounded in Riverton about who was and who was not a secret member of the Ku Klux Klan. Many of those rumors were answered in September 1922 when well-known Riverton businessman Ray Francis McLaughlin passed away. McLaughlin was one of the founders of the Wyoming Tie and Timber Company, and a very active Freemason, achieving high ranks in the Masonic Order.
After his funeral, five robed Klansmen in white hoods drove up Main Street in Riverton, turned onto Riverview Road and stopped to place a cross of red flowers on McLaughlin’s grave at the Oddfellows Cemetery. They said a few brief prayers, then quickly departed before anyone could follow them.
In December 1922, two groups of five robed and hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan interrupted a Methodist church service led by Rev. Drummond, and a Baptist service led by Rev. Hodgson at the same time.
Without a word, four Klansmen stayed at the rear of each church while the fifth walked to the front, presented each pastor with $25 and departed.
Later, Rev. Drummond printed a thank you note to the Klan in the December 17, 1922 Riverton Review – The note read:
Received from the order of the Ku Klux Klan for the Thanksgiving Fund twenty-five dollars, for which in behalf of my church, I thank you. – Rev. R.W. Drummond
Walking into churches, donating $25 and then exiting quietly wasn’t unique to Riverton, it was a tactic taught to organizers from Klan headquarters and it was effective. Cloaked in the disguise of righteousness, membership grew exponentially. The Klan targeted Hispanics in the Southwest, Asians on the West Coast, black people in the South, Catholics in the North, and Jewish people everywhere. They saved a little to terrorize Native Americans as well.
As the movement spread, they began “morally policing,” breaking into homes to torture and terrorize doctors, engineers, teachers and attorneys, attacking anyone with an education. They started pulling teenagers out of cars, beating and torturing the boys, humiliating the girls and publicizing their exploits. All the time they were enforcing morality, they kept the local brothels busy, abused their wives, and ran clandestine stills while preaching against drinking.
It established a trend that extended into 1950s with McCarthyism and into the modern era with the same old zealot hypocrisy.
By 1923, the Klan was growing by an estimated 35,000 members per week nationwide. They held their first openly viewed meeting in Wyoming on the last Thursday of the Wyoming State Fair in Douglas. A gathering of 300 Klansmen performed a public initiation of 24 new members on a hill three miles north of the State Fair Grounds in Douglas featuring a towering 50-foot-high burning cross.
A crowd of 3,000 onlookers watched from a close enough distance to recognize many of the unmasked faces of the 24 men being initiated into the Klan. Among the onlookers was Wyoming Governor William B. Ross who had early denied the Klan’s request to hold the ceremony on the State Fair Grounds.
The following summer on July 31, 1924, 150 members of the Riverton KKK initiated new members atop Griffey Hill while a crowd of hundreds of onlookers watched. This time the initiates faces were covered by hoods. People listening in the crowd recognized the voices of men from Lander, Hudson and Shoshoni in the proceedings, as well as many Riverton residents.
The modern KKK claimed to be a civic organization dedicated to Christianity, family values and American institutions, but their actions didn’t match their words.
In Wyoming, the motto the “Equality State” didn’t match either.
From 1868 to 1903, there were 29 men and one woman lynched in Wyoming, the most famous being Jim Averell and Ellen “Cattle Kate” Watson during the Johnson County War. All of these people were white.
After 1903, the lynchings continued, but they were all black or Hispanic.
Wyoming has never been regarded as a bastion of racial tolerance, the Rock Springs Massacre of Chinese workers in 1885 and the reaction of racist Wyoming politicians to the 10,000 Japanese interned at the Heart Mountain Camp during World War II are prime examples.
Wyoming’s first lynching came before it was established as a territory at Fort Halleck in 1864. A slave of the post-surgeon named Asa was accused to trying to kiss a 12-year-old white girl. He was quickly assaulted by soldiers of the post and, according to Army records… ”cuffed and kicked, tarred and feathered, set on on fire, skinned alive, and finally stuck half dead in a firkin (barrel) and exposed on the plains, until the flesh was eaten away by wolves and hawks…they tacked his hide on the side of the hospital, where it remained for the rest of the summer.”
They called it “rough justice.”
