History of Wyoming Tour

June 2008

Guided by Phil Roberts, author of this brief narrative

Day 1: Laramie to Sundance

            As we leave Laramie, we get a quick glimpse of the transcontinental railroad that we won’t encounter again until late on the last day at Rawlins. The tracks originally ran west along the valley of the Laramie River, but the tracks were moved to the higher location as a  result of washouts and because technology improvements made it possible to build bigger fills across the small ravines. If one were to follow Howell Road, west from Highway 30, a person would be driving much of the way either next to the original roadbed or directly on top of it. After heavy rains or in spring, a sharp-eyed searcher can spot spikes from the original transcontinental rail line popping up from the roadbed.

            The first stop west of Laramie (actually, more north of town at this point) was the depot and telegraph station of Wyoming, Wyoming. Unlike New York, New York, or Nebraska City, Nebraska, Wyoming, Wyoming, didn’t grow into a major city or even a county seat town. The few buildings there now are unoccupied ranch structures. The most famous resident of the place was the telegrapher, John Allyn who held the position for many years. When Thomas Edison came through en route to view an eclipse at Rawlins, he stopped there to visit with Allyn who had been a friend since school days.

            Ranches on either side of the highway along this route are among the earliest in Albany County. Some of the lands closer to the town of Bosler were the property of the Diamond Ranch Company, owned by the partnership of John Coble and James Bosler (and, later, his son Frank Bosler). Coble employed gunman Tom Horn to help control the rustling problem. (We will be passing other Tom Horn sites later this morning). Tom Horn was convicted of the murder of young Willie Nickell and hanged in Cheyenne on Nov. 20, 1903. It is not known, however, if his mission to the Iron Mountain country was specifically directed by Coble. We do know that Coble spent considerable sums paying for the defense attorneys who represented Horn in his futile attempt to avoid the noose. The American Heritage Center contains legal papers from the lawsuit filed by Frank Bosler against Coble for “misappropriation” of partnership funds. Bosler alleged that he did not authorize such expenditures. The partnership ended and Coble’s business fortunes declined dramatically. A few years later, he committed suicide in Nevada, apparently despondent over the financial losses he had incurred in both paying for Horn’s defense and underwriting the entire cost of the publication of Horn’s autobiography, published in Denver the year after Horn’s hanging and titled, “Tom Horn, By Himself.”

            We follow the route of U.S. Highway 30 that also was the general route of the Lincoln highway. Prior to paving (or even road graveling) volunteers and county road workers helped newcomers by marking the route with signs. Later, the Boy Scouts helped the Lincoln Highway Association to commemorate the route in the late 1920s by erecting four-foot-high concrete obelisks on which the letter “L” was painted and an arrow directed the motorist to the correct trail. When the Wyoming Highway Department was established in 1917, they took over the duties of marking the numerous roads around Wyoming. (The highway numbering system was formalized in the 1920s by cooperative agreements between the states and the federal government).

Despite the helpful markers, motorists north and west of Laramie frequently became confused when they reached points where two or three forks in the road each appeared to be the logical throughway. Even the U. S. Army got confused on this section of road, as noted by Dwight D. Eisenhower in his memoir, “At Ease: Stories I Tell My Friends.”  Eisenhower notes that, following World War I, he was assigned duties as the executive officer of a transportation corps caravan sent west from Washington, D. C. to San Francisco to determine the feasibility of coast-to-coast motor transport in case of war or railroad sabotage. The caravan came across much of America without incident (except common problems for the time such as tire blowouts or engine failures). But, outside Laramie, the caravan lost time.  They left Laramie early under overcast skies. As the day wore on, the caravan followed what they believed were the correct forks in the road. By evening, they saw the lights of a large town in front of them. Some assumed it was Hanna; others, Rawlins. But, as Eisenhower writes, the caravan started noticing some familiar objects. Sure enough. The expedition had made a complete circle north of Laramie and were approaching Laramie again that evening!

            Bosler was named for Frank Bosler, owner of the Diamond Ranch, but it did not exist in its current location until just before a development company formed in the early 1900s and began boosting the area as prime agricultural lands. The company circulated photographs of huge lettuce fields, claiming it was a mere sample of the productive fields in the vicinity of Bosler (at 7,000 feet in elevation—not mentioned by the brochures). The original townsite, a stop on the transcontinental railroad, was west and below the hill. When the tracks moved, so did the town.  Bosler never was a thriving town, but it managed to serve as a stopping point for Highway 30 customers well into the 1960s. The town’s fortunes faded when Interstate 80 was opened west of Laramie on Oct. 4, 1970. Some entrepreneurs tried to keep things going by attracting customers to the last surviving business—the bar.

            We turn right onto State Highway 34. The road passes ranch lands on either side—left, the Diamond and right, a number of newer ranches. As we come closer to the canyon, it should be noted that the area is infested with rattlesnakes—oddly, not present on the Laramie Plains. The elevations are higher than Laramie, but the outcroppings of rock make good dens for snakes and the abundance of small rodents provide substantial food for them. Sybille Canyon/Creek was named for a French trapper who frequented the area in the 1830s. John C. Fremont mentioned the firm of Sybille, Adams and Company, operating trading posts in the area in the 1840s. Pronounced “su BEAL,” many newcomers mistakenly pronounce it like the movie Sybil (1976) and the many-faced graduate student of the title.

            A bed-and-breakfast now operates at the site of one of the older ranches at the west end of the canyon. Further east, along the recently-constructed winding road, are drop-offs and cliffs. Many harrowing winter trips have been chronicled along this road.  Mid-way through the canyon is the Wildlife Experiment Station, recently renamed in honor of two UW researchers/professors who died in a highway accident on Highway 287 just south of the Wyoming line. The couple, the husband and wife team of Elizabeth Williams and Thomas Thon, were nationally known scientists who studied diseases in wildlife. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the University of Wyoming jointly operate the facility. The wildlife station was the first home of the captive black-footed ferrets, thought extinct until they were rediscovered near Meeteetse in 1981. During the fall and winter, one can view small herds of elk, buffalo and an occasional big horn sheep or moose in pens south of the highway just beyond the station buildings.

            As the road reaches the high point and begins descending into the valley, to the right is a gravel and dirt road that leads to the Iron Mountain country and the ranches of the Miller and Nickell families. Tom Horn likely took this route from the Diamond Ranch to the site of the Willie Nickel murder that July day in 1901. The film, “Tom Horn,” produced by Steve McQueen’s movie company was to have been filmed on location near here, but ultimately was shot almost entirely in back-lots in Hollywood and in Canada.

       Coffee, Cowboys and a Ranch: The Arbuckle Brothers’ Wyoming Connection

Arbuckle Coffee was the mainstay for every cowboy on the range in the late 19^th century and the owners had a Wyoming connection. While the two coffee magnates never had homes in Cheyenne, John and Charles Arbuckle owned the PO Ranch north of the city and John Arbuckle frequently visited in Cheyenne.

Before Arbuckles’ coffee innovations, coffee beans were sold green in general stores. The purchaser then roasted the beans, usually on a wood stove or, if he was a range cowboy, in a skillet over a campfire. Only after that could the beans be ground and brewed. If the process was done incorrectly and even one bean was burned, the entire batch was ruined. But even when the job was done right, the coffee lacked consistency.

Arbuckles’ coffee had unique properties because of the way the Arbuckles packed the ground coffee. First, they roasted the coffee beans, then they packed the ground coffee, while it was still warm, in small individual metal containers.

John Arbuckle came up with the unique packing method six years after he joined the already existing coffee importing firm established in 1859 by his uncle Duncan McDonald, a friend William Roseburg, and John’s older brother Charles. While working in the family’s grocery company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, John experimented with ways to seal the flavor and aroma of already roasted coffee.  When Arbuckle added an egg and sugar glaze to the beans after roasting, they seemed to retain freshness. He then packed the treated beans in air-tight one-pound packages and shipped them off.

As the firm grew, the brand adopted a distinctive yellow label, each package of coffee having emblazoned on it the name “Arbuckles” in large red letters across the front. Beneath the name was a “flying angel” trademark over the words “Ariosa Coffee” printed in black letters. . The Arbuckles called their coffee “Ariosa.” The “A” apparently was for Arbuckle, “rio” for Rio de Janeiro, and “sa” for Santos, both important coffee ports in Brazil.  The firm advertised the product extensively. A handbill the firm circulated in 1873 is considered the first coffee advertisement ever printed in color.

For shipment to retailers, the Arbuckles packed the one-pound coffee packages in sturdy wooden crates, 100 packages per crate. General store owners throughout the West utilized the crates for shelving. One historian notes that Navajo Indians used the crates in wood-scarce locations in Arizona for repairing housing.

As time passed, the Arbuckle company printed coupons on the coffee packages that could be redeemed for handkerchiefs, razors, scissors, and even wedding rings. Each package also contained one stick of peppermint candy. The packed coffee beans were a particularly big hit among chuckwagon cooks on the range in the West. The cooks often outfitted chuckwagons with a crate of the Arbuckle coffee bean packages.  When cowboys demanded fresh coffee, the cook would either open a package of beans and grind them himself or ask, “Who wants the candy?” The cowboy wanting the peppermint stick could earn it by doing the grinding of the beans.

After the firm became the largest coffee importer in the world in the 1880s, John Arbuckle turned to selling sugar in a similar fashion. He purchased refined sugar from the American Sugar Company, a firm controlling 95 percent of all sugar sales in the U. S. in 1892, packed it in small packages and distributed it like he had done with coffee. Soon, the Arbuckles decided to build their own sugar refinery. 

American Sugar, controlled by entrepreneur H. O. Havemayer reacted to what the firm viewed as infringement on its monopoly by entering the coffee importing business. For the next ten years, the two firms battled. Finally, in 1900, the companies reached a cooperative agreement and the trade war came to an end.  Historians point out that the historic Arbuckle-Havemeyer trade battle cost the combined sugar and coffee forces $25 million, making it one of the most expensive legal disputes in early American industrial history.

Two years after building their first sugar refinery in the East and a year after Wyoming statehood, the Arbuckle Coffee Company purchased the PO Ranch. They bought the ranch in 1891 from M. E. Post, prominent territorial politician and rancher who had started the ranch in 1872.  Francis E. Warren, Wyoming governor and senator, later became a Post partner in the venture.  

The record is unclear as to how the Arbuckles became interested in the Wyoming ranch.  Neither of them had Western ties. Both were born in Scotland, coming to America with their father as children. Both lived most of their lives in Pittsburgh. One of the brothers may have traveled West or became interested in the ranch through an agent.

Charles Arbuckle, the younger brother, had little time to enjoy the brothers’ ranch. He died two years after the purchase and John took over direct management, even though he spent considerable time away on business. At the time, Arbuckle was not only the owner of the nation’s largest coffee importing firm, but also owned the largest shipping fleet in America. In the 1890s, every merchant ship engaged in the South American coffee trade was owned by the firm.

John Arbuckle not only “invented” packing methods for coffee. He is also was granted a patent on a design for a mitten. On July 9, 1889, the patent office issued him the exclusive right to manufacture a mitten with a hole in the thumb through which one could blow in order to keep one’s hands warm.  Unlike the coffee-packing inventions that endure to this day, the mitten seemed not to gain universal acceptance.

John Arbuckle died in 1912 and his wife took over as administrator of the Wyoming ranch. Manager Edgar Boice ran the ranch operations, however. After Mrs. Arbuckle’s death, the estate went to five unmarried Arbuckle sisters who owned it jointly until it was willed to the Presbyterian Mission Board. The church organization sold portions of the ranch in 1945 to Fred Boice (son of long-time manager Edger) and to the Warren Livestock Company. Later, Boice’s sons Fred II and Robert operated the PO until the 1970s when they sold to Oppenheimer Industries who later sold it to private investors.

The ranch continues in operation, but Arbuckle coffee faded into history even though several brands trademarked by the firm continue to be sold in vacuum-packed cans today. 

            As we descend into the Wheatland area, the elevation changes rapidly. The area around Wheatland was part of the open range for the big cattle companies in the 1870s and 1880s. Herds belonging to the Swan Land and Cattle Company roamed these ranges. The first plowing was done near the present town of Wheatland by Bill Bodley in 1885. The town itself was founded in 1894, but named Gilchrist in honor of Scottish-born area rancher Andrew Gilchrist. (His widow later donated the Robert Burns statue, Randall Ave. and 30th St., in Cheyenne, to honor Scottish pioneers in Wyoming). In the 1890s, following passage of the Carey Act, a development company headed by U. S. Senator Joseph M. Carey applied for lands under the act to form the Wheatland project. Many historians declare the Carey Act as an utter failure (worth considering only because it was the precursor to the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1901), but at least two such projects were successful in Wyoming.

            Your guide has a number of anecdotes to tell about jail inspections in Wheatland in the middle 1970s. Wheatland has a long reputation for being one of the most litigious towns in the state and, consequently, it has a very high proportion of lawyers per thousand people.

            Wheatland once had one of Wyoming’s largest flour mills and a thriving sugar beet factory (one of five Wyoming towns where such refineries were once located—Lovell, Torrington, Worland, and Sheridan being the other four). The town was primarily agriculturally based until the 1970s when the massive Basin Electric Power Plant was constructed northeast of town. Wheatland boomed and real estate prices went through the roof. Once the station was completed, the construction crews left and the remaining permanent employees were significantly fewer. As a result, Wheatland community leaders had to improvise to get replacement businesses to keep the economy from collapsing. In 1994, Wheatland legislator, area beet farmer and retired Air Force officer Jim Geringer was elected governor of Wyoming.

            North of Wheatland, about 14 miles, we leave the interstate and turn right on Highway 26. Along the first few miles of this road are homesteads once belonging to the many dry farmers who tried to eke out a living in this area, mostly in the decade before World War I after passage of new homestead laws significantly enlarged the possible lands for each claimant and relaxed some the terms for proving up to patent. We pass such communities as Dwyer and Iowa Flats. Old-timers often referred to this area as “next-year country”—the drought and grasshoppers might be bad this year, but next year, they’d get a crop. Dwyer was named for a railroad superintendent. As we continue on this tour, we will encounter numerous other places so named. It illustrates the centrality of the railroad in community development in the 19^th century. Iowa Flats was so named by a group of Iowa farmers who began homesteading there about 1910.  

Immediately behind us is Laramie Peak, part of which is located in Converse County. The Laramie River flows northeastern to our right, here in Platte County. And we will be arriving soon in Fort Laramie—once county seat of Cheyenne County, Nebraska, but now located in Goshen County. Who is this man for whom everything “Laramie” is named?  He may have been a trapper, killed by Indians along the banks of the river not far from where we are now. Jacques? Pierre? His first name is uncertain and even the spelling of his last name is not entirely certain. Likely, it was LaRamee. (Your guide searched out the LaRamees in Montreal some years ago). Once, years ago when your guide was working for the state, a man called from near here with information about the “gravesite” of Jacques LaRamee. It turned out not to be the location, but on the site of an abandoned CCC camp. Apparently, restroom facilities had been built on the spot. Your guide refers to it as the “grave of Jacques Latrine.”

            As we approach the North Platte River, we see evidence on both sides of the road of the Oregon Trail that passed through this way. The marker to the left as we go down the hill is typical of those placed by the Historical Landmarks Commission of Wyoming in the interwar years, marking the trail. Each monument was dedicated with a formal ceremony. Often, the governor participated along with prominent pioneer residents and, usually, Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard, my predecessor in teaching Wyoming history.

            Just before we cross the North Platte River, a road leads to the left to Guernsey State Park. We don’t have the time to visit the state park on this trip, but there is at least one historic site within the park boundaries well worth taking a look at—the CCC-built “museum” building. Ceremonies were held here in early May commemorating the construction by the workers in the New Deal program in the 1930s. The dam holding the waters of Guernsey Reservoir was completed in July 1927. Known as a “diaphragm-type earthfill,” the dam is 135 feet high and 560 feet long. During times of low water, as in recent years, water skiers in the early days occasionally had unpleasant encounters with snakes floating in the lake and catching on the ends of water skis. During high-water years, however, it doesn’t happen—nor has it in recent decades.

            Just a few feet before the North Platte bridge, a dirt road leads right. About a mile south is Emigrant’s Washtub, a favorite stopping point for Oregon Trail travelers. The relatively shallow but well-defined formation often contained waters warmed by the summer sun. It was a convenient camp site where clothes could be laundered.  Further, just beyond the curve and on a rise to the left above the river is the grave of Lucinda Rollins, an Oregon Trail pioneer who died here Rollins, 24 years old at the time of her death, was an Ohioan, bound for Oregon when she died June 11, 1849. Exact cause of death is unknown, but presumably, she died of a trail disease.

            As we continue on into Guernsey, we cross the North Platte River. We will encounter the river at least three more times on this trip. It flows in an arc from the Colorado border to the Nebraska line. It has been subject to extensive litigation over the years. Recently, yet another North Platte River decree was issued in a lawsuit between Wyoming and Nebraska over various particulars on stream flow.

            The town of Guernsey is named for rancher Charles A. Guernsey who also was, for more than 40 years, the leading proponent for construction of the dam. The story is told locally that he once diverted a trainload of U. S. Senators, en route to inspections of federal facilities in the west, to the area to show them the best site for a dam.

            As we continue through Guernsey, depending on the schedule, we may turn right on Main Street and proceed on to Register Cliff, south of the river and to the east of Guernsey. On the cliff, Oregon Trail travelers chiseled their names into the soft sandstone. The chain-link fence and the plastic coverings protect the more delicate of the names and dates. Several years ago, a large slice of the front fell off. Stabilization efforts continue. 

            We return to Guernsey and turn right onto the highway. Just beyond the town limits is the main entrance to the Wyoming National Guard training camp. It is the largest military installation in terms of personnel. (F. E. Warren AFB has a greater budget). This is the second permanent Guard camp in Wyoming (although there were annual maneuvers at no fewer than a dozen sites since statehood). The guard trained at Pole Mountain, east of Laramie, for two decades. An army regulation passed in the early 1930s forced the move. The new rule stated that the training site for any state national guard had to be accessible for at least ten months of the year. Pole Mountain often could not be reached for months during the winter. The Guernsey site was first identified in 1931, but the permanent decision for the present site was made in 1937. Construction began the following year, finally being completed in 1940, just in time for wartime mobilization. During World War II, most units in the Wyoming National Guard were federalized and incorporated into various regular army units. Unlike in World War I and earlier wars, guard units were not kept as cohesive units. Some Wyoming guardsmen served in the 41^st (Rainbow) Division in the South Pacific campaigns. Others served in Europe with Patton’s army and in other regular army groups.  Since the 1970s, the guard camp at Guernsey serves as a summer training facility, not only for Wyoming guardsmen but also for guard units from Kansas, Wisconsin and a number of other states. Prior to 2001, the camp was accessible to visitors.

            Beyond the guard camp entrance, the road bridges the main railroad tracks and, to the left and behind, one can see the massive switching yards used to route coal trains on the numerous tracks continuing on to Nebraska and points east. (We will be seeing some of these unit trains as they are loaded at the Black Thunder mine later in the week).  

            Just beyond the cemetery is a road to the left that goes to the town of Hartville, location of what is billed as Wyoming’s “oldest bar.” The picturesque little town came into existence with the discovery of extensive iron-ore deposits nearby. The town is named for Verling K. Hart, a former army officer who was an investor in the copper mines nearby. Prior to his retirement from the army, he was stationed at Fort McKinney, near Buffalo. His wife Juliet W. Hart filed for a homestead entry east of that post. Later, the town of Buffalo developed on the site, leading to a protracted controversy and litigation over ownership of the land. The Hart’s son, also V. K. Hart, became the first appointee from Wyoming named to the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. He graduated with the class of 1889 and rose to the rank of captain prior to retiring. Later, he managed the newly constructed Plains Hotel in Cheyenne until his death in 1914. 

East of Hartville are the scant remains of the town of Sunrise that once boosted a sizeable population of miners, many of whom were emigrants from Europe who worked in the nearby iron ore mine. Numerous Italians, Greeks and Eastern Europeans lived and worked there. The mine is now a superfund cleanup site. Sunrise once claimed to have the longest continuous garages in the world—16 of them built side by side in a long line. In 1902, a gambler known as White Swede died in Hartville. Three gambling companions agreed to conduct the wake. They stared at one another—and the corpse—for a while. Finally, they decided to drink a bottle of whiskey and play some poker. As the game got underway, they decided to cut in their dead companion. By the end of the night, the dead man had won enough to pay for his own burial!

            As we continue on to Fort Laramie, various overlooks provide views of the North Platte. One is named for Dogie Olinger, a long-time state highway engineer and member of the Cheyenne Corral of Westerners. Below the overlook is Whalen Dam where the unofficial hottest temperature ever recorded in Wyoming was set.  The North Platte Valley from here to the Wyoming-Nebraska line was a favorite wintering spot for trappers. Robert Stuart’s “reverse Astorians” left a cabin near Casper during the winter of 1812 (the first structure built by white Americans in the state) for the better climate of the North Platte Valley. They stayed just east of present Torrington before continuing on to St. Louis.

            Before we turn right onto the road to Fort Laramie, we come to the town of Fort Laramie. Founded after the post closed in 1890, the town advertises its population with a famous sign—“Welcome to Fort Laramie—Population 350 Good People and 6 Soreheads.” The newspaper, the Fort Laramie Scout, was published for many years by L. C. Flannery, Democratic Party activist and compiler of John Hunton’s diaries.

            As we cross the river, left is the original army bridge. Built in 1875, it was the first iron bridge constructed over the North Platte. The bow-string truss bridge is the oldest standing army bridge west of the Mississippi River. In July 1977, it was dedicated as a historic landmark. For many years, until the 1940s, it was still used by autos for access to Fort Laramie. Just beyond the iron bridge is the site of an early trading post constructed by Lancaster P. Lupton and often referred to as Fort Platte. The exact site is not known.

            Before turning left toward the entrance to Fort Laramie, one sees a large stone monument commemorating the greatest ride in Wyoming history—John (Portugee) Phillips’ 238-mile ride from Fort Phil Kearny (where we’ll visit later this week) to Fort Laramie to inform the army of the so-called Fetterman fight.

            (Fort Laramie—refer to the brochure for details about this site. Old Bedlam, the bachelor officers’ quarters, is the oldest standing structure in Wyoming).

            As we depart Fort Laramie, we turn right, proceed east through the town of Fort Laramie. A few miles beyond the town is the site of the so-called Grattan fight. (There is a small sign and stone marker on the left side of the highway marking the approximate site). On Aug. 19, 1854, Lt. John Grattan, a fresh West Point graduate, was detailed to intervene in a dispute over a Mormon cow. The ensuing incident ended in the deaths of a half dozen Indians and Grattan’s entire command.

            The next town is Lingle, named for rancher Hiram Lingle. Primarily an agricultural center, the town is located along what had been the route of the Texas Trail. From here north, we roughly follow the route of that cattle trail. Noteworthy in Lingle for many years was the annual Thanksgiving “feed.” Dozens of turkeys were featured as the main fare in an event that usually packed the basement of the Presbyterian Church.

            As we travel north, we follow Rawhide Creek.  Legends about the origin of the name abound. One derivation is said to be from buffalo and other hides being baled and shipped from the area to hide markets in the Midwest. Another involves the famous story told in the Legend of the Rawhide, a pageant held annually in Lusk.

            North of Lingle, and to the west of the highway, is the town of Jay Em. Named for the brand of the ranch owned by Jim Moore, the town was a ranching center well into the 20^th century. Even though the population has declined, the town remains essentially intact as it appeared in the years before World War I. It has been proposed recently to designate the town as a state historic site and incorporate it into the state park system. For many years, Lake Harris operated the bank in Jay Em. In the 1920s, when almost 100 banks failed, one of the 32 banks remaining was Harris’ Jay Em bank.

            This is ranch country. Large open range cattle companies ranged here in the 1870s and 1880s. Among them was a large ranch pioneered by Edwin Patrick in 1883. The ranch, now some 30,000 acres, includes the ruins of what was the famous Rawhide Buttes stage station. West of Lusk was the site of the Runningwater Ranch, founded by the Willson brothers in 1880.  To the west is the site of Spanish Diggings, a prehistoric stone quarry having nothing to do with the Spanish. Early residents assumed the level of sophistication in stone-cutting suggested it was done by Europeans instead of native people.

            As we come into Lusk, to the left is the Niobrara County Fairgrounds and the site of the Legend of the Rawhide pageant, held annually (more or less) since 1946. The large brick building now houses the Elks Club, but for many years, it was Lusk High School and, later, the town’s elementary school until 1954.  Across the street is the Frank Lusk house, built by the man for whom the town was named. Lusk started as a small mining camp of Silver Cliff, but the present town originated with the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Railroad that came through in 1886. The Lusk Herald was founded soon after the railroad designated the place as a depot site. Only four newspapers have an older pedigree. Among its well known publishers was J. B. Griffith, the Republican Party kingmaker in the 1930s and 1940s. His editorial sparring with Democratic Party leader Tracy McCraken, publisher of the Wyoming Eagle and Tribune, marked the politics of the period.

            Located on the corner is the Carnegie Library, the first library your guide ever visited. (He was four and taken there by his great-grandmother, a pacifist Quaker, who insisted that he not go to the children’s section, but look at books of history in the regular section. She was mildly shocked that the book he selected was Before Barbed Wire, a book about the old West featuring photographs of Montana photographer L. A. Huffman that included many graphic shots of hangings, lynchings and scalpings).

            The small house across the street from the library was once home to James Watt who was born and reared in Lusk. Watt, who served as Reagan’s Interior Secretary, attended school and Congregational Church where your guide’s mother taught him in Sunday School. Watt’s father won election as county attorney by drawing straws. He and his opponent, Tom Miller (later Wyoming Attorney General) tied in the Republican primary. Bill Watt drew the longest straw. Other famous residents were Frank Barrett, the only Wyomingite ever to serve as U. S. Representative, Governor, and U. S. Senator; Barrett’s son, James E. Barrett, attorney general under Gov. Hathaway and still serving on the 10^th Circuit Court of Appeals, although on senior retired status in recent years. Born in Lusk was Chicago Cubs pitcher Dick Ellsworth and current-day actor Thomas Wilson Brown, best known for his role in Knots Landing.  (And there are a few infamous natives of Lusk—your guide, included).

            To the left is the Stage Coach Museum, but once the National Guard Armory. Next door is the Sager House, a bed and breakfast, but once home to Roy and Gertrude Chamberlain, prominent supporters of UW and investors in oil and hotels. Next door was the site of an early-day Lusk saddle shop. The only plastic saddles sold commercially were manufactured here in the 1950s. Next door is the Ranger Hotel, built by investors at the time of the Lance Creek oil boom. Estimated population of Lusk was about 5,000 while Niobrara County had close to 10,000. (Currently, Niobrara is the least populated county in the state with the smallest assessed valuation).

