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Thursday, September 29, 2016
1640 - A visit to my past at JCP store in Sheridan
As readers of this column know, I am no fan of the “new” JC
Penney Company.
It is my
contention that old James Cash Penney (whose first store was right here in
Wyoming, in Kemmerer), is spinning in his grave as to how his successors have
managed to ruin that company.
But I loved the old Penney’s. I
took a trip down memory lane at that company’s long-time store on Main Street
of Sheridan recently during a recent trip. There, smack in the heart of the
town, is an old-fashioned Penney Store, complete with a basement, a half
upstairs and, well, the only edifices missing were the pneumatic tubes sending
sales tickets flying around the store.
My first Penney store experience
was in Iowa, and it was a scene right out of the movie, A Christmas Story. That store 60 years ago looked just like the one
there in Sheridan.
Here in Lander, when I first came
to work at the Journal, one of our
biggest advertisers was the JC Penney Store, again, right in the heart of our
downtown. And yes, it had a half
upstairs and it had a basement. I think
tubes were still there which would whistle sales tickets from the various cash
registers back to the bookkeeping department. Even by today’s standards, these
tubes were space age. They provided a way to quickly move information around
prior to the age of computers.
We were overdue for a trip to
Sheridan, one of our favorite towns. On this trip, we took two different scenic
drives on our way to and from north, central Wyoming.
First, we traveled to Greybull so
we could take US 16 up Shell Canyon and over the mountain. Near Burgess Junction
I ran into Ed Kingston at the Elk View Inn.
First met Ed 15 years ago. He has
done well. The lodge is beautiful.
We encountered terrible fog
descending into Dayton and on our way to Sheridan and settled into a rainy
trip.
Bob Grammens and Kim Love had me on
the radio for a couple of mornings and that was sure fun.
Although energy is a big deal in
the Sheridan area, you would not notice it by how the Main Street feels. It is certainly lively including a new store
started by a 13-year old boy. Amazing.
His name is Luke Knudson and he started a store called the old General
Store, which features antiques.
The remodeled Sheridan Inn is a
real treat. The old strucure originally partially owned by Buffalo Bill Cody is
now a true modern classic.
One of the premier craft breweries
in the state is the Black Tooth establishment, which exists in an old auto
garage. Great beer and a great
location. John Woodward of the wonderful
Sheridan Museum and Dave Barkan joined me there.
Our trip was designed as loop drive
so we headed south to Buffalo and were impressed by how busy the Sports Lure
store was there in the main business district.
It is hard not to love Buffalo’s
Occidental Hotel. What a beautiful job its owners have done to restore it.
This is the heart of Longmire
country but despite looking for them, none of the characters were to be seen on
this day. Longmire is the name of a popular TV series based on books by Craig
Johnson of Ucross.
While in Buffalo, I also looked for
the infamous “Bench Sitters,” made popular by the Sagebrush Sven columns in the
Buffalo Bulletin. It was the wrong time of day to see them, too,
I guess.
Heading home, we headed up into the
cloudy Big Horn Mountains over Tensleep Pass.
Ran into fog, rain, slush, snow and wind but got through it. Lots of highway construction on the very top.
The flag people were dressed like Eskimos.
Worland and Thermopolis were both
quiet on this wet Friday evening, although it was sure tempting to take a dip
into a hot thermal pool on a cold, wet shivery night. But we kept on going.
Got home just as the sun was going
down, which was our goal. Hate that driving at night in a storm.
What a great loop drive it was,
though. The passes were full of amazing color.
I am sure the rain and snow pretty much wiped out most of those pretty
leaves, which impressed us at the time. This all occurred during the fall
solstice, which here in Wyoming, truly marks a real change of seasons.
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Thursday, September 15, 2016
1639 - Economic landmarks disappearing
Owning and taking care of horses is obviously one of the
great joys for a lot of Wyoming people. To me, I like to ride them, but have
never had the urge to own one.
Imagine my
surprise back in the 1970s, when one of my former business partners (and my
boss) Bruce Kennedy asked me to spend a week at his Greybull house, looking
after his property and mainly, babysitting his prize horses. I also helped to
manage our newspapers in Greybull and Cody, but most of my memories are about
taking care of his four-legged critters.
I really enjoyed
working with those horses. And while handling that chore, I also got acquainted
with the famous Probst Western Store in downtown Greybull. This store had been
a landmark in the Big Horn Basin since 1944 and was famous for its horse statue
on the roof.
Well, the Probst
Store is no more. The pioneer retailer closed its doors earlier this fall and
the formerly busy corner of State Highway 789 and Greybull Ave. is silent.
