Posted: Monday, August 18, 2008 12:00 am
Daniel Sandoval
Even though civilization seems to amass great quantities of toxic substances, the natural world is also laden with dangerous plants, soils and gasses. Poisons were in the news for the third week of August.
100 years ago
Emil Therkildsen, sheriff of Albany County, died at the age of 46, and the Aug. 19, 1908, Natrona County Tribune attributed the cause as an "abscess in the head" brought on by concern for the death of his predecessor, Albert Bath, who was killed by a fugitive.
Flora defenses - The state veterinarian and a university professor were investigating the deaths of 40 cattle in eastern Converse County. They concluded the culprit was the plant lupine.
Lupine, a variety of pea, was common on the range and cattle could normally eat lupine without ill effects. However, the seeds and seed pods do contain poison.
What made the summer of 1908 different, concluded State Veterinarian Pflaeging and Professor Aven Nelson, was that the unusually wet spring produced a high concentration of seed pods.
Heavy loads - The 1908 Tribune scolded certain readers by announcing that there was a new town ordinance prohibiting people from driving freight wagons over the concrete crossings at Casper's Center and Second streets.
Not only were readers informed of the new ordinance, but the Tribune admonished whomever it was who recently broke a manhole cover by driving a heavily loaded wagon over the cement crossing.
Passive nemesis - State Veterinarian Pflaeging was in Casper to help John Greenlaw figure out why 14 of his horses just upped and died. Greenlaw lived six miles east of town.
After ruling out spinal meningitis, Pflaeging determined that the horses died from white loco weed poisoning, which was found in Greenlaw's pasture.
Warning label - The Aug. 19, 1908, Tribune reported that a man, unidentified, secured a patent for a poison bottle. The bottle was formed in the shape of a coiled rattlesnake and textured with scales so people knew they were handling poison even in the dark.
75 years ago
Wyoming State Engineer Edwin Burrett issued a permit for the construction of a dam at Seminoe, as reported in the lead story of the Aug. 18, 1933, Casper Tribune-Herald.
The U.S. Reclamation Bureau applied for the permit to build the $22.7 million dam as a part of the Casper-Alcova power and irrigation project.
Unseen death - A University of Wyoming professor figured out an antidote to carbon monoxide poisoning, according to a report published in New York.
John H. Draise found that a sulfur-sodium compound, called sodium tetrathionate, was more effective in treating carbon monoxide poisoning than any previously known antidote.
Draise said that Italian scientist B. Furesti concluded that the sulfur compound was also effective against cyanide poisoning, but Draise said the ability to counteract carbon monoxide poisoning was especially good because the risk of toxic exposure was so prevalent.
Forced allegiance - The American Consul General George Messersmith expressed some surprise at how quickly the Nazi regime in Berlin responded in apprehending a Nazi storm trooper for striking an American who failed salute a parade.
The unidentified storm trooper who struck Dr. Daniel Mulvihill of Brooklyn, N.Y., was arrested and turned over to the regular police in Berlin.
50 years ago
University of Wyoming student Jim Burridge wanted to stress the importance of voting so he planned to walk 25 miles from downtown Glenrock to the courthouse steps in Casper to vote in the primary election, according to the Aug. 19, 1958, Casper Morning Star.
Duty of conscience - Kenneth and Ellanor Calkins were arrested north of Cheyenne as they tried to interfere with the construction of the Atlas missile complex.
Air Force authorities fed the peace activists from Chicago lunch and then drove them away from the construction site.
Kenneth Calkins appeared again in the Aug. 20, 1958, Morning Star after he was hospitalized for a fractured pelvis. Calkins was injured in a standoff with a slow moving truck.
Metal pipe - Floyd Rush, 15, was found unconscious in a field of the Edness Kimball Wilkins Ranch east of Casper. Rescuers deduced that the boy was injured by accidentally touching a power line with a 20-foot length of aluminum irrigation tubing.
25 years ago
The Aug. 18, 1983, Casper Star-Tribune published a front-page report by Joan Barron about the bail conditions for a man accused of embezzling $6 million from a Lovell bank.
Among other conditions, Anant Kumar Tripati, native of Fiji, would need a $1 million bond to get out of jail
Busted boom - Petro-Chem Inc., with a new drilling warehouse and distribution center in Mills, defaulted on a $1.2 million industrial development revenue bond.
The bond was approved by Natrona County in 1978, but the oil industry went bust in 1980 and Petro-Chem couldn't make its Aug. 1 principal and interest payment (more than $100,000).
"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.