            Across the street was Midwest Hardware, owned and operated by promoter and booster George Gibson. Once, in an effort to promote the Legend of the Rawhide which he first organized, Gibson pulled a hoax that even fooled the U. S. Army. He claimed to have uncovered a cache of rifles that had been issued to Custer’s troops before the Little Big Horn. With help from a fellow Luskite in the Department of Defense, he strung the national press along with the tall tale until the eve of the pageant when he confessed to the trick. At the end of the street and to the right is a building that once housed the privately-owned Spencer Hospital. For many years, Lusk had two functioning hospitals—one, county-financed and the other, private.

            Beyond the railroad tracks, a road goes left toward the Wyoming Women’s Prison, established in Lusk in the early 1980s through the efforts of another Lusk resident, Jim Griffith, long-time state treasurer, and another Niobraran by marriage, auditor Ed Witzenburger. Ironically, on the road to the prison is the notorious Yellow Hotel, operated by famous madame Dell Burke. The story goes that while authorities knew what kind of business she was operating, she managed to avoid closure because she owned the majority of the water bonds issued by the city.

            As we leave town, the cemetery is to the left.  (Among those buried there are your guide’s parents, one set of his grandparents, and two great-grandparents). Across the street is the site of Lusk’s first swimming pool, built in the 1930s because so few Niobrarans knew how to swim, given that there were virtually no water courses of any depth in the entire county. The Niobrara River rises west of town in a small rivulet emanating from the local golf course. The river depth never amounts to more than a couple of feet as it flows through town.  As we leave town, the well-kept cemetery is to the left where the various veterans’ groups have installed an impressive war memorial to veterans of all wars.

“Mrs. Barriers” and the Crusade to Make Wyoming Public Buildings Accessible 

The Americans with Disabilities Act was far in the future when a group of Lusk residents first met to propose statewide legislation to make buildings, sidewalks, and other public areas accessible for disabled people.

In 1969, Gov. Stan Hathaway signed a bill into law that banned new architectural barriers, making Wyoming one of the first states to adopt such legislation. A similar federal law had passed barely a year earlier. The more comprehensive federal act, the ADA, didn’t become law until 1990.

When the first Wyoming law passed, it had wide bi-partisan support. The ease of final passage, however, belied the extensive efforts to make it law. Like many other landmark laws, much of the credit for Wyoming’s pioneering “barriers” law goes to an all-volunteer organization, the 1,800-member Wyoming Federation of Women’s Club. A small group of volunteer citizens from Lusk started the drive—and one woman, Helen Bardo—had a major role.

Years after a barriers law passed, Mrs. Bardo reflected on where the effort originated. She told of a conversation she had with a good friend, Ruth Thomas (your guide’s aunt), who commented on the difficulties Mrs. Thomas’ husband Sam had in getting into public places in his wheelchair. “If people only knew how one step looks to people in a wheelchair,” Ruth Thomas told Mrs. Bardo. 

At the time, Thomas’ husband Sam had been wheelchair-bound for almost two decades. A University of Wyoming ROTC graduate, he was called to active service as an army officer in World War II.  During the battle of Attu in the Aleutians in 1943, he was shot and, for the rest of his life, paralyzed from the chest down. After lengthy hospitalization in military hospitals, he returned to his hometown of Lusk where he carried on an active life, working with civic, 4-H, and school groups and with his wife Ruth, raising two sons. For a time, he taught mathematics in the high school. Later, he operated a private accounting business and became a self-taught master woodcraftsman. In the first years after his return to his hometown, he taught classes in the two-story Lusk High School. His classroom was on the second floor.  The structure had no ramps or elevators. Several sturdy students often volunteered to carry him in his wheelchair to the top of the stairs so that he could teach the class.

       The high school building was not unique—in those days, most public buildings in Wyoming had stairs—nor was his immobility unusual.  Like other Americans at any given time, up to ten percent of the Wyoming population faced difficulties from architectural barriers. Some barriers were so extreme that they kept people from conducting day to day tasks. Other architectural barriers diminished the ability of highly qualified people to get jobs or education. Individuals in wheelchairs were not the only ones affected. Many others, because of age or disability, had mobility problems.

       After hearing the chance remark about the one step and reflecting on the barriers problems, Helen Bardo took up the cause of eliminating the barriers. 

       In some ways she was an unlikely crusader for the task. A Minnesota native, she gained wide recognition as a pianist, piano teacher, and organist for community and school events in the Lusk area. She had moved to Lusk with her husband Dale in the 1940s where Dale worked as a compositor at the Lusk Herald, the weekly newspaper edited by his brother Gerald Bardo. (Incidentally, Gerald and Dale had married sisters. Helen’s sister Jane, also was a talented musician).  

       Helen Bardo told her fellow members of the Lusk Woman’s Club about the “one step.” Soon, the organization adopted the barriers program as the club project. Their proposed law, introduced in the 1967 session, passed the Senate but languished in a House committee to the end of the session.        

       Soon after, the club officers asked Sam Thomas to construct a display in order to illustrate the mobility problems.  Thomas skillfully completed a tall table-top display that captured the essence of the problem. Two figures, a woman in a wheelchair and a man on crutches, are shown at the bottom of a two-foot high depiction of numerous winding stairs. The many steps reach up in perspective to an open door at the top.  The caption explained “what one step” looked like to those with mobility problems.

       The barriers issue had the support of the local Lusk Club, but clearly, it needed broader exposure.  In 1968 Helen Bardo and her Lusk Woman’s Club allies convinced the Wyoming Federation of Women’s Clubs to adopt elimination of barriers as a statewide project. Federation members throughout the state wrote letters and spoke with legislators promoting the legislation.  Bardo talked to groups throughout the state, often carrying Thomas’ display with her as an effective visual exhibit of the problem they sought to eliminate.

       When the next session of the legislature convened in 1969, Bardo, Thomas, and the Federation had done an effective job. The barriers law passed both houses and, in March 1969, Gov. Hathaway signed the bill into law.       

       As Dale Bardo wrote many years later in a biography of his wife titled “Mrs. Barriers,” neither Helen nor the others stopped with the barriers law: “Productive citizens for many years found themselves confronted by public sidewalks which they could not easily use because of curbs they could not easily mount.” 

       The group turned its attention to curbs, another serious obstacle for mobility-impaired people.  For the curbs effort, Thomas built a larger display—a 16-foot billboard that had to be carried in a stock truck.  

       While the curbs lobbying was underway, Bardo, by then a member of the Governor’s Committee for Employment of the Handicapped, noted the inaccessibility of the primary architectural symbol of the state—the State Capitol. At Bardo’s urging, members of the Federation successfully pressed legislators to make the building accessible to all.

       In the 1975 legislature, the Federation of Women’s Clubs pressed to make curbs along public streets accessible. The Federation-drafted “elevator-curb cut (ramp)” amendment was passed by both houses and signed by Gov. Ed Herschler. At last, that “one step” along public streets would no longer be a barrier in Wyoming. 

       A year after Wyoming’s law took effect, the U. S. Congress passed a federal law mandating specific dimensions for curb cuts throughout the country. Wyoming, of course, had pioneered the effort. Since those days, new public construction in Wyoming includes accessibility rules. All new curbs are built to accommodate immobilized individuals as well as to remain usable for the blind.

       Helen Bardo—“Mrs. Barriers”—lived to see a comprehensive federal law banning barriers, architecturally and beyond.  On July 26, 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act.  Sam Thomas had died in 1978, but the estimated.45,000 Wyomingites who had similar mobility disabilities finally could look to both state and federal law when they came across “that one step”—the step that for so long had denied them the access that was taken for granted by other citizens..   

       Wyomingites with mobility disabilities still face obstacles in older buildings that are only gradually becoming accessible. But through the efforts of Bardo, Thomas, and the thousands of other “barriers pioneers,” more and more places can be enjoyed by all citizens regardless of mobility.

            Three miles north of town, to the right, is the ranch that was once home to Mae Urbanek, Wyoming’s poet laureate and author of Wyoming Place Names. Five miles further, to the right, is a road that winds its way through the Hat Creek Breaks to the Roberts ranch, homesteaded by your guide’s grandfather in the 19^th century. As we come to a hill and a scenic overlook, below us is the Sage Creek Valley. The solitary ranch in view in the valley is the Roberts ranch. 

The impressive rock formations to the right are the high points of the Hat Creek Breaks. In this area, bootleggers were known to make their product in dugouts during Prohibition. Here was the general area where a bootleg still was discovered by authorities, but the proprietor was nowhere to be found. After the story of the unsuccessful raid was reported in the local papers, the police arrested a man who had been bragging around town about how he had escaped, even though his still had been seized. Famed lawyer Thomas Fagan, once an organizer in Nevada for the IWW, took the man’s case. During voir dire of the jury, Fagan asked each prospective juror if they knew the accused. Whenever the answer was “yes,” he would ask, “Can you believe what he tells you?” If the prospective juror answered, “yes,” Fagan would asked for his dismissal from the panel or utilize a peremptory challenge. If the man said, “no,” Fagan left him on the juror. Perplexed, the county prosecutor assumed Fagan was ceding any chance for dismissal of the case. When the trial got underway, however, it became clear that it was part of Fagan’s strategy. He told the jury, “You will hear the testimony and the fact that the defendant bragged that he was a bootlegger. Now, all of you know that you can’t believe a word he says….”  The jury found him not guilty.

            To the left is what remains of the “town” of Hat Creek—population 1 when your guide was growing up nearby. (We lived outside the town limits). The town suffered a 100 percent mortality rate in April 1967 when Dudley Fields, the postmaster, storekeeper, and mayor, died of a heart attack.  We turned right for a short trip to the top of the hill and the site of what was the Hat Creek Community School—a two-room schoolhouse designed to educate students from grades 1-6 that closed in 1952.  In later years, it has served as the Hat Creek Clubhouse. Your guide announced he was running for governor in 1998 here at the Hat Creek Clubhouse. If road conditions permit, we turn right and go another mile to the Hat Creek Stage Station. The log building originally was a single story. The station was originally founded as an army post (“Fort Hat Creek”) in 1868. Soldiers were told to establish such a post on Hat Creek in Nebraska, but mistakenly placed it along Sage Creek. The error wasn’t discovered until the small fort building was completed. Near here, following the Little Big Horn Battle in June 1876, William F. Cody gained fame for engaging in a fight with Yellow Hand, a Sioux warrior. Cody promoted his “first scalp for Custer” and utilized the story in his Wild West Show for many years. Later, the Cheyenne and Black Hills stageline passed through here and the present building served as a stopping point. Here, Wild Bill Hickok stopped for the night en route to Deadwood and his ill-fated card game and encounter with Jack McCall in 1876.

            To the left is the road to Lance Creek, site of a huge oil strike in 1919. The field was closed in about 1928 due to low oil prices (19 cents per barrel). Another boom started about 1934, lasting through World War II and into the early 1950s. Almost 100 wells produced millions of barrels annually during the period.

            Due north of the Lance Creek oil fields are the limestone fossil beds where many of the huge dinosaurs on display in world museums and the geology museum in Laramie were found. Recently, remains of giant tortoises were unearthed nearby. Small horses also were found here. Travel in the area was made difficult over the past three weeks due to heavy flooding.

            As we continue north toward Newcastle, we pass through more ranch country.  At Cheyenne River is the site of “Robber’s Roost,” a hide-out for stage robbers who preyed on passing gold shipments sent south from the Black Hills. Near here, “Stuttering” Brown was shot near here by Persimmons Bill Chambers in a dispute over stolen horses. (Brown was taken to Fort Hat Creek where he died and was buried close to the stage station).  Through this area is the proposed route of the DM and E Railroad (Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern) to be constructed to the mines of the Powder River basin.

            At the rest stop at Mule Creek junction, the road forks to the right to Igloo, South Dakota. Nearby, UW archaeologists are working this summer on some significant digs.  From here to Newcastle are sites for numerous stagecoach robberies during te brief period during which stagecoaches carried gold from the Black Hills and payrolls from Cheyenne.

The Warranty That Failed: The Canyon Springs Stagecoach Robbery

       The strong box was reinforced with steel and, according to the builders, it could withstand any attempt to break it open for at least 24 hours. At Canyon Springs in what is now Weston County, it failed the test on a warm afternoon in September 1878.

       The Cheyenne and Black Hills lie was faced with recurring outlaw problems from almost its first run north on Feb. 3, 1876. Just two months after that maiden trip to the gold fields of Dakota, a gold-laden coach was robbed and driver “Stuttering” Brown was killed. Other minor incidents occurred with increasing frequency and in April 1877, young Johnny Slaughter, the son of Wyoming’s superintendent of public instruction, was the victim of outlaws as he was driving a coach from the Black Hills.

       The most brazen robbery, however, was committed on Sept. 26k 1878, at Canyon Springs. An excellent account of the robbery was written by Wyoming historian Mabel Brown and published in her magazine, Bits and Pieces. Mrs. Brown points out that law enforcement agencies gave more attention to the stage robbery problems after Canyon Springs.

       The treasure coach, armed with three shotgun messengers, had left Deadwood earlier in the day. Although passengers were forbidden from riding on treasure coaches, a telegrapher and the stage company’s division superintendent were passengers in the coach as it pulled into Canyon Springs relay station.

       Contrary to custom, the six fresh horses to be used for the next leg of the trip had not yet been readied by the stock tender. As one of the guards got off the coach to investigate, outlaws opened fire from the stage barn. The guard was wounded and the telegrapher in the coach was killed in the volley of gunfire. A second guard apparently was knocked unconscious by flying debris while the third, veteran stage employee Scott Davis, leaped to the opposite side of the coach, ran to a nearby tree and returned the fire.

       Davis, who had been wounded in a similar attack near Cheyenne River almost exactly a year earlier, motioned to the driver to take the coach on out. An outlaw stopped the two lead horses, however, and the driver was taken prisoner. Davis shot and wounded the man holding the horses, but another outlaw was taking aim at him from the barn. Quick action by the wounded guard who was barely able to lift his rifle and shoot at the second outlaw, saved Davis’ life.

       Davis was unable to shoot at the other outlaws for fear of hitting the captive driver. He walked seven miles to a ranch for help and, after leaving for the next stage relay station on horseback, he met three riders who were to be guards for the coach through the most treacherous section of the route from Jenny’s Stockade to Hat Creek. The three had become concerned when the coach failed to arrive at the next station on schedule.

       By the time Davis returned to Canyon Springs station with the three men, the treasure box had been opened and emptied of more than $25,000 in gold and valuables. The safe, guaranteed to withstand entry for 24 years, failed to measure up to its warranty.

       A short while later, the four men were joined by the stock tender, a posse from Deadwood and a doctor to care for the wounded guard. The tender had escaped from a grain room where he had been held prisoner and had ridden to Deadwood for help.

       The Cheyenne Daily Leader editorialized: “The frequency of stage robberies has dulled the mind from the a proper appreciation of the enormity of such crimes.” Despite the public outcry, pursuit of the robbers by a Dakota posse proved unsuccessful.

       An outlaw finally was arrested in Grand Island, Nebr., tried and sentenced to life for his part in the robbery. Another participant escaped punishment after an unusual coincidence led to his arrest.

       The division superintendent followed the trail of the robbers to an Iowa town. When he strolled pas the local bank, he noticed an unusual item on display—a gold bar stolen in the robbery. The supervisor questioned the bank president who proudly told of his son’s “good fortune” in the mining business in the Black Hills. He claimed the gold bar was the proceeds from his son’s sale of an interest in a rich gold mine.

       When the son was questioned, the investigation revealed other stolen items in his possession. The proud father was dismayed to learn of his son’s sordid Wyoming adventure. The young man never came to trial, however. He escaped while he was being brought back to Wyoming. A $2,000 reward offered by the stage company for his recapture was never claimed.

       Most of the loot from the robbery was recovered except for one gold bar. Legend has it that it is still buried near the robbery site where the robbers cached it the day the stage was robbed at Canyon Springs. The safe, which could not be repaired or reused, is now on display in the Stage Coach Museum in Lusk.

            Newcastle was founded as a result of the railroad and the discovery of coal in the area. The townsite was laid out in 1889 on the first land ever patented in the United States under placer mining laws for oil lands. First lots were sold on Sept. 10, 1889. Town lots for businesses sold from $1,000 to $1,400 each and were snapped up in one day.

            Newcastle is the site of one of the few remaining small oil refineries in Wyoming. At one time, nearly every town had an oil refinery. From the first stoplight, we turn left and, two or three blocks later, we turn right and park at the Anna Miller Museum where we spend a brief period looking at local exhibits. Across the street from the museum are three buildings, including Jenney’s stockade, the oldest standing structure in Weston County. The museum building itself once served as base for the local national guard unit.

            Best known political figure in Newcastle was Frank Mondell who served 12 terms in the U. S. House of Representatives. Had he sought reelection for the 13^th term and won, he would have been Speaker of the House. Instead, he chose to challenge popular Democratic Senator John B. Kendrick—and lost decisively. Another well-known resident was Joe LeFors, long-time lawman who heard the “confession” of Tom Horn. Comedian Jerry Lewis’ cousins lived in Newcastle and he visited here frequently as a child. Newcastle is also hometown to the first woman practicing lawyer in Wyoming—Grace McDonald Phillips. She was admitted to practice April 19, 1920, following graduation from the University of Washington College of Law in Seattle. Later, she practiced oil and gas law in Casper, married an Iowa man and moved to Des Moines, and divorced. She relocated to Roswell, N. M., where she became that state’s first woman district judge.

            As we leave the museum, we turn back to the right, go to the road to Four Corners and drive steadily uphill out of Newcastle. From here, on clear days, one can see as far south as Laramie Peak and the Big Horns to the west.

      As we continue north, we pass what was built as the Cambria Inn, originally a clubhouse for miners who worked in the coal-mining town of Cambria (left, now a ghost town). A thriving coal mining town until 1928, Cambria was home to a variety of ethnic groups. Now, the site is overgrown with greasewood and weeds. Ticks abound—as do rattlesnakes.  At Cambria school, a teacher, Mary Jane Davis, became the first woman to coach a men’s high school basketball team.

            As we pass Four Corners and proceed northwesterly toward Sundance, we see Inyan Kara mountain to the left. In 1854, Sir George Gore’s hunting party spent several weeks in the vicinity, hunting thousands of animals and birds. During Custer’s 1874 expedition, the mountain was a lookout point and Custer carved his name in rock on the peak. Near here is Floral Valley where Custer’s troops picked flowers and enjoyed the lush landscape.

            Ahead is Sundance Mountain.  Sundance is the county seat of Crook County. The town, built on what once had been the Albert Hogg ranch in the 1870s, was founded in 1884 and the first town lot was sold to merchant Meyer Frank, who later moved to Newcastle. He built a store on the lot in Sundance. Harry Longabaugh grew up nearby and was jailed in Sundance for the first time. He gained the nickname, “Sundance Kid,” from that incarceration. His statue is on the southeast corner of the courthouse square. 

            Six miles north of Sundance, on Warren Peak, was the site of the first portable nuclear power plant ever built for the U. S. Air Force. It provided power equivalent to 1.1 million gallons of fuel oil annually. The plant furnished power to a radar installation.  The first (and to date) only operating nuclear power plant in Wyoming, the facility was closed in 1969.

            The Vore Buffalo Jump, 15 miles east of Sundance, is the resting place of the bones of an estimated 20,000 bison that were stampeded into the depression by prehistoric people as early as 3,500 years ago. It is one of the largest bison kill sites in North America. Discovered by interstate highway surveyors in 1969, the site was donated to the University of Wyoming in 1989 by the Vore family. (Depending on weather conditions, we may skip this site, particularly if there has been heavy rains in the days before our visit).

            South of the Vore site is the road toward the town of Beulah. Near here, Lucretia Marchbanks ranched in the late 19^th century. She had been born a slave in the south and later became a well-known hotel owner in South Dakota. Another well-known early homesteader in the area was Dr. Francis Townsend, originator of the Townsend Plan proposed as a means of providing old age pensions to the elderly in the 1920s.

       A few miles south of Beulah is the Ranch A, owned by the State of Wyoming and rented out annually to geology field camp students or other researchers from a number of universities around the country, including UW. Originally, Ranch A was built in 1932 as the home of  Moses Annenberg. Annenberg was already the multi-millionaire owner of a variety of business and real estate operations, the most profitable being the Daily Racing Form, and virtually every other racing publication in the country.

       Born in Germany in 1878, Moses, at the age of seven, came with his mother and the rest of his family to join his father who had immigrated to America three years earlier. After working in his younger years as a peddler, Western Union messenger boy, livery stable sweeper, and bartender, he went to work for William Randolph Hearst on one of his Chicago newspapers.  He bought several magazines, newspapers and distribution agencies, and eventually owned the Philadelphia Inquirer.  He was a millionaire by the time he was thirty.

       In 1930, Moe Annenberg–then in his heyday–was vacationing in the Black Hills. He stopped in at Cooper’s Luncheonette in Spearfish, sampled the trout dinner, thought it was delicious, and asked where it came from. Learning that it was caught at George LaPlante’s place a few miles south of Beulah on Sand Creek, he went out, made a deal with LaPlante and bought the place. Annenberg said Sand Creek reminded him of the river that flowed through his hometown in Germany. In 1932, he began the building of Ranch A, a ranch in name only, which was to be a vacation spot for Annenberg, his family, relatives and friends for many years. 

       Costing more than $1,000,000 and taking two years to build, Ranch A consisted of an eight-bedroom lodge, a garage with spacious living quarters upstairs, a large horse barn, and four cabins–all of pine log construction. Original blueprints show a large swimming pool which was never built, probably due to the short length of time that the days would be warm enough to encourage swimming. Electricity was supplied by Annenberg’s own generating plant, powered by the flowing water of Sand Creek.

       The main lodge sits back against the canyon with a vast lawn area in front. A landscaping blueprint shows meticulous planning for a horticultural extravaganza. Plants, trees and flowers of a variety not before seen in this area were to be planted in circles, squares and designs all about the grounds. It is not known whether the plan was ever fully realized. A fountain in the center of the lawn was a focal point around which small spruce trees were planted, trees which now are grown so large that the rock base of the fountain is almost hidden. Only the pine and spruce trees, a few lilac bushes, and a wide expanse of grass remain of what must have once been a sight to delight the eyes of Moe Annenberg’s guests.

       The lodge has a huge main floor room suggestive of a hotel lobby, with a stone fireplace at one end, which accommodates five-foot logs, its chimney reaching upward to another fireplace on the second floor balcony that surrounds the room. The eight bedrooms and five baths occupy three sides of the balcony floor. Big game trophy heads hang from the balcony railing, coyote heads appear as part of light fixtures, and a bobcat head adorns a gun cabinet. Navajo rugs, woven on looms larger than any now in existence, hung on the walls. (As of June 2008, the rugs were at a Colorado conservation center being cleaned and repaired).

       Annenberg spent little time at the Ranch A after 1938 when he was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to federal prison.  He was released in 1942, but died soon after from failing health. He was 65. 

       His son, Walter Annenberg, inherited the ranch along with much of the journalism empire he had created. Following World War II, Walter and his mother Sarah sold Ranch A to former Gov. Nels Smith. Walter Annenberg soon after founded TV Guide from which he made his own independent fortune. A close ally of Richard Nixon, he was appointed U. S. Ambassador to Britain by Nixon in 1969. He was a neighbor and close friend of the Reagans who often spent New Year’s at his Rancho Mirage, Calif., estate. Annenberg used some of his vast fortune to endow journalism schools at USC and the University of Pennsylvania. He died in 2002 at the age of 95.

Sundance to Sheridan, Day 2

            Soon after leaving Sundance, we turn onto Highway 14 and drive north to Devils Tower. The mountain to the right is Bear Lodge Mountain, elevation 6, 600 feet. These are the westernmost mountains in the Black Hills. As we come to Devils Tower Junction, the river to our left is the Belle Fourche. Along this river, at the stateline, is the lowest elevation in Wyoming—3,125 feet.  In a 1944 compact, Wyoming gained only a ten percent share of the Belle Fourche River flow. The rest goes to South Dakota. Devils Tower looms up before us.

Story of Devils Tower

       Two military expeditions came close to the site of Devils Tower in the 1850s although neither reported seeing it.  Col. Richard I. Dodge, leading a military escort for a U. S. Geological Survey expedition in 1875, was the first to record seeing the rock and is credited with applying to it the name “Devils Tower.” Its spectacular quality could be viewed for many miles, The Devils Tower area was occupied by ranchers far earlier. Following the Indian Wars of the 1870s, settlers began moving into the Belle Fourche Valley in significant numbers.  Several large open-range cattle companies grazed livestock in the general vicinity of Devils Tower. People commented on the feature and area newspapers ran stories about it.

       According to Devils Tower historian Ray H. Mattison, support for federal protection of the site went back to 1892 when U. S. Senator Francis E. Warren urged the Commissioner of Public Lands to permanently withdraw the site from homestead entry. The commissioner used the Forest Reserve Act to include Devils Tower as part of a “temporary national forest,” but the designated acreage was reduced significantly a short time later with much of the surrounding area reopened to homesteading. Warren introduced a bill into the Senate in the summer of 1892 to designate Devils Tower as a national park. Congress took no action on the bill. Although the national park proposal did not receive much public support, the proponents, particularly Senator Warren and U. S. Representative Frank W. Mondell, remained interested in the site.  Both men were sufficiently influential to keep it in timber reserve status and out of the hands of individuals who might try to turn it into a profit-making tourist site.      

       Devils Tower had a particular local interest for Mondell, a member of Congress for 24 years, who lived in nearby Newcastle where he had been mayor and a strong town booster. Mondell did have considerable congressional influence.  Following passage of the Antiquities Act, it was Mondell, chairman of the House Committee on Public Lands, who is credited with calling President Roosevelt’s attention to Devils Tower and prompting the first-ever use of the Antiquities Act on Sept. 24, 1906.

       Even though roads to the Tower were difficult for cars in the period, the site around it became a favorite camping and picnicking spot for people living in the vicinity. A large spring of pure cold water located near its base particularly attracted visitors.

       Congressman Mondell made persistent efforts to interest the Federal Government in developing the monument as a tourist attraction. In May 1911, he introduced a bill (H.R.8792) providing for an appropriation to build an iron stairway from the foot to the summit of Devils Tower. The proposal was referred to the Committee on Appropriations and, apparently, never reported out. Two years later, Mondell reintroduced the bill (H.R. 88) in the 63rd Congress, and it too died in the committee.