This is a sign
of our current declining state economy. These can be challenging times for all
types of retail outlets, both big and small, in big cities and small towns all
across Wyoming. Owner Jeff Probst said his family, which had operated the store
for three generations and 71 years, succumbed “to an economy which dealt us a
thousand cuts,” prompting the decision to close the doors.
Another
landmark outside of Greybull on the way to Shell Canyon closed after 26 years.
The famous Dirty Annie’s shut down earlier this year. It was a great little
convenience store that made wonderful milkshakes.
In Casper, a
much bigger city than Greybull, people have been shaken by recent closures. The landmark Petroleum Club is closing. The
future is up in the air for the historical and infamous Wonder Bar.
In the Oil City, the downturn in
the price of petroleum products, oil, natural gas and coal, has hit Casper
hard. The city is working with a private
company to manage its vast Events Center, subsidized to the tune of $1 million
per year.
No need to
write about Gillette. That formerly booming
city has been struggling. I am confident its progressive citizens will keep it
humming.
I was in Rock
Springs recently. Despite being a dynamic hub of oil and gas and now feeling
the effects of that downturn, most folks think the city will be okay. General Manager/Editor Deb Sutton of the Rocket-Miner said she was proud of how
diversified her town had become.
In Pinedale,
Editor Steve Crane told me that real estate has taken a hit in their town with
prices “becoming more realistic” compared to the booming prices seen in the
past decade.
Kmarts are set
to close in Riverton and Cody.
Sheridan and Buffalo
have not seen any major closings but both towns have a sizeable portion of their
economies devoted to oil, natural gas and coal.
Former Lovell
and Thermopolis publisher Pat Schmidt reminded me of how we all watched as most
of our local JC Penney and Montgomery Ward Stores closed years ago.
Biggest growth
in retailing, he believes, has been in the arrival of the so-called “dollar
stores;” seems to be one or two in every town.
Retail-wise,
there have been attempts to create local “community stores,” which flourished
for a while. Worland and Torrington
closed theirs and a similar Powell store recently shuttered, too.
John Davis
says Worland just keeps chugging along, yet, some stores have closed and some new
businesses have opened and others have expanded.
“There is one store where you can buy socks
and shoestrings, but more and more these kinds of little things can only be
obtained in Billings, or, perhaps, in Cody. Nowhere can you buy shoes in
Worland. A bookstore would have no chance.
“All
this is taking place in a town that has grown a little in the last twenty
years. Not to be paranoid about it, but small town America seems to be
dying. What still is going strong here are professional offices and the
hospital, banks (although some are now owned by out of town people), the Pepsi
companies and agriculture. Three or four restaurants are doing okay.”
It has been predicted that this
economic downturn could last for a decade or more. It will be interesting to see how many other
landmark businesses are able to weather these economic storms across our
beloved state.
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Saturday, September 10, 2016
1638 - A hungry bear, et al
A unique part of the four-year curriculum at Wyoming
Catholic College in Lander is a three-week wilderness course taken by all
freshmen just before starting college.
The wilderness
trip is a true spiritual experience as these young people from all over the USA
(students come from 38 different states) as they bond with others and attend
religious services with the two priests who tag along.
The Catholic
faith involves communion with wine and bread in the form of hosts. This is
where this story starts to get interesting.
Despite having
to medically evacuate one student for stomach pain and one priest from Florida for
altitude illness, this year’s event was splendid. There was, however, this one
situation, that I need to share with my readers.
Seems while
they were off climbing a mountain, a bear broke into the priests’ tent, drank
all the wine and gobbled up all the hosts.
Later, when a
ranger was asked if he thought it was a brown bear, a black bear or a grizzly
bear, he allegedly replied:
“Not sure. But
I am pretty sure it was a Catholic bear.”
US Weekly magazine, one of those
supermarket tabloids you see at checkout stands, had a big feature about actor
George Clooney going on a motorcycle ride that started in Mexico and ended up
in Dubois, by way of Jackson, Pinedale, Cody and Powell.
Photos showed
him and his gang hamming it up at the Trails End Motel in Dubois.
One of my
favorite towns in Wyoming is Pinedale and I found myself there twice recently on
successive weeks. We camped at Fremont Lake over Labor Day weekend and got
pelted by rain, slush, hail and perhaps even a little snow at that 7,000 feet
elevation.
The lake is an
amazing natural pool of water. It is 11 miles long and over 600 feet deep,
perhaps the deepest in the state.
Looking out
over the lake, I could not help but wonder about that story spun by convicted
murderer Gerald Uden. He killed his
ex-wife Virginia Uden and her two sons almost 30 years ago. He claimed he stuffed
their bodies into barrels, filled the barrels with rocks and dumped them in the
deepest part of the lake.
