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[{"type":"text","text":"Now let's all watch a baby koala bear get weighed..."}]

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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Smile: Wednesday, May 10, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Now let's all watch a baby koala bear getting weighed...

Daily Smile: Wednesday, May 10, 2023

 Now let's all watch a baby koala bear get weighed...

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Around Wyoming

 overnight in the Wyoming Territory with canvas tents, sectional housing and buildings on wheels. It was July 1868 and the town “bred by the devil” was ready for business.

“There are perhaps, three thousand people in and around Benton,” brothers Legh and Fred Freeman wrote in the Aug. 11, 1868, Frontier Index newspaper. “To give an idea of the on-wheels movement we will mention that the office of Wells, Fargo & Co., torn down at Laramie three days before, had its sectioned shingle roof on, and stage business resumed in it that night.”

The Frontier Index, known as the “Press on Wheels,” was also a 

 business that published its paper in these overnight towns.

“Business was so lively that we telegraphed the Laramie editor of our paper, to wheel on at once to Benton,” the Freeman brothers wrote. “We since learn that our new power press is threshing out the work there.”

Benton was an end-of-track town on the construction front of the Union Pacific Railroad, about 12 miles east of present-day Rawlins and just west of present-day Fort Fred Steele.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Baddest Reputation"}]

 the worst of these Hell’s Tent Towns, with claims that 100 men had been murdered there in its short lifetime. Their reputation as a home to “bawdy women and swindlers” was earned when visitors passed through and were shocked by what they saw.

According to historians Mary Lou Pence and Lola M. Homsher, co-authors of “The Ghost Towns of Wyoming,” one 

 that portrayed Benton’s devilishness had been a misunderstanding.

Water for this new town was one of its most valuable commodities. It had to be carted by team and tank from the North Platte River two miles away. The water hauler charged an exorbitant 

Seeing a new way to advertise, a whiskey distiller paid the hauler to paste large billboards on each side of his tank that read "Tanglefoot Whisky."

A Mormon woman soon arrived by train and was waiting for a stagecoach for the next leg of her trip to Brigham's Temple. When she saw the poster-plastered wagon and women rushing from their doors with pails in hands, Pence and Homsher said she became  indignant.

 woman said. “They're buying whisky by the bucketsful!"

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Grant & Buffalo Bill Campaign"}]

To add to Benton’s reputation, even future presidents visited the tent town. Ulyssis S. Grant arrived with Buffalo Bill Cody. The Republican candidate was said to have given a stump speech at Benton to an eclectic group of people, ranging from gentlemen to railroad laborers. 

The Freeman brothers were heavily Democratic and former Confederate soldiers so the story they ran in the Aug.11, 1868, Frontier Index was a satirical attack on Grant and Buffalo Bill.

“When Useless Slaughter Grant was at Benton the other night, Buffalo Bill mounted a dry goods box at a street corner and returned thanks to the people for the splendid ovation (that was not) given the military commander in chief,” they wrote.

The editors claimed Buffalo Bill then auctioned off an old watch to pay for Grant's expenses on his campaign in Wyoming. Otherwise, Grant would be forced to “bum” his way back to Washington, D.C.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mundane Shootings"}]

In the same paper, when the Freeman brothers shared the local gossip, usually reserved for such tidbits as who had arrived in town or who was engaging in business, the story was about the latest shootings. This time Brownsville, a construction camp not far from Benton, was the scene of several murders.   

— a criminal offense involving at least two people —

 occurred on the streets between two men employed in Creighton's telegraph outfit, the Freeman brothers reported. 

[{"type":"text","text":"As the story goes:"}]

“They had been throwing dice for a pistol, when they became dissatisfied, and the person who owned the pistol — James Williams — refused to give up the money received, which led to a difficulty in which he was shot and supposed mortally wounded. The murderer has escaped.

"A man, named John Wood, accidentally shot himself on Sunday morning while drawing his pistol to shoot a man in a gambling house. He is now in the hospital and is doing well.

