Daniel Sandoval

Changes can be gradual or abrupt, subtle or dramatic, and one of the best ways to gage progress is to compare the present with the past. Retrospection was in the news for the first days of December, with an illustration in 1907, suspects in 1932, disease in 1957, and nuclear weapons in 1982.

100 years ago

Forgotten place - A 1905 illustration of Casper appeared on the front page of the Dec. 4, 1907, Natrona County Tribune. The caption boasted, "Casper, the most progressive town in Wyoming," and the illustration's cutline justified the claim by saying how 100 houses and buildings had been constructed since the illustration was finished.

The true charm of the illustration, however, was snuggled in the embrace of nostalgia. For example, the sandbar, which would eventually become the name of a district in downtown Casper, was simply that, a sandbar created by a bend in the North Platte River.

Civil engineering projects like the Pathfinder Dam and a railroad berm would eventually spell doom for that meander of the North Platte, but the 1905 illustration shows the town when the river held sway and during periods of heavy runoff, the water would be coursing through town.

Modern-day structures like Casper City Hall, Fire Station No. 1 and the Sandbar Lounge were built on dry riverbed.

Another point of interest in the illustration was the tower that the fire department used to dry and store fire hose. This 90-foot structure was a four-sided, sharpened pyramid that was a familiar edifice in downtown Casper until wind toppled it in early January 1907.

When the hose tower fell, it crashed into the town hall, caved in the roof, busted a huge hole in an exterior wall and cracked the building free of its foundation. A little place know as Renfro's Kitchen was obliterated by the collapse.

Courage under fire - Panic makes for sloppy reporting and a reader would have a difficult time deciphering whether a local hero, his son, or both had been killed because the blurb in the Dec. 4, 1907, Natrona County Tribune didn't make it clear.

Manuel Armenta was a man the sheriff called when the tough hombres needed to be apprehended. Armenta's May 1905 capture of Frank Davis, aka Black Mike, was a good example. Frank Davis' rampage at Wolton lasted several hours, with shooting, yelling, scrambling to different barricades, more shooting.

Other lawmen might have killed Black Mike for convenience and safety, but Armenta ignored the fusillade of bullets, rushed the shooter with a cart and brought the man in alive.

So whether Armenta, his son, also named Manuel Armenta, or both Armentas, was or were killed near Sheridan on Nov. 24, these were important details that deserved more than brusque mention, but readers would need to wait at least until the following week's edition.

75 years ago

Go for a ride - The wheels of justice turned slowly but turned nonetheless when a 6-week-old killing finally resulted in murder charges being filed in Casper Dec. 3, 1932. Harvey Perkins was taken for a ride in his own car Oct. 17.

A couple days later Perkins was found dead under a bridge near Alcova and the body was cover with multiple injuries including gunshots, slash wounds and blunt force trauma.

The two men charged with the murder were Gus Johnson and Bob Welch, alias Bob Gordon, alias Ralph Harman.

Natrona County Sheriff G.O. Housley's investigation had pointed to Welch and the sheriff managed to catch Welch by following Johnson to the Bill Irwin ranch northwest of Casper.

When authorities move in, Johnson and Welch were in a car and preparing to flee. Welch was thought to be the "mysterious Bob" who paid a visit to victim's mother, Millicent Perkins, looking for her son the night before the murder.

Investment - A citizen went on the record to register an opinion about cuts in the Casper city budget and his letter to the editor was printed in the Dec. 4, 1932, Casper Tribune-Herald.

Alfred Townsend's letter made the point that reductions of city services to save money were good in theory but that reducing the capacity of the fire department could be exacting a future price that no one wanted to pay, the loss of human life.

50 years ago

Young victims - A Worland girl became the state's third diphtheria victim in a month, according to the Dec. 3, 1957, Casper Morning Star. Cathy Jo Brinkerhoff, 4, became ill on a Friday and died the following Monday, and that was what was so terrifying about diphtheria - it could kill within days.

The two other disease deaths were Casper girls, ages 4 and 5. Casper schools instituted a rush inoculation program and area students were receiving their second booster shot in the first week of December.

Health officials could find no link between the diphtheria cases in Casper and the one in Worland. After Brinkerhoff's death, Worland doctors reported a run on requests for diphtheria shots.

25 years ago

More nukes - Amid the gathering storm of controversy about the MX missile, the president, the protest groups, the military, the politicians at every level of government weighing in, the Dec. 3, 1982, Casper Star-Tribune published a news story from United Press International, dateline Chicago.

Nuclear weapons were then 40 years old because Enrico Fermi, in a test facility improvised in a racket court at the University of Chicago, predicted his pile of graphite blocks, timber, and graphite laced with uranium would sustain a chain reaction when he pulled out the cadmium rods. He did. It did Dec. 2, 1942.

"A Look Back in Time" is made possible with the help of Western History Archivist Kevin S. Anderson at the Casper College Western History Center, which is open to the public.