Hilarious Story Of Why This Wyoming Politician’s Photo Has A HOLE!

When I first moved to Wyoming I was invited to visit the Wyoming state capital and was given a tour by the current Speaker Of The House, Tom Lubnau, of Gillette Wyoming.

We stopped at some photos of past legislative bodies.

He pointed to one framed group of House members that had a big rip in the middle.

"That was bashed over somebody's head," Mr. Lubnau told me.

Wait... WHAT?

Back when this occurred Wyoming was not such a heavily Republican state.

The rip resulted from a riot on Jan. 20, 1913, the fourth day of the session, in which Republicans and Democrats fought hand-and-fist during a 45-minute shouting match over who should sit in the speaker’s chair, which was Mr. Lubnau's current job.

Mr. Lubnau was voted in. No fist fighting.

The battle happened during the 12th session of the Wyoming Legislature. Wyoming was a young state.

The date was January 1913.

The Democrat and Republican balance of power was at stake.

At the time U.S. Senators were not elected by the people but selected by the state government.

So holding power in the house was key, not just in Wyoming, but to who held power in Washington DC.

During the fight on the house floor, someone took this picture and SMASHED IT over the head of someone from another party.

The rip can be seen to this day.

YUP! Somebody's head was sticking out through that hole.

You won't find any record of this in the official Wyoming House logs.

The next day, House members voted to scrub all references to the battle in the House Journal.

But there was a witness.

John C. Thompson, a reporter for the Wyoming Tribune, write the story in a remarkable play-by-play account in the newspaper.