"Mike Meehan was shot by a ranchman near Reynolds & Dowling's grading camp, about eight miles from Brownsville. 

"The cause of the affair was, the graders were on a strike, and passed an order amongst themselves that any ranchman who would interfere with their strike or sell liquor to drunken men, they would clean out, and after giving them warning, they still sold liquor to the men, when the graders turned out and demolished some fourteen saloons. 

"During the row, Michael Meehan was shot and instantly killed. The ranchman delivered himself up to the military authorities at Fort Steele."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Rise and Fall of Benton"}]

During its short existence, 200 framed tents and portable buildings had been erected, lots sold to the highest bidder, from $800 to $1,000, and dusty streets laid out. Benton was plotted into five wards and a mayor and one alderman from each ward had been appointed.

might become a more permanent town. A forwarding house was even established to take advantage of the active business taking place.

The most prominent building was described by Pence and Homsher as an immense canvas tent lit by imported chandeliers.

“An immense plate-glass mirror behind the corner bar reflected a strange hubbub of humanity,” Pence and Homsher wrote. “Pistol-packing mamas; lace-gowned and French-heeled dancing damsels; plaid-vested and fob-twisting come-on spielers; campaign-uniformed Indian fighters; corduroyed and buckskinned freighters; bow-tied and velvet-coated dude dandies — all taking chances with fate.”

The historians claimed  more than once during his night shift an overworked barkeep would have to change into another clean white coat to be rid of spatters of beer, bullets or blood.

By September 1868, the railroad had moved on, and so did nearly everyone else. 

The depot was moved east three miles to Fort Steele and Rawlins was designated a rail terminal. Pence and Homsher said that as tents were erected in the new town of Rawlins, former Benton residents were hesitant to buy lots and be fooled again into spending money on real estate that would not last.

Benton only existed for three months before the town was dismantled and it became one of Wyoming’s most infamous ghost towns.

Benton 1 Benton A C Hull Photo 7 5 26

<title>Wyoming History: 100 Murders In 3 Months, Lawless Benton Was ‘Bred By The Devil’ | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Of the Wyoming Territory towns that arrived on wheels along the Union Pacific Railroad, none were as tawdry, bawdry and lawless as Benton, which witnessed as many as 100 murders in its three-month lifespan. Benton, it was said, was "bred by the devil."

Wyoming History: 100 Murders In 3 Months, Lawless Benton Was ‘Bred By The Devil’

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

CASPER — Thirteen years ago, James Pulver sat in a jail cell wondering whether his life was over.

At 24, he was facing federal kidnapping and domestic violence-related charges and staring at a $100,000 cash bond — an amount so far beyond his reach it may as well have been $1 million.

He remembers the clang of the steel doors, the uncertainty, and the crushing realization that he had no idea what happened next.

"You don't know anything," Pulver recalls "You don't know the process. You don't know the courts. You don't know what's coming."

Eventually, Pulver accepted a plea agreement, pleading no contest to misdemeanor domestic violence and misdemeanor theft after spending 367 days in the Fremont County Detention Center.

He still insists the most serious allegations against him weren't true, but says the experience permanently changed how he views people accused of crimes.

Today, when someone in Wyoming is arrested and their family doesn't know where to turn, there's a decent chance the phone rings on Pulver's desk.

[{"type":"text","text":"The irony isn't lost on him."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Before I was a bail bondsman,\" he said, \"I was an inmate.\""}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Bond"}]

Most people picture a bail bondsman as someone who signs paperwork, takes a fee and disappears.

Pulver, who lives in Casper, laughs at that; he said he believes his job is to guide defendants through one of the most frightening experiences of their lives.

[{"type":"text","text":"He said his sister calls him the \"bail bond doula.\""}]

His advice starts immediately. He tells his bondees: eat well, get sunlight, and stay sober. 

"You're already walking in there in shackles looking guilty," he said. "They're literally judging you."

Know your lawyer's phone number. Know your address before standing in front of a judge.

[{"type":"text","text":"Wear your nicest clothes."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Be clean-shaven."}]

Pulver tells clients they have an advantage once they're released on bond: they can prepare.