The past two
summers, law enforcement officials have used various kinds of equipment to scan
the bottom the lake looking for those bodies, but to no avail.
Wyoming native
Ron Franscell, an amazing best-selling author, is now working on a book about
the Udens and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with. Ron is from Casper and used to be publisher
of the newspaper in Gillette. He now lives in San Antonio, but gets back to
Wyoming occasionally.
His book The Darkest Night about two sweet young
Casper girls, who were raped and one was murdered decades ago, is one of the
best books ever written about a Wyoming crime.
If you have not read it, please get your hands on it. It is a chilling read.
Speaking of
books, I am now reading an autographed copy of On Sacred Ground, the well written history of religion and
spirituality of Wyoming. Rev. Warren
Murphy of Cody is the author and he should be proud of it.
He attempts to
go all the way back to earliest residents of the state with their petroglyphs
and other vision quests and takes it up to today when portions of the state’s environmental
movement evidence a near-religious fervor.
Getting back
to my recent trips to Pinedale, I ran into State Sen. Leland Christensen
(R-Alta) at the town’s excellent local library. He, coincidentally, was on his
way home from Lander.
We talked about
the recent primary campaign for the U. S. House. “It was one of the greatest
adventures of my life. There is no way to describe how big the state is and how
nice the people are,” he said. “My two sons and I were welcomed everywhere.”
He reminded me
of some advice I had given him back in the spring about a statewide
campaign. I told him that early on you
have a heckuva time getting people to come see you. Later on, you lose control
of the campaign because everyone is asking you to come to his or her event. “Biggest
problem was trying to determine ahead of time which event was more important
than the others,” he concluded.
Christensen
finished second to Liz Cheney of Wilson in that Aug. 9 primary election. Although he should look tired from a grueling
campaign, he actually looks like he lost a fight with a bear.
A few
weeks ago he attempted to ride a young mule. The critter bucked him off,
stomped on his face and snapped his shoulder. He is walking around with his arm
in a sling. His face looks like he just lost a 15-round championship-boxing
match. It did not dampen his big smile though
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Wednesday, September 7, 2016
1637 - Cody-Powell-Lovell and Big Horn Basin
Pow! Pow! Pow! That
was the sound of the explosions coming from the high-powered revolvers used by
some rough-looking, tough-talking cowboy-types in front of the Irma Hotel in
downtown Cody.
We were there
in July and my granddaughters held their hands over their ears in shock at just
how loud a high-powered pistol could be.
The Cody Gunfighters
have been staging their downtown shootout six nights a week from June to
September since the 1980s before big crowds in front of the historic Irma Hotel.
Earlier we had
loaded up our old motor home and some of our Texas family (daughter Amber and
granddaughters Daylia and Emery) and took a tour of northwest Wyoming.
The gunfight
was just one of many events that dominate the local landscape.
Claudia Wade of
the Park County Visitor Council steered us toward a number of events. We really
wanted to float the Shoshone River but could not fit it in.
The Buffalo
Bill Center for the West is probably my favorite museum on the planet. It is gigantic and the half-day we spent there
did not do it justice.
The complex
consists of five different museums. My
favorite is the Buffalo Bill Museum, itself, as this man was the most famous
Wyoming person who ever lived.
What he did
with his famous Wild West Show, plus his life story documented in over 1,000
dime novels, is the stuff of a real living legend.
The Museum of
Natural History is awesome and the Whitney Museum of Western Art is one of the
best. The Plains Indian Museum is a
visual treat, while the firearms museum will show you guns you could only
imagine.
We could not
linger, as we had other places to go to such as Yellowstone National Park.
We made what
we thought would be a quick trip through the east gate but traffic was busy and
the crowds were big. I was able to check
out the famous “corkscrew,” which is an odd switchback bridge that allowed
early travelers to scale steep Sylvan Pass with horse-drawn wagons.
Hayden Valley
saw a big bison herd blocking the road, which held up traffic for 20 miles. If you are in a hurry, you better not go
through Yellowstone, especially in the middle of the day. We laughed at the new signs in the bathrooms
which indicated “squatting” over the toilets is a forbidden activity with a very
descriptive illustration. This is
because of the huge influx of Asian tourists and their toiletry habits.
We exited the
park at Cooke City and took the spectacular Sunlight Basin road back to the
Cody-Powell area. A wonderful trip that includes the highest single span bridge
in Wyoming.
The next day,
we toured the visitor center at the Buffalo Bill dam, which when built in 1910 was
the largest in the world. There is a comprehensive facility there. The
reservoir provides much of the irrigation water that makes the Powell area and
the Big Horn Basin such an agriculture oasis.
