One More For The Road

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<title>One More For The Road: Wednesday, June 7, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

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One More For The Road: Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

Public Safety

A blown tire on a commercial truck appears to be what triggered a crash Wednesday that shut down U.S. Highway 20/26 outside Shoshoni for nearly four hours, leaving motorists stranded in sweltering near 100-degree temperatures while emergency crews cleared the road.

Wyoming Highway Patrol Public Information Officer Aaron Brown said an eastbound semitruck east of Shoshoni traveling toward Casper suffered a tire failure at about 10:30 a.m., causing it to drift into the westbound lane and sideswipe a GMC Yukon. 

Brown said there were no fatalities, though the extent of any injuries was not immediately available because troopers were still working at the scene. 

The highway was closed for nearly four hours as temperatures — expected to hit the high-90s and get near 100 Wednesday — rose while people were stuck behind the crash.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hours In The Heat"}]

Scott Spiess of Lander told Cowboy State Daily he became stuck in the backup around 10 a.m. and remained there for hours.

"It says it's 94 where I'm sitting right now, so it's probably closer to about 98 on the highway," Spiess said while waiting for the road to reopen. "People hauling horses, I would be concerned about their animals."

Spiess said he never saw the collision itself but watched as a large emergency response unfold.

"I do know that they brought in three flatbed wreckers and two semi wreckers, and at one point in time, they had two helicopters and several fire department and police department vehicles on scene,” he said.

Photos shared with Cowboy State Daily show emergency vehicles, a helicopter and heavy-duty wreckers gathered along the highway as traffic stretched into the distance.

Another image shows one of the commercial trucks involved with extensive front-end damage and its engine compartment exposed.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Investigation Continues"}]

Brown said the Wyoming Highway Patrol expects to temporarily close the highway again Thursday so investigators can reconstruct the crash and determine exactly what happened.

[{"type":"text","text":"A timeline for that closure has not yet been announced. "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The crash remains under investigation."}]

Highway 2026 crash Unknown 51 7 15 269

<title>Crash Shuts Down Highway 20/26 Near Shoshoni For Hours In Near 100-Degree Heat | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A blown tire on a semitrailer sent it into the opposite lane, sideswiping a GMC Yukon and closing U.S. 20/26 near Shoshoni for more than four hours Wednesday, stranding motorists in near 100-degree heat. 

Crash Shuts Down Highway 20/26 Near Shoshoni For Hours In Near 100-Degree Heat

Courts

Nearly three weeks after a commercial tanker 

in a construction zone west of Casper, killing two people and injuring eight others, no criminal charges have been filed as a Wyoming Highway Patrol investigation continues.

That isn't stopping a Casper attorney from pursuing the first civil lawsuit stemming from the deadly crash on behalf of a family hurt in the pileup.

The negligence lawsuit, filed Friday in Natrona County District Court, names Ryan Brothers Trucking Inc. and a John Doe defendant, identified as the tanker driver whose identity was not yet known to the plaintiffs when the complaint was filed.

The identity of the truck driver hasn’t been publicly released as the investigation is active, the Wyoming Highway Patrol has said.

Contacted by Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday, WHP spokesman Aaron Brown said the investigation has so far taken weeks because of the sheer amount of evidence investigators must review.

Unlike a typical fatal crash, this one involved a commercial tanker truck and seven other vehicles, which requires investigators to analyze electronic data from the truck and any available from all the civilian vehicles.

“It’s the scale. There’s a ton of data to be coming out of this thing,” Brown said. “We have a ton of data to sift through to try and get this thing done."

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Makensi Van Patten and Chantry Van Patten, individually and as parents and guardians of their two minor children.

A Wyoming Highway Patrol crash summary reports that the driver of a westbound Western Star tanker truck failed to stop for traffic queued to enter a one-lane construction zone on U.S. Highway 20/26 near mile marker 58.3, striking seven stopped vehicles.

The crash killed James Faris Cox, 74, and Susan Horn Cox, 69, of Golden, Colorado, and injured eight others. The Highway Patrol listed driver inattention as a possible contributing factor.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Family Seeks Damages"}]

The lawsuit alleges the tanker driver negligently failed to stop for traffic backed up at the construction zone, triggering the eight-vehicle chain-reaction crash.

It further claims the Van Patten family's Toyota Highlander was struck after the commercial truck plowed into the line of stopped vehicles.

Makensi and Chantry Van Patten, along with their two children, suffered physical injuries in the collision, according to the complaint. 

It also claims the parents and one of the children witnessed another family member suffer serious bodily injury, causing emotional trauma in addition to physical injuries.

The family is seeking compensation for medical expenses, pain and suffering, emotional distress, permanent injuries, loss of enjoyment of life, lost earning capacity and other damages to be determined at trial.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Get This Case Going' "}]

Attorney Dallas Laird, who represents the family along with James Fitzgerald, said the lawsuit was filed to protect his clients' legal rights.

