Eastern Wyoming Photo Extravaganza

December 27, 2021

Christmas is in the books. Now it is onward toward the New Year, and we all wish and hope for a good one. 

The Narrows at Guernsey State Park

A few years ago, while waiting for a concert to start in Branson, Missouri, we explained we were from east-central Wyoming to a couple from New York. He said, "Oh, not the pretty part." He then explained they had been in Wyoming twice before and loved it. Each time they flew into Jackson, they spent some time and flew out. I wish I would have had the time to explain that Wyoming is quite stunning everywhere. Don't get me wrong, I like Jackson, we spend some time there once in a while, but it is not all of Wyoming.

A Mink along the North Platte River in Guernsey

The following photos – all taken in the last month or so, were all shot within a half-hour of where we live in Guernsey, Wyoming. We think this area of the state is pretty special.

Along the Laramie River

With the New Year come some new thoughts – such as

I was born in 1948, which means if I make it to the 2030s, I will have lived in part of 10 decades – a century's worth of decades.

A few miles south of town

After 42 years in the classroom, I retired in 2012. 2022 makes it ten years. Wow, that went fast.

Along my morning walk

I am currently writing my 17^th book. I hope to have a few more in me.

 

Fort Laramie river bridge

I count the miles on my morning walks and hikes in the park – settled for about 800 this year. Onward to one thousand in 2022.

25 miles west of town - nice view

Happy New Year – 2022

School's Out

School is out in our little town, and kids are going on summer break. The swimming pool opens a half hour after school is dismissed. I remember more of my last days of schools than first days from when I was a kid. Over the past few years, I have made several posts about the history of Wyoming and schools in our state. Today I thought that I would take a look at a few significant dates in the history of Wyoming schools.

1852 – The first school opened at Fort Laramie, children of officers and traders attended.

1868 – Wyoming Territory was created July 25, 1868, and the first public school opened in Cheyenne.

1873 – New Wyoming school code provided education to all children ages seven to sixteen. At the time, Wyoming had eight public schools and three private schools.

1875 – Cheyenne opens the state’s first public high school.

1886 – The University of Wyoming in Laramie founded with a grant of $50,000 from Legislature.

1890 – Wyoming became a state, and the office of State Superintendent of Schools becomes one of five elected state officials.

1934 – Wyoming boasted over 1,000 rural public schools.

1942 – School opened for interned Japanese children at Heart Mountain, a United States Government Relocation Center, near Powell.

2002 – The School Facilities Commission was created by the Legislature to fund and control school construction in the state.

Sad, but my old Elementary School is only a memory now.

Wyoming Timeline and Mark Twain Too

Archeological evidence suggests that humans were living in Wyoming for thousands of years before it became famous for trappers and traders. The first trappers had pioneered, by the 1830s, what would become the Oregon Trail.

Deep Ruts of the Oregon Trail 

Meanwhile back east wheat crops failed in1836, and in 1837 panic spread as banks failed and depression stretched across America and Europe. It was hard times, a time when people started to question their lives and what they were doing with them. Time to move west. Horace Greeley would not utter his famous, “Go West Young Man, go West and grow up with the country,” for another two and a half decades, but Americas were moving and they were moving west.

The great fort at the confluence of the North Platte and Laramie rivers, destined to become the most famous stopping off point on the Oregon Trail, Fort William (1834) and then Fort John (1841), and finally Fort Laramie, (1847), was a welcome relief for westward travelers. The fort was well supplied and attempted to cater to the needs of all types of travelers.

Laramie River on the grounds of Fort Laramie

From 1841 until the end of the civil war as many as a half million men, women and children traveled the trail west. Some wanted to farm, others a new life, and a few, gold and riches, but they all came through, only a handful stayed. Wyoming was much like a modern-day Interstate highway, people quickly traveled through, in a hurry to get somewhere else.

 Even Mark Twain seemed in a hurry to get through and didn’t seem overly impressed with the Wyoming scenery. “We passed Fort Laramie in the night, and on the seventh morning out we found ourselves in the Black Hills, with Laramie Peak at our elbow (apparently) looming vast and solitary -- a deep, dark, rich indigo blue in hue, so portentously did the old colossus frown under his beetling brows of storm-cloud. He was thirty or forty miles away, in reality, but he only seemed removed a little beyond the low ridge at our right.” This quote is from Twain’s trip through the state and recounted in his novel, Roughing It, (page 55), published in 1871.

Two things have always struck me about the Twain quote. First why would a stage pass on through the most famous stopover in the west, and at night? Second, how did it take a week to write about Laramie Peak being at his elbow? This area, with the peak at his immediate left elbow, would be on the trail between present day Guernsey and Glendo. The trip from Fort Laramie, through Guernsey to Glendo is a bit less than 45 miles. If Twain and his stage coach had only traveled that far in six days, they were creeping at a snail’s pace. Wagon trains traveled twice that speed or better. Maybe his notes or his memory was a bit off on this point, or it is possible he was having one of those, “are we there yet,” times.

Laramie Peak from the trail near Guernsey

  When Wyoming became a recognized territory in 1868, a few came. Later the railroad (1869), brought people and business to the southern part of the state.  Spreading across the state were would-be homesteaders and ranchers who brought in cattle and helped build settlements in the wide open spaces of Wyoming. Enough settled for the territory to become a state by 1890.

Interesting that many history sources mention the first travelers on the trail were going to Oregon and California and later travelers headed to Utah, Colorado, and Montana, not many mention Wyoming.

Not today!

Today Wyoming is no longer a pass through state. It has become a destination for tourists and for business, still small in population, the West lives on in this rugged state.