       With the popularizing of the automobile, the need for visitor’s facilities on the area increased. In 1916, the National Park Service was organized and the monument was placed under its jurisdiction. Prior to 1917, Congress made no general appropriations for the protection and maintenance of the national monuments. Until the 1930s the amounts allotted for this purpose continued to be very small. Various groups continued to urge for a satisfactory access road to the area and for a bridge across the Belle Fourche River near the monument. Early in 1915, Mondell transmitted a request to the Secretary of the Interior from the three legislators from Crook County asking Congress for funds to build a road to the Tower. At a picnic held at the monument on July 4, 1916, which was attended by some 500 people, a petition was drafted and signed by 153 persons and sent to Congressman Mondell. The petitioners complained that they had been compelled to walk a mile and a half that day over a trail which was “washed out and filled with logs” in order to reach the Tower. They asked Congress for an appropriation of $20,000 to convert the giant formation into a public resort and to build a bridge across the Belle Fourche. Pressure from the various groups through Congressman Mondell was soon to bring some results. In 1917 the National Park Service, with the assistance of Crook County, built a 12 to 16-foot road three miles in length and with a grade of eight percent leading to the giant formation. In the following year, this road was improved so that it could be reached more easily by automobile. The spring at the base of the Tower was also made more serviceable.  

       It was some time, however, before pressure was sufficiently strong to compel the Federal Government to build a bridge across the Belle Fourche near the monument. For many years, it had been necessary for those entering the area from the east to ford the river. During the summer months, the river was subject to sudden and unpredictable rises which frequently made it impossible for people visiting the area to return to the east bank until the waters subsided. In many instances, those so stranded were compelled to camp out one, and in some cases, several nights. Pressure from local people and travel organizations to build the bridge continued to be strong throughout the early 1920s. In 1923 a petition, containing seven pages of signatures of people from Wyoming and South Dakota, was submitted to the Secretary of the Interior asking that the Belle Fourche near the monument be bridged. Both Senators Warren and John B. Kendrick lent their support to the movement. It was not until 1928 that the bridge was built.       

       During the 1920s, the National Park Service was able to provide only the most minimum accommodations for visitors at Devils Tower. Some work continued to be done in maintaining the roads. In 1921 John M. Thorn, County Commissioner of Crook County, of Hulett, was appointed custodian at an annual salary of $12 a year. Thorn served primarily as foreman of maintenance work and performed the minimum paper work necessary, in preparing payrolls and making purchases.

       In 1922 the Service built a log shelter to protect the visitors from inclement weather, cleaned the spring next to the Tower and improved the road within the monument boundaries. However, in spite of the improvements the Government was able to make, the maintenance at the monument must have been very inadequate.

       Trespassing stock continued to graze on the area and occupy the log shelter erected for visitors. The Secretary of Custer Battlefield Highway Association complained to the Director in 1929 that the road to the Tower the previous year “was a disgrace, many people turned back because of the terrible road conditions.” He also pointed out that the area needed a full-time custodian.

       Despite the hardships in reaching the Tower and the lack of accommodations after reaching there, visitation to the area continued to rise during the 1920s. “The monument is receiving an increasing number of visitors who like to camp on the ground,” reported the Director in 1922. From 1921 to 1930 the estimated number of visitors rose from 7,000 to 14,720, the average being 9,100. After 1925 a register was kept at Grenier’s Store which was located near the east entrance to the monument.

       During this period the National Park Service was under continued pressure to authorize concessions at the Tower. Numerous applications were made by individuals and companies to erect restaurants, gasoline stations, hotels and recreational facilities there. The Service consistently maintained that such developments of a permanent character should be made out side the monument boundaries and not within the area itself.

       It has only been since 1930 that Devils Tower National Monument has become a national tourist attraction. This has been the result of several factors. During the latter part of the 1920s, the Custer Battlefield Highway (U.S. Highway 14) was built between Spearfish, South Dakota, and Gillette, Wyoming, and came within only seven miles of the Tower. The State also built improved roads into Sundance from U. S. Highways 85 and 16. A paved highway was also constructed from U. S. Highway 14 to Alva making the area from the south entirely accessible by paved roads. Local and state Chambers of Commerce, travel associations, newspapers and periodicals gave the Tower wide publicity as one of the natural “wonders of the world.”

       The decade of the 1930s was one of extensive development for the monument. Although the Nation was in the throes of the Great Depression, considerable sums of money as well as manpower were made available for public works through the various relief agencies. Working under the supervision of the National Park Service, these agencies, particularly the Civilian Conservation Corps, inaugurated an extensive development program at the monument. From 1935-1938 a CCC camp was located there. Practically all the improvements on the area at the present time are the results of their efforts. New roads were built, modern water and electrical systems installed, footpaths were laid out, picnic areas were established with tables and comfortable benches, and trailer and overnight camping areas were provided the visitors. Residences for employees, workshops and machine shops were erected. In 1938 a museum of sturdy log construction was completed.

       The result of the improved roads and visitor facilities at the monument is reflected in travel records. During the ten-year period from 1931 to 1941, in spite of the Great Depression, the number of visitors practically tripled. In 1931 the count was 11,000; in 1936, 26,503; in 1941, 32,951.

       In the early 1930’s, the first full-time custodian was stationed at the monument. This was George C. Crowe, who previously had been a Ranger-Naturalist at Yosemite National Park in California. Crowe served from April or May 1931 until March 1932 when he was transferred to Yellowstone National Park as Assistant Park Naturalist. Newell F. Joyner, who earlier had seen service at Yellowstone as Ranger and Naturalist, succeeded Crowe as Custodian. Joyner served in this capacity for 15 years.

            We leave the national monument by returning south toward the Interstate highway. Had we continued north, we would have passed through the small town of Hulett. Every year, since 1989, the town has hosted an event known as the “Ham and Jam.” Held in conjunction with the motorcycle events at Sturgis, just over the line in South Dakota, the event was started by Jim Delancey, proprietor of the Rodeo Bar. Some 250 people attended the first event, but it grew rapidly. Later purchasers of the Rodeo Bar, Ron and Maria Waugh, continued the event. In recent years, it attracts up to 10,000 motorcyclists. The choppers line the streets and black-leather clad riders swarm between the bars in town and their vehicles. Throughout the rest of the year, Hulett is a quiet small town that features a state-of-the-art lumber mill that manufactured finely graded boards for the national and international markets. Owned by Jim Nieman, UW trustee for several years, the facility is one of the sole remaining mills. In earlier years, sawmills were commonplace, but the restrictions on wood cutting in the national forest and the huge imports of Canadian timber after the passage of NAFTA crippled the industry. The Neiman mill makes a profit through intensive computerization, use of every square inch of board and innovative production from former waste products. Hulett also has one of the nicest golf courses in this part of the state.

            Farther north and east is the town of Colony. There, the Colony Coyote was published in the early 1900s. From 1911 to 1930, the Coyote was the only private printing firm in America allowed to print official U. S. Government land entry forms. If you plan to run for statewide office, you may wish to avoid campaigning there. It can be reached by road only by going through Montana or South Dakota. Once there, you will discover that none the employees at the bentonite plant live or vote in Wyoming. (Your guide learned this the hard way). To the north is the community of Lightning Flat, located very close to the Montana line. In the 1920s, a newspaper named the Lightning Flat Flash was published there.

            As we turn right at Devils Tower junction and continue through the tiny community of Carlile, we are passing through dry farm country where, at one time, hundreds of homesteads used techniques developed by UW College of Agriculture experts to grow dry beans, potatoes and other dryland crops. To the left is Keyhole Reservoir, created by Keyhole Dam, a zoned earthfill dam, 168 feet high and more than 3,400 feet long at the crest. The dam was completed Feb. 12, 1952.  The largest northern pike ever caught in Wyoming was taken from Keyhole Reservoir by Michael McCreery in 1998. The fish weighed 26.44 pounds and measured 43 inches. One of the largest channel catfish ever caught in Wyoming came from Keyhole in 1986. The new community of Pine Haven is located next to the reservoir and the state park. Pine Haven features a quality golf course along with access to beaches and boat ramps on the reservoir.

            We return to the Interstate at Moorcroft. Again, we encounter the Texas Trail, but at this northern end, it branched out, feeding cattle onto the plains in three directions. The town was built on the site of a horse ranch owned by the Miller brothers in the 19^th century who named the town for their English estate of Moorcroft Acres. The town began as a railroad shipping point for cattle. Among the many cowboys once active in the area was “Big Bill” Thompson who worked until 1892 on the ranges near town. He later returned to his native city where he became mayor of Chicago and influential Illinois politician in the l920s. Thompson, the last Republican mayor of Chicago, was noteworthy for the level of corruption in his administration. It is alleged that he won reelection in 1928 through the support of mobster Al Capone.

            Near Moorcroft was the ranch of E. W. Whitcomb.  Late Supreme Court Justice Rod Guthrie often told the story of why he disliked eating fried chicken. It was because, when he was a child, he was with his father when they stopped at the Whitcomb house just before noon dinner time. As is still customary in ranch country, Whitcomb invited them to have dinner. Mrs. Whitcomb, not prepared to feed two more diners on such short notice, sullenly served chicken to the new arrivals—but, it was barely warmed in the skillet. She just rolled it in flour, dropped it in grease for a minute or two and served it on the plate.

            The area around Moorcroft also became sheep country. While feuding between sheep and cattlemen didn’t become as violent here as west in the Big Horn Basin area, a deadline was established and adhered to.  Outspoken legislator Marlene Simons represented Crook County in the legislature for many years. She once had a very close call in a motor vehicle turn-over accident. Her dog managed to save her life. She was a strong advocate for coyote extermination. Once, in 1996 when the State Department of Agriculture released a plan to neuter coyotes rather than exterminate them, Simons replied, “I don’t care who the coyotes sleep with. My concern is what they eat!”

            Near Moorcroft is the ranch of Joe Watt, former UW trustee and major donor for whom the Kennedy-Watt Centennial Complex is named. Until the late 1940s, Watt raised cattle and sheep on the dozen or so deeded sections and an equal number of leased sections. In about 1950, a representative from the fledgling newly formed True Oil Company asked Watt if he would consent to an exploratory well or two on his ranch. Watt agreed and the terms were that if oil was found, the company would pay him a royalty at least sufficient to pay the vaccination bills for his livestock that year. Spectacular discoveries were found and Watt became very wealthy along with True Oil Company. Ironically, Dave True also became a member of the UW Board of Trustees.

            As we continue on the Interstate west to Gillette, we pass the site of Wyoming’s first strip mine—the WyoDak mine.  The mine began operations in 1924.

            On the east edge of Gillette was once the site of the UW experiment station where extensive experimentation with shelterbelts was conducted in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1930s, as many as 50 fire smoldered in coal fissures in the vicinity. Since the coal was low BTU sub-bituminous and of little value, the fires were allowed to burn, although the young men of the CCC had a go at extinguishing some of the fires. Often there were reports of livestock or even cowboys on their horses stumbling into the fissures and suffering minor burns. 

Edward Gillette Describes How Gillette Was Named

       At the head of Donkey creek a contractor had been let a mile of work for the purpose of holding that pass against any opposition. We camped close to where the contractor was located, and were astonished to note what little effect his horses had made in grazing, as the grass was knee high and thick enough to cut for hay. Thousands of buffalo had been killed in this vicinity, and men were piling up the bones to be shipped later on the railroad. These piles of bones looked like tents in the distance and were numerous.

       We ran the preliminary line through Stone Pile draw, joining the located line on Wild Horse creek at the mouth of Hay creek. This line proved to be five miles shorter, a saving of 30 bridges and some grading. It was adopted as the final location, much to the consternation of the contractor who wanted to know what was the use of his grading the mile he was on if we did not use it. We told him he would get paid for all the work he did and to keep on until word was received from the company.

       The saving made by this new line was so great that we had some curiosity as to the action of the company. The raise in pay previously made, excited new sensations, and we wondered if our pay check would be further increased. In due course of time a letter came from the Chief Engineer stating that higher officials than himself appreciated the good work we were doing and he was glad to inform me that the company had decided this time to name a town after me. ….

       Gillette was a live town from the start. The cowboys and followers of the railroad saw to that, like many a frontier town in the West, until finally it settled down to an orderly development and is now one of the best county seats on the railroad, in which the state takes much pride. It commands the trade of a large section of country. Its stock raising, farming and coal resources, with the probability of oil fields adjacent, will, no doubt, cause the town to have a considerable growth in the future. The elevation of Gillette is 4546 and track was laid into the town on August 12, 1891.

–Edward Gillette, Locating the Iron Trail (Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1925), pp. 74-76.

The first town lots were sold in July 1891, for $1.25 per acre. Soon after the railroad came in August, Gillette became the primary shipping point for cattle in this region. Despite the concentration of coal and, later oil discoveries, Gillette remained a cattle town until the 1950s. The Arab oil embargo in the early 1970s brought new life to the coal fields around Gillette. The place was booming by 1975. One night after a long evening’s drinking, a man stole a D-9 caterpillar tractor and drove it down the street, running over cars and wreaking tremendous damage. It prompted the printing of a popular bumper-sticker at the time: “When D-9s are outlawed, only outlaws will have D-9s.”

            Gillette gained its share of bad publicity in the 1970s. After a New York reporter visited the boomtown, he wrote a scathing piece about how the town lacked all quality of life—no trees, no paved streets, a lack of inhabitable homes, lawlessness, and wind. He concluded the piece by talking with a psychiatrist who confided that the awful conditions caused suicide, homicide, spousal and child abuse and other societal aggression. He labeled the condition, “the Gillette syndrome.”  Gillette residents were outraged when the article appeared, but the result was a series of proposals to improve conditions in Gillette. City officials such as John Ostland and Mike Enzi worked to plant more trees, bring in more recreational opportunities and provide better city services.

            The town of Wright was laid out and constructed by ARCO in 1976, making it one of Wyoming’s newest towns. The town was formally dedicated July 8, 1976, in ceremonies attended by numerous dignitaries. Every town lot and most buildings were company-owned and the town was run by the company until 1985 when ARCO sold most of the town lots and allowed the town to become incorporated under Wyoming laws. A tornado hit the town on August 12; 2005, and two people were killed. More than 60 homes were destroyed and 50 others heavily damaged

            As we continue south to the turnoff to the Black Thunder mine, we pass by the Durham Buffalo Ranch. The ranch owns one of the largest privately held buffalo herds in America. They sell buffalo meat and hides to markets around the country.   

            Along the highway, we see evidence of countless coal bed methane wells. The first coal bed methane well opened in 1998. Drilled down to the coal, each well is filled with cement, extruded out around outside of pipe with air pressure. The remaining 20 or so feet of cement is then popped out with another drill and the coal seam penetrated to below the coal level. The hole is made larger to about 2 feet. Gas then flows out from coal, goes up pipe and runs into feeder lines. Two compressors pump the methane, upping the pressure considerably for delivery to Glenrock and Douglas area for introduction into a big pipeline.

            The Powder River Basin is shaped like a bathtub in terms of coal. At the east end, the coal seams are about 65 feet thick; at the west end, about 226 feet thick but at about 2,000 feet deep. Thickest seam is on Johnson-Campbell County line. Of the huge volume of coal bed methane in the Powder River Basin, about 31 percent is owned by Williams Brothers of Tulsa who bought the operation in the early 2000s. Western Gas has drilled 17,000 cbm wells with 12,000 still producing.

            In total, 12 percent of all gas in Wyoming is cbm. Taxes on gas exceeds taxes on coal and oil combined. The royalty paid for schools is 16 ½ percent on school section lands. For companies, the. cost is 75 cents per mcf for shipping to Cheyenne. Cost is approximately $90,000 for 900 feet cbm well, taking 3-4 days to drill, with an additional $10,000 more for running gathering pipelines to each well. Meters on the wells are controlled by telemetry. Coal bed methane (CBM) brings 3,000 jobs to Campbell County.

Thunder Basin Coal Mine:

            First coal shipped from Black Thunder in Dec. 1977. It may take three hours to load 130 cars in a train (aluminum cars). But when the gravity fed system is used, it takes one hour to load 130 cars. Each car holds 115 tons (aluminum rail cars). If there is the mark of “X” on the car, it means it is owned by the utility. Coal in the Powder River basin is about 110 miles long by 70 mile wide. Mines in the area include: Arch Thunder Basin, Kennecott Jacobs Ranch, Vulcan N. Rochelle, Peabody North Antelope, Kennecott Antelope, Kennecott Cordero Rojo, Peabody Cabello, RAG Belle Ayr. In all, some 70 operators mine for coal in the basin.

            At Black Thunder, four draglines operate around the clock, loading some of the 38 huge trucks owned by the mine. Some hold up to 340 tons of coal. Each steel railroad car holds 100 tons (8,800 btus per lb. of coal). The mine is the single largest user of commercial blasting powder in the U. S.

            Coal sales for Wyoming coal are greatest to utilities in Texas (62 million tons, 54% of total state use of coal); Illinois, 41 million tons; Missouri, 36 million tons or 96 percent of all coal used. Some 105 plants receive coal from the company. Coal is shipped as far as Michigan, Arizona, Texas. The coal is FOB to the utility at the point it is loaded onto the train. Price is determined there. The railroad rate increases have been substantial over the past two years.

            The federal mineral royalty rate is 12 ½ percent with half paid to the state. The state royalty rate is 16 2/3 percent. Average price in 2003 for 8400 BTU coal: $5.50  for 8,800 btu coal: $6.65 per ton. Severance taxes (2002): $122.4 million; ad valorem, $101,869,000.  It is estimated that $1.38 in taxes, royalties and fees per ton paid as taxes.  Arco sold the mine to Arch in June 1998. A total of 1.2 billion tons had been shipped from the mine as of August 2006.

            For reclamation purposes, the state requires that the mine return the land to the condition of wildlife habitat and livestock grazing that it was in prior to mining. More than 4,000 acres have been reclaimed with the first reclamation beginning some 18 years ago. Pronghorn Lake is artificial lake with island in it created by the company. Waterfowl nest there.

            As a strip mine, Black Thunder averages 3.14 strip ratio. With headwalls of coal of some 70 feet thick, that means about 210 feet of overburden has to be removed to get to the coal seam. This is a favorable ratio. The dragline, used exclusively for removing the overburden, includes a Bucyrus-Erie 164-cu-yard bucket. It is diesel electric. A few years ago, they “walked” the dragline from a mine 25 miles away. It took 30 days. Draglines take steps of seven feet.

            Wyoming mines produced 390 million tons in 2005 and the total last year exceeded 420 million tons.. Of the 1,515 mines in the US, the 15 in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin provided 1/3 of the nation’s coal. Production at Black Thunder amounts to 13 tons per second per day.  Black Thunder employs 1,200 people. Average salary is $88,000 per year.  Water coal has a high water content. 26.74% is water. Thus, every fourth boxcar is simply a load of water!

            The mine illustrates the problem of split estates: the coal company leases from the federal government (Forest Service) in Thunder Basin National Grassland. However, other companies have the leases for coal bed methane in the same field.

            Of the coal produced here, 24 million tons are burned in Wyoming. Electricity to the mine is provided from the Laramie Basin power station, but the coal firing it comes from another mine north of Black Thunder.

            As we leave Black Thunder, we retrace our trail and leave Gillette for Sheridan. In this area, left, huge herds of cattle once grazed. To the left, a few miles distant, Moreton Frewen, a British gentleman, established his 76 Cattle Company and built a house often referred to as “Frewen’s Castle.” Nothing remains of the house today. Frewen, who married Clara Jerome, sister of Winston Churchill’s mother Jenny Jerome, was known for investing in highly dubious business ventures. Friends refer to him, behind his back, as “Mortal Ruin.” He came to his Wyoming ranch in the summers and, in early fall, after hunting season, he returned to spend a couple of weeks in the Cheyenne Club and the house he had built in Cheyenne (with the living room trimmed in cowhide “wallpaper”). By winter, he was en route home to Britain, leaving the ranch under the control of a manager. Frewen married Clara Jerome when her nephew Winston was about six years old. Churchill’s parents made one trip to Wyoming, leaving their young son in boarding school. The myth that Churchill spent childhood time here, therefore, is incorrect.

            If we had taken Highway 14 rather than the Interstate 90 route, we would have come through several small towns in northern Campbell and eastern Sheridan county. These would have included Recluse, Spotted Horse, and Arvada (not pronounced like the Colorado town—the second “a” is long).  Arvada has been known for the “fire-water” running in the town pipes over the years. A few years ago, your guide was given a demonstration. The water tap was turned on and a match was held next to it. Suddenly, flames shot out of the faucet!  The water came from formations containing substantial amounts of coal bed methane.  Further along this route is the small hamlet of Ucross. Nearby is “Big Red,” the ranch home of the Ucross Foundation. The foundation annually hosts dozens of writers and artists in residency fellowships. They are paid a stipend and given free room and board and expected to complete work on projects without suffering the interruptions they would experience in their regular lives. Most of these towns had economies based on ranching or, as in the case of Leiter (named for Chicago businessman Levi Leiter) on dry farming. In central and northern Sheridan County, coal towns were started next to coal mines. Many of these towns were company-owned. Kleenburn was one of mining town, so named because the coal mined there supposedly burned with little sulfur content. Kooi was founded by Illinois businessman Peter Kooi. (His daughter Lorna married Milward Simpson and, thus, her two sons, Pete and Al,  share the same middle initial and name of “Kooi.”) Dietz, Monarch and Acme were all named for coal companies, too. Miners tended to be immigrants from Eastern Europe although a number of Japanese miners came to the area in the early 1900s.

            I-90 merges into I-25 just to the north of Buffalo.  The route for this part of the interstate system contributed to the defeat of incumbent Gov. Milward Simpson in 1958.  The town of Sheridan wanted the highway to follow Highway 14-16 and, thus, bypass Buffalo. Sheridan businessmen believed that, if the Interstate connected to Buffalo, tourists bound for Yellowstone would continue west on Highway 16 and effectively bypass Sheridan. Buffalo merchants lobbied for the connection, fearing that if the highway was not built into town, tourists would not stop but continue northward to Sheridan. Simpson took no position on the issue, telling both communities that he would leave the decision to the highway engineers. Neither town was satisfied. With the location still undetermined at general election time, voters in both towns cast ballots for Joe Hickey, assuming he would be influenced to come down on their respective sides. The compromise amounted to the Interstate not connecting directly to Buffalo, but not following U.S. 14-16 either.  (We will visit sites along this segment tomorrow, but now, we will continue to Sheridan).

            The town of Sheridan was laid out on a sheet of brown wrapping paper by John Loucks on May 16, 1882. He named the town for his Civil War commander, General Philip Sheridan. The first town lots were sold for $2.50 each, but the buyer could buy a second lot for an additional 50 cents. Sheridan is home to numerous historic sites. We will be visiting Trail End State Historic Site, the home built by Gov./U. S. Senator John B. Kendrick. 

            Other well-known sites include the King Saddle Museum and rope factory in downtown Sheridan. Founded by Don King, (b. in Douglas, 1923 and now deceased), the saddle museum displays a wide variety of saddles made by famous makers from throughout the West. Sheridan maker Chester Hape gained fame  by making the championship PRCA saddles from 1976-1989. Another Sheridan maker, Otto Ernst, made saddles for 73 years. King’s own work is world famous and distinctive for the rosette designs tooled into various parts of the saddle.  King had some initial training in leather work in Arizona before he entered the Coast Guard in World War II. Following military service, he moved to Sheridan where he worked under the direction of saddlemaker Rudy Mudra. A short time later, in 1947, King started his own saddle shop in his garage. There, he developed the “Sheridan style wild rose” pattern. A short time later, he bought a ranch, but continued to make saddles. In 1959, he was asked to make trophy saddles for the Rodeo Cowboys Association. He opened a shop on Main Street in 1963, moving to the present location a decade later. In 1989, he converted a warehouse next door into a museum to show his more than 500 saddles. King made a leather-crafted wastebasket for Queen Elizabeth when she visited Sheridan in 1984. Among the owners of King saddles are Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia and various sheiks of Dubai and Abu Dhubi.

            The magnificent Sheridan Inn was built by the Burlington Railroad as a “railroad hotel.” It was designed by Thomas R. Kimball of Omaha to resemble a Scottish inn. Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” referred to it as the “House of 69 Gables.” The inn was built in 1893 and, the following year, it was purchased by William F. Cody who owned it for three years. It is said that the town of Cody was planned in the dining room of the Inn. (Hence, the main street of Cody is named “Sheridan Avenue.”) Among the famous guests were artist Charles Russell, President William H. Taft, William Jennings Bryan and Gen. John J. Pershing.  Ernest Hemingway is said to have penned his novel A Farewell to Arms there in 1928.  The building has the distinction of having a burial within its walls. Miss Kate Arnold, a housekeeper in the inn for decades in the early 20^th century, had her remains cremated and buried within the wall of the room she occupied in the Inn for those many years. It is said that her ghost walks through the building on occasion. Due to its proximity to the railroad, the Inn flourished until passenger train traffic diminished in the 1950s.  It was saved from demolition in 1967, renovated and reopened in 1969. It became the property of the Childrens Hospital Foundation of Denver in 1985.

            The Edelman Drug Store on Main Street once housed numerous paintings done by Wyoming’s most famous artist, E. W. “Bill” Gollings who had an art studio in Sheridan. A native of Idaho, he took a few art lessons, but learned most of his skills through work as a cowboy on the range when he was in his teens and early 20s. When one of his paintings gained local attention, he was offered a scholarship to study art at the Chicago Art Institute. After graduation, he returned to Sheridan and set up his studio in 1909. His paintings are held in many collections and several of his art works are on display in the House and Senate chambers of the Wyoming State Capitol. He died in 1932.

            Wyoming’s first sugar beet factory was built here by Holly Sugar in 1915. Also in the area is Fort McKenzie, originally a post where numerous units of “buffalo soldiers” were stationed over the years. It became the site for a veterans’ hospital in the early 1900s and continues to serve psychiatric veteran patients. Sheridan College was started in the late 1940s. The state reform school for girls was located here in the 1920s.

            Sheridan was once home to the state’s largest brewery. Founded in 1885, the year after the town was started, Sheridan Brewery burned to the ground the following year. Rebuilt and reopened in 1889, it thrived until Prohibition forced its closure in 1919. The following year, the firm acquired the Coca-Cola franchise and, thus, were able to survive until Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Beer-brewing restarted the following year. As tastes changed in the post-World War II years and local brews were shunned in favor of mass-produced national brands, Sheridan Brewery closed its beer-making operations in 1954. The firm returned to Coca-Cola bottling. In the mid-1950s, the bottling plant became the first in the United States to make flat-top canned beverages.