"The lawsuit was filed to get this case going and to preserve my client's rights," Laird told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday.

Laird said it is too early to determine the full extent of the family's damages.

"We don't know at this point because they're still in treatment, and these are kind of long-term injuries," he said.

Asked what the family hopes to accomplish through the litigation, Laird answered simply: "A settlement of the case."

He added that the complaint could change as additional evidence becomes available.

"Our theory is, at this point, we may have to amend the complaint once we get the Highway Patrol report," Laird said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Fifth Amendment "}]

Among the lawsuit's allegations is that the tanker driver invoked the Fifth Amendment right with law enforcement and declined to answer questions following the crash.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"That was told to me by the Highway Patrol,\" Laird said. "}]

Since the crash, Cowboy State Daily has repeatedly asked about the investigation and the potential for criminal charges to be filed. 

Among the unanswered questions are whether the tanker driver has been cited, arrested or could face criminal charges; whether investigators can confirm the lawsuit's allegation that the driver invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination; whether the case has been referred to prosecutors for criminal review; and when investigators expect to conclude the investigation.

The Highway Patrol did not respond except to say the investigation remains active and that it’s complicated and involved nature takes time to complete. 

Cowboy State Daily also reached out to Natrona County District Attorney Dan Itzen to ask whether the case has been submitted for criminal review or whether any charges are anticipated. He also did not respond before publication.

As of Wednesday afternoon, no criminal charges had been announced in connection with the crash.

Ryan Brothers Trucking said that it has "no comment on ongoing litigation at this time."

Double Fatal Crash Go Fund Me 7 15

<title>Family Hurt In Semi Crash That Killed 2 West Of Casper Sues Trucker, Company | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A family hurt in a crash west of Casper that killed two people when a semitruck plowed into a construction zone is suing the trucking company and the as-yet unidentified truck driver. No criminal charges have yet been filed as an investigation continues.

Family Hurt In Semi Crash That Killed 2 West Of Casper Sues Trucker, Company

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

Note: Gold Rush Days was held on July 11 - 12, 2026

On a hot July afternoon, the boom of an anvil blast rolls through South Pass City like distant thunder. The windows rattle, the chests shake, and a nervous border collie scrambles for cover under the knees of a kind stranger from Ireland, who has stumbled on this scene completely by accident.

Tom Murphy was just looking for a cooler spot in Wyoming to be than the 103 degrees forecast elsewhere. 

South Pass won at 87 degrees, and soon it had won his heart as well. He was loving what he saw. A place where history does not sit quietly behind glass. It explodes, it snorts, and it clanks, too. 

Sometimes, it even bolts — which almost happened when one gentleman’s hat blew under Randy Melton’s period-correct stagecoach, which was being pulled by four jet-black mules.

“Whoa up!” Melton said firmly, pulling back on the reins, urging the mules to stand still so the hat could be retrieved untrammeled. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The mules weren’t having it, though. "}]

The owner of the wayward hat had to wait for the stagecoach to leave the area before he could retrieve his hat.

Fortunately, it was only slightly battered and dusty for the escapade. It was back in place before the clatter of mule hooves on hardpan had quite faded away. 

The people on the streets returned to their chatter, and Murphy marveled at the full-on sensory experience that chance had lured him to. He’d had no idea when he set out that he was about to visit one of the West’s best-preserved Gold Rush towns. 

A young woman named Elizabeth Isenhart was soon floating across the dusty street toward Murphy and the stagecoach area, wearing a satiny green ballgown and hoop skirt that rippled in the breeze. 

It was as if she’d stepped from a daguerreotype into the 21st century right before his eyes.

History was alive on the streets of South Pass City, a place of gold dust and dreams — though never enough gold to satisfy all those fevered dreams. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"History That You Can See And Touch"}]

Isenhart more typically avoids standing out, but South Pass City’s Gold Rush Days is an exception to the rule. It’s the one day of the year where she takes out her cloak of history and time travels to another era.

In a crowd full of cavalry uniforms and calico, her satiny mint green ball gown made her an instant celebrity.

Children asked if she was a princess. Strangers complimented her dress and asked for selfies. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Isenhart, normally shy, eagerly complied."}]

The dress was a graduation gift from her mother to a high schooler obsessed with history. 

“I have always wanted an old-fashioned, hoop skirt — poofy dress,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “So that was her graduation present to me, making me one of those.”

Isenhart learned to love history in South Pass City as a fourth-grade girl. The first time her mother brought her, there was gold-panning by the riverside.

“She didn’t want to stop doing that,” her mother recalled with a chuckle. 

But there was so much more to do and see in South Pass City. 

“They had all this stuff going on,” she said. “Everyone’s dressed up. There were demonstrations.”