Mark Twain's view hasn't changed much

Now that’s funny – my grammar and spell checker highlighted three errors in the Mark Twain quote, not sure Mr. Twain would like that. He didn’t like editors messing with his stuff, liked the way it looked after he wrote put it down on paper.

Under Western Skies - my new Christmas book

-Click anywhere on the post to take a look-

Not too many facts, but there sure is a lot of fiction in my new book. This one, another western, is a book of 14 short stories about Christmas. I have enjoyed magical Christmas stories and movies my entire life and spent three years, off and on, writing this one. 

All stories are set in the west, some in modern time, others in the old west.  Several of the stories have a Christian theme others are of Santa and his magic. 

I hope readers will enjoy these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

The book Under Western Skies - 14 Tales of Christmas, is available here.

Take a look and thanks. 

This one will make a terrific Christmas gift for anyone who loves or lives in the west.

Oregon Trail Ruts - Guernsey, Wyoming

Wet Spring means lots of wildflowers. Today we took a trip to the Oregon Trail Ruts south of Guernsey. This is the time of year the wagons would have been rolling through this area. 

Wonder how many years the flowers were this spectacular.

All photos from the Trail Ruts this evening. 

Guernsey, Wyoming - 80 Years Ago With the CCC

Guernsey State Park is well known as a popular destination for water sports enthusiasts. But did you know that it is one of America’s best historical sites to take a close look at Civilian Conservation Corps History?

Dozens of projects undertaken by CCC workers in the 1930s are still in use in the park today. For those of you who dozed off in high school history class the CCC was part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Civilian Conservation Corps was the government’s attempt to put young men back to work. Guernsey State Park was built by theses CCC workers, the park having two camps, one on each side of the lake.

Although the park abounds in wonderful reminders of the CCC and their work building the park, here are my five favorites.

1.     The Museum – The Museum is on the east side of the lake and was built by CCC camp Br-9, which was located down the deep valley south of the museum.

2.     Lakeshore Drive – Lakeshore Drive crosses the dam and follows the east shore. The drive leaves the park at Long Canyon and leads on into the town of Hartville. The drive from Guernsey to Hartville via Lakeshore Drive may be the most beautiful drive in all of eastern Wyoming.

3.     Sitting Bull Picnic Shelter- Located on Lakeshore Drive

4.     Skyview Drive – This is the main road on the west side, unlike Lakeshore Drive, it is not paved but the surface is well maintained, hard packed, gravel.

5.     The Castle- The Guernsey State Park Castle can be reached by taking Skyview Drive to its termination on the North Bluff. While there check out the, Million Dollar Biffy, the most ornate and overbuilt comfort station in all of Wyoming’s state park system. Skyview Drive, the Castle and the, Million Dollar Biffy were all projects of Camp BR-10 although the Castle was finished up by the men of    Camp BR-9.

For true history buffs, the Powderhouse at Camp BR-10 and the bridge on the Brimmer Point walking trail are musts. (Unfortunately the bridge on the Brimmer Point trail was burned in the terrible fire in the summer of 2012 but the terrific stone work is still in place)

The Powderhouse may be one of the least visited historical places in the park. To find the Powderhouse take Skyview Drive the road left from the park entrance pay station, (the road to sandy beach) after going up the mountain (May West Hill) and coming down you will find a turnoff to the left, south, at the bottom of the hill. This is across the road from the beginning of Tunnel Mountain Trail. The old Powderhouse is only about one-hundred yards northwest from this turn off. The turn off is steep but there is room to turn around at the bottom.

The Powderhouse has a small bright metal (unfortunately) interpretive sign. If you are adventurous many ruins from old camp BR-10 are in the area immediately west of the Powderhouse strung out for nearly a quarter of a mile.

On a final note - If you have taken a long drive to reach Guernsey State Park check out the hiking trails. Wonderful views with many great photo opportunities and great exercise also.

 

 

 

"The Worker," statue at the Museum

And the Dead Guy Takes Two

And the Dead Guy Takes Two

In the last half of the nineteenth century and early in the twentieth Hartville, Wyoming was a wide open cowboy and miner town. Main Street boosted several bars, gambling houses and even a few upstairs of ill-repute businesses.

In the spring of 1902 a man only know as, the White Swede, came to town intent on a little drinking and gambling. He drank some, partied some, and died. Not a very good story, not until he was dead anyway.

The town of Hartville had no undertakers and no one seemed willing to make the five mile trip over iffy roads to Guernsey to see if an undertaker could be coerced into making a dangerous five mile trip under pitch dark skies. Because the Swede had no known family, and no close friends, the small group in the bar where the heart attack, or some other natural cause took him, decided to wait for morning and then do something about a burial for the poor guy.

The body was moved, out of respect for the dead, to a more suitable room away from the hustle and bustle of Main Street. Two cowboys and a copper miner volunteered to watch the body until morning and helped carry the old Swede to a room a block away from the main action of the town. It didn’t take long for the three helpers to get bored. And what better way to pass the time than to play some cards, poker to be precise. The three started a lively game but it didn’t seem quite right without a fourth. So they propped up the old Swede, put a cigar in his mouth, poured him a shot, sat the bottle near his right hand and dealt him in.

After each deal they put the Swede’s cards in his ever stiffening hand and took turns betting and playing cards for him each time his turn came up. The foursome played through the night with visitors often stopping by to see how this most unusual game was going.

The next day the Swede was buried and the undertaker was paid from the Swedes all night poker winnings. He didn’t clean his playing partners out, but he came close.

*When I first moved to this area, 80 years after the White Swede was laid to rest, the old timers were still telling this most unusual story. To add either more fact or fiction to this story, they mentioned, the White Swede had dark hair, was short and rotund and looked nothing at all like a Swede.