Posted: Monday, May 5, 2008 12:00 am
Daniel Sandoval
When people are involved in traffic accidents, they often torment themselves with a hypothetical revision of events that would have allowed them to avoid the collision with fate. Timing was in the news for the first week May.
100 years ago
Fellowship took priority above work in the May 6, 1908, Natrona County Tribune with the first story giving a thorough description of the celebration at Casper's Odd Fellows Hall; it was the 89th anniversary of "Odd Fellowship in America."
Lambs lost Some shepherds in the county mistimed their wool clip by shearing their sheep right before a spring snowstorm made the range miserably cold. Typical for the season, there was a prelude of rain leading the deep snow.
Contributing to the losses of livestock, many of the ewes had given birth to lambs just before the storm hit.
Unanticipated The town coffers were flush with money some would have preferred not to see. Arguably, the real point of Casper's new dog license ordinance was so the town marshal could get rid of stray dogs.
Even the May 6 Tribune described with relish the scenario of the marshal leading an unclaimed mutt to the town dump for summary execution.
Yet at a dollar per license tag, townsfolk were buying up license tags and perhaps distributing them to less than worth canines. One man reportedly bought 10 dog licenses.
Disagreement Newspapers from a century ago had personalities, and not always pleasant ones. The writer of the Tribune took yet another swipe at the Lander Leader.
In sharp sarcasm, the Tribune criticized the Leader's reporting on the Republican convention in Casper. The Tribune said the Leader was right, except for everything it reported.
75 years ago
Depression era newspapers had voyeuristic hunger for tragedy and intrigue, so it was a sign of the times that the lead story of the May 5, 1933, Casper Tribune-Herald would have been about a 10-year-old girl in Massachusetts kidnapped and released by her abductors.
Demurred law Out of step with the fact that beer would be legal on May 19, 1933, an early measure in the complete dismantling of the Volstead Act, there were 22 people arrested in Casper in early May for violating Prohibition.
The federal probe of compliance with liquor laws in Casper had been going on for 18 months. Regulators also had warrants for 12 more people named as conspirators to violate Prohibition.
Casper Mayor E.W. Rowell was reportedly on that list of alleged conspirators. Rowell was on his way home when bad weather forced the passenger plane he was riding in to land in Nebraska.
Indignant The hamlet of Carpenter's namesake and founder, J. Ross Carpenter, said he didn't care what Congress did, and didn't care that it was practically impossible to become intoxicated on 3.2 beer, residents of his townsite were bound by contract.
Every lot in Carpenter, the town, was subject to a clause that said if intoxicants were sold on that property, then the lot would revert back to Carpenter, the man.
Temperance J.W. Whitney, of Casper, personified what Prohibition was supposed to stop. Whitney was arrested on drunkenness charges, but then authorities talked to his wife.
Whitney was then thought to have beaten her and threatened to kill her with a rifle. �Charges were filed in connection to the murder threat.
50 years ago
The crime sensation in the May 6, 1958, Casper Morning Star was the desperado couple out of Texas, Georgia Bryan and Ted McKnight, whose flight ended when they were trapped west of Denver. Bryan shot and killed herself as authorities closed in on them.
Every car Casper Patrolman Stan Warne told Justice of the Peace Alice Burridge that Fred Shulte emerged from a line of traffic and pulled up next to his patrol car in an apparent challenge for a drag race.
Shulte was charged with driving on the wrong side of the road and his driver's license was suspended for 30 days. Burridge warned Shulte that if he was caught driving under suspension, he would spend a mandatory three days in jail.
No inmates The May 7, 1958, Morning Star published a photo of Natrona County Sheriff Louis Cooper standing in his jail with a subtle look of dismay on his face. Cooper noted that was the first time the jail was empty in his 12-year tenure as sheriff.
25 years ago
Decades ahead of research that would put a finer point to the idea, Charles Levendosky wrote an "Another View" commentary headlined, "Television dulls the mythmaking mind," in the May 5, 1983, Casper Star-Tribune.
On the road Justices of the Wyoming Supreme Court were in Casper and hearing arguments. Star-Tribune writer Anne MacKinnon dubbed the Supreme Court tour of the state a "whistlestop project."
The Supreme Court wanted to meet at different locations in open sessions in an effort to dispel some of the enigma surrounding the state's highest court.
"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.