And there were exhibits, lots of exhibits, which started an endless stream of questions for her mother to answer.

“I’d be like, ‘Mom, why is this? Why is that?’ And she just explained to me how things were different back then.”

Teeny, tiny beds, for example, that two people would share. And stoves that sat so low to the floor, they were barely up to her waist. 

“It’s different than history class,” she said. “It’s being there, looking at it, and then having her say, ‘Yeah, this is how it all works. This is how it was.’”

In South Pass City, the “old days” aren’t some phrase in a textbook. They’re something Isenhart and other children like her could see and smell and touch.

She has loved history ever since, and South Pass City in particular.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"South Pass And The Story Of Our Nation"}]

People were coming to the South Pass region long before gold was discovered because it was a major western migration route.

“This is the convergence of the Rocky Mountains, the Continental Divide,” North Platte Bridge Company Commander Nick Salicky told Cowboy State Daily. “This is the one place where you can cross through without going over the mountains.”

Salicky brought a company of 24 reenactors to South Pass for Gold Rush Days, to help escort supply wagons and civilians, as well as help chase would-be robbers out of town — all roles that the military would have played when South Pass City was young.

Long before the cannon booms and stagecoaches of Gold Rush Days, thousands of emigrants crossed this same ground on the Oregon, Mormon and California trails. They were chasing dreams and hoping for fortune in a new land as they passed through its wide gentle gap — never realizing a literal fortune in gold lay under their feet.

When that gold was finally discovered, it may have been little more than a flash in the pan, but it still helped spur the new territory’s economy. It was also part of what helped bring people to Wyoming, to eventually create a state. 

“This is our story as a nation,” Salicky said. “You can’t put a price tag on this land. You can’t put a price tag on the stories of the people, these visitors walking around, learning how to do things the traditional way. 

“In a world where everything’s for sale, you’ve gotta have a place where that’s not the case. And historical places like this are significant for that right there.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Almost Wyoming’s Capital City"}]

South Pass City popped up nearly overnight in the summer of 1867, after a group of prospectors out of Fort Bridger located a massive, rich vein of gold-bearing quartz along the Willow Creek — not far from where visitors pan for gold today. They called it the Cariso lode, though early records spelled it different ways — Carisso or Carissa. Some say it was named for a miner’s sweetheart, but no one knows for sure now.

The air here might have been thin, the winters brutal, and food scarce. And the risk of conflict with Shoshone and Arapaho people was real. But nothing was going to stop thousands of men and women from surging into the area. By 1868, South Pass City stretched for a mile, with more than 300 buildings and nearly 3,000 people. 

It was barely contained chaos. Hotels, boarding houses, and saloons crowded together along the same kinds of dusty streets visitors walk today, and a simple pound of flour might cost more than a single day’s wages.

Just imagine the celebrations in this town, once considered for territorial capital, each time a rich pocket of gold was found. The overflow of cash and celebration washed through every South Pass saloon.

People had placed a bet on their future in South Pass City, and every gold strike seemed to prove them right. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"But the glory days wouldn’t last long."}]

By the early 1870s, deeper workings at the Carissa had hit hard rock, groundwater, and more chemically complex ore. 

Veins pinched out, capital grew skittish, and people began to drift away to other opportunities. 

By 1884, South Pass had lost its status as the county’s seat to Lander and fell into what some locals have called a “long sleep” — a slow fade from gold capital to near ghost town.

A few families stayed, scratching out a living on small placer claims or on nearby ranches. Others, like the Sherlock family, became the town’s quiet stewards, running a hotel, store, and post office for decades.

They were protective of South Pass and its old buildings. They’re why so many of them survived as long as they did.

But South Pass was slowly but surely coming apart. By the time Wyoming bought the core of the town in 1966 as a 75th anniversary present for the state’s citizens, its buildings were “leaning with the wind,” as South Pass City piano man John Mionczynski puts it. 

Instead of building a Wild West theme park, preservationists opted for authenticity as they preserved and restored the town. 

Wallpaper in the Sherlock Hotel was recreated from surviving fragments, for example. The blacksmith shop was restocked with tools that matched old photographs.

Today, the 1890s Dance Hall serves as an information center with introductory videos and exhibits, but it still looks just like the log community hall it once was. 

The Smith-Sherlock Co. Store, built in 1896 of logs salvaged from the 1870 Episcopal Church again functions as a general store, with a tiny post office tucked inside. 

Across the street from it, the South Pass Hotel and Restaurant, opened in 1868 and later run by the widowed mother of five, Janet Sherlock, shows what frontier hospitality at 8,000 feet looked like.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Lessons Of The Past For The Future"}]

All of that could make South pass feel like a static museum. But events like Gold Rush Days makes sure that the history lives.