            Northwest of Sheridan is the town of Dayton where Susan Wissler was the first woman mayor in Wyoming, elected in 1911. The studio of artist and etcher Hans Kleiber is on Dayton’s main street. Nearby is Ranchester, another small town. Close by are the sites of the Wagon Box fight and the Connor Battlefield. We will not be visiting these sites. Instead, we will be going to the Eaton Ranch near Wolf, the nation’s first dude ranch founded by the three Eaton brothers in 1904.

Day 3: Sheridan to Casper

Our first stop is the Bradford Brinton Memorial Ranch. Built by British-born rancher Malcolm Moncrieffe, the main building is an example of a home built by British cattlemen in Wyoming in the late 19^th century. The two-story frame house was built in 1893. Moncrieffe and his brother lived in the home for 30 years. They raised horses that they sold to the British army for various empire wars in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. They also bred and trained highly regarded polo ponies. In 1923 businessman Bradford Brinton bought the ranch, expanded the house and added other buildings to house his extensive art collection. After his death in 1936, the ranch passed to his sister. When she died in 1960, her will stipulated that the ranch become a museum, open to the public. The art collection includes some 600 works by a variety of internationally renowned artists ranging from Audubon to Charles Russell.        

As we leave the Bradford Brinton ranch, we return to the road and continue south to the site of Fort Phil Kearny. Gold was the motivating factor for the dramatic increase in traffic on the Oregon-California trail in 1849. A dozen years later, gold in Montana prompted a new trail across north central Wyoming. Georgia-born John Bozeman, disregarding treaties that had set aside the Powder River country for the Lakota, blazed a “short-cut” from the Oregon Trail route to Montana in 1863. (He was killed along the trail in 1867).

The federal government initially condemned the trespassing, but in the summer of 1866, Col. Henry Carrington and 700 soldiers were ordered to the area to build forts for protecting trespassing miners. While a hastily-arranged “treaty conference” was held at Fort Laramie, supposedly gaining Indian approval for the action—even though the Native signers had no stake in the Powder River country—Carrington’s troops left Fort Laramie to set up forts along the Bozeman Trail. The Carrington command built Fort Reno and Fort C. F. Smith. The primary post, however, was to be Fort Phil Kearny (located halfway between present Buffalo and Sheridan). While Carrington’s group continued construction of a wood stockade around the post, Indians harassed groups sent out to cut timber or graze post animals. The incidents intensified in the fall of 1866. (Photographer Ridgway Glover was one victim while setting up his bulky equipment to shoot photographs of the fort from a nearby hill).

Civil War veteran Capt. William Fetterman was assigned to the newly constructed post in November 1866. The following month, on December 21, despite his lack of knowledge of frontier Indian fighting, he volunteered to lead a guard detachment of 80 men to escort a wood-gathering party back to the fort. A half dozen Lakota warriors appeared on a nearby hill, yelling obscenities in an attempt to lure the unit over the ridge. One of the taunters, it is said, was Crazy Horse. In later testimony, Col. Carrington, Fetterman’s commander, contended he had told the young inexperienced officer not to go over Lodge Trail Ridge. Whether he had been warned is an open question, but Fetterman ordered his troops to chase the harassers over the ridge. Awaiting was a substantial force of Lakota warriors who ambushed the column. Within 20 minutes, Fetterman and his entire command were dead.

When Col Carrington learned of the incident, he feared that the 120 or so soldiers at the post were in danger. He sought volunteers to ride to the nearest telegraph station, Horseshoe Station, 190 miles to the south, to alert army officials. Two men offered to make the journey, despite deep snows and cold temperatures. One was John “Portugee” Phillips (born Manual Felipe Cardoso in the Azores in 1832), who was a civilian wintering at the fort in preparation for returning to the Montana gold fields the following spring. Another volunteer to make the hazardous ride was Daniel Dixon. As they proceeded under what was a full moon by day and bright sun on heavy snow, other riders rode with them from time to time en route to the telegraph station. At Fort Reno, Phillips was given an additional message from Lt.Col. Henry Wessels to deliver to the commander at Fort Laramie. Three men, Phillips, Dixon, and Robert Bailey, rode into Horseshoe Station on Christmas morning where the telegraph messages were sent to army commanders. Phillips continued southward to Fort Laramie alone. A Christmas night party was in full swing at “Old Bedlam,” the bachelor officers’ quarters, when Phillips rode into the post. The post commander, alerted to the troubles, sent reinforcements to Fort Phil Kearny, but the unit didn’t leave until January 6. As it turned out, the delay was irrelevant because the Indians opted not to further attack the soldiers or the post. While Phillips’ ride was not made alone for much of the way, nonetheless, it was a formidable achievement—riding 238 miles in winter snows, avoiding contact with Indians, and making the distance in only four days. It remains celebrated as the “greatest ride in Wyoming history.” The federal government paid Phillips and Dixon $300 each for making the ride. Phillips stayed in Wyoming, ranched near Chugwater and died in Cheyenne in 1883.

The army’s efforts to keep the trail open seemed futile, however. In 1868, the U. S. Government sent representatives to another treaty conference at Fort Laramie. Under the terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the army abandoned the forts along the Bozeman Trail and the government agreed to bar miners from using the shortcut across Native lands. At least some of the impetus for the agreement was from government officials’ concern for construction of the transcontinental railroad, then building across what is now southern Wyoming.

The Bozeman Trail, like the Oregon-California-Mormon route and the overland stagecoach line, was being made obsolete. A transcontinental railroad was about to transform transportation west and, with it, make it necessary to establish Wyoming as a territory.

We arrive in Buffalo where we stop briefly at the Jim Gatchell Museum. The museum is named for long-time Buffalo druggist James Gatchell who collected artifacts and displayed them in his downtown store over the years.

A Soldier’s Widow Once Own Buffalo

       The townsite of Buffalo was once almost entirely owned by a widow. Her late husband had the foresight to file a desert claim on the land while he was serving at nearby Fort McKinney in the early 1880s.

       The fort had been located in the summer of 1878 when the army moved a camp from the Powder River area to the banks of Clear Creek. With the construction of the fort, civilians came in the area to obtain contracts from the government for provisioning the new post. Unable to stay on the military reservation, they established their own camps along the creek east of the fort. Saloons were not allowed on the military reservation so they sprung up just outside the boundaries, too.

       During the fall of 1879, August Trabing, who owned stores in Medicine Bow, Laramie and other towns, moved his trading post from the Powder River area to Buffalo. Soon after, he sold out to Joseph Conrad and his partners. The next summer the first Occidental Hotel was constructed and other buildings began to go up.

       The story goes that it was at this time that Main Street was laid out—in a most unusual way. Joseph Conrad had noticed that wherever the bull team outfits from the fort passed, a road would become established. He offered one teamster, George Washbaugh, a new suit if he would alter his route slightly and pass by the Conrad store. The curves in Main Street were there to stay after Washbaugh took the detour past the store.

       For some inexplicable reason, builders failed to bother to purchase land on which they built. Apparently, they didn’t even check to see who owned the land. The buildings had been constructed on the desert claim of Major Verling K. Hart, post commander at Fort McKinney.

       Hart, who had become involved in mining investments when he was commanding officer at Fort Laramie (and the namesake of the town of Hartville on the site of one mine), had made the claim almost as soon as he had arrived. The Indiana-born soldier died of a heart seizure at the age of 44 the next year. His widow, Juliet W. Hart, became the claim owner.

       A controversy soon developed between Mrs. Hart and the owners of the buildings that stood on her claim. Although the details of the negotiations are unclear, the Carbon County Journal reported on Sept. 29, 1883, that: “It is now thought that all the trouble about the townsite of Buffalo is over, as Mrs. Hart has signed the agreement drawn up by the citizens, in which she agrees to sell all lots now occupied at $10 each. It is to be hoped that there will be no more trouble in this direction.” Mrs. Hart was granted the patent on the land in June 1884 and, a month later, she platted the original townsite of Buffalo. It was by then a flourishing town.

       The Johnson County deed records show almost 250 entries for sales of land by Mrs. Hart to various Buffalo settlers in the next few years. One interesting entry for August 1884, is the deed to the County Commissioners for a piece of land where the Johnson County Courthouse still stands. The sale price was $512.

       Mrs. Hart apparently stayed in Buffalo for several years after her husband’s untimely death. She and her three children may have moved to Fort Robinson, Nebr., about 1889.    Later, deeds list her as living in Lee County, Iowa, and Detroit, Michigan. Even though she was absent, she continued to sell town lots in Buffalo from time to time.

       Her son gained fame as the first Wyoming appointee to have graduated from West Point. Verling K. Hart, Jr., born in 1871, in Kansas, had been brought to Wyoming when his father was transferred to Wyoming in the late 1870s. Joseph M. Carey, Wyoming’s territorial delegate to Congress, named the younger Hart to West Point in 1889. After service in the Spanish American War, he returned to Wyoming in 1906 to serve at Fort D. A. Russell. Later, he became a partner in a hotel enterprise in Cheyenne. Nothing is known about what became of his mother. Juliet W. Hart, former owner of the townsite of Buffalo, is lost to history.

Buffalo is the county seat of Johnson County. The Johnson County War/Invasion is one of the most notorious events in the state’s history. We will be seeing exhibits about it in the museum.

A Very Brief History of the Johnson County War

            During territorial period, the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association gained substantial power.  In fact, the territorial legislative sessions were dominated by the Union Pacific Railroad on the one hand and the Stockgrowers Association on the other.  When it came to matters involving livestock, the legislature essentially handed over all responsibility and power to the association. For instance, the first legislature established the Board of Live Stock Commissioners with members appointed by the governor. The commissioners were to organize official roundups, hire brand inspectors, give inspectors lists of “rustler brands,” and oversee livestock sales throughout the territory.

            From the beginning, the commission was dominated by men who owned large open-range cattle operations. Eventually, the commission turned over some of its powers to the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association. For instance, the WSGA was allowed to decide which were “rustler brands.”  The effect was that small cattlemen were prevented from using regular markets and many felt pressed without legal recourse. Essentially, by giving the authority to the commission, the legislature was handing away power over all livestock issues to a private association, the WSGA.  The membership of the WSGA determined who could become members and if any member opposed a candidate, the individual could not gain membership. Rules for membership became more rigid during the 1880s and as the open ranges became more crowded, old members were reluctant to allow others into the lucrative opportunities offered to members-only.  Small ranchers and former cowboys were almost universally turned down for membership by the middle of the 1880s.

            The association gained greater power in the 1880s when the territorial legislature passed the so-called “Maverick law” that gave the association power over disposal of unbranded cattle. Previously, whenever an unbranded calf was found without a logical “mother” nearby, the calf became the property of the finder. The new law gave the unbranded calf to the association and it could then auction the animal off at the end of the roundup. The WSGA rules provided that only association members could bid on “mavericks.” This effectively limited non-association members from an important source of potential livestock—and the non-members could lose mavericks actually belonging to them through the process.

            The legislature also authorized the WSGA to operate “official roundups.” The association had the power to determine the dates of the roundup and power to decide who could participate in the roundup. Any earlier efforts to gather cattle on the open range, prior to the roundup date, could be construed as rustling and the individuals responsible could be charged with that offense.

            The association “black-balled” certain cowboys from working on the roundups. A number of these men had once worked for association member ranches and had gone out on their own, homesteading land and raising small herds of cattle. Many depended on the cash earned from the twice-yearly roundups to augment their meager earnings and being black-balled caused substantial hardship for many of them.

            The association also had substantial influence over livestock brands generally. If the association did not “recognize” a brand, it could decide that the animal, improperly branded, belonged to the association.  Abuses of such rules were particularly worrisome to small operators. The association hired its own stock “inspectors” with the authority to “apprehend” or otherwise curtail rustlers. Again, many non-members saw the possibilities for abuse.

            Meanwhile, the cattle business in Wyoming—once a booming source of double-digit returns on investment—was suffering hard times. Following the drought of 1886, the decline in cattle prices, and the disastrous winter of 1886-87, many of the open-range cattle companies were bankrupt or very close. They were victims of what John Clay later called, “Ill luck, mismanagement, greed.”

            After 1887, financially strapped by poor prices and bad weather, the big companies laid off full-time cowboys. But even though it was tough economic times, most companies had need for labor during round-ups. Twice yearly wages for only a few days was hardly sufficient for most yet many of the former cowboys-turned-homesteaders could count on a few dollars by working the two annual roundups during the year, often for their former employers. Those who found no work in the “cowboy trade” could either “ride the grub line” (pick up occasional daily jobs in exchange for food at various ranches or simply “show up” in time for dinner at such places) or go into ranching on their own. Many did turn to homesteading, often on the very land that had been open range over which they had once grazed former employers’ cattle.    

            The big ranch companies suspected many of their former cowboys of rustling in order to gain breeding stock for their new homestead ranches.  The association’s blacklist expanded barring former cowboys from all aspects of association-determined round-ups. No longer could the small operator depend on twice-yearly money in exchange for working the roundups.

            As cattle prices dropped and range conditions worsened with more and more cattle grazing on diminishing grass, cattle theft gained greater attention. Many of the big operators, particularly those in the Powder River Basin, complained that rustling had increased over the years and, now, juries “won’t convict a rustler in Johnson County.”  Similar complaints came from big operators elsewhere in Wyoming.

            In the late 1880s, near the Sweetwater River in present Natrona County, several “newcomers” started homesteads in the middle of what had been some of the best pastures on the open range. Albert Bothwell and several of his neighbors, all of them established owners of large ranches who had relied heavily on the open range, resented the homesteaders.

            One of the homesteaders was a former soldier who had served at Fort Fred Steele near Rawlins. His name was James Averell and he spoke out against the tactics of big operators who tried to discourage the small homesteaders from staying. He wrote letters to the Casper newspapers that were highly critical of several ranchers, including Bothwell. Meanwhile, rumors continued to circulate about one of Averell’s neighbors, Ella Watson. The young woman, homesteading on her own, was rumored to be adding to her livestock by trading “favors”  with passing cowboys in exchange for rustled cattle..

            In mid-July 1889, delegates were preparing to go to Cheyenne for the soon-to-be convened constitutional convention. Among them were three two stockmen, W. C. Irvine, and Hubert Teschemacher, and attorney Charles Burritt. All three were sympathetic to the big cattle interests in the territory. 

            Back on the Sweetwater, rancher Bothwell and several friends paid a visit to Watson and Averell. They “invited” both onto a wagon, drove the vehicle to the banks of the Sweetwater River, and ordered the two out of the wagon. There, they tied the hands of the two and put nooses around their necks, tied the other ends to a scrub pine on the cliff bank and kicked them off the cliff.  An eyewitness, Frank Buchanan, a local cowboy, witnessed the lynching from a distance. He rode to Casper to report to officers who had the ranchers arrested by sheriff’s officers from Rawlins.  

            When the lynching was made public, Cheyenne newspapers were sympathetic to Bothwell and friends. One paper started referring to Watson as “Cattle Kate,” asserting that women of her loose morals essentially deserved her fate.  The ranchers responsible were indicted, but not one of them was convicted for what they had done. It was rumored that Buchanan had been “invited” to leave the territory so that he would not testify in the trial.

            Small cattle operators throughout the state deeply resented the continued power in the hands of the owners of the large cattle ranches and the WSGA and complained bitterly about the miscarriages of justice that condoned vigilante acts against small ranchers.  Consequently, many tried to counter the association’s huge influence over their economic livelihoods.

            A group of small ranchers organized in Johnson County. The association, the “Northern Wyoming Farmers and Stock Growers Association,” announced an independent roundup for May 1, 1891 – one month before the official WSGA state roundup. This was in clear defiance of the association’s power to set the date of the roundup. The association had declared that any earlier action was tantamount to “rustling.”

            Nate Champion was a former foreman for a large open-range cattle company during the “boom years.” He was highly respected by many of the big operators—or, at least, WAS highly respected, until he helped organize the association of small ranchers in Johnson County. This group clearly intended to compete against the big operators.  Champion was not unlike other open-range cowboys in the 1880s. He had become a small rancher when he was laid off by the big company when the company’s economic fortunes took a turn downward. Soon after he left the employ of the big companies, Champion survived a brush with killers, apparently sent to shoot him.  Big operators started referring to Champion’s group in Johnson County as the “red sash gang,” implying that they were a gang of rustlers and not a legitimate association of small ranchers.

            Owners of the big cattle operations and association members were unhappy about the new association forming in a county where many of their own members still maintained large open-range operations. They were outraged over the independent roundup, believing it was a direct challenge to their power. This is the event that triggered the invasion of Johnson County by representatives of the association and the big cattle companies in April 1892.

            The WSGA held its 20^th annual meeting in Cheyenne on April 4, 1892. The meeting had record-breaking attendance after many years of decline due to price drops in cattle and poor range conditions. During the business meetings, the association again passed a resolution commending the State Livestock Commissioners—in essence, a state front agency for the association itself—for withholding proceeds from the sale of “stolen cattle” until ownership of the cattle could be proven. This adversely affected small operators who were not association members and who had brands that the association refused to recognize. 

            There is no record of the executive committee meeting.  What happened in that session was a closely-held secret. Apparently, there were discussions about invading Johnson County to counter what was perceived as direct threats to their power and a decision was made to take action immediately.  Of course, Wyoming had been a state for almost two years and in the state’s Constitution, adopted in November 1889, was a provision making it illegal to bring “private armies” into the state. Three association officers must have known about the provision, given they had been delegates to the constitutional convention who had drafted the document.

            Prior to the 1892 meetings, the association had hired a number of stock detectives to enforce the regulations. (Records of pay statements for these detectives are held in the collections of the American Heritage Center).  One such employee was the former Johnson County sheriff Frank Canton. 

            Canton likely was an escapee from a Texas prison prior to coming to Johnson County in the middle 1880s. A prisoner named “Joe Horner” escaped and no word was ever heard as to what had happened to him. At the same time, “Frank Canton,” a man who knew a good deal about law enforcement and who had been reared in Texas, appeared three weeks later in Johnson County. (There is no evidence that such a person named Frank Canton existed anywhere prior to that date). Given Canton’s understanding of law enforcement, he was a logical candidate for sheriff of Johnson County. He was elected and served two terms as sheriff.

            Toward the end of his second term, Canton, who had made known his contempt for “rustlers” and small homesteaders generally, was hired by the WSGA as their chief of detectives. Soon, Canton went to work against people he believed were rustlers. He was suspected but not charged in the ambush deaths of John Tisdale and “Ranger” Jones, both small ranchers near Buffalo. While he avoided prosecution in both cases, Canton assured employers he was trying to “eliminate” the “rustler problem” in Johnson County. He provided few details, but in April 1892, he and an association member with military experience, “Major” Frank Walcott, were to lead the “invasion” force to Johnson County.

            Such an “invasion” was secretly planned during the fall and winter of 1891. During those months, 22 gunmen were hired to come to Wyoming—21 from the vicinity of Paris, Texas, and one from Idaho. All had been told they were to serve as “deputies” to clear up the rustler problem in Johnson County. They were to be paid $5 per day and a bonus of $50 for every rustler they would shoot.

            The “invaders” intended to march to Johnson County, keeping county residents from knowing about their coming. They planned to shoot suspected rustlers and “arrest” officials sympathetic to them. Some writers believe the group prepared a “dead list” that included the names of from 17 to 70 Johnson County residents that they wished to eliminate.

            Soon after the association’s meeting in April, 1892, a party of 52 met in Cheyenne who would be accompanying the “invasion force” north. They included 19 cattlemen, 22 hired gunmen (all but one from Texas), five stock detectives, including Frank Canton, and six “non-combatants,” including Sam Clover, a news reporter from Chicago; Ed Toews, a reporter from Cheyenne; and medical doctor Charles Penrose.

            The planners tried to keep the entire expedition secret. They quietly loaded railway cars with supplies and horses while trying to keep word of the secret army from reaching Buffalo/Johnson County residents. An employee of Sen. Joseph M. Carey’s cattle company cut telegraph and telephone lines to Buffalo so that residents there would have no idea of the forthcoming invasion. The train departed Cheyenne on Colorado & Southern tracks bound for Casper where the invasion force unloaded the freight cars and quietly moved toward Johnson County with horses and wagons.

            As the invasion traveled north, rain started falling that eventually turned to snow. Consequently, the force halted at the ranch of an ally to allow the weather to improve. Throughout this part of the journey, Canton and Walcott argued over the leadership of the column.  Mike Shonsey, a ranch foreman accompanying the invaders, reported back that two of the men they were seeking, Nate Champion and Nick Ray, had holed up in a ranch cabin on the KC Ranch a few miles away (just east of the present town of Kaycee where we will pass through later today). The invaders surrounded the cabin and, at dawn, two cowboys (working as trappers in the winter) came out and were taken prisoner. They confirmed that Champion and Ray were inside the cabin. Soon, Ray appeared at the cabin door and he was shot. Champion dashed outside and pulled his mortally wounded friend back into the cabin.

            For the next several hours, Champion and the invading force exchanged gunfire. Finally, Buffalo Voice editor Jack Flagg and his stepson, en route to the State Democratic Convention in Douglas, came upon the scene. Flagg was recognized, but before he could be captured by the invaders, he and his stepson mounted the horses and sped off to Buffalo to give the alarm. In so doing, Flagg abandoned the buggy in which he had been riding. The invaders used the buggy to incinerate the cabin. As the fire grew hotter, Champion, barefooted, raced out of the cabin, firing as he ran. He only got a few feet before he was shot numerous times.

            Newspaper reporter Sam Clover, traveling with the invaders, found a diary on Champion’s body in which the organizer of the competing stock association kept an account of his final hours. His final words: “Good-bye boys if I never see you again,” became legendary even though the original diary pages apparently have been lost.

            Concerned that the invasion plan had been revealed in Buffalo, the invaders decided to go to the ranch owned by a sympathizer, the TA Ranch, south of Buffalo (where we will have lunch today). There, they fortified themselves in the house and barn, expecting Buffalo residents to engage them. Soon enough, a force of some 200 Buffalo men, many armed with rifles supplied by a local merchant, surrounded the TA Ranch. Even though telegraph lines had been cut by the invaders prior to their march north, one member of the party was able to sneak out of the ranch area and pass the alarm to the acting governor of Wyoming, Dr. Amos Barber, that the invasion plan had gone awry. Barber called on Senators Francis E. Warren and Joseph M. Carey to get presidential authorization to send U. S. Army troops to rescue the invaders. Troops marched on the scene to “arrest” the invaders just as the siege force was closing in.

            The soldiers were under orders to remove the invaders from Johnson County, essentially returning them to the friendly confines of Cheyenne where the invasion was initially organized and begun. Many of those “arrested” were under house arrest in Cheyenne hotels or in the officers’ quarters at nearby Fort D. A. Russell. The Texas gunmen, mostly ignorant of what they had been lured into doing, were released after being presented with medals by their employers. Trial for the prisoners was interrupted by the general election of 1892 in which supporters of the invasion fared very badly. Before the trial could begin, however, Johnson County officials, unable to finance the costs of keeping the prisoners, reluctantly dismissed the charges.

            Asa Mercer, a Cheyenne newspaperman who had been a sympathizer with the big cattle operators, wrote an expose of the invasion in his newspaper. Later, he had it published in a book titled Banditti of the Plains: The Crowning Infamy of the Ages. In the book, Mercer blamed the big operators for the deaths of Champion and Ray as well as for planning the clearly illegal invasion. Despite the efforts of Mercer and Johnson County officials, no one was brought to trial for the murders of Ray or Champion. In the ensuing decades, the incident became legendary for the resentments it caused between supporters of the opposing sides.

            In the end, there were no winners in the incident.  Author Helena Huntington Smith wrote in her history of the event, War on Powder River, that the only winners were time and the small independent rancher. Despite her assessment, the incident remained a key point of controversy through the next century, not only in state and local politics, but in the relationship among sections in the state.

As we leave the TA Ranch, we return to Interstate 25 southbound. The next town is Kaycee. Nearby, Champion and Raye were killed during the Johnson County Invasion. The entire town was inundated in a flash flood in the summer of 2002. One of the more unusual aspects of the town’s history has to do with its incorporation and the fact that the town limits stretch for several miles in all directions. The legislature passed a law in the early 20^th century requiring that saloons could only be located in incorporated towns. Kaycee was incorporated, but like many other towns in the state, the law was an impetus to gain incorporation. In order to qualify under the law, however, a town had to have at least 250 residents. To make that population threshold, Kaycee organizers calculated how far the borders would have to be in order to have the necessary 250.

To the right are the Big Horn Mountains. At the southern end of the mountains is “Hole-in-the-Wall,” a depression allowing easy entry into a small box canyon where the “Wild Bunch” holed up after various train robberies and other criminal escapades. To the north of the Hole-in-the-Wall is the Dull Knife fight site where the army caught up with Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife and his war party on Nov. 25, 1875. Among the army casualties was Lt. McKinney for whom the post west of Buffalo was later named.

A new director of the State Historical Department made his debut appearance at the Dull Knife fight and, unfortunately, failed to appear at the next destination, Hole-in-the-Wall, because of haste to get ahead of the rest of the trek attendees.  His driver followed a pickup truck that was seen leaving the Dull Knife site early. Thinking they were following it to the next destination, they were surprised when the pickup driver pulled up to a ranch gate, got out of his pickup and asked, “Why are you following me to my ranch? Are you here to help me feed the stock? That’s why I had to leave the trek early….”  Eight hours later, about 2 a.m., the director and his party finally hit Highway 20 just to the west of the town of Powder River!

As we continue south into Natrona County, we pass the site of the naval petroleum reserve at Teapot Dome.

       The U. S. S. Wyoming, initially launched in 1900 as the U. S. S. Cheyenne, became the first ship in the fleet to be converted to oil-power in 1909. As more ships were converted to oil, Navy officials grew more concerned about he long-term availability of oil. What would happen if oil were to “run out”?  The Navy would be paralyzed. Consequently, the Department of the Navy asked Congress to set aside federally-owned lands in places where known oil deposits likely existed. These “naval petroleum reserves” would not be drilled unless a national emergency made it necessary. One of the three petroleum reserves set aside was near Salt Creek in northern Natrona County. It was in a place named for an unusual rock formation nearby—Teapot Dome.

    Oil men throughout the West coveted the opportunity to drill within these federally-owned “oil reserves.” Soon after Republican Warren G. Harding was elected President in 1920, he appointed his poker-playing friend, U. S. Senator Albert Fall, to be his Secretary of the Interior. Fall, a rancher and New Mexico’s first U. S. Senator, accepted the Cabinet post.  Within a few weeks, he convinced President Harding to allow transfer of the “naval petroleum reserves” from the Department of the Navy to his Interior Department, arguing that Interior was “better able” to oversee the protection of these areas where oil was not to be produced, but kept in case of emergency.

