Nearly a century ago, then "former" president Theodore Roosevelt became disenchanted with president William Howard Taft and decided to run against him in 1912. This picture postcard from 1912 shows Roosevelt coming through Blue Rapids, Kansas, where the card to Mrs. Ben Weston was posted. Losing the Republican primary to Taft, Roosevelt helped form the Progressive Party -- also called the "Bull Moose" party, since TR said he was "fit as a moose."
His whistle-stop tour through the heartland eventually took him to Milwaukee for a speech.
On October 14, 1912, saloonkeeper John Schrank shot Roosevelt in the chest, but the impact of the shell was mitigated by Roosevelt's eyeglass case and a 50-page speech folded in his jacket pocket. While the bullet penetrated his chest, Roosevelt declined to go to the hospital until after he delivered his 90-minute speech!
Seems he really was a "Bull Moose."
Mrs. Ben Weston (Leota Durham Weston) was then living in Hulett, one of many places she lived before marrying William Joseph Maiden in Belle Fourche and settling down along White River in Dawes County Nebraska.
