misinformation at specific people. in a 27 percent of voting age americans saw russian misinformation in the weeks leading up to the election. do not know what effect if any of this had on the election, on the 2018 midterms. in 2020, notl have just in the united states, but liberal democracies around the world. >> monday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on the communicators on c-span two. americaneekend, history tv is joining our spectrum cable partners to showcase the history of laramie, wyoming. now with our look at the history of laramie. we are in the mansion that edward ivins and bill in laramie, wyoming in 1892.

laramiee home of the plains museum. for 10 years, it was vacant. people broke in, then devised the holding -- vandalized the building. it has been a long and frivolous for to make it into this museum we have here that highlights the ivins and family and the -- the ivenson family. edward was born in the island of st. croix in the caribbean. his father moved there from northwestern new england. while he was there, he met a young woman. they ran away to jersey city, new jersey to get married. like a lot of young folks, they moved west to make their fame and fortune. they ended up in laramie, wyoming. the family had been living in

memphis, tennessee. he decided to move the family to california. the way he thought he would get to california is, he had a dry goods store in memphis. he sold all of the stuff. got freight cars. as the union pacific was built across the great plains, he followed along and had a ruling dry goods store. -- a rolling dry goods store. he learned that the union pacific railroad is going to have a facility in what would become laramie, wyoming. there was nothing here at the time. he came here before the railroad in february of 1868. he built a building in what is now downtown laramie. the railroad arrived in may. along with his wife and adopted daughter. as i said earlier, they ran the dry goods store for three years.

then he started his banking career. eventually, -- let me say this. astute merchant. he was criticized for the way he made his money. really high interest rates out of the bank. foreclosed mortgages at the drop of the head. when he turned 80 years old, he decided to give all of his money away. almost all of the came back to our town. after his wife died in 1916, he city$15,000 cash in four paid for the first construction of our hospital. he gave property to the church, which funded an orphanage. 1925, he gave away in today's terms, a million and a half dollars cash to family, friends,

and employees. he structured his will so that the remainder of his estate would be going into a trust fund . was $500,000 there in his estate. eight to $10 million today. he built a -- they built a beautiful facility. because of his trust fund, there was no charge for room and board. because he built the hospital, the ladies got free medical care. it is still there. it is still gorgeous. it is a wonderful facility. despite being criticized early for his us temptations lifestyle , it all came back to us here at laramie. we are still experiencing the benefits from edward ivins on. we are proud of the fact that he decided to do what was right for

our community. if it was not for the union pacific railroad, laramie would probably not be here. all of this land was given to the union pacific. door -- wethe front have a little thing i like to do. we have the doorknob to the original front door, which is a doorknob.s, beautiful it came to us in a box in the mail. may 5 years ago with a note from a guy who was a student at the .niversity of laramie he stole the doorknob. i take them into the foyer. intoirst important stop is jane's drawing room. the intention was that is where she would do informal entertainment for her lady friends. and i go into the smoking room. i draw the contrast between the nice bright light drawing room

and the more somber smoking room. the dining room is nice because in the dining room, we have nice artifacts that belong to the ivinson we have this beautiful stemware. that was punch bowl given to their son-in-law who ran his bank for a while in san diego. then we change from the five formal rooms of this mansion to the working part of the mansion. it is easy to draw the contrast. we have all of this beautiful hardwood. and there we have pine and linoleum. we go upstairs into the bedrooms that are quite large. not unusual for a house of this size. bathroom where

we have this cool 1892 shower. it is really cool. all of the tubes have little tiny holes in them. you don't have to turn around to take a shower. we had a person come to the museum. they said it was like going into a car wash. we are now and what is called the library. these bookcases were put in by the boarding school. i like to point out that we have one piece of furniture in the

house that belonged to him. it is this boardroom table. it is from one of the banks he owned in town. there are several examples. we get some really amazing people. they talk about the elegant what work in the house. there is all this different type of hardwood in the mansion that he had installed. mountain -- amazing door. i had a guy come through who had just closed up his custom woodworking business after 30 years and he said he could build one of those doors for us for $7,000. those are the kind of things that are fun to learn when you give tours. his whole life is a fascinating story. he is born on a plantation. he winds up in new york with no money. father --y received a

a letter his father sent him. he ends up in laramie, wyoming. he amasses this fortune. builds this beautiful building. he is a major builder downtown. it is fair to say that he is a critical part of the evolution of laramie all the way through 1928 when he finally passed away. edward, what i want people to walk away from after they see this house that cost an awful lot of money to build is maybe the money, at least early on, was made from the people of laramie and not the best way. and they leave they understand what they did for our community. whether it was early actions with the schools in the church and suffragists or especially his philanthropy that resulted in all of these great things for our community.

that is what i would like to walk away from. you can see in a lot of places fancy homes. this one is an elegant home. but it is really important that people understand that making his money off of the community, that money came back to us. that is what i really hope they walk away with. >> you are watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend. ♪ >> the house will be in order. years, c-span has been giving america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white

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