As I noted last year, blog traffic tracks with blog posts and I’ve been poky about posting, partly due to some back-of-the-house issues with my ISP (thank you, Sacha, for what you’ve been able to do) and partly due to the fact I’d rather go outside and play than post this past year. In 2018, we had 1,400 visitors give us 6,200 views. That’s record views for jcshepard.com but we had a couple outlier days that indicate spambots but whatever. Thanks all for dropping by.
#1 post of 2018: Repeat winner by far, Cheyenne-Laramie County, Wyoming, Historical Timeline: a 2014 keyword-rich retrospective of the capital of the Cowboy State, which celebrated their 150th Anniversary last year.
#2 Behind the Bakken Boom: As I noted last year, I really need to update my series on Oil & Gas drilling out here in the West. We have a few natural gas wells here in Southwest Colorado, and had some minor excitement when my current County Board denied an oil & gas well permit this year. On the To-Do List.
#3 up from #4 last year: The Election of 1916: “America First” to First World War / #8 On the Brink of War — America’s Christmas 1916: Post 2016 election look at the events of 100 years before.
#4 & #1 NEW POST OF 2018 Kukla, Fran & Ollie: A Nation of Immigrants: A remembrance of my cousin Burr Tillstrom (1917-1985), his puppets, and our immigrant ancestors.
#5 Diary of Orrin Brown—Feb 15, 1864 / #7 The Diary of Pvt. Orrin Brown In 2014, I started following my ancestor Pvt. Brown on Sherman’s March thru Georgia. The introductory post of the series stayed in the Top 10 another year.
#6 All Things Shepard: History meets genealogy. Down a spot again. Dramatically due for an update. Rootsweb got hacked late 2016, though, and Ancestry had it down for a good while. Another for the To-Do List.
#9 Pancho Villa Crossed the Border: January 2017 post on the raid on Columbus, New Mexico in March 1916, and Blackjack Pershing’s US Army raid into Old Mexico that ended in January 1917. #3 NEW POST last year.
#10 Little (Lego) House on the Prairie (Style): Perennially popular post from 2009. A little Lego love for Frank Lloyd Wright.
My 2nd & 3rd most viewed NEW POST of 2018 were February and March posts, Winter 1918 on the Eastern Front and Spring 1918 on the Western Front, as I tracked the 100th year remembrances of the Great War, World War I. May we never forget.