Then we visited the Japanese-American
internment center outside of Powell. History was made here when over 11,000
Japanese- American men, women and children were locked up during World War II.
It is a powerful story and a remarkable exhibit; everyone in Wyoming should
visit it.
Our trip also included a visit to
the Medicine Wheel high in the Bighorn Mountains, and also a scenic climb up
the famous highway 14A out of Lovell. Both were well worth the time and were
written about in an earlier column.
Not long after we got home, I read
in the local newspapers about how the Cody gunfight was suspended because
something had gone awry. Apparently some kind of live round was inadvertently used
and did some damage to a building and produced some slight injuries to a child
watching.
The show was suspended until the
situation could be sorted out.
As loud as those guns were (and
they were shot a lot during this event) and as powerful as they no doubt were,
it was extremely fortunate that no one was badly hurt, including the characters
themselves.
Northwest Wyoming is a big tourist
mecca. As the east gate to Yellowstone, it benefits tremendously from tourism.
This could be another record year and if so, be sure to put the area on your
list.
Lots of things to see and many more
that I have not mentioned here; you really need to go explore for yourself!
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Friday, September 2, 2016
1636 - Tom Bell, a genuine Wyoming hero
An old grizzled editor told me 50 years ago that during my
career I should always to be on the lookout for real life heroes. “If you are lucky, you might get to know at
least one in your life. If so, spend
time with them. You will never regret it,” I was told.
During my 46
years in Wyoming, I have known many great men and women around the state who
achieved national and international stature.
Here in my hometown,
despite being a small town full of big characters, two men stand tall as I look
back on my Lander-based career.
The first was
the late Paul Petzoldt, founder of the National Outdoor Leadership School. He truly pioneered how everybody in the world
now views as the correct way to treat wilderness and how to behave in the backcountry.
Paul died in 1999 at the age of 91.
The other was
the late Tom Bell, who died Aug. 30 in Lander at the age of 92.
Although
somewhat small in stature, Bell was a giant when it came to his impact on the
state of Wyoming over the past half century.
His impact will continue into the future as the most prominent
environmentalist in our state’s history.
As a 24-year
old publisher of the Wyoming State
Journal, I met Tom back in 1970. He was both as a news source and a
printing customer.
He was such a
visionary. He saw things that nobody
else did. He was outraged when he saw
people putting up fences on public land, which bottled up the animals trying to
migrate from summer to winter ranges. He saw ranchers wantonly killing golden
and bald eagles with a seemingly “wink-wink” approval from authorities.
Against this perceived
good ole boy club, Bell pretty much stood alone as a David against Goliath. His
little newspaper was often a lonely but strident voice against these
transgressions.
He mortgaged
the family ranch and sold all his cattle to keep High Country News going. I
had partners to answer to and they were always asking me why was I not
collecting these past due printing bills from HCN? I had no answer. I did try to collect the
money from Tom but the money was just not there. I felt it was more important that he keep
publishing.
When time ran
out on him financially, he appealed to his readers and they sent in enough
money to keep the newspaper going and thankfully for me, pay that long overdue
printing bill.
One of the
most amazing coincidences in my newspaper career was watching and reporting on
the incredible battle of wills between Bell and then-Wyoming Gov. Stan Hathaway.
The
coincidence is that both men served on bombers in World War II. Under other circumstances, you would have
thought the two men could have been friends, sharing war stories and thanking
each other’s lucky stars for surviving such harrowing military careers.
But, alas, no
way. Ultimately, they sure seemed to disagree with each other.
Bell thought
Hathaway had sold out to the ranching and mineral interests. Hathaway thought he was a good steward trying
to keep Wyoming growing and financially afloat.
History treats
both men with dignity and honor. Yet they could not have been more opposed in
their philosophies back in the day. It
was ugly. And neither would give in.
At some point,
the environmental wars took too big a toll on Tom, and he moved to Oregon in
the late 1970s. In the mid-1980s, I
recruited him back to Lander to be editor of our Wind River News and to produce a series of historical editions to
commemorate our town’s centennial. It
was sure good to get him back here. He subsequently did some amazing historical
work for the local museum. He became a local leader in getting rid of a bad
Museum director and restoring our historical facilities.
Lots of other
stories have been written recently about Bell since his passing but these are
the ones that come to my mind as someone who dealt with him for almost a half
century.
Tom was a
deeply spiritual man who prayed constantly. He was a good husband, father and grandfather.
But most of all, he loved this state and he fought his hardest to protect it.
I am sure that
when he met his maker on Aug. 30, he reported that he had done his best to
preserve the Lord’s beautiful creation called Wyoming.
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