    What resulted from that is what became known as the “Teapot Dome scandal.” It was the most serious Presidential scandal in American history until Watergate in the Nixon administration in the 1970s. Even though the scandal gained its name from a Wyoming place, the wrongdoers in the scandal were from elsewhere.

    Interior Secretary Fall, once the Teapot Dome oil field was under his control, made secret deals with two prominent oil men, Edward Doheny and Harry Sinclair. Both men, close friends of Fall, paid him bribes to authorize them to drill in the three “naval petroleum reserves”—contrary to the letter and spirit of the law.

    Back in Wyoming, independent oilman Leslie Miller became suspicious when he saw trucks with the Sinclair company logo hauling drilling equipment into the Teapot Dome naval petroleum reserve. He asked Democratic U. S. Senator John B. Kendrick to look into the matter. Kendrick, sensing wrongdoing, turned the question over to a special Senate investigating committee.   

    Meanwhile, President Harding took a summer trip west, stopping in Wyoming, enjoying Yellowstone, and continuing on to Alaska and, eventually, to San Francisco. While there, the President died suddenly.(Some historians believe Harding escaped impeachment for his role in Teapot Dome by having the “good fortune” of dying as the scandal was unfolding. Of course, such a conclusion can not be proved).  Fall was not so lucky. Following a lengthy Senate investigation, Fall went on trial for accepting bribes. He was convicted and sent to federal prison, the first Cabinet-level officer in American history to go to jail for crimes committed while serving in office. Both Sinclair and Doheny were exonerated of the main charge—giving bribes to Fall. As a newspaper reporter observed when the two wealthy oil men were found not guilty, “you can’t convict a million dollars.”

    The federal government brought suit in federal court in Wyoming to cancel the bribery-induced leases to Teapot Dome that Fall had given to Sinclair. Wyoming’s U. S. District Judge T. Blake Kennedy ruled against the government, but the leases were cancelled when the Supreme Court overturned the Kennedy decision.

We continue on to Casper, named for a young lieutenant who was killed by Indians when the place was known as Platte Bridge Station.

            The army was pressed thin by having to provide protection for the Oregon-California trail (and the transcontinental telegraph along that route) and the newly established “Overland Trail” for Holladay’s coaches. Army commander of the region Col. William A. Collins had few regular or volunteer troops to spare. Consequently, when the newly established Fort Halleck (near present Elk Mountain) was garrisoned, the troops included a number of “galvanized Yankees”—former Confederate soldiers who had volunteered to serve on the frontier as an alternative to incarceration in a prisoner-of-war camp in Illinois.

            Collins commanded the troops from the fort named for him—Fort Collins, in Colorado.    During his first tour in the West, his young son Caspar accompanied him, drawing floor plans and sketches of many military facilities. Later, young Caspar joined the army and, with the rank of lieutenant, was assigned duty along the Oregon-California trail route. Tensions between the army and Native people increased substantially after Col. Chivington and a Colorado militia company in 1864 attacked a Cheyenne-Arapaho camp along Sand Creek in Colorado, killing indiscriminately. Plains tribes reciprocated with a series of raids against stage stations and ranches the following spring.

            In July 1865, Lt. Collins led a small detachment from Sweetwater Station to Platte Bridge Station near where two toll bridges had been built to ferry overlanders across the North Platte. Shortly after his arrival, a group of Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho gathered to attack the station. In the ensuing skirmish, Collins and four other soldiers were killed. (That same day, about five miles west of the fort, Sgt. Amos Custard and 24 men accompanying supply wagons were attacked. Three soldiers survived the “Battle of Red Buttes.”  In June 2008, teams from UW are excavating the site).

            The army, to honor young Collins, renamed the post for him. They could not call it “Fort Collins.” Such a post already existed, having been named for Caspar’s father, Col. William Collins. Consequently, they called the fort “Fort Caspar.” Three years later, the post was abandoned, but in the late 1880s when a railroad was built into the area and a town was established on the site, it was named “Casper”—the “e” replacing the “a” as a result of a post office spelling error. Thus, Wyoming’s second largest city shared a “family connection” with Fort Collins, Colorado.

Casper began as a wool center, but soon evolved into the center for oil activity in the state and region. Following is a brief history of oil in Wyoming.

Oil in Wyoming

       The oil industry has been a part of the Wyoming economy since the beginning days of statehood. In fact, explorers in what is now Wyoming in the early 19th century reported evidence of oil. Capt. B. L. E. Bonneville’s Adventures include reference to oil springs near present Dallas Dome, the location of what would be the state’s first drilled oil well in 1885.

       During the fur trade and Overland trails periods, mountain men commented on “oil springs” where oil bubbled to the surface of water pools. Native people seined off the oil for eons, using the greasy residues for war-paint, decoration on hides and teepees, as horse and human liniments, and for medications. An oil spring near Hilliard was well-known when Fort Bridger was established in 1842. The first recorded oil sale in Wyoming, however, happened along the Oregon Trail when, in 1863, enterprising entrepreneurs sold oil as a lubricant to wagon train travelers. The oil came from Oil Mountain Springs, some 20 miles west of present-day Casper.

       Nationally, oil had a similar history.  Thirteen years after the world’s first oil well was drilled in Baku, Azerbaijan, America’s first gusher, was struck. Made by “Colonel” Edwin Drake, America’s initial discovery was at Titusville, Penn., in 1859. It led to an oil rush to western Pennsylvania. Initially, even the newly “drilled” oil had only nominal use in transportation—as axle grease for wagons and coaches or lubricant for steam engines powered by wood or coal.

       In 1866, John C. Fiere, an employee of Fort Bridger sutler William A. Carter, reported to his boss that he had found oil near the fort. He had experience in the Pennsylvania oil fields and offered to develop the oil spring commercially. In the following years, the spring produced 150 barrels of oil, the entire amount sold to the Union Pacific Railroad. In the spring of 1867, Judge C. M. White dug a hole next to the oil spring where Carter’s employees had been skimming oil from the surface of the water.  White’s crew scooped oil from hand-dug trenches. He shipped modest amounts to Salt Lake City tanners until the transcontinental railroad passed nearby, giving him additional markets for lubrication.          

       About the time of Drake’s Titusville discovery, scientists discovered that a petroleum by-product, kerosene, could provide superior lighting to candles. The newly developed kerosene lamps gave off even better light than the increasingly costly whale oil. Indeed, whales were  becoming scarce and, were it not for kerosene, their extinction could have been a possibility.

       Cleveland merchant  John D. Rockefeller formed a company he called “Standard Oil.” A purchaser of Rockefeller’s kerosene, sold in one- or five-gallon blue cans, could be assured that the product contained no water or explosive gasoline that sometimes was dishonestly passed off as kerosene by other merchants.  Gradually, through sound business deals as well as anti-competitive practices, Rockefeller gained near monopoly over oil in the Northeast. When Edison invented the first practical incandescent light bulb in 1879, observers believed Rockefeller’s oil business would wither and die. Despite the seeming ruinous competition from electric lighting, Rockefeller persevered. In 1883, he formed the Standard Oil Trust.

       That same year, out west, Mike Murphy brought in Wyoming’s first oil well at Dallas Dome, finding oil at 300 feet in the Chugwater formation.  Markets for the unrefined petroleum were limited. Apparently, like Carter and White two decades earlier, Murphy sold most of his production to Utah tanners and to the Union Pacific to lubricate railcar axles. Electricity generation proved impractical for tiny towns and ranches, particularly in Wyoming where distances between ranches were great. Kerosene continued its dominance in rural lighting.

       Soon after Murphy’s successful well, others entered the business.  Cy Iba, a former gold prospector, started drilling for oil around Casper. Several others attracted investment to possible oil strikes in the Big Horn Basin (Bonanza) and southwestern Wyoming (around Hilliard and Mountain View). Iba’s first strike, “Discovery Well” north of Casper, helped transform the newly established railhead for wool shipping into the “oil capital of the Rockies.” In the decade of the 1890s, significant oil strikes were made in northern Natrona County. Investors, comfortable with dependable nearby supplies of crude oil, underwrote construction of Wyoming’s first refinery in 1895. Pennsylvania investors headed by Philip Shannon formed the firm at Casper and named it the Pennsylvania Refinery. They also hit oil at what became known as the “Shannon field” north of Casper.

       Kerosene and lubricating oils remained the primary petroleum-based products in demand, but it soon was about to change. In May 1898, Laramie bicycle shop owner Elmer Lovejoy ordered a one-cylinder, two-cycle marine engine. When it was delivered, Lovejoy assembled the combustion engine and mounted it and the frame on four bicycle wheels.  While American forces were winning the 14-week Spanish American War in Cuba and the Philippines, Lovejoy’s “toy” clattered along the unpaved streets of Laramie, doing five miles per hour in one forward gear and 10 mph in a second, but with no reverse.  Of course, the single-seat runabout engine was fueled by gasoline, formerly a waste product dumped by refiners into nearby streams in earlier years.

       Wyomingites began purchasing automobiles in 1900 and by the end of the decade, cars were commonplace throughout the state.  Medical doctors often were the first people in towns to buy cars. In Rawlins, Dr. John Osborne brought a car to town in 1900. Two years later, Dr. W. W. Crook became the first Cheyenne resident to own a car. Dr. J. L. Wicks had Evanston’s first car in 1906. Several sheep ranchers were owners of early cars. In Fremont County, J. B. Okie pioneered motor vehicles at his ranch, “Big Teepee,” at Lost Cabin. John Sedgwick brought the first car to Weston County, driving his Model N Ford to and from his sheep ranch in about 1905. Sheepman William Ayers owned Platte County’s first car.  Cars had become so widespread in the following decade that a state speed limit was imposed for the first time in 1913 (12 mph maximum in towns).and, in the same year, the state required that all cars be licensed for the first time.

       Wyomingites became vitally concerned with road improvements in order to be able to drive the rather primitive motor vehicles around the state. As a consequence, counties started grading roads. “Good roads associations” formed nationwide and lobbied for better highways. The “Lincoln Highway” (US Highway 30) became the nation’s first designated transcontinental automobile route

       In 1917 the Wyoming legislature created the Wyoming Highway Department and designated various routes as “state highways.”  Years later, in the 1950s, Congress authorized interstate highways and, eventually, Interstate Highway 80 followed roughly the route of the Lincoln highway across Wyoming.

       During those early years, car owners purchased gasoline in gallon or two-gallon cans from general stores. The date of Wyoming’s first gasoline station is not known, but refineries produced gasoline in abundance by the late ‘teens. In 1917, five refineries were operating in the state, including small operations at Greybull and Cowley. By 1923, Casper alone boasted five refineries—the tiny Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Company facility on South Center Street built in 1895; the Belgo-American refinery (later known as the Midwest Refinery) built east of Highland Cemetery in 1903; the giant Standard Oil refinery in southwest Casper, opened in March 1914 and expanded in 1922 into the largest gasoline-producing refinery in the world;  the Texaco refinery, three miles east of Casper that opened in 1923; and the small White Eagle refinery opened the same year.

       The early 1920s were the heyday of Wyoming oil production and refining. Numerous wells were in production in the Big Horn Basin—Oregon Basin, Elk Basin, Greybull, Garland, Grass Creek fields. In eastern Wyoming, the Lance Creek oil field near Lusk was one of the state’s largest, causing the town of Lusk to grow to an estimated population in excess of 5,000 people by the early 1920s. In 1916 oil had been found on part of the University of Wyoming’s land grant near Glenrock. Royalties from the production from the “University well” in the Big Muddy oil field made it possible for the university to stave off the bad economic conditions of the 1920s and build the Half Acre Gymnasium and the university library (now the Aven Nelson Building).

       Important  refineries popped up throughout the state. The Producers and Refiners Company (PARCO) built a refinery and a complete town for its employees that was completed in 1923. When the firm went into bankruptcy in the early 1930s, Harry Sinclair bought the town on April 12, 1934, and renamed it “Sinclair.”

       An active stock exchange, known as the “Midwest Oil Exchange,” operated in Casper. There, on the corner of 2nd and Center streets, speculators could trade in “penny stocks”—cheap shares from fledgling companies anxious to attract sufficient investors with shares of stock worth a few cents each that they could buy the equipment and lease likely lands where they could “strike it rich.” Close to the stock exchange and numerous oil company offices, a “red-light district,” known as the Sandbar, flourished in the 1920s. Wide-open gambling and prostitution operated around the clock, punctuated by an occasional police raid or homicide. Casper was Wyoming’s “oil city.”

       But the biggest, most significant oil field in Wyoming in the early 20th century was in northern Natrona County—the Salt Creek oil field. One early speculator, William Fitzhugh, later donated his collection of fishing and hunting books (along with cash) to the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming It is said that Fitzhugh gained his oil claims in the Salt Creek area by trading some gold mining prospects in the Snowy Range to Stephen W. Downey, the Laramie lawyer who was largely responsible for UW locating in Laramie. Downey made nothing off the Centennial area prospects, but Fitzhugh gained a fortune from the Salt Creek oil.

       Oil wells were already in production at Salt Creek in 1908 when H. L. “Dad” Stock took a chance on drilling in a nearby formation just northwest of the company-owned town of Midwest. The result was the “Stock gusher,” that spewed oil high above the derrick, covering the prairie for hundreds of feet around when it rumbled in. Stock made a fortune from the strike, lost it, regained another one in oil in the southwest, before turning operations over to his son, Paul Stock. The younger Stock, mayor of Cody in the 1940s, was said to have been the largest individual shareholder of Texaco after he sold his firm to the giant multinational. The Stock Foundation remained one of the state’s largest philanthropic foundations for many years.

       Most of these first oilfields in Wyoming were discovered on public lands. Under the federal government laws at the time, an oil “prospector” could locate a “provable” oil claim on federal lands, pay a minimal filing fee, and hope for a strike. If he had struck oil on private land, he would have had to pay the land owner a royalty, but if he found oil on a federal claim, it belonged entirely to him and he paid the government nothing. 

       Congress changed the law, however, and with passage of the Oil and Gas Leasing Act in 1920, oil men no longer could “claim” oil on federal lands. They could lease such lands, paying royalties for production to the federal government as though it were any other landowner.  Through the influence of several Wyoming members of Congress, the federal government was required to turn back part of the royalties from oil produced on federal lands to the state where the oil was produced. For many years, Wyoming state government enjoyed federal mineral royalty payments for oil found on federally-owned land in the state. (Federal mineral royalties, now from coal and trona, as well as oil production, remain an important source for state revenues in 2007)….

       Throughout the rest of the 1920s, when Wyoming agriculture was in economic ruin, the oil industry remained a bright spot in the state’s economy. Oil company profits began to falter when the rest of the country was plunged into the Great Depression, in wake of the stock market crash of October 1929. A report from northern Wyoming soon after the stock market crash noted that a customer could buy an entire BARREL of crude oil at Salt Creek for 19 cents!

       Oil companies agreed on various measures to alleviate “ruinous” competition, in light of declining oil prices. One of their more successful strategies was to introduce a pricing system that became known as “Tulsa-plus.”  Gasoline, regardless of where it was refined, had to be sold with the additional cost that the wholesaler would have had to pay if the gasoline had been produced in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Wyomingites were furious with the system and high gasoline prices generally—higher in oil refinery towns like Casper than in other places far from oil refineries.

       In the early 1930s, gasoline pricing became a campaign issue in races for governor of Wyoming. State attorneys-general began a series of suits against companies for inflating gasoline prices to Wyoming consumers.  The suits were unsuccessful although the adverse publicity apparently served as a brake on price increases. Finally, the “Tulsa-plus” system came to an end in the 1940s.

       As the 1930s continued, the economic depression extended into the oil fields of Wyoming, not lifting until Allied demands for oil brought price rebounds just before World War II.

       In the meantime, consumers welcomed having natural gas piped to their homes in many Wyoming towns. Laramie’s first natural gas line opened in February 1933, but Greybull residents had been enjoying such service since 1908. It was the first town in the state to have home furnaces fueled by natural gas, piped in from nearby wells. The first interstate oil pipeline from Wyoming was built from Lance Creek to Denver in 1938, but after World War II, many others came on line, followed by a series of interstate natural gas pipelines.

       By the beginning of World War II, oil refineries of various sizes operated in many Wyoming towns, including Cody, Lusk, Thermopolis, Newcastle, Laramie, and Cheyenne. It was in the latter city that the oil refinery played a key role in production of aircraft fuel. Frontier Refinery’s “100-octane” fuel plant helped supply American airplanes with the needed high-quality gasoline.

       Existing refineries and fields, along with other producing fields established during the war, supplied American ships, planes, and tanks with petroleum products that would help win the war. After the war, another strong decade of production brought expansion of existing company operations. Company towns of Hamilton Dome, Grass Creek, Lance Creek, Bairoil, Midwest, and Sinclair either diminished in population or became independent incorporated towns by the 1950s.

       While the industry since World War I always had multinational players (two firms, Standard and Ohio Oil controlled 95 percent of the production statewide in 1923), more multinationals bought existing smaller companies or expanded operations into the Wyoming oil scene.  By the middle 1960s, Casper had regained its pre-Depression status as an oil company headquarters for independent producers or regional centers for multinationals.

       Throughout Wyoming, new oil discoveries were made during the 1950s and early 1960s.  At the same time, existing fields took on new life with the advent of new drilling and production methods. Fields once thought to be spent took on new value with secondary and tertiary recovery made possible by the new technology.

       Production continued strong, peaking both nationally and in Wyoming in 1970. But, after that year, production began a long downward slide in Wyoming, despite new discoveries in places like the Overthrust formation near Evanston. Oil activity in southwestern Wyoming brought about a new boom there in the 1970s.

       Yet, throughout Wyoming in those years, small independent oil companies disappeared, many through merger in the 1970s and 1980s.  These included Husky’s refinery at Cody and Empire State Oil Company’s Thermopolis refinery. Only a handful of refineries remained in operation by the 1980s with refineries at Newcastle (Tesoro), Sinclair, and Cheyenne (Frontier Refining) still operating by 1995. In 1982, even the Standard Oil (Amoco) refinery at Casper, once the world’s largest, had closed, the land later converted into a municipal golf course and office park.

       Various schemes proposed to boost oil production made no headway in the 1970s.  One was a jointly sponsored proposal by the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and El Paso Natural Gas to use nuclear weapons to release gas and petroleum “locked” into tight formations under Sublette County. The so-called Project Wagon Wheel met with considerable local opposition and was eventually shelved.

       Although the fields in Wyoming, for the most part, are aging, oil production remains important to the state in 2007. Oil no longer is the primary energy mineral produced in the state. Natural gas pipelines, many constructed late in the 20^th century, carry billions of cubic feet of fuel to distant locations around the country. With new methods of capture and transport, natural gas has sparked another boom, particularly in Sublette County, now the county with the highest assessed valuation.

       Coal-bed methane, once considered a waste product until economic means of recovery and distribution were developed in the 1990s, has caused economic boom in others areas of Wyoming, particularly in the Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming.

       Even with the new value in natural gas and coal-bed methane, coal remains “king” just as it was in Wyoming in the 19th century before the invention of the automobile and diesel locomotive. Since the late 1980s, Wyoming has led the nation in coal production. The state’s ranking in oil, while still in the top dozen, has slipped since the heyday of Wyoming oil in the ‘teens and 1920s and the years of the “second oil boom” after World War II.

Important sites in Casper include the Three Crowns Golf Course, once the site of the world’s largest gasoline-producing refinery. When the old Standard Oil refinery was closed, environmental mitigation required substantial cleanup. The result was the site of the golf course and the newly constructed headquarters of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.  The Nicolayson Art Museum is located in the former steam plant. Casper College, the first community college in the state, is south of the downtown area on the hill.

Fort Caspar was reconstructed during the New Deal on a site in western Casper, next to the Platte Bridge Station site. Next to it is a well-designed interpretive museum containing many artifacts from the era and exhibits showing the post’s history.  The town of Casper was founded several years after the fort was abandoned. 

Construction of the town followed location of the railroad in 1888. The western part of the city lies on grounds that were once a part of the CY Ranch, owned by U. S. Senator Joseph M. Carey. CY Avenue, an important Casper thoroughfare, is named for the ranch.  Casper College, located on the hill in the southern part of town, was Wyoming’s first community college, established initially in the top floor of Natrona County High School in 1945. Buildings on campus honor contributions made by many prominent individuals in the town’s history, including John Wold, member of Congress and the only oil geologist ever elected to the U. S. House; Gertrude Krampert; Fred Goodstein, for whom the library is named; Maurice Griffith, first president and long-time school superintendent in the county; and Tim Aley, who served as college president for many years. Vice President Dick Cheney lived in Casper from fifth grade to high school graduation and later when he was U. S. Representative from Wyoming. One of the more prominent early residents was banker C. H. King, the grandfather of President Gerald R. Ford. (More about King when we visit Shoshoni tomorrow). 

Thomas F. Stroock, U. S. ambassador to Guatemala and long-time legislator, lives in Casper. H. A. “Dave” True operated his oil company and other enterprises from Casper. At his death, he was Wyoming’s wealthiest man. Current holders of that title, Mick and Susan McMurry, live in Casper. Much of the McMurry fortune came from development of the Jonah field in Sublette County. Edness Kimball Wilkins, long-time legislator and advocate for preservation of South Pass City, lived in Casper. A state park east of town is named in her honor. Verda James, the first woman speaker of the Wyoming House, taught school in Casper for many years.

Another noteworthy structure in Casper is the house built for Welker F. Henning, a Kentucky native and plumber who was said to be Casper’s first millionaire. The house was built in 1920 and Henning’s wife and housekeeper lived there. Henning himself lived downtown in the Henning Hotel, one of three hotels on the corners of 2^nd and Center Streets, the business center of town for many years.

Day 4: Casper to Cody

Casper was home to Casper Army Air Base, a training facility for bombers during World War II.  The site of the base is the current Natrona County International Airport, west of town. Among the surviving structures on the site is the NCO Club building. The army commissioned four young soldier-artists to paint murals on all of the interior walls of the main meeting room. The structure now serves as a museum. Various hangars still stand from the period, a few used by private airplane owners to store valuable collections of aircraft. (The Warbirds Museum is in Hangar 1). The landing field, designed to accommodate the huge bombers, remains capable of receiving the largest and heaviest planes in the air.  Among the pilots associated with the field is Chuck Yeager who, while stationed as a flight officer there, crashed his P-39 about 15 miles west of Casper in October 1943. He parachuted out before the plane hit the ground.  Various pilots used to play target games with sheep and antelope south and west of Casper during the war years. Henry Jensen told the story of having such a plane strafe the sheep he was herding in the summer of 1943.

As we follow Highway 20, we pass through a series of small towns, many established as trading centers for sheep and cattle ranchers.  First is Natrona (where a pile of “trona” or baking powder has been bulging from a wooden structure now for several decades) and then, Powder River.

“Powder River, Let ‘er Buck”: Term “Invented” by a Range Cowboy in Wyoming

            UW football coach Joe Glenn often repeats the familiar mantra “Powder River, Let ‘er Buck,” as an expression indicating resolve—“we’re going to go out and do this task successfully, whatever the obstacles.”  The derivation of the expression was debated as long ago as the 1920s because it had been used frequently by American soldiers in World War I. A succession of veterans assumed it had origins in their respective home states—not all of them from Wyoming.

            According to an old-time Wyoming cowboy who wrote about the origins of the expression in Annals of Wyoming, the term first gained notice in central Wyoming—right where you’d expect—along the banks of the Powder River. In the winter of 1928-29, the Annals editor asked Edward J. Farlow of Lander, a well-known former mayor of Lander and state legislator, to tell the story in order to resolve the question that “has been revived by an eastern publication.”

Here’s how Farlow explained the origins in “Powder River, Let ‘er Buck: Famous World War Slogan Came from Lips of One Missouri Bill,” in Annals of Wyoming, January 1929:

            “In the fall of 1893, the L outfit, Four Jay, Horse-collar and IX outfits pooled their herds of 1,600 beef steers and dry cows to be driven to the railroad and shipped east to market at the Double Dives, on the south side of the Big Wind River, just south of where the town of Riverton now stands…. When this roundup was over, the beef bearing the brands I mentioned above were all put in one herd, and the outfit shaped up for the long drive to the railroad. This time to Casper, as we had never shipped from Casper before, and this was our first trip and the trail was new to all of the cowboys, but myself.”

            The outfit consisted of eight cowboys, one cook, one horse wrangler, and Farlow who was boss of the outfit. As Farlow pointed out, usually the herds were taken south to Rawlins to the train, and sometimes to Medicine Bow. But this time, it was to Casper.

            “None of them had ever seen Powder River and they were all excited. In the morning when they were catching horses for the day, I called out to them to get their swimming horses as we were going to cross Powder River several times before night. Missouri Bill, who already roped his horse, turned him loose, muttering that ‘this damn buckskin couldn’t even wade a river.’

            “About 10 o’clock the lead of the herd reached the river and it was almost dry, the water standing in holes and barely running from one hole to the other. The herd followed down the stream for a distance of about two miles before they were watered, and we crossed it many times.

            “When Missouri Bill saw it, he looked at it very seriously for some time, and then said, ‘So this is Powder River,’ and that night in camp he told us he had heard of Powder River and now he had seen Powder River, and he kept referring to Powder River nearly every day until we reached Casper, which we did in 28 days.

            “In the evening before we were going to load for shipping, and the cattle were all bedded down near the stockyards, the boys all adjourned to the saloon for a social drink, and Missouri Bill said, ‘Boys, come and have a drink on me; I have crossed Powder River.’ They had the drinks and a few more and were getting pretty sociable.

            “When Missouri Bill again ordered, he said to the boys, ‘have another drink on me; I swam Powder River,’ this time with a distinct emphasis on the words ‘Powder River.’ ‘Yes, sir, by _____ Powder River,’ a little stronger emphasis. When the drinks were all set up, he said, ‘Well here’s to Powder River, Let ‘er Buck.’….

The slogan was shouted louder and louder along with other similar references to the stream, very tiny most the year where the cowboys had crossed it en route to Casper.

            As Farlow concluded his story, “that is the first time I ever heard the slogan, and from there it went around the world. Farlow added that “Missouri Bill’s name was William Shultz and I have not heard of him for more than 20 years. He was a good cow hand and while here he worked for the L Outfit most of the time.”