Frank Wigfall was a habitual criminal, serving time in various jails and the Wyoming State Penitentiary for most of his life.
He was released and promptly charged with sexually assaulting a 78-year-old woman in 1912.
Wigfall was captured at Ft. Steel east of Rawlins and placed on the Union Pacific to face charges at the Carbon County Courthouse. An angry mob awaited his arrival at the Rawlins railroad depot.
The sheriff, Rawlins mayor and Rawlins police managed to get him into the city jail as a lynch mob gathered outside. The lawmen pulled Wigfall out of the jail into what they thought was the relative safety of the state penitentiary.
It didn’t work. Inmates discovered Wigfall, overpowered the guards, tied a rope around his neck and threw him off the third level of cells in the prison where his head was nearly pulled off his body.
Four more black men were lynched and hanged in Rock Springs and Green River during the 1910s.
The final lynching in Wyoming came in Fremont County in 1919.
A black railroad worker, on a layover in Hudson was drinking with his fellow railroad workers at the Main Street Saloon, which is adjacent to the former El Toro Restaurant and Bar on Main Street in Hudson.
After a few drinks, he said he was “going upstairs.” Upstairs was a brothel. No one cared if a black man frequented a black prostitute, but this establishment had only white prostitutes.
His fellow white railroad workers and other saloon patrons grabbed him as he reached the second floor, threw him off the landing and then beat him to death in the alley behind the brothel. It’s the site of the Hudson tennis courts today. They quickly buried him in a shallow grave at the Hudson Cemetery. No charges were ever issued.
It was the final recorded lynching in the Cowboy State.
By 1928, Klan membership reached its peak at 5,000,000 nationwide. They were successful in electing governors and representatives from southern states, and a prominent Alabama Senator, Hugo Black, who later became a Supreme Court Justice.
The Klan had arrived and with it, the same old terror, racism and violence. Hatred spread wherever the Klan reared its ugly head.
A constant target of the Indiana KKK, the largest in the nation, was the University of Notre Dame. The Catholic institution stood as a beacon against the Klan. In May 1924, a group of Klansmen descended on the university. They were met by at least 50 seniors at Notre Dame. The seniors beat the Klansmen down, ripped off their robes and paraded around for photos in them. It was another blast against the “Master Race”
In the aftermath, the local newspapers called the students, the “Fighting Irish.” The name stuck and it was officially recognized as the university’s mascot in 1927.
In some locations, it became so mainstream that Ku Klux Klan baseball teams were formed. In a very strange sports story, the local Klan team played the Monrovians, a Wichita, Kansas, African American semi-pro baseball team, in 1925.
A series of widely publicized scandals rocked the clan beginning in 1925. David Curtis “Steve” Stephenson was an itinerant huckster who rose to be the Grand Dragon of the Indiana KKK, the largest ever in America. Stephenson controlled seven other Midwest states. He mutilated, raped, and left 28-year old Madge Oberholtzer to die. He was convicted in November 1925 of murder and sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison. At his trial, 40 other women came forward indicating he had bitten, beaten and raped them as well. It was the beginning of the end for Klan.
In Portland, the Oregon Grand Dragon, a dentist was sentenced to life in prison as well after impregnating a teenager. She died after he botched an abortion attempt in his office.
In Denver, where the Riverton KKK took its orders, three of the leaders of the Rocky Mountain Klan were sent to prison. Two for multiple counts of statutory rape and the other for the sexual assault of a child.
The trials exposed the true nature of the Klan as an organization managed by criminal deviants hiding behind the facade of Christianity.
By 1930, Klan membership nationwide had dropped by over 90%.
The KKK continued to decline during the Great Depression. In 1946, the “Third Klan” was formed, but it’s popularity never reached that of its previous iterations.
Current Ku Klux Klan membership is estimated at about 7,500 members.
The message of the second clan, white supremacy, Americanism, state’s rights, protection of women (whether they like it or not), eliminating immigration, pro-American ideals in school, anti-Jew, anti-minority, carefully whitewashed history in schools, high tariffs, and allowing only Christianity in America has experienced a recent revival in mainstream American politics.
The Klan is an old institution dedicated to all these things, but its ideals remain alive in much of America.