Posted: Monday, December 29, 2008 12:00 am
Daniel Sandoval
When trying to deal with complex problems, it is comforting to people to do something, anything. Even if the effort is doomed to fail, it is preferable to doing nothing. Hopeless struggles were in the news for the fourth week of December.
100 years ago
Wool growers were dividing the county into six quarantine districts in an effort to address an outbreak of lip and leg disease in sheep, according to the lead story in the Dec. 30, 1908, Natrona County Tribune.
Anecdotal evidence: J.A. Delfelder, president of the Wyoming Wool Growers Association, issued a lengthy statement about the demise of dwindling game populations and the Dec. 30 Tribune headlined the article, "WILD ANIMALS KILL GAME."
The gist of the statement was that coyotes and wolves were killing for the delight of killing and needed to be killed in order to prevent the eventual annihilation of innocent animals.
Delfelder based his stance on his 16 years of being a trapper and raising livestock. Some of the examples he used were somewhat melodramatic with coyotes and wolves preying upon baby animals while they were still defenseless.
Also as a form of extreme persuasion Delfelder wrote, "I have seen hundreds of carcasses barely touched by coyotes or wolves left to rot."
If the federal, state and local governments were committed to preserving wilderness, argued Delfelder, then that commitment should include its animal inhabitants, and the best way to do that would be to exterminate predators.
Close to home: The mayor of Sheridan was found dead near his hometown. John S. Taylor arrived in Sheridan on Christmas Eve after being absent for nearly three weeks.
Taylor was last seen getting off the train and heading toward the hospital. His manner seemed confused and Taylor was carrying Christmas packages for his wife and two children.
On Christmas morning, in a clump of bushes about a mile north of Sheridan, Taylor was found frozen to death. He was 38 years old.
75 years ago
The second story in the Dec. 29, 1933, Casper Tribune-Herald was about President Franklin Roosevelt admonishing world leaders for blocking a peace accord.
Roosevelt made the obvious yet provocative point that leaders get countries into wars, usually against the wishes of their citizenry.
Unemployment: John Knowles of Denver arrived in Casper to take the reins of a survey project for the Civil Works Administration. Knowles, a U.S. surveyor, set up headquarters in Casper to oversee the land survey phase of an effort to give people jobs.
There were 145 people employed for surveying the Casper-Alcova reclamation project. Another CWA project infused $67,406 for airport expansion.
Destination: Gov. Leslie Miller left Wyoming for a vacation in San Francisco, leaving Alonso M. Clark as acting governor.
Miller reportedly got on a train in Cheyenne, but there was an article from Reno, Nev., with the same Dec. 29 dateline that reported that Miller's plane was grounded by a storm over the Sierras, so Miller took a car to Carson City to visit a friend.
50 years ago
The top headline of the Dec. 30, 1958, Casper Morning Star predicted, "Alaska Gets Statehood This Week."
Passionate council: In its final session of 1958, the Casper City Council denied a proposed zoning change for the neighborhood at 12th and McKinley streets. Statements ranged from quiet arguments to table pounding orations.
One side wanted the zone changed from A to D because people wanted to put stores in the neighborhood, but an A zone preserved the area as a single dwelling residential zone.
Frustration ran high enough that Councilman Dr. Oliver Scott made a motion to disband the zoning board, but no one gave the motion a second.
Robert Murphy, Casper attorney, said the issue wasn't going away and the zoning change would be revisited at the change of the year when the council met again under the city manager form of government.
Tragic irony: A coroner's jury in Cheyenne ruled that Irene Metzler committed suicide. Metzler's husband reported his wife missing Dec. 17. On Dec. 19, Metzler was found in a freezer in the basement of her home.
The jury found that the 40-year-old Metzler died of asphyxiation after closing herself in the freezer.
25 years ago
A Pentagon report said Marine officers shared some of the blame in the Oct. 21, 1983, suicide bombing attack that killed 241 servicemen in Beirut, Lebanon, according to an article in the Dec. 29, 1983, Casper Star-Tribune.
The Pentagon report said that decision makers ignored risks and housed a vulnerable concentration of Marines in the barracks that was attacked.
Sluggish cold: Garbage collection was two days behind schedule due to the cold weather. Some 3,000 families in north and west Casper had overflowing rubbish bins because four of the city's garbage trucks had frozen hydraulics.
Bruce Clabaugh of the Natrona County Health Department said the growing piles of trash weren't a health hazard because of the cold weather.
"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.