            Heard frequently in the Powder River country, the term apparently was not generally used elsewhere in the state. Eventually, however, the phrase became associated with the University of Wyoming, probably as a result of returning soldiers from World War I and Powder River Basin students repeating the phrase. 

            In the late 1920s, competition was announced for a school “fight song” for UW.  The winning entry, written by Lorna Simpson, wife of Milward Simpson (later, a UW trustee, governor and U. S. Senator), included the words, “Powder River, Let ‘er Buck.” (The song was sung at the dedication ceremonies for the Simpson Family Plaza on the UW campus in September 2006).

            Now, Coach Glenn has re-popularized the phrase, re-introducing Wyoming students (and younger state residents) to a commonly used expression of resolve dating from the days of the range cowboys in the early statehood period.

            As we approach Waltman, Hiland and Moneta, we are coming close to the center of Wyoming. For at least one area landowner, it seemed that this would be the ideal location for the state capitol when an election was held in 1904 to establish the permanent capital site.

Contest for the Capital: The Capital Location Election of 1904

Wyomingites organized for statehood in the late 19th century, along with residents of a half dozen other Western territories. Prior to admission, Congress required the territory to hold a constitutional convention to adopt a proposed constitution. Wyoming delegates assembled in Cheyenne in September 1889 to draft the document organizing government, guaranteeing rights, and establishing principles of governance that would serve as the foundation for all state laws passed in the future. While the 48 delegates attending soundly debated questions of woman suffrage, water and taxation, the most divisive issues came down to apportionment of legislators and locations for state institutions. The debates over both issues set the stage for a century or more of sectional division in Wyoming, an important organizing concept in the study of the state’s history.

State institutions not only provided a community with status, but also economic stability. In the boom-and-bust economy of the territorial period, townspeople used strategies to continue community growth. All buildings at a state facility were paid from tax revenues raised from taxpayers throughout the state. Once the structures were in place, the state institution attracted professionals in specialized fields and also hired local people, thus providing jobs and a monthly payroll, boosting the local economy. Most facilities, particularly those accommodating students, patients or prisoners, also required services from businesses—food, lodging, and amenities–encouraging economic growth and stability in the local private sector. Even though the wage scales were substantially less than if the town’s economy were based on mines or railroad shops, the disadvantages were overcome by the stability of a state-paid work force.

In 1889, almost three-fourths of the territory’s population remained along the Union Pacific Railroad line in the five “UP counties.” Cheyenne was the most populous town with 11,690; Laramie was second with 6,388. The next three largest were Rock Springs, 3,406; Rawlins, 2,235; Evanston, 1,995. The towns of Casper, with a population in 1890 of just 544, and Sheridan, with 281 people, were the most populous places north of the Union Pacific. Douglas, Lusk, Newcastle, and Gillette, all founded in the late 1880s, were tiny places and most towns in the Big Horn Basin were not even in existence.

When delegates were elected to the Constitutional Convention, more than twice as many came from the five existing counties in the south as from the newer five counties in the north. At the end of the convention, delegates passed a resolution pointing out that the session had been devoid of partisanship, sectionalism, and personal animus. Close reading of the debates shows that during the 25-day session, sectional divisions are apparent, particularly on the questions of apportionment and on location of state institutions.  

Thorny for delegates was what to do about state institutions. Cheyenne was the territorial capital from the time newly appointed territorial Gov. John A. Campbell designated the town as his “temporary” seat of government in 1869. Through the next two decades, territorial legislatures put the state university at Laramie, the penitentiary at Rawlins, the state miner’s hospital at Rock Springs, and the state “insane asylum” at Evanston. When Cheyenne resident Francis E. Warren was serving as territorial governor, he and the legislature authorized $150,000 for construction of the State Capitol Building in Cheyenne along with $50,000 for construction of what would become the university’s “Old Main” at Laramie. By the time the constitutional convention delegates were deliberating these issues, the Capitol was nearly finished and structures already existed at two of the other four sites.  Nonetheless, delegates debated permanent designations for all sites.    

The 1901 legislature, recognizing that the decade “grace period” for permanent location had passed, authorized a vote to locate state institutions, but it set the election for November 1904—15 years after the constitutional convention’s agreement.

      Little editorial attention was paid to the legislative act, but by early 1904, Wyomingites started considering the possibilities of gaining a state institution for their particular community.  Cheyenne residents worried that the population increases in the north and west might give advantage to more centrally located towns.  As the campaign for permanent location got underway, it seemed their fears were well founded.

Initially, Cheyenne residents were uncertain as to what city or cities might enter the contest. From the beginning, no place sought to challenge Laramie for the university or Evanston for the state “insane asylum.” But for the state capital—by March, papers speculated that a half dozen towns may have an interest. Strongest contenders remained Casper and Lander.

In that same month, a Casper editor charged that Cheyenne was trying to get Thermopolis to enter the contest. “The City of the Thermal Waters would make a good location for the capitol, so much better than the present location that there is no comparison, but we think Casper is stronger and in this to win….” The editor made positive statements about Lander, too, but closed by saying that all central Wyoming towns needed to unite against Cheyenne. “But if a greater portion of the towns of these sections of the state will get together and decide on Lander or Thermopolis or some other place for the capital other than our town, Casper will not play the ‘dog in the manger’ act but will unite with them.” But he was not willing to concede Casper’s claim although he did warn that the northern towns needed to cooperate. “Don’t be placed in a position of fighting each other for the benefit of Cheyenne, but get together and unite on some one place to support for the state capitol this fall.”

In late 1903 Grand Encampment mining area entrepreneur Willis G. Emerson announced that he and a syndicate were putting together a plan to build a new capital for the state of Wyoming—in the geographic center of the state. He asserted the new site would cost taxpayers nothing. The entire cost would be borne by his syndicate. The capital city, to be located near Muskrat Creek, near present Moneta, would be named “Muskrat.” As fall turned to winter, however, the Emerson group apparently changed its mind. The Wyoming Derrick reported that the group decided Casper would be preferable and while “it would cost $1 million for building it at Muskrat, the capital could be brought to Casper for much less.” The Derrick concluded that Casper would be successful: “all we need to do is work and pull together” to get capital for central part of the state. …

Before the first railroad tracks were laid through Wind River Canyon in 1911, Big Horn Basin residents, cut off from the rest of the state by mountains, often had to travel north into Montana and then by train to Nebraska in order to dependably reach state institutions along the UP line. This was particularly true during the winter months when passes over the Big Horns and Owl Creek mountains were snowed in.  In the minds of many, state government in Cheyenne ignored residents in the Big Horn Basin. Despite the population increases in the North, there remained internal divisions. After all, the Big Horn Basin towns were as cut off from Casper as they were from Cheyenne.

But Casper was not the only candidate for the permanent capital. Lander residents believed their city deserved consideration. As one writer to a Lander newspaper noted in February 1904: “The time has come to transform Wyoming from a sheep range into her rightful position, that of the most prosperous and populous state west of the Missouri River, and the first move necessary to accomplish that happy result is the removal of the state capital to a suitable location.” The writer urged everyone to forego partisanship. Further, not every town ought to put its name up. “It will not do for every town in the state to put itself forward as a candidate for the location, as in that case Cheyenne would win out and the capital would be left on the bleak, barren hill in the state of Colorado, where it is now situated.” He concluded that it is time to get going on a convention to decide a location in the north and west. …it will mean the dawning of a new era for this magnificent portion of God’s footstool which has been too long handicapped by adverse conditions and unwise counsel.”

While accessibility to the capital was an important argument, others pointed out that visitors from elsewhere in Wyoming were treated badly in Cheyenne. The editor of Casper’s Wyoming Derrick commented on a state meeting of county commissioners hosted in Cheyenne. Commissioners around the state “were snubbed,” the editor charged 

But Cheyenne supporters pointed out one significant advantage for their city—the State Capitol Building already had been built. Not only was the building in place, but an earlier legislature had even authorized spending $125,000 for new wings on the structure.

And another state structure existed in Cheyenne. The 1903 legislature authorized construction of a “governor’s mansion” in Cheyenne, an unusual expenditure of money by a parsimonious body. One editor noted that Wyoming had been only the seventh state to provide a house for the chief executive. Northern legislators fought construction of the house, not only for economy, but sensing a Cheyenne plot: “The people of the north fought the erection of the governors mansion at Cheyenne (only six states in the nation have them) and it was only a few weeks ago that one of the Cheyenne newspapers stated that unless the Capitol Commission commenced work on the governor’s mansion before the next election, it was possible that the mansion would never be built.”  

Casper newspapers continued to lead the effort for locating the capitol in their city.  In March 1904, the Derrick editor expressed relief that Thermopolis seemed to favor Casper for the capital. “Thermopolis for Casper,” the Derrick quoted from the previous week’s issue of the Thermopolis Record. Any northern unity behind Casper as Cheyenne’s only alternative quickly disappeared. The Lander Clipper editor wrote that town officials were planning to make the bid. “And now Lander is to file articles entitling her to enter the race for the permanent location of the state capitol. Our county seat shows a commendable ambition in getting out and declaring herself, and will unquestionably get a large support from this region, unless Thermopolis should arm herself with a long poll and proceeded to gather in the persimmon, in which case all other central Wyoming towns to way back and sit down. If Thermopolis don’t want the capitol, Lander may have it.”

By summer, 1904, as several of the towns jockeyed for advantage, Cheyenne’s lead seemed unshakable. “Cheyenne Tribune asserts that the capital is anchored at Cheyenne with little prospect of removal,” wrote the editor of the Cody Enterprise. “Possibly, under existing circumstances, this may be true because that while it is undoubtedly true a majority of Wyoming people favor removal, the sentiment lacks both unity and leadership.” The editor reminded readers of Cheyenne’s “inaccessibility” noting that “a change could undoubtedly receive the sanction of a controlling number in an expression of opinion.”  Nevertheless, the “outlook for a change is not very encouraging.”

But the race wasn’t over. In fact, it was only beginning. In August 1904, Casper officially entered the race for the capitol when a certificate “signed by 100 prominent citizens” was filed with the Secretary of State on August 21. “And so Casper is going to make an effort to get the state capitol, and will endeavor to have a vote on the subject this fall,” the Cody Enterprise editor wrote. “And Casper is all right in pursuing this course. She will find that Northern Wyoming will respond early and often.”

Lander soon followed with entry into the field. At an “enthusiastic mass meeting” in the Odd Fellows Hall, Lander residents chose officers who would lead a “vigorous campaign” for the capital. “Being at the center of the state with the heart of the best agricultural and mineral region thinks is the logical location of the permanent seat of the state government,” the newspaper concluded. “The battle cry will be: ‘A vote for Lander is a vote for the development of Wyoming.’”

When Lander’s candidacy became known, various editors weighed the problem of two places vying as alternative to Cheyenne. The Rock Springs Miner editor asserted in September that with Lander in the race every “effort will be made to force Casper to withdraw.” With only Casper and Cheyenne in contest, Casper could win, the editor predicted.  “Two northern towns will mean support for Cheyenne in south and give the win to Cheyenne.”

By fall, the race had grown to four cities—Cheyenne, Casper, Lander and Rock Springs. Even though Rock Springs on the ballot, the Rock Springs Miner editorially didn’t endorse Rock Springs. Instead, the paper wrote: “On the permanent location of the state capitol there are four applicants: Casper, Cheyenne, Lander and Rock Springs. With Cheyenne very much in the lead.”…. “The state of Wyoming is certainly old enough to have a permanent location for the capital and the other state institutions, and each year this very important question is postponed will only add thousands of dollars to the taxpayers of the state if they are given new locations.”

Multiple candidates for the capitol strengthened Cheyenne’s position. Many believed the Union Pacific Railroad, the state’s biggest private landowner and employer, favored Cheyenne. As the Pinedale Roundup editor charged, “there are those who say that Cheyenne has forced the issue, believing that now is the time for it to secure the plum for all time to come.”  The editor endorsed the candidacy of nearby Lander, but conceded the race would be difficult: “While we regret to say it, it is a recognized fact that the UPRR controls a large number of votes in our state and would be glad to see Cheyenne retain the capitol.” 

Wyomingites started debating the benefits for the various locations. A Casper editor stated flatly: “Cheyenne is unfavorably situated on the map for the permanent location of the capital. …[It is] more inaccessible to some parts of the state than the city of Chicago.”  He dismissed Cheyenne’s size. “She is as large as she ever will be. there are no more new fields of industry around Cheyenne to discover or reclaim. It is the old town.” He then pointed out that the town’s “chief resources have been principally the legislature and her capacity to get a whack out of every appropriation made by the state.” He concluded that the “chief support of her citizens is the town’s plitical graft….Every town in the state has suffered at the hands of Cheyenne politicians.”

Lander proponents had strong arguments, not based on geography alone but on “progress.” As an advertisement placed in a Lander newspaper noted: “It is in the geographical center of the state. Its climate is ideal. It has an inexhaustible supply of pure water.”  The ad then named a number of products produced in Fremont County—agricultural, mining, natural gas, coal, building materials. “The location would mean a north-south railroad bringing population and prosperity,” the ad argued, adding that the location had “unlimited water power for industry. [We have] less wind and more sunshine than anywhere in US.”

Cheyenne charged that the motivating factor behind removal was greed on the part of the contending towns. Yet, accessibility to all parts of the state remained an issue cutting against Cheyenne’s candidacy. “The Cheyenne Leader says the only reason advanced for the removal of the capital is that some other town wants it,” the editor of the Cody Enterprise wrote. “This is a misapprehension of the facts on the part of the Leader. The demand for a change of location is because of the great inconvenience the present location causes to the citizens of the state who have business or pleasure at Cheyenne. There is undoubtedly a strong disposition throughout the state to change the present location, quite aside from the aspirations of contending towns, a feature secondary to the removal sentiment.”

While Lander and Casper seemed to be gathering support from nearby towns, Cheyenne had proponents outside its borders, too. “A vote for Cheyenne as the permanent location of the capital is a vote to further the interests and prosperity of the state generally. To remove the capital to some other point would mean increased taxes and a general depression in the value of property throughout the state,” the Wheatland World editor wrote.

Even though Rock Springs was on the ballot, the local newspaper seemed to reflect the popular view that Cheyenne, with a greater voting population, ought to retain the prize. 

In mid-October, both Sheridan newspapers came out in favor of retaining the capital at Cheyenne.

The Cody editor admitted that construction costs were a strong argument in Cheyenne’s favor, but it “is considerably weakened by the offer of aspiring locations to liberally contribute to the expense of a duplicating present official buildings.”

To the end of the campaign, the primary argument for Cheyenne dealt with the costs of moving. “It would be $600,000 or more to move capital,” the Cheyenne Tribune argued. “This is not sentimental; it is a business proposition,”  Similar arguments were advanced by a Laramie editor who favored Cheyenne’s bid.

On the eve of the election, more newspapers came out for keeping the capital in Cheyenne. Included were the Wheatland Times,  Sheridan Post,  Sheridan Enterprise, and  Denver (Colo.) Times. Three more columns printed the next week also advocated that the capital remain in Cheyenne!

Lander urged its local citizens to make sure they voted. On the front page of the local newspaper, was printed in huge type: “Put an X before Lander when you vote November 8.” Below, also in large type was the statement: “A vote for Lander is to unify and Develop the State.”

 In the editorial on the next page, the Lander Clipper editor stressed the potential for a north-south railroad and the town’s “central location.” He again pointed to the center of population moving west from the middle of the state, an argument against locating the capital at Casper. He concluded by warning that voters should “not impose on future generations a capital at the extreme southeastern corner.“⁵¹   In the same issue and on the same page, the Clipper editor endorsed Laramie for the state university, Rawlins for the prison, and Evanston for the state asylum.

Wyoming voters went to the polls on November 8. President Theodore Roosevelt, running for election for the first time, won Wyoming’s electoral votes and  Frank Mondell defeated three candidates for the state’s only U. S. House seat. Casper resident B. B. Brooks was elected governor.⁵³  At the bottom of the ballot were the location questions: “For the place of the permanent location of the state capitol: Town of Casper, City of Cheyenne, Town of Lander, Town of Rock Springs. For permanent location of state university: Laramie. For the permanent location of the State asylum, Evanston. For the permanent location of the state prison, Rawlins.”

By the end of the week, the election results for local candidates were announced by various county clerks while winners of national and state offices were revealed by the Secretary of State. No word came from the Secretary of State, however, about the relocation results. The Lander newspaper editor, probably sensing defeat, was cynical about the delay: “The phone company must be trying to keep news of the permanent location vote from getting north. There is nothing but whir on phone when the question is asked.”

Unofficial results coming out the following week and reprinted in newspapers must have worried Casper supporters and gave both Cheyenne and Lander  hope. For instance, the Rock Springs Miner listed the vote totals in Sweetwater County:  Cheyenne: 649; Casper: 40; Lander: 504; Rock Springs: 134.

Despite the fragmentary results from various communities coming out by mid-month, official statewide totals were not announced until late in November.  When the numbers finally did come out, no city was satisfied.  While Cheyenne gained the greatest number of votes, it failed to receive the required 50 percent plus one vote needed for permanent designation. 

Wyoming had 13 counties at the time and the votes from each county reflect the sectional divisions.  The top three contending towns, not surprisingly, each gained the majority in their home counties. Cheyenne showed exceptional strength along the Union Pacific line by picking up majorities in Albany, Sweetwater and Uinta, and a strong second place in Carbon.  Lander’s greatest strength came from Big Horn County (at that time, most of the Big Horn Basin), Sheridan County, and Carbon.  Casper’s primary support was from neighboring Johnson and Converse counties.  

       Casper        Cheyenne          Lander             Rock Spr.                       Misc.

         3610              11781                 8667                     429                                141

At the meeting of the State Canvassing Board on Dec. 21, 1904, it was decided that: “The board finds and declares that no city, town or village received a majority of the votes cast at the election upon the question….”  Following the election, Cheyenne residents pointed to the divided field as the reason Cheyenne did not gain the majority. Casper proponents were particularly bitter about Lander’s late entry, splitting the “anti-Cheyenne” vote.

Gov. Fenimore Chatterton said it was “lack of aggressiveness” that cost Lander the election. He claimed there was little statewide interest in the matter, while Cheyenne “left no stone unturned” in gaining support statewide.  He then suggested Lander would be a candidate again because “no one wants the capitol at Cheyenne.”

Contrary to Chatterton’s prediction, in the century since the 1904 election, capital location has not come up for a vote by Wyoming citizens. Occasionally, a legislator will raise the issue, particularly at points when buildings are authorized for state agencies.  Cheyenne, as it was in 1869, continues to be the “temporary capital” of Wyoming.

As we approach Shoshoni, to the right is a road leading to the town of Lost Cabin. There, in the late 1890s, pioneer sheepman J. B. Okie built a mansion far from any town. His “Big Teepee” was built in 1900. The 16-room, two-story home had running water and electricity, generated by his own electric plant. The maple-floored roller rink doubled as a dance floor. Okie showed movies in his own projection room. Okie and his first wife were married in 1887 in Rawlins. After more than 20 years of marriage, Okie filed for divorce in order to marry young Clarice Lovett, the former wife of a Casper telephone company manager. Okie divorced Clarice in 1921, alleging that her “great beauty and attentiveness to younger visitors” caused her to begin “straying.” In 1923, Okie met and married the daughter of the president of Mexico. They became parents of two children. Okie drowned while duck-hunting at the ranch reservoir near Big Teepee in 1930. The house was purchased by the Spratt family that owned it until it was purchased by Burlington Resources in the 1980s.

The mountains to the right are the Owl Creek Range as they meet the Big Horn Mountains. Nestled at the foot of the Owl Creeks near here is Quien Sabe Ranch, said to have been a favorite hideout for Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch. Many people in this area believe that Butch Cassidy returned alive from South America. An area barber alleged that he had cut the outlaw’s hair and like the barber in the Beatles’ “Penny Lane,” he remembered every head of hair he ever cut. “Butch came back,” he asserted.

Shoshoni came into existence as a result of the opening of the Shoshone Reservation for homesteading in 1908. We stop at Yellowstone Drug Store for malts.  Across the street are buildings constructed by C. H. King, banker and entrepreneur who was the grandfather of President Gerald R. Ford. From Shoshoni, we travel north toward the Owl Creek Mountains. To our left is Boysen Reservoir and to our right, a road leads to the railroad loading station of Bessemer. Trucks loaded with trona travel this road around the clock, hauling trona from mines some 250 miles south of here near Green River. The trucks unload the trona onto railroad cars on the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad. The companies shipping out the product were unable to gain favorable shipping rates from the Union Pacific. In fact, it is cheaper for them to haul the trona north to this siding than to load it on UP trains a dozen miles from the mines.

As we enter Wind River canyon, to the left is Boysen Dam, constructed by the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation and completed in October 1951. The dam is 250 feet high and 1,143 feet long at the crest. One of the engineering marvels of Wyoming is unseen as we pass the damsite. It is the long railroad tunnel, constructed under the dam and carrying trains thousands of feet through the stone side of the canyon.

Asmus Boysen, the man for whom Boysen Reservoir, Boysen peak, and Boysen State Park were named was born in Copenhagen, Denmark around 1868. As a youngster, he worked his passage to America where he settled in Illinois. In 1889 he married Anna Leet; they had nine children of which four survived: a son Allen and three daughters Helena, Marie and Darlene. They later moved to Iowa. While on a mining exploration trip to Wyoming around the turn of the century Boysen and his party visited the Wind River Canyon. Boysen envisioned a dam that could furnish electrical power to the surrounding mines. The water could be used for irrigation. On July 1, 1899, he secured a grazing lease for 78,000 acres from the Shoshone and Arapaho Indians. On March 3, 1905, he exchanged his lease to clear title of 640 acres at the mouth of the Wind River Canyon where he built his dam in 1908. It was estimated it would cost $160,000 to build. It ended up costing $2,000,000. It was unique in that the 710 K W power plant operated until 1925 when the floods filled up the turbines with silt and when the reservoir threatened to flood the railroad, part of the dam was removed. The rest of the dam was removed in 1948. Part of the original dam can be seen on the cliff wall adjacent to the tunnels at the north end of the Lower Wind River Canyon.

The first railroad through the canyon was completed in October 1913. The highway came much later. It took highway engineers three seasons to finish the project in the early 1920s.  Later, during reconstruction, the builders encountered a den of hibernating rattlers. Dynamite was used to unfortunate effect to remove them from the path of the proposed roadbed.

As we leave the state park boundaries, we enter Wind River Reservation lands. In order to fish here, one must obtain a tribal license. As we approach the first tunnel, to the right is the site of the Dam Bar. The structure burned in the 1960s. Note how close the parking lot is in dangerous proximity to the highway. Many accidents happened here and after the structure burned, the Highway Department and the tribes discouraged reconstruction.

As we pass through the canyon, we may view eons of geology. Note the signs pointing out the various geologic periods. This is one of the most complete strata anywhere in the West, dating back millions of years. The canyon was cut from water erosion by the Wind River over time. Among the more distinctive rocks is one known locally as Chimney Rock to the right of the highway.

As we drive north almost to the mouth of the canyon, to the left is a small marble monument. It was placed in memory of William Barrow Pugh (b. 1889), Stated Clerk of General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA, who was killed on the spot in a car crash on Sept. 14, 1950. 

Above us, at the top of Boysen Peak is the radio tower for KWRR, the Arapaho radio station, broadcasting at 50,000 watts from studios near Ethete.  While it is difficult to see at traveling in this direction, there is a road winding almost straight up the north side of the mountain. It was along here that the first “Japanese balloon-bomb” ever to land in Wyoming was seen by Thermopolis residents on the evening of Dec. 6, 1944. It was only the third discovery of such a device in the United States.

As we leave the canyon, suddenly, the name of the river changes from the Wind to the Big Horn. Here is the “Wedding of the Waters.”  People settled on each side of the canyon, not knowing exactly where the river’s source or mouth might have been. Upstream, pioneers thought the Wind River continued its east-southeast course. Those living in the Big Horn Basin assumed the river started from a source flowing directly north.

In front of us is Roundtop, the distinctive rock formation on the north end of Thermopolis.  Just below it is the Thermopolis airport and country club golf course. To the right is Monument Hill on which is noted “World’s Largest Mineral Hot Spring” and the arrow pointing downward to Hot Springs State Park. As we enter Thermopolis, the gravel pit in the area to the right next to the river was once the site of the Empire State Oil Company refinery. As we round the bend in the road, we pass through the business district. At the 6^th Street intersection with Broadway, to the left two blocks is the Hot Springs County Museum and Cultural Center. The boulevard style of Broadway provides a picturesque scene of downtown. As we continue around, we see the stone walls of the county fair grounds, originally built by the CCC through the direction of master stonemason Eugene Halone, a Finnish emigrant, who also supervised construction of the Catholic and Lutheran churches in town as well as his own home in East Thermopolis—all in finely cut native stone.  We pass the newly constructed Hot Springs County High School and enter the state park. The brochures continue the story of the hot springs from here.

As we leave Thermopolis, we return to Broadway and follow the street west out of town. As we drive north toward Meeteetse, we encounter several oil camps—Grass Creek, Hamilton Dome and Oregon Basin. We also cross lands owned by the LU Sheep Company, one of the Basin’s largest, founded by George Baxter in the 19^th century. Far west of Hamilton Dome is the site of Anchor Dam.  The dam site looked perfect to engineers but not to consulting geologist Sam Knight. The story is one of government waste and hubris.

As we approach Meeteetse, we are on what were open ranges populated by cattle first brought to the Basin in 1878 by William A. Carter’s company (the mountain to the left is named for him). His foreman was Peter McCulloch for whom the peaks between Cody and Powell are named. Other huge ranch companies include the Pitchfork, founded by German nobleman Otto Franc, and the Hoodoo, once owned by William R. Coe and, later, by oil billionaire H. L. Hunt.

The last colony of black-footed ferrets to survive anywhere in the wild was found near Meeteetse in 1981. We stop at the Beldon Museum of Photography in downtown Meeteetse.

From here, we continue on to Cody, but continue through town to the site of Heart Mountain Relocation Center, about 12 miles to the east. We follow the signs on the self-guided tour of the site of the incarceration of more than 10,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry from 1942-45. Following the walking tour, we return to Cody, passing by Corbett Dam, one of the oldest structures built for irrigation by the Shoshone Irrigation Company in 1908. The dam is only 18 feet high and 938 feet long at the crest. It is still used by area irrigators.  East of here is the town of Powell, founded in 1909 and named for John Wesley Powell, visionary explorer who died eight years before the town was founded. Powell is home to Northwest College, one of the first in the state’s system of seven community colleges. Famous graduates include John Johnson, long-time NBA star with Cleveland and Seattle. Cody and Powell are both in Park County, but they have contrasting economies. Powell is agricultural and educational while Cody is heavily dependent on tourism. Beyond Powell to the east are several Mormon communities, including Lovell, Byron and Cowley. One of my favorite names for a café is a place that once served coffee to patrons in Byron. It was called the “Half-Fast Café.” One had to be careful how fast you said the café’s name!