[{"type":"text","text":"Someone sitting in jail cannot."}]

"If you're out," he said, "you can do all these things that make you look better."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Freedom Business "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Pulver's work exists because of one uniquely American business model."}]

When a judge sets bail, defendants who can't afford to post the full amount often hire a commercial bail bondsman.

Typically, the defendant pays a nonrefundable premium — about 10% of the total bond — while the bondsman guarantees the full amount to the court.

[{"type":"text","text":"For a $10,000 bond, that usually means paying around $1,000."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The fee is never returned, but the real risk belongs to the bondsman. "}]

If the defendant disappears and fails to appear in court, the bondsman is on the hook for the entire bond.

[{"type":"text","text":"That's why Pulver almost never accepts a bond without collateral."}]

[{"type":"text","text":" \"Cars. Land. I'll take your parents' house,\" he says. "}]

Pulver says the collateral often tells a bigger story than the crime itself. When parents, spouses or siblings are willing to put their own home on the line, he sees more than financial security—he sees a support system.

Some defendants, he said, don't have that luxury. Years of addiction, broken promises or repeated arrests have left them with no one left to call. That's often when he knows the odds of success are much lower.

"The family is what they need," Pulver said. "That's who's going to help them the most."

It's also why he bristles when people assume bounty hunters spend their days chasing criminals for fun.

"My job isn't to catch bad guys," he said. "My job is to get them to court."

[{"type":"text","text":"\"All this chasing and kicking down doors — that's TV.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then he smiles."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We're just trying to save our money.\""}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Waiting ..."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Pulver's first fugitive recovery began with a 16-hour drive to Texas."}]

A veteran bounty hunter named Craig Zibell had offered to teach him the business. Their first assignment was to find a Wyoming fugitive accused of stealing his father's pickup, driving it to Denver and boarding a plane south.

[{"type":"text","text":"Pulver had never tracked anyone previously."}]

By the time they reached Texas, he'd pieced together the man's whereabouts through Facebook posts and other online clues. The trail led them to an apartment complex.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then everything stopped."}]

For nearly three days, the pair sat in a truck watching a single apartment door.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"You don't move,\" Pulver said. \"You just sit there and stare.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Food stayed in the cab. Bathroom breaks were carefully timed."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Hours slipped into days."}]

Pulver learned then and there that being a bounty hunter requires a lot of patience. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The stakeout eventually paid off."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The fugitive walked outside and the arrest happened without much drama."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Rolling Downhill"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Not every recovery ends quietly."}]

One fugitive had been repeatedly contacting a woman against orders.

Pulver and another recovery agent borrowed a vehicle and positioned themselves nearby, hoping the man would appear.

[{"type":"text","text":"Pulver sprinted toward him."}]

Instead of surrendering, the man — whom Pulver estimates weighed around 280 pounds — turned and threw a punch.

Within seconds, the two men were tumbling down a steep hillside in the dark.

"I grabbed him by the collar," Pulver recalled. "I made sure I landed 

[{"type":"text","text":"They rolled to the bottom still fighting."}]

Pulver eventually gained control long enough for his partner to help secure the arrest.

[{"type":"text","text":"The bruises lingered for weeks."}]

He still keeps photographs on his phone showing the deep purple marks stretching across his back.

[{"type":"text","text":"His wife later said, \"James, you've got to do things smarter.\" "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'He's Got a Gun!' "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"No bond is worth someone getting killed” Pulver says. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The most dangerous recovery he remembers wasn't one he finished himself."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"It started with a runner who crossed state lines into rural Utah."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Pulver followed leads until local authorities became involved."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Then the operation exploded into helicopters circling overhead."}]

Drones launched, and a SWAT team appeared out of nowhere.  Armored vehicles rolled into position.

Pulver found himself standing at the command post listening to radio traffic alongside law enforcement officers.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then came the transmission:"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He's got a gun! He's got a gun!\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"For several agonizing minutes, no one said anything."}]

Pulver remembers staring at the radios, wondering if someone had just been killed.

