Friday, March 18, 2016

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Five Even More Amazing Facts You Probably Didn't Know

THE U.S. CAMEL CORPS
In 1853, then U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis of
Mississippi proposed that camels be employed for
transportation in the southwestern frontier. Seventy camels
were then imported from Egypt to form the U.S. Camel Corps
which had some success prior to the Civil War, although the
camels reportedly were difficult to manage.  By 1858, the
project was abandoned, and the camels were then used for
military purposes. The last known camel reconnaissance was
conducted by the then U.S. army commander in Texas,
General Robert E. Lee in 1860. After the Civil War, the U.S.
camel experiment was abandoned, probably in part because
of its association with the two leaders of the Confederacy.
All camels were sold at auction,and as late as the turn of the
century, feral (wild) camels were reported to be sighted in the
arid plains and deserts of the American West.

GEORGE WASHINGTON WHISKEY 
TYCOON?
After he retired as the first president of the United States in
1797, George Washington retired to his estate at Mt. Vernon,
built a distillery and went into the whiskey business. It was
initially successful and profitable, In its second year of
production, its output was almost 11,000 gallons, making it
the largest whiskey distillery in North America. After his
untimely early death in 1799, the business was turned over to
surviving family members, and it failed a few years later.

PENNIES USED TO BE THE SIZE OF 
HALF DOLLARS, AND TWO CENT, 
THREE CENT AND TWENTY CENT 
COINS USED TO BE LEGAL
Prior to 1856, the U.S. copper one cent piece was approximately
the size of a half dollar. In 1856, the smaller “penny” was
introduced with a flying eagle on its obverse, and in 1859, it was
replaced with the “Indian head” obverse. In 1909, on the
centenary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, the “Lincoln cent” (with
an obverse still in use) was introduced. Also in the mid-19th
century, experiments in other coinage denominations were tried,
including both silver and nickel three cent pieces, a copper
two cent piece and a silver twenty cent piece. All were legal
tender, but did not prove popular. Today, they are collector’s
items.

THE MOST SUCCESSFUL WOMAN 
CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT WAS 
A PHYSICIAN
Dr. Jill Stein, an internist who graduated from Harvard Medical
School, was the Green Party nominee for president in 2012, and
received almost half a million votes --- more than any woman
candidate for president in U.S. history. She is expected to be the
Green Party nominee again in 2016, but a woman nominated by
another party could exceed Dr. Stein’s popular vote totals.

THE FIRST MODERN SUMMER 
FESTIVAL WAS BEGUN IN WESTERN 
NEW YORK
The first modern American “summer festival” was founded in
1874 at a site on Lake Chautauqua in western New York, a few
miles east of Erie, Pennsylvania. On land that became known as
the Chautauqua Institution, the event was created by Protestant
religious leaders who wanted to hold a summer event of serious
ecumenical, educational and aesthetic discussion and presentations
of the performing arts. It quickly caught on, first in the region
(drawing visitors from Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, Pittsburgh,
Rochester and other nearby cities, towns and rural communities),
and then nationally, as world famous theologians, philosophers,
political leaders and famed artistic figures spoke and performed
to large crowds in the “gated” community which featured
Victorian-styled homes, cottages, hotels and boarding houses.
Soon, “Chautauquas,” or local religio-cultural summer events
began appearing all over America, and the word “chautauqua”
became a word in the dictionary. From the early 20th century on,
the Chautauqua Institution season became a notable site for
major addresses by U.S. presidents and presidential candidates.
President Franklin Roosevelt made his famous “I hate war” speech
there, and more recently, President Bill Clinton spoke in the
legendary Chautauqua amphitheater. In the 1930‘s, Chautauqua
provided a haven for many of the world’s most famous musicians
fleeing Nazi persecution, including the composer Arnold
Schoenberg. The Institution’s largest hotel, The Atheneum, is a
magnificent example of grand Victorian architecture, and has
been seen as a setting for several motion pictures.

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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.




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