Ten Months in Cody, A Legend in Art

       The young farm couple’s fifth son, Paul Jackson, was born on the Watkins Ranch near Cody on Jan. 20, 1912. His parents, Stella May and LeRoy, had been born and reared in the farm countrythat was Tingley, Iowa, during the last quarter of the 19^th century.

       Of Scotch-Irish ancestry, they were accustomed to hard work and the simple life. They married about 1900. After the births of their two sons, Charles Cecil in 1902 and Marvin Jay in 1904, Stella May and LeRoy sought a new home farther West where they could raise their new family.

       Probably with the encouragement of the Watkins family (also from Iowa), the young couple and their two sons moved to Cody near where the Watkins family was farming. Records show that LeRoy purchased a parcel of land in Cody in 1906 and that he worked as a farmer for the Watkins brothers, Charles and Sanford. Soon after their arrival, a third son, Frank Leslie, was born and, two years later, LeRoy and Stella May named their fourth son Sanford LeRoy after the couple’s benefactor and the boy’s father.

       On Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28, 1912), when the youngest son, Paul, was only ten months old, the family left Cody for San Diego, Calif., never to return. The move was some permanence for Stella May’s classified advertisement in the Park County Enterprise the week preceding Nov. 28 read: “For Sale: All my household goods, baby buggy, canned fruit, and everything. Call at the house.”

       In California, the young man attended schools and developed a talent in art. After formal art training, he moved to New York where he began a new movement in art—abstract expressionism. By the early 1950s, barely in his forties, he was the toast of the city—the most influential contemporary artist in America. Then, just as suddenly as he rose to prominence, he died at the age of 44 in an automobile accident at 10:15 p.m., on Aug. 11, 1958, in New York.

       Born in obscurity in Cody, Wyoming, and raised in the West, he became an artist heavily influenced by the mountains and deserts of the region. His name—after he dropped the Paul—was Jackson Pollock.

–Extract by a brief biography of Pollock written by Steve Cotherman, Wyoming State Art Museum director, 1983.

Day 5—Cody to Jackson

As we leave Cody, it is worth looking west toward the two mountains. On the north is Rattlesnake Mountain and the right, Cedar Mountain. In between is Shoshone Canyon where the road passes along the Rattlesnake side, eventually passing Buffalo Bill Dam and Reservoir.  Significant to the development of agriculture is the canal system, taking water from the reservoir through a series of siphons, tunnels and canals. 

At the top of Cedar Mountain is a larger-than-life-sized plastic statue of a buffalo. Placed there in the 1970s, it commemorates the site where William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody wished to be buried—overlooking his town of Cody. (He was not buried there. When he died in Denver, his widow was so financially drained that she agreed to allow Tammen and Bonfils, two Denver newspapermen, to bury him on Lookout Mountain—in exchange for some money to pay down the family debts. Following the funeral and burial, the rumor circulated around Denver that a group of angry Cody residents were coming down with shovels to dig up the Old Scout’s remains and haul them back to Cody for burial on Cedar Mountain. Tammen and Bonfils took the rumor seriously and had the burial hole dug very deep, the coffin placed at the bottom and tons of concrete dropped on top of it. Cody is probably more soundly entombed than anyone in America.

Below the statue at the top of Cedar Mountain, about one-quarter of the way down from the top, is the mouth of a cave. The cave was one of the first national monuments ever designated in America. 

The Story of Shoshone Caverns National Monument

Ned Frost was reared in the Cody Country in the years before William F. Cody had even seen the region. Born in Minnesota in 1881, Frost was an infant when his parents and two siblings, Jesse and Daisy, decided to ranch in the wilds of northwestern Wyoming. His father Mahlon had fought in the Civil War with the Ohio Volunteers and had tried farming in Minnesota.

The family initially moved to the head of the Southfork of the Stinkingwater River, near present-day Valley Ranch. Within two years, however, they moved down river to Sage Creek where they irrigated hayland and raised cattle. There, Frost’s father built the first two-story house with plastered walls anywhere in the region. To augment the ranching enterprise, the family provided accommodations for stagecoach passengers on the line between Lander and Red Lodge, Montana. By the time William F. Cody moved nearby, starting his irrigation project and town named for him, Ned Frost was a teenager who had honed skills as a hunter and guide.

 In 1909, Frost was planning to be married to Mary Hughes, a surgical nurse from Chicago who had enjoyed a horseback tour of Yellowstone that summer with Frost as her guide. He also laid plans for a ranch on the Northfork, halfway between Cody and Yellowstone National Park, where he would cater to dudes in the summer and hunters in the fall, raising a few cattle on the side to augment guide fees.  During the winters, he continued to trap bobcats and hunt coyotes and wolves for their pelts and for the state bounties paid to exterminate the predators posing threats to the herds of the growing population of ranchers locating in the area.

In January 1909, Ned Frost was “hot on the trail of a bobcat accompanied by a pack of hunting dogs.” It was about noon and the bobcat led Frost and the dogs up the side of Cedar Mountain. The bobcat disappeared down a opening under a steep ledge. Frost lighted a match for light and went in after the bobcat. Several matches later, he realized he was in something more than a hole in the ground.

“Somehow he lost interest in the cat and turned to see where the entrance was and it was not. He thought he had some sense of direction enough to go back the way he had come but lighting another match found by his tracks that he was in another room or chamber with only his tracks leading in.”  After counting his matches and making some “lighters” of strips of paper he had in his pocket, he wound his way through twelve rooms before finally spotting the small streak of light coming from the entrance. He had been inside an estimated half hour. The dogs had followed him inside and they “were afraid of something in the depths of the cave.” The bobcat got away. Frost marked the location of the entrance and noticed it had been used before. There, strewn on the ground around the entrance, were skeletons of wild animals and horns of many mountain sheep. Also near by were fire-pits, indicating that ancient people had camped at the cave’s entrance.

Within days William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody took an interest in the caverns. Soon, many Cody residents concluded that the site deserved special recognition and it ought to be set aside for preservation. Cody made a trip to Washington, D. C., and less than nine months later, President William H. Taft proclaimed the cave “Shoshone Caverns National Monument.”  For the next several decades, the cave was overshadowed by needs for Yellowstone and other sites. Its precarious location—one had to ride a very steep trail over a series of switchbacks—discouraged visitors. The final straw came with the discovery of Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico a few years later. By the 1950s, the National Park Service was joining in trying to eliminate the caverns as a national monument. In a forthcoming book, to be published later this year by the University Press of Colorado, your guide argues that several factors coincided to bring about an almost unprecedented result—the “delisting” of a national monument. The site became the property of the City of Cody. After years of attempting to make the site pay, the town surrendered ownership back to the federal government. The site is abandoned today, largely forgotten even by local Cody people.

As we leave Cody, the South Fork road goes left up a hill. The road leads eventually to the Valley Ranch, at the very end of the road, once owned by Larry Larom, founder of the Dude Ranchers Association. Closer to Cody was the community of Irma Flat, home to a small group of Jewish homesteaders sent west by a Jewish colonization society in cooperation with Cody’s Shoshone Irrigation Company. One of the Jewish homesteaders became Cody’s bootmaker. Later, after Cody’s death, the man moved to San Francisco where, after several more years as a cobbler, he became the editor for the leading Communist Party newspaper on the West Coast.

Near that ranch was Cody’s TE Ranch where the famous showman spent the few quiet days he could spare from his numerous business ventures and wild west show performances. The story is told that Cody was badly served by a series of managers in whom he misplaced his trust. On one occasion, when Cody visited the ranch to inspect what he believed was a sizeable horse herd, the manager asked him to relax on the rocking chair on the ranch porch. The manager had the small herd run past Cody several times as a means of making him believe his herd had not been shrunk by fraud. At one point early in his experience with the ranch, Cody tried to start a military school there for young men. The project failed even though the enterprise was advertised extensively.

To the right is Trail Town, a series of log cabins and structures moved to the site over several decades by Bob Edgar. At the site is the grave of Jeremiah “Liver-Eating” Johnson (actually, his first name was simply John. Johnson was played for movies by Robert Redford. Johnson gained notoriety when, after he found family members killed by Indians, vowed to wreak revenge. He said his mark would be a bite taken from the dead man’s liver. Later, Johnson left his fur-trapping lines to become county sheriff of Carbon County (Red Lodge), Montana. Still later, he retired and moved to California. He died there and was buried in Los Angeles. In the early 1970s, highway construction threatened to disturb Johnson’s grave. Consequently, Cody residents and Johnson family members worked to move the grave back to Cody. On June 8, 1974, he was reburied in a ceremony featuring such notables as Redford who had played him in film and political figures from Montana and Wyoming.

The grandstands are for Cody Stampede Days, held annually over the Fourth of July, and for the Cody Nite Rodeo. Stampede Days began in 1920—three years after Buffalo Bill’s death—through the encouragement of Cody’s niece, Mary Jester Allen, and newspaper editor Caroline Lockhart, among others. The Nite Rodeo, held nightly throughout the summer, began on June 24, 1939, as “Carl Downing’s Pup Rodeo,” performing for the national convention of the BPOE Does.

To the north of the highway just beyond town where the river bends, one may see the ruins of DeMaris Hot Springs pool. The extinct geysers and hot springs exude a strong smell of sulfur here. The DeMaris pool was promoted for the perceived medical properties provided by soaking in the warm mineral spring water. In the fall of 1806, mountainman John Colter encountered the river near this spot as he was walking south from his employer’s fort, Fort Manuel Lisa in Montana, to trade with Indians or, possibly, Spaniards. Historians debate the exact route Colter took, but most agree that his first encounter with geysers and hot springs was just to the east of the mouth of the Shoshone Canyon. Because of the sulfurous order, Colter called the river the “Stinkingwater River.” That was the name it kept—until Cody residents and promoters about 1900 feared the name would discourage prospective residents and tourists. They got the Wyoming State Legislature to pass a special bill officially changing the name to the “Shoshone River.”

The beautiful stone bridge over the river is named for Charles Hayden, pioneer Cody area surveyor and engineer. Hayden also served in the legislature, gaining legislative support for the creation of Park County. Cody storekeeper Jacob Schwoob also served in the legislature. His primary concern was the condition of Wyoming highways. Through his efforts, the Wyoming Highway Department was established in 1917. As a token of thanks for his support for highway improvements, the State granted Schwoob Wyoming license plate 1-1 when license plates were made mandatory on all motor vehicles for the first time in 1913. He held the number even after the county designations were made in 1929.

A special law gave him the number for the next 25 years and his widow retained the number after Schwoob’s death. When the special legislature expired in 1954, the plate went to Natrona County to assign. Three years later, however, the number went back to Park County where it was held by State Sen. Dick Jones for many years. Finally, in 1969, the number went back to Natrona County where it remains.

Thomas Molesworth, long-time owner of Shoshone Furniture, gained significant fame for the distinctive Western furniture he designed and built. Highly prized today, the furniture was ordered for quality homes and hotels. Until recent years, many of the Molesworth pieces, specifically commissioned for the Plains Hotel in Cheyenne, remained in the hotel’s lobby. 

Two of Cody’s most prominent citizens were oil men—Paul Stock, the largest individual shareholder in Texaco at one time; and Glenn Neilsen, president of Husky Oil Company that once operated a major refinery across the river north of Cody.  One of Wyoming’s most famous families is from Cody—Milward, Al and Pete Simpson. Milward served as governor and, for four years, U. S. Senator. His younger son Al served in the U. S. Senate for several terms. Elder son Pete is a popular professor of Wyoming politics and history at the University of Wyoming as well as a gifted actor and candidate for governor of Wyoming. New Deal congressman Paul Greever was a former mayor of Cody. Senator Craig Thomas graduated from Cody High School, (as did the two Simpson brothers and your guide).

Caroline Lockhart is one of Cody’s better known characters. (Your guide will tell a few anecdotes about Ms. Lockhart). As noted in yesterday’s installment, artist Jackson Pollock was born in Cody (see below). William R. Coe, insurance executive who married the daughter of a Standard Oil Company executive, built a home in Cody. The UW Library is named in his honor for his donations to the construction of the structure in the 1950s. Coe also founded the American Studies program at UW (and similar programs at Yale, Stanford and Simpson College).

Cody was home to numerous characters. One was Phonograph Jones who, as Pete Simpson often quotes, was asked what he thought about Prohibition. Phonograph replied, “Well, it was better than no whiskey at all.” 

The highway tunnel is the longest in Wyoming. Just at its western end is the site of Buffalo Bill Dam, originally completed in 1910 as Shoshone Dam and renamed for Cody after World War II. At the time of its completion by the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation, it was the highest dam in the world.  Under the waters of the reservoir formed by Buffalo Bill Dam are the remains of the town of Marquette, Wyoming. Submerged in 1910, the village once was the small trading center for the Northfork ranchers in the area.

As we pass the state park, we approach the area where mountainman Earl Durand was first arrested for poaching elk.  He was jailed in Cody. While he was being served breakfast by jailor Noah Riley, he grabbed the milk bottle from the tray, whacked Riley over the head, took the keys and escaped. In a crime spree that lasted over the next several days, Durand killed two deputies and, in an attempt to rob the First National Park of Powell, killed a teller before he was killed as he walked out of the bank. (The guide will tell the whole story).

As we continue on the Cody Road to Yellowstone, we begin to see a series of resorts and lodges along the highway on each side. Many, like Absaroka Lodge and Goff Creek Lodge, date from early in the 19^th century.

Goff Creek was named for Yellowstone “wolfer” Johnny Goff, a good friend of Theodore Roosevelt, who was hired to exterminate wolves in the park in the early 1900s. (His great-grandson teaches Wyoming history at Northwest College in Powell).

Just outside the east gate of the park is Pahaska Teepee, built by William F. Cody as his hunting lodge. Cody’s Indian name was Pahaska—long hair. North of Pahaska, in the Northern Absaroka Mountains, is the site of Camp Monaco where Cody hosted the Prince of Monaco on a hunt in the early 1900s. To the south are various trails into what is known as the Thorofare country. (After a steady walk in a southerly direction on any of the numerous trails, one may come out near the town of Dubois, where we will be visiting tomorrow).

East Entrance, Yellowstone National Park

Residents of the Big Horn Basin have been lobbying for years to have the East Entrance open year-round. In the earliest days, however, even summer entry into the park from the east was a challenge. When Yellowstone was established in 1872 as the first national park, the greatest private beneficiary from the action was the Northern Pacific Railroad. Stuck in Montana with a long distance to go before becoming a truly transcontinental railroad to compete with the UP, the Northern Pacific management helped effectuate creation of the park. The company management viewed it as a rare commercial opportunity in that they could haul passengers to within a few miles of the park, stagecoach them in, and house them in company-built hotels. The overhead in terms of maintaining the park would be left to the U. S. Government and the company would have no fear that a competing firm would muscle in on the enterprise. Consequently, much of the early traffic in and out of the park came from the north—from Montana and even though only a tiny portion of the park is within the borders of that state, Montanans often declare an ownership over Yellowstone. For sales tax purposes, however, Yellowstone is divided between the Wyoming counties of Teton and Park. Several years ago, the county treasurer of Park County complained that Park employees living at Mammoth (barely inside the Park and within the Wyoming boundaries) were illegally licensing their cars in Montana. The issue finally was resolved, but Wyoming must remain vigilant when it comes to what state Yellowstone is in.

President Chester A. Arthur was the first U. S. President to visit the Park. He came in from the south (Wyoming) side with an entourage in August, 1883. The party took the train to Green River and then went by pack train and wagon north to the park. During the time, the President was kept abreast of the nation’s affairs by one mail delivery a day from a lone courier. Staying in touch with the outside world was not a big issue back then, of course. The whole capital shut down operations so that federal employees might flee the pre-air conditioning heat of Washington.

(For Yellowstone, consult the brochures for this leg of the journey).

As we leave Yellowstone, we enter Grand Teton National Park. The roadway from here is named the John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Parkway, in honor of the man who had the foresight to expand the park to include, not just the mountain tops but the viewscape as well. Rockefeller was a regular visit to Jackson Hole in the early 20^th century. With each trip, he became increasingly concerned with the encroachment of ranches and homes threatening to detract from the majestic views of the Tetons. Yellowstone NPS Superintendent Horace Albright brought together a number of people who aspired to setting aside the mountains as a national park. The group met in Maud Noble’s cabin and, there, began the lobbying for the park. They gained success in 1929, but Rockefeller remained concerned about the front of the mountains. Would they be spoiled by billboards or shabby hotels and tacky souvenir stores? He hired a local banker as a good-between and began buying out small ranchers and homesteaders through a front operation they called the Snake River Land Company. After extensive purchases, local people learned of that the firm had been a front for the millionaire. Rockefeller came forward, admitted his role, and pointed out that he intended to donate the lands to the federal government for expansion of Grand Teton National Park.

The disclosure did not pacify most of the local people. Some lamented that they were not told who the buyer really was, presumably feeling they should have held out for higher offers. Others, particularly county officials, worried about the effect the donation would have on county finances, given that less than four percent of the land area in the county was privately owned as it was. Land speculators were upset with the lost opportunities for huge profits from sales of mountain-facing lots. Many Jackson residents lobbied Wyoming’s congressional delegation and all of them agreed to resist the Rockefeller offer. After almost ten years of attempting to give the land for park expansion with Congress refusing to accept the gift, Rockefeller, in frustration told Interior Secretary Harold Ickes that his patience had run out. He would sell the land to any interested buyers. Ickes urged him to wait. The Interior Secretary convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue a proclamation under the Antiquities Act, declaring “Jackson Hole National Monument.” Wyoming’s congressional delegation was outraged. They condemned the federal action, but could not overturn it.  They blocked appropriations, but the national monument remained. Finally, in the early 1950s, the Congress agreed on a compromise. Jackson Hole National Monument would be incorporated into Grand Teton National Park, but with numerous conditions attached. One of the most significant condition, for the state of Wyoming, was to strip the President of any authority to create a national monument in Wyoming unilaterally under the Antiquities Act. Wyoming remains the only state where the President lacks that authority.

Jackson Hole is not named for Andrew Jackson, Michael Jackson or William Henry Jackson. It is named for David E. Jackson, a Virginia-born mountainman who ranged through the hole in the early 19^th century. Jackson lacks the fame of his nephew—Thomas “Stonewell” Jackson—but this writer believes his mountain skills and knowledge of Indian war tactics may have been passed along to his young nephew. Few Civil War historians, however, find the argument to be persuasive, however.

Jackson was not the first white American to enter the Hole. That distinction goes to John Colter who walked into the valley via Union Pass in 1807, becoming the first to view the Tetons from the valley. Later, the Overland Astorians, led by Wilson Price Hunt, came into the valley. Near here, they exchanged horses with the Indians for cottonwood rafts. They attempted to float the Snake River to Fort Astoria, but found that the whitewater was too swift. They straggled into the newly constructed post on the Oregon coast over the following six months.

Just south of the Yellowstone boundary is Flagg Ranch, originally founded by the federal government as Snake River Military Station in the late 19^th century. The station was identifiable to passing travelers by the numerous flags flying in front of the building. In 1905, the site, two miles outside the boundaries of Yellowstone, fell under the jurisdiction of the U. S. Forest Service. When Edward Sheffield opened a resort nearby between 1910-1916, he tried to file for a homestead.but the Forest Service insisted that he be given a long-term lease instead. On Sheffield’s death in 1927, his widow sold the resort, now well established as a stopping point for Yellowstone tourists and as a dude ranch for those wishing to make longer stays. It remains the oldest continuously operated resort in the Upper Jackson Hole area.

Several miles south of Flagg Ranch, we get our first view of Jackson Lake with the Teton Range bordering it to the west. Jackson Lake is a natural body of water, but the depth was augmented by construction of Jackson Lake Dam in the early 1900s. To the right is a sign indicating the route to Sargent’s Point, named for eccentric Maine-born John Sargent. His grave is located on the point, not far from the homestead cabin site where he and his wife lived in the early 1900s. On the site of Sargent’s homestead is the AMK Ranch, formerly known as the University of Wyoming-National Park Service Research Center. UW has jointly operated the facility since 1946. Students and faculty perform research and live in the historic buildings on the site during the summer months.

We will make stops along Jackson Lake for photographs. In this writer’s opinion, the view from Oxbow Bend is the best postcard scene in Wyoming.  Along this portion of the road are places where moose are sighted frequently. Jackson Lake Lodge, built by the Rockefellers in the 1950s, is a convention center within the boundaries of the national park. Dinner on the back patio sometimes provides opportunities to watch grizzlies, elk, moose and other wildlife pass through the meadows to the south as you bit into your sandwich or sip your wine.

Moran Junction is the turnoff point with the right lane going south to Jackson and the left, east to Togwotee Pass and Dubois. The coldest temperature ever officially recorded in the State of Wyoming was -63, charted on Feb. 9, 1933. (Some experts dispute the claim, noting that the unofficial low of -65 degrees was reached at Big Piney on Dec. 31, 1978). Moran, like Mount Moran to the west, is named for landscape artist Thomas Moran (1837-1926) who accompanied the Hayden Expedition as its official artist in the early 1870s. Another peak in the range is named for William Henry Jackson, the photographer on the expedition. The Grand Teton is Wyoming’s second-highest mountain, shorter than Gannett Peak in the Wind Rivers by about 35 feet. The first White climber is the subject of dispute. The party of James Stevenson and N. P. Langford climbed it in the summer of 1872. Two soldiers and an army surgeon climbed it in Sept. 1893. On Aug. 11, 1898, W. O. Owen, Laramie pioneer and surveyor, climbed the Grand. He later claimed he was the first man to do so, even convincing the Wyoming legislature to pass a bill to ratify his claim for being the first to scale the mountain. (Owen does deserve the claim of being the first person to bicycle through Yellowstone).

We pass several turnouts. At one of them, depending on lighting and cloud cover, we will pose for our “class photograph.” The Tetons seem to rise suddenly from the trees at the edge of Jackson Hole. This area, like Yellowstone, is among the most active earthquake areas in the West. Note the white ring of rock just above the valley floor. Geologists say it is the result of the mountain range rising and the valley floor falling some 15 feet about 600 years ago. Some believe such huge fault shifts occur every few hundred years.

As we come closer to Jackson, to the left are the Gros Ventre Mountains. Note “Sleeping Indian” mountain. To the left next to the road is the National Elk Refuge. (We will be getting a tour and light evening meal at the National Museum of Wildlife Art, on the hill to our right, later this evening).

Like the Big Horn Basin towns that we passed through yesterday, Jackson is relatively new compared to the rest of Wyoming. Jackson was the first town in America to be entirely governed by women. From 1920-1921, the mayor and all members of the town council were women. (One woman defeated her husband for the council seat). During the 1930s, the town had a reputation for advocating full casino legalized gambling. In 1935, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a full-gambling law, but the governor waited until the session ended to apply his veto in order that it not be overridden. In the 1950s, native son Milward Simpson used his authority as governor to break up illegal gambling operations in many places in town, including the basement of the Wort Hotel. He lost significant support for the action that may have cost him enough votes to deprive him of a second term in 1958. The ski resorts surrounded Jackson date mostly from the early 1960s except for Snow King Mountain, easily seen from the town center, that was begun in the 1930s as a community ski area. In the downtown square are two arches made entirely of elk antlers. The Cowboy Bar (right) is known for the “saddle-seats” at the bar and its active dance floor. Galleries surround the square and continue to the west along Broadway.

We arrive at our hotel and return north to the National Museum of Wildlife Art for a tour and light dinner. Events Manager Wendy Merrick will host us for the evening. Those wishing to accompany the guide for an evening nightcap may do so as the bus passes through downtown Jackson en route back to the hotel. The walk from downtown to the hotel is about eight blocks.

Day 6: Jackson to Lander

We retrace our steps north from Jackson to Moran Junction and turn right on the road to Dubois.  The route offers some excellent views of the Tetons as the road winds up to Togwotee Pass, named for one of the last of the Sheepeaters who guided army explorers over the route in the mid-19^th century.

The Tie Hack Memorial, right of the highway, recognizes the men who worked for the railroad furnishing it with ties. Starting in 1914, tie hacks spent the winter months downing trees and fashioning the logs into railroad ties. As spring approached, the tie hacks stacked the ties into piles 12-20 feet high at gathering points close to the Wind River. A forest ranger came to count the ties and brand them with the letters “U.S.” on the ends, indicating that the trees from which the ties were hewn were legally harvested from the national forest. After the count, “river rats” dumped the ties into the river, gathering them in raft-like formations for the tie run down the river. The job was extraordinarily dangerous and many of the men drowned, were crushed or lost limbs in the annual tie-runs. The last tie-run down the Wind River was made in 1946. Many of the tiehacks were Scandinavian and their descendents still hold annual festivals in the Dubois area.

A marker indicates the direction of Union Pass, widely recognized as the most favorable route into Jackson Hole before construction of the road over Togwotee Pass in the early 20^th century. The earliest White American to use Union Pass probably was John Colter, who took the route west in the winter of 1807-08 during his foray into Wyoming looking for trading partners. The Wilson Price Hunt party of Overland Astorians used Union Pass in the fall of 1811, prior to their ill-fated float trip down the Snake River. The name was given to the pass by Capt. W. F. Raynolds in 1859 during his exploration to Yellowstone. President Chester Arthur and a large party of dignitaries traveled north from the railroad town of Green River overland by coach and pack train to Yellowstone in 1883. His party came over Union Pass. As we continue to drop in elevation, the open forests give way to dude ranches and then to working cattle ranches and, finally, to small ranches with irrigated hay meadows.

To the left is the road leading to the former home of Wyoming authors Kathy O’Neal Gear and Michael Gear who now live on a buffalo ranch southeast of Thermopolis….

The town of Dubois was once named “Never Sweat,” supposedly by area women who commented on the absence of the work ethic among local men. The post office refused to authorize the name and insisted that the new post office be named for the chairman of the Post Office and Civil Service Committee of the Senate, Fred Dubois from Idaho. (Someone in the postal bureaucracy apparently thought Dubois was from Wyoming).

On the western side of Dubois, the local museum is located next door to our stop, the National Big Horn Sheep Center. We stop for a brief visit before having lunch in Dubois. Among the well-known people who lived in Dubois was Joe Back who wrote extensively about the cowboy life in the area. Among his works are Mooching Mooses and Mumbling Men (1963) and Model T and the Lazy Board, posthumously published in the year of his death, 1986.  Another local author, Charles Beck (1897-1990) wrote the wonderfully titled humorous book, “…the damn elk et my broom”: Facts, Folks, and Fables of the Frontier (1976).