[{"type":"text","text":"Finally, another voice broke through."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We got him.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The suspects were taken into custody."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Half-Million-Dollar Gamble"}]

In 2020, Pulver agreed to post a $500,000 cash-or-surety bond for Danelle Moyte, a Cheyenne second-grade teacher charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of her boyfriend, Christopher Garcia.

Prosecutors alleged that Moyte shot Garcia inside their home after an argument. She maintained that she acted in self-defense and pleaded not guilty.

[{"type":"text","text":"Writing a half-million-dollar bond wasn't simply a business decision."}]

It was a financial gamble large enough to destroy his company if it went wrong.

Pulver said he only agreed after Moyte's family came forward with what he considers the two most important ingredients for any bond: support and accountability. 

A family member pledged a fully paid-off home as collateral. The family promised to help ensure Moyte complied with every court order.

Moyte remained free while awaiting trial under strict conditions, including GPS monitoring.

[{"type":"text","text":"She found work loading UPS trucks overnight."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"To Pulver, that mattered."}]

One of the first things he tells clients after bonding them out is to find employment, establish routine and show judges they're making productive use of their freedom.

When Moyte's case finally went to trial, a 12-person jury acquitted her of all charges.

James Pulver Screenshot 2026 07 05 at 9 14 48 AM 7 5 26

<title>Wyoming Bondsman Is Part Bounty Hunter, Part Counselor — And A Former Inmate | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Casper bail bondsman has an unorthodox job that requires him to be part bounty hunter and part life counselor. And he can empathize with his clients. "Before I was a bail bondsman, I was an inmate," he said.

Wyoming Bondsman Is Part Bounty Hunter, Part Counselor — And A Former Inmate

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Business & Tourism

Business

[{"type":"text","text":"Trey Scharp received the phone call of a lifetime on his birthday."}]

It was December 2025, and the owners of the historic Flat Creek Ranch northeast of Jackson, Joe Albright and Marcia Kunstel, were calling with an unexpected question.

Would Trey and his wife, Shelby, like to own the ranch they had managed for more than two decades?

Albright and Kunstel, longtime journalists whose careers were built on documenting history, weren’t offering to sell the ranch.

[{"type":"text","text":"They wanted to give it away."}]

“It was truly an amazing birthday phone call,” Shelby Scharp told Cowboy State Daily.

Seven months later, the Scharps are settling into their first season not just as managers but as owners of a 140-acre guest ranch tucked beneath the iconic Sleeping Indian in the Gros Ventre Mountains. 

In a valley where ranches routinely sell for tens of millions of dollars and development pressure never lets up, Albright and Kunstel chose a different path.

"We didn't want it to fall in the hands of someone who would destroy the land, the wildlife or the buildings," Kunstel told Cowboy State Daily. "It deserves to be maintained."

The couple explained their motivation in a newspaper advertisement announcing the transfer: “Why are we doing all this? To keep our 103-year-old Ranch from falling into the wake of Jackson’s rush to develop mega-mansions and hulking hotels.”

As part of the gift, the Scharps agreed not to sell the ranch for at least 10 years and pledged to preserve its historic cabins, off-grid infrastructure and operation as a guest ranch.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Real Estate"}]

For Albright and Kunstel, both retired foreign correspondents, the decision was about conservation as much as succession.

"We felt that giving this land to people with the talents and background that Trey and Shelby have was the best way to keep this ranch going for another 100 years," Albright told Cowboy State Daily.

The couple spent 27 years restoring and preserving the ranch after buying it back from the Jackson Hole Land Trust in 1998. By then, many of the 1920s-era cabins had fallen into disrepair.

An extensive restoration project returned the historic buildings to life while modernizing the ranch behind the scenes. Today it operates entirely off solar power with a custom-designed water system. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 and reopened as a guest ranch that same year.

Its history stretches back even further. A timeline on the ranch’s website is full of gems – characters and moments that have cemented the ranch’s place in time.