As we leave Dubois, the vegetation becomes more sparse and the land becomes more arid. Arthur’s party encountered the following sign painted on a cracker box nailed to the top of a cabin door near here: “Ten miles from water, 20 miles from timber and no grub in the house. God bless our home.”

Just after passing the Crowheart Post Office, Crowheart Butte looms to the left. Here, young Chief Washakie is said to have fought a duel with a Crow warrior. Tribal rights to hunting in the area depended on the outcome of the fight. Washakie won, entitling him to tear out his enemy’s heart as a display of ultimate victory. The Crowheart community is home to many non-Indians even though the area is bounded by the Wind River reservation. Actor Matthew Fox (star of the TV drama “Lost”) is a native of the Crowheart area where his parents operate a ranch and Fox recently bought property.

The road to Pavillion and Riverton continues east as we turn right toward Fort Washakie. In this area are numerous inholdings—land once part of the reservation, but through a series of federal Indian policies, fell into non-Indian ownership over the years.

The Wind River reservation is one of the few in the country shared by two Indian tribes. Even more strange, however, the two tribes are entirely unlike one another. The Shoshone migrated to the area about 1400 from the Great Basin while the Arapaho came onto the Great Plains from the northeast woodlands some 300 years later and hunted buffalo in what is now northeastern Colorado. In 1874, the Arapaho fought a battle against the Army and the army allies, the Shoshone, in what is now Washakie County in a fight known as the Bates Battle.

Three years later, the federal government, unable to find a permanent reservation for the Arapaho, asked Chief Washakie if the Shoshones would allow for them as temporary guests while the reservation search continued. Washakie agreed, but with great reluctance, fearing that the arrangement could become permanent. His fears were realized. No Arapaho reservation was ever established and, in the 1920s, the federal government paid the Shoshones a modest sum to ratify permanent placement of the Arapaho on their reservation. The name was officially changed from Shoshone Reservation to Wind River reservation. As years have passed, the tribes have intermarried and, even though they maintain separate tribal councils, business councils and traditions, they cooperate on many major projects.

We stop at Fort Washakie to visit several buildings that were built by the U. S. Army when the fort was an active military post. Washakie requested the placement of the fort on his reservation in order to counter what he felt may be external threats from the Lakota. Originally named Camp Augur and located on the site of present-day Lander, the name was changed to Camp Brown (after Capt. Frederick Brown, killed at the Fetterman fight) and moved to the current site of Fort Washakie. In 1878, the name was changed to honor the Shoshone chief.  Here, we will visit the Shoshone Museum and Cultural Center, located in a two-story frame building behind tribal headquarters and next to the tribal health center. The museum contains a wide variety of Shoshone artifacts. Particularly interesting are the beadwork, much of it done in a pattern now known as the “Shoshone Rose.”

We drive a mile or two southwest from the headquarters building to the Washakie Cemetery, the final resting place of Chief Washakie (1799?-1900—some historians put his birthdate at 1804). Washakie was unusually perceptive when it came to dealing with the superior military force of the U. S. Government. He managed to negotiate a far better deal for reservation lands than many of his contemporaries. While the reservation shrunk in the half century after the original Fort Bridger treaty set the boundaries, nonetheless it was located on familiar lands in the Wind River valley. Washakie highly valued education as a means for his people to improve their condition. Consequently, it is appropriate that an equestrian statue of him stands in front of the University of Wyoming center in the dorm complex named for him.

As we return toward Fort Washakie, we take another paved road to the southwest. A mile southwest is the cemetery where Sacajawea is alleged to be buried. The claim is questionable, but local citizens insist that the woman buried here was the Indian woman who accompanied Lewis and Clark west on their “voyage of discovery.”

We return to Fort Washakie and take the road east to Ethete and the site of the Ethete Cultural Center. On the hill above town, to our left as we pass on the highway, are the broadcast studios of KWRR-FM, the 50,000-watt “voice of the reservation.” The station was founded in the early 1990s as the last station in America to receive funding from the U. S. Department of Commerce for expanding the diversity of broadcasting in America. (This writer served on the founding board). In Ethete, Wind River Tribal College offers classes at its campus near Ethete. Chartered by the Arapaho tribe in 1996, it opened for classes in 2000. Here, we will meet our Arapaho guide who will discuss water and land issues as well as the newly established gambling halls. The Arapaho casino is located three miles south of Riverton with the new building on the new site dedicated only a few days before our visit.

The Shoshone casino, even newer, opened four miles north of Lander earlier this year. (When your guide was running for governor in 1998, he proposed the formation of a chain of fast-food restaurants offering a wide array of Arapaho traditional food with the franchise headquarters on the Wind River reservation or on the sprawling Arapaho Ranch located on both the north and south sides of the Owl Creek Range, west of Wind River Canyon. The tribe opted instead for Indian gaming with Arapaho voters casting ballots overwhelmingly for his political opponent, a stalwart advocate for Indian gambling). Well-known Arapahoes include Black Coal, the influential main chief, and Sharpnose (1830-1901), head of the warrior society of the tribe. During the past decade, the tribe has been part of the joint effort leading to establishment of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in eastern Colorado and the marking of the “Sand Creek Massacre Trail” from the reservation in Wyoming to the Colorado site. The Arapaho endowment funds several scholarships at UW for outstanding Arapaho students.

As we enter Lander from the west, to the right is the site of the future home of the Fremont County Museum. The current structure was condemned by building inspectors and not open to the public. Lander is home to the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), founded in the 1960s by mountaineer Paul Petzoldt. Even though the school has expanded to four continents, the world headquarters remains in Lander, partially in a building that once housed the Noble Hotel. Once owned by entrepreneur Harold Del Monte (who died recently at the age of 104), the structure was retrofitted with environmentally friendly lighting and heat over the past several years. Del Monte, a former member of the UW Board of Trustees, served as a strong advocate for Indian rights to the oil royalties generated at Maverick Springs on the northwest corner of the reservation.

Lander was also home to Stub Farlow, said to be the cowboy who appears on the license plate, riding the bucking horse, Steamboat. The originator of the bucking horse design when he was Secretary of State, Lester Hunt went on to serve as Wyoming governor and U. S. Senator. He had come to Lander, fresh out of dental school, to play semi-pro baseball and practice dentistry. Hunt denied that Farlow was the model for the cowboy. “It is a composite of all of the cowboys I have known,” Hunt admitted to a reporter soon after the license plate symbol was introduced in 1935.

Flowing through Lander is the Popo Agie River (pronounced POE-POE sha—not as it is mistakenly known by tourists).  One way Wyomingites determine whether or not a person is a native or a newcomer is to ask how to pronounce “Dubois” (with the “s” sounded—not like the French sound) and “Popo Agie.” If you get it right, you’re a Wyomingite. If not, you’re a “tenderfoot.”  Well-known Lander residents have included Bill Sniffen, former publisher of the Wyoming State Journal who is a syndicated columnist; the late Todd Skinner, world-renowned rock and mountain climber who died tragically in a fall in California last year; Tom Bell, founding editor of High Country News and environmental activist; Betty Kail, first woman ever to serve as a district judge in Wyoming.

Lander was the end-of-tracks for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad that built southwest from Shoshoni in the early 1900s. Long ago, trains quite running to Lander and the tracks were pulled up in the 1980s.  South of Lander is one of the nation’s largest sculpture foundries—Eagle Foundry. Here, the life-sized Texas longhorn bronzes at Dallas’ civic center were cast.  The Carolina Cougar, decorating the stadium in Charlotte, was cast here as were thousands of other monumental bronzes. Evidence of the foundry’s work may be seen all along Lander’s main street, including a few “strays” from the Dallas longhorn herd. In 2006, the Catholic Church opened a four-year college in Lander. The state-funded Central Wyoming College, a two-year institution, is located 23 miles away in Riverton.

Our dinner speaker was scheduled to be an Arapaho leader, but he was forced to cancel at the last minute. Instead, your guide will serve as the speaker, summarizing the main themes of our travels around the state. Following the dinner and talk, we may adjourn to the Lander Bar beer gardens, two blocks south along Main Street.

Day 7: Lander to Laramie

South Pass City State Historic Site focuses on three aspects of Wyoming history: the only location where a significant gold deposit was ever exploited in Wyoming; the place where William Bright, the sponsor of the women suffrage bill, once lived; and the town where Esther Hobart Morris served as the first woman judge anywhere in the world.  [Because we were unable to make the trip to South Pass City due to the bus break-down, this commentary would not have included the following stories, assuming that the guides at the site would have provided this information].

Women suffrage in Wyoming came about when the first territorial legislature, meeting in the fall of 1869, considered and passed a bill authorizing equal political rights regardless of gender. The bill’s sponsor was Virginia-born William Bright, a former Union army officer who came to South Pass City as a miner with his young wife Julia, but bought a saloon soon after he realized that it would be more profitable to “mine the miners” than to mine for gold. Little is known of Julia Bright except that she was a native of Washington, D. C., and had been involved in women’s rights issues prior to coming to Wyoming with her husband. Some historians suggest that she may have drafted the original bill, given that Bright himself was not as well educated as his wife and less literate.

 The first legislature was called into session by Territorial Gov. John A. Campbell who had arrived in the territory only the previous May after accepting appointment to the post from his Civil War commander U. S. Grant, the newly elected President. Campbell came on the nearly completed transcontinental railroad, getting off the train in Cheyenne and declaring it to be as logical a place as any for his “temporary capital.” Arriving soon after was Edward M. Lee, a former Connecticut legislator who Grant appointed territorial secretary. Lee once unsuccessfully sought passage of a women’s suffrage law in his native state. Historians have offered many reasons why women suffrage came first to Wyoming, theorizing it was a means of advertising for a greater population, that it was intended as a joke; that it was introduced and passed by the solidly-Democratic legislature as a means of embarrassing the Republican governor. This writer suggests that the bill passed because of the happy coincidence of four people holding down key offices at exactly the right time who shared similar principles—that women ought to have the vote. Following legislative passage,

Gov. Campbell signed the act into law on Dec. 10, 1869. To this day, that date is celebrated as “Wyoming Day,” so designated by a 1930s legislative act (and not July 10, the date Wyoming was admitted to statehood in 1890).  Whatever the reason, it is historically inaccurate to attribute passage to the work of Esther Hobart Morris. Strong evidence proves she did not participate in any way. The “tea party story” is entirely mythical. Nonetheless, Morris does deserve the significance she is given by being one of the two Wyomingites who have statues of them in Statuary Hall in the U. S. Capitol. She served well as the first women ever appointed to be a judge. During her fairly brief 1 ½ year term, she demonstrated that women did have the “judicial temperament” and could serve capably in such a position.

Near Repeal in 1871

The first Territorial Legislature in 1869 passed the suffrage bill, giving women the right to vote for the first time anywhere in America. Two years later, the same legislature very nearly repealed the law. In fact, repeal failed by just one vote.

Democrats held every seat in both the House of Representatives and the Council in 1869. By the next session, however, Democrats had just four of the nine Council seats, Republicans gained three while one was won by a People’s Party member and another by an independent. In the 13-member House, four were Republicans; nine were Democrats.  William Bright, the South Pass City Democrat who introduced the bill in 1869, had chosen not to seek reelection to the Council.  In fact, only one incumbent House member returned—Ben Sheeks who, unlike his South Pass City colleague, had opposed the suffrage act. In the Council, not one incumbent returned in 1871. Uinta County House member C. E. Castle gave notice immediately on arriving in Cheyenne that he intended to seek repeal of the suffrage law.  Gov. Campbell, the man who made history on Dec. 10, 1869, by signing the act into law, urged legislators not to repeal the law. “…women have voted in the territory, served on juries, and held office,” Campbell pointed out. “It is simple justice to say that the women entering, for the first time in the history of the country, upon these new and untried duties, have conducted themselves in every respect with as much tact, sound judgment, and good sense, as men.”

Castle introduced the repeal on the ninth day of the session, Nov. 13. The following day, the repeal passed the House by a vote of nine to three with one member absent and not voting. When the bill went forward to the Council, it passed there by a narrower vote of 5-4 on Nov. 30. By all appearances, Wyoming’s two-year experiment with women suffrage would be coming to an end.

The following week, Gov. Campbell vetoed the repeal attempt, returning the bill to the House. Both houses needed two-thirds votes to override and House Speaker Sheets immediately sought to override the veto. On Dec. 9, just a day short of two years since the initial passage, nine legislators voted for the veto override, to repeal women suffrage. Just two voted “no” while two others were absent and not voting. The House had mustered the necessary two-thirds vote. Now, the override went to the Council. There, on the 32^nd day of the session, the five Council members seeking to repeal suffrage voted to override. The four who had voted against the bill when it first came before the Council again voted against the act.   The override effort failed, falling just one vote short of the necessary two-thirds.

The opponents of women suffrage took their best shot and narrowly lost. The four supporters of suffrage in the Council held firm and Campbell’s veto kept women suffrage part of the territory’s laws.

No serious effort was mounted again to repeal the suffrage law.

Numerous structures remain at South Pass City, including a reconstruction of Esther Morris’ cabin, two hotels, saloons and a general store. Visitors are given the opportunity to pan for gold in the stream running through town and shown the inside of the Carissa mine, just above the town on a nearby hill. The mill, recently acquired by the state and added to the site, contains at least three periods of mining technology.

As we depart South Pass City, we stop at the Atlantic City Mercantile for lunch. The town of Atlantic City is a picturesque old mining town that has experienced booms, busts and revivals several times over the years. As we return to the main highway, to the left is what remains of the iron ore mine and rail transport facilities used in the 1970s when U. S. Steel Corporation opened the mill, shipping the ore to their facility in Utah.

To the left, we see once again Red Canyon, with the bright red rocks contrasting with the light greens of grass and blues of sagebrush.  Going downhill, one has a better sense of how Oregon Trail travelers crossed over the Rockies using South Pass, behind us on the road some 15 miles south of the turnoff we took to South Pass City. (South Pass was used by trail travelers from the 1840s to the 1860s. South Pass City, the town, was founded as a gold rush center in the late 1860s. Obviously, they are two different things from two different eras, but often confused by the general public as being the same).

At the bottom of the hill, we take the road east toward Rawlins. Shortly after our turn, a sign to the left points out the site of Dallas Dome, Wyoming’s first oil field (noted in the Day 3 commentary). Further and to the right is the site of Tweed Ranch, depicted in a famous J. E. Stimson photograph from the turn of the century. Stimson made glass-plate negatives and photographs on contract with the State of Wyoming and with many railroads. He is recognized as one of Wyoming’s most preeminent chroniclers of the state as it was in the decade before and after the turn of the 20^th century.

As we climb out of the Wind River Valley, look behind us and to the left for the Wind River Range and Gros Ventres in the far distance. To the right and behind us are the Big Horn Mountains. As we move to the top of the hill, look to the right for evidence of wagon train swales—places where the pattern of grass growth indicates that wagon tracks once passed this way. Soon, we come to Sweetwater Station. Here, young Lt. Caspar Collins was permanently assigned in 1866 when he received orders to go to Fort Laramie, stopping in at Platte Bridge Station near present Casper just as Indians were attacking bridge tenders. Collins joined the army chase and, in the ensuing fight, he was killed. Sweetwater Station served as a transcontinental telegraph station as well as a home station for the telegraph’s predecessor, the Pony Express as well as for Ben Holladay’s stageline prior to its move to a more southerly route across Wyoming.

Ice Slough was a spot along the Oregon Trail in the high desert where travelers were able to dig down below the reeds along the stream and find ice—even as late as early July. It was quite a luxury for travelers who hadn’t seen anything but warm water since their departure early in the summer. No use trying to find the ice these days. The marshy area no longer supports near year-round ice.

A few miles from Ice Slough is Jeffrey City. Note the numerous similarities it has with South Pass City of the previous century. Jeffrey City started as a gas station and store named “Home on the Range.” In the early 1950s, uranium discoveries nearby prompted construction of homes, businesses, schools and other facilities near the mines and operation of uranium mills in the area. The place grew in population to perhaps 2,000 or more before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania caused uranium prices to plummet. By the end of the 1980s, Jeffrey City had become a ghost town. The population shrank so dramatically that in its final year of play, the high school basketball team became coed due to the lack of sufficient boys and girls for separate teams. Four years ago, many of the structures in town were auctioned off. Some reports indicated that the entire auction yielded less than $120,000.  For a time, a company considered using the town as a private prison. Various religious communal groups took a look at it, too. In recent years, companies are returning to the uranium-mining business and Jeffrey City is gradually coming back. Like South Pass City in its second and third phases, will Jeffrey City rebound or will it follow in South Pass City’s steps and return to the sleep of a ghost town? Time will tell.

To the south is Green Mountain where uranium is abundant. In recent years, the various campgrounds on Green Mountain have signs advising campers to be careful not to spend more than a couple of days on the site due to the radioactive properties.

As we look directly east, imagine being an Oregon Trail traveler using Split Rock to guide his/her way, both east and west. (Many people forget that there was back and forth traffic on the Oregon-California trails. Not everyone was westbound). A brief stop at the Split Rock turnoff allows for a restroom stop and a good view of the Sweetwater River and the swales indicating the passage of thousands of travelers more than a century ago. One should be cautious about rattlesnakes here. They are numerous and, perhaps because of the overpopulation, less friendly and more aggressive than in other places in Wyoming.

The Sweetwater River flows with us toward its confluence with the North Platte. Near its mouth, an incident occurred in 1889 that was a precursor to the Johnson County War. (See Day 3 for more details). Two homesteaders, James Averell and Ella Watson, took up separate homesteads in what once had been the prime pasture lands on the open range used by several operators of large ranches in the area. After enduring several of Averell’s scathing letters to the editor, the cattlemen were in no mood to tolerate what they viewed as the trespassing on their open range. One afternoon in July, 1889, a few days after the election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention, six prominent cattlemen rode to Ella Watson’s homestead and invited her to take a ride with them in their wagon. They stopped and made a similar offer that Averell could not refuse. They took the two to the banks of the Sweetwater, tied a rope around each neck, tied the end of the rope to a scrub cedar at the edge of bank and kicked them off the side. As luck would have it, a lone cowboy happened on the scene, just in time to witness the lynching. The cattlemen were arrested and taken to jail in Rawlins, then the county seat for the area. However, in the more favorable atmosphere for large cattlemen, they were released. One of the men involved in the lynching was Tom Sun, founder of the ranch near Independence Rock, sold in recent years by Sun descendants to the LDS church where the church now operates its Mormon Trail Center.

We turn right at Muddy Gap. If we turned left, about a dozen miles northeast is Independence Rock, first seen by Robert Stuart in 1811. Father DeSmet referred to it as the “Register of the Desert.”  Like Register Cliff, the name carvers left messages to later travelers who may have been friends or relatives concerned as to whether their loved one had made it to this point. The signature indicated they had made it almost halfway to their destination. There is at least one case of a young woman climbing to the top of the rock and accidentally falling to her death. The first Masonic Lodge meeting in Wyoming was celebrated here on Independence Day, 1863. East of Muddy Gap is Whiskey Gap, so named because an army unit accompanying the move of Ben Holladay’s stage company supplies discovered that one wagon contains barrels of whiskey. Gentle taps allowed for a tiny bit of leakage and the troops gradually became tipsy. The commanding officer, angered by the soldiers’ drinking, ordered that the barrels be smashed at the end of the nearby draw. As each barrel was smashed, the liquor flowed down the hill where soldiers gathered in as much as they could in tin mess cups or even their campaign kepis.

To the right is the road to Bairoil, a town founded by Bear Oil Company. The privately-owned town is home to oil workers almost exclusively.  To the left is the “town” of Lamont—mostly one house and a couple of out-buildings. During the Geringer administration in the 1990s, the highway department removed the official town signs. Area residents demanded that they be put back.  After significant resistance, the State complied—but put both the “entering” and “leaving” signs on the same post.

The road from here to Rawlins is among the most dangerous in Wyoming. Is it the long hills that contribute to over-estimation of passing distance times or is it the relatively boring landscape?

The red color in the hills as we approach Rawlins became an important ingredient in a paint that was made there in the 1880s. Known as “Rawlins Red,” the pigment was used to paint the Brooklyn Bridge.

Rawlins is home to the Wyoming State Penitentiary. We will be visiting the Frontier Prison, the state’s penitentiary from 1902 to 1981. Consult the brochure for further information on this site.

Rawlins was also home to two prominent physicians, important to Wyoming history. Dr. John Osborne did the autopsy for the lynched Big Nose George and managed to extract pieces of skin for making a pair of shoes and other parts the outlaw’s anatomy for other products. Osborne later won the governorship in 1892 as a result of the Johnson County War. He went on to terms in Congress and service in the Department of State. A second doctor, trained as an army surgeon, was Dr. Thomas Maghee, the modern originator of “plastic surgery.” He utilized celluloid from collars and billiard balls in rebuilding the face of a sheepherder who had shot off his own face. Maghee hired a photographer to take periodic photos of the procedure. The photos are held in the UW American Heritage Center.

East of Rawlins is the town of Sinclair, once known as Parco and named for the Producers and Refiners Company, builders of the planned community. The hotel is said to have been designed after a Spanish monastery. The Civil War cannon in the park in front of the hotel was once used to extinguish oil field fires. PARCO, the company, went bankrupt in the 1930s and the entire town and refinery complex was sold at auction from the Carbon County Courthouse steps on April 12, 1934… Harry Sinclair, veteran of the Teapot Dome affair, was the successful bidder. In 1942, the town was renamed “Sinclair.” The company sold much of the townsite to residents in 1967 and the town was incorporated shortly after. After a series of mergers, the present Sinclair Oil Company bought the refinery in July 1976. Earl Holding, owner of Little America, is controlling shareholder.

Where Interstate 80 crosses the North Platte River, to the left is the site of old Fort Steele. Named for a Civil War general, the fort was built to protect railroad construction workers. Now a state historic site, few of the original buildings still stand although the original powder house can be seen on the hill directly north of the rest stop.

We continue to Laramie on Interstate 80. This 90-mile stretch of interstate was the longest segment to be opened at one time in the entire system. The week following its opening in early October, 1971, the road was closed by heavy snow and strong winds. It remains one of the most frequently closed highways in the United States. Along this road, your guide will tell you about Big Nose George and Dutch Charlie, the grave of Clement Bengough and “Avocado Hill.”

Somewhere West of Laramie: An Advertising Legend

By Phil Roberts, Department of History, University of Wyoming

     “Somewhere west of Laramie there’s a bronco-busting, steer-roping girl who knows what I’m talking about.” So began a 1923 magazine advertisement that became legendary.

National advertising firms use Wyoming scenes as backdrops to pitch everything from yogurt to beer, even though the products are neither manufactured in Wyoming nor sold in any great quantity in the state. Ad agencies use Wyoming because they know there is an emotional dimension to advertising that motivates consumers to buy a particular product. This dimension doesn’t rely on price, quality or even special features of the product. Image sells the product.

Consumers identify with the myths of the West and Wyoming. Ads incorporating these images sell merchandise. Known as “image advertising,” the variety was unknown until 1923 when it was “invented” to sell a car. Indeed, the whole idea of image advertising was inspired by “somewhere west of Laramie” in 1923. Previously, car ads concentrated on practicalities—data on engine size, the number of forward gears, and special features such as side-curtains.

 In 1916, Edward S. Jordan borrowed $200,000 and started an automobile factory in Cleveland, Ohio. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Wisconsin-born entrepreneur believed he could make a substantial profit from a small volume of sales. In his plant, he assembled his cars using parts made by other manufacturers.

Like the dozens of small companies making cars in those days, Jordan faced stiff competition from major automobile makers. It was hardly a contest. The mass-produced Ford, for instance, sold for about $500 while Jordan barely could cover costs by selling his models for five times that amount. His favorite model, the Jordan “Playboy,” was an undistinguished roadster, in features much the same as any other then on the market.

 Sales flattened out in 1922 and Jordan, worried that his sales strategy might have been in error, decided to travel to the West Coast to relax and, perhaps, rethink his approach. How could his company survive in the face of stiff competition from dozens of other makers?

The 41-year-old car maker and a colleague from the company rode a Union Pacific passenger train. As the train was passing through southern Wyoming, Jordan glanced out the window. There, in the waning sunset, he saw a beautiful young woman riding her horse alongside the train for a short distance, as if to race the locomotive. The sight so impressed Jordan that he turned to his companion and asked where they were. “Somewhere west of Laramie,” was the reply.

     Throughout the rest of the trip, Jordan thought about the incident and the image of the fast horse and beautiful young woman racing the train. Back home, he sketched out an advertisement for his car using the phrase, “Somewhere west of Laramie.” The copy made no mention of the car’s price, its engine size or quality. The drawing, in abstract style, showed a young woman on a horse racing against the Jordan Playboy roadster. 

The copy read: “Somewhere west of Laramie there’s a bronco-busting, steer-roping girl who knows what I’m talking about. She can tell what a sassy pony, that’s a cross between greased lightning and the place where it hits, can do with eleven hundred pounds of steel and action when he’s going high, wide and handsome.  The truth is—the Playboy was built for her. Built for the lass whose face is brown with the sun when the day is done of revel and romp and race. She loves the cross of the wild and the tame.

“There’s a savor of links about that car—of laughter and lilt and light—a hint of old loves—and saddle and quirt. It’s a brawny thing—yet a graceful thing for the sweep o’ the Avenue. Step into the Playboy when the hour grows dull with things dead and stale. Then start for the land of real living with the spirit of the lass who rides, lean and rangy, into the red horizon of a Wyoming twilight.”

The ad first ran in the Saturday Evening Post in June 1923. Soon, sales of the Jordan Playboy roadster increased markedly and the company ran the ad in other mass-circulation magazines.

Because of the ad, the Jordan sold well during the middle 1920s. The advertisement’s style and success did not go unnoticed. Soon, other auto makers copied the form of “image advertising.”

Unfortunately, the firm failed in 1931, one of the numerous auto company victims of the Great Depression. Jordan turned to consulting work and, later, wrote a column for a car magazine. When he died in 1958, the New York Times obituary listed the ad as Jordan’s main accomplishment. “Its approach and colorful language set the pattern for modern automobile advertising,” the obituary noted.

Jordan and his automobile faded into obscurity, but the advertisement became legendary. In 1945, readers of an advertising trade journal, Printer’s Ink magazine, voted it the third greatest advertisement of all time. Even today, advertising people point to “Somewhere west of Laramie” as one of the best ever produced.