[{"type":"text","text":"“There are a million stories within the big story,” Shelby said."}]

In the summer of 1900, cowboy Enoch “Cal” Carrington camped on the land for a few days while working as a cook on a hunting expedition. Carrington returned the following summer, staked his claim and built a small cabin.

In 1917, Cal met Eleanor “Cissy” Patterson – Albright’s great aunt – at the Bar BC Ranch, where Patterson was staying as a guest. Carrington was the head hunting guide.

Carrington obtained a patent for a homestead in 1922 and sold the property to Patterson a year later, for $5,000. Patterson was an heiress to the Chicago Tribune.

Later, her niece and Albright’s mother, Josephine Patteron, would own the property.

In 1928, Cissy Patterson hired a man named Farney Cole to be caretaker. Cole famously beat a black bear to death with a waterlogged aspen limb in 1944. He had been using the limb to break up a beaver dam on the property when the bear, which had two cubs with her, attacked him.

Cissy longed to host Saturday night dances in the lodge at the ranch, and she made that dream come true in 1929, when she had a grand piano shipped to the ranch from Chicago. The instrument was hauled up the primitive bumpy road on an ox cart. It is still in use today.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Jackson Gambling Scene"}]

For a few weeks, Flat Creek Ranch was party to a thriving gambling scene in Jackson in the 1950s, As gambling raids swept through Jackson, hotel staff drove their guests out to the ranch, where a casino room was set up.

In 1986, Josephine Albright donated Flat Creek Ranch to the Jackson Hole Land Trust to guarantee the land’s permanent protection. She ensured that her heirs would have the first option to buy back the ranch at an appraised price upon her death.

Albright and Kunstel had not intended to buy the ranch in 1998, but they fell in love with Jackson and were ready to retire from longtime journalism careers.

The 1920s-era cabins remained on the land but were in desperate need of maintenance and restoration.

Contractor Porgy McClelland headed an ambitious restoration project that lasted four years. Cabins were moved and some were taken apart and put back on new foundations.

During the process, McClelland found old newspapers stuffed between logs for chinking.

, “He opened up one and found a box score for a baseball game in which Babe Ruth hit two home runs. It disintegrated into dust before he could share it too widely.” -

When the ranch was turning 100, Shelby suggested Albright and Kunstel write a book chronicling the history of the ranch.

“They jumped in with both feet and did this incredible coffee table book,” Shelby said.

 during the writing of the book, Flat Creek Ranch: Cissy and Cal Launch a Rip-Roaring Jackson Hole Saga. Newspapers on the platform date to 1911 for the city of Jackson. They also searched land records that told traces of stories.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"An Unexpected Opportunity"}]

The Scharps’ connection to Albright and Kunstel happened unexpectedly, in the early 2000s. The Scharps were managing a fly fishing lodge in Patagonia, Chile, when guests Joan and Huntley Baldwin mentioned friends in Jackson who were looking for ranch managers.

When Trey heard the name "Flat Creek Ranch," he wasn't immediately interested.

[{"type":"text","text":"Growing up in Jackson, he remembered it as a neglected property."}]

He told his wife, “I don’t think we can make a go out of it with an old ranch that is falling apart.”

The Scharps used the satellite internet they were only supposed to use to email their boss in Santiago to do a Google search of Flat Creek Ranch.

“The page loaded so slowly,” Shelby said. “The first five minutes were just pictures of a blue sky.”

[{"type":"text","text":"But when the entire page finally loaded, Trey was stunned."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“We realized the ranch had been completely refurbished,” he said."}]

Later, the Scharps would walk to a phone booth in the middle of nowhere, at a crossroads in rural Chile where busses sometimes stopped. Chickens pecked at their feet as they picked up the phone and called Albright and Kunstel.

Instead of selling the century-old 140-acre Flat Creek Ranch for millions, a Jackson couple gave the property to its longtime managers. "We didn't want it to fall in the hands of someone who would destroy the land, the wildlife or the buildings," they said.

Daily Smile: Wednesday, May 10, 2023

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