Back behind the saloon, where Mionczynski is playing tune after 1800s tune, cannon man Tom Broadbent is loading black powder into a 5/8-scale Civil War-era gun he built himself. 

Throughout the day, he brings in re-enactors and other volunteers to fire off a round, teaching them how a crew of five would have done it in days gone by, so that they could fire three rounds every minute.

After that, the cannon had to rest, otherwise it gets too hot to load with more black powder. 

“The boom,” Broadbent says, is what he loves most. “When you get that percussion, it just goes and hits your body. It never gets old. Never gets old.”

Down by Willow Creek, it is standing room only in the creek as old-timers teach the art of gold panning. On the hill above them, canvas tents belonging to Salicky’s North Platte Bridge Company ripple in the wind — Sibley tents, A-frames, cavalry lines and cook flies, where they have spent the night as if they are truly the cavalry of old.

Most of the 24 reenactors are teenagers, who are sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder on bedrolls, eating chicken noodle soup with biscuits, and enjoying the time of their lives, drilling with each other, running children’s games of old, and helping stage Pony Express rides and robberies.

The youths had to research every stitch on their clothing and every tool they have with them, to ensure authenticity in every aspect.

“History, especially in our generation is starting to go away,” Libby Salicky told Cowboy State Daily. She and her friends, Emi and Helen, and her younger sister Lily glide from camp to saloon in their long skirts, playing frontier school teachers, dying theatrically in staged robberies, and singing old-fashioned songs in the saloon.

And then there are wild cards like Elizabeth, who arrived in a green dress to walk the streets of South Pass City with all the bearing of an 1800s princess.

For many visitors that day, she was the moment everything clicked. She was their bridge between past, present, and a future selfie they would always remember. 

She walked a street where Esther Hobart Morris, Wyoming’s first judge, once walked alongside other characters of the 1870s gold rush like Jane Sherlock, Calamity Jane, William H. Bright, and more.

“Once a year I get to wear my hoop skirt,” she said with a giggle. “Gold Rush Days is the day to go and visit. It’s like the best.”

As the day drifts by, another cannon blast rolls across the city, echoing off the hills and through the wooden buildings.

People in the stream stand shoulder to shoulder, swirling sediment and hope together in a quest for gold that’s as old as the city itself. 

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell just where the past ends and the present begins at South Pass City. Look the right way and it might actually be 1870 once again.

Gold Rush Days 20260711 134718 7 14 26

<title>Gold Dust, Hoop Skirts And Cannon Booms: Gold Rush Days In South Pass City, Wyoming | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Once a roaring gold capital, South Pass City, Wyoming, comes to life for one summer weekend every year for Gold Rush Days. There's cannon fire, gold panning, and guests who look the part in one of the West’s best-preserved Gold Rush towns. 

Gold Dust, Hoop Skirts And Cannon Booms: Gold Rush Days In South Pass City, Wyoming

A summer camp drive through Cody took a disturbing turn when, investigators say, a group of children allegedly found themselves looking out the windows of their van at a man driving alongside them without pants and pleasuring himself while making eye contact with those in the van.

Court records show that rather than let him disappear into traffic, two camp counselors followed the vehicle through Cody, photographed its license plate and called law enforcement.

Cody police officers say they quickly realized the registered owner was someone they already knew.

Andrew Crawford, a Cody resident born in 1988 and a registered sex offender, has been charged with felony indecent liberties with a minor and several public indecency misdemeanors spanning multiple years. 

who was convicted of public indecency in April 2023 after he repeatedly exposed himself to female baristas at Cody coffee kiosks during the fall of 2022.

Those incidents continued for weeks before one barista responded by dumping scalding 170-degree water into Crawford's lap after he exposed himself. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"6 Juveniles "}]

Park County dispatch got the report about Crawford's more recent allegations at about 4:34 p.m. on Friday, court records show.

One of the camp counselors told investigators that he and another counselor were traveling through Cody with six juveniles when a blue Chevrolet Impala pulled alongside their van.

The counselor reported that the driver had removed his pants and was masturbating while looking through the van's windows. He told deputies all six campers and both counselors witnessed the alleged conduct.

Dispatch identified the vehicle as being registered to Crawford, whom the investigating officer wrote he recognized from prior law enforcement contacts involving similar allegations.

Court records show he was accused of exposing himself to two girls and their mother in a Cody Walmart parking lot in 2011 — this while under investigation for allegedly possessing child pornography while serving in the U.S. Air Force in 2009. 

He was sentenced in 2012 to 72 months in federal prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Witnesses Identified Crawford"}]

Investigators presented the counselors with a six-photo lineup, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed in the case.

Before the officer had finished explaining the identification process, a counselor said he already knew who the suspect was and immediately identified Crawford's photograph. 

He told investigators he recognized him by his bald head, facial hair and face shape, saying the only difference was that the driver had been wearing glasses.

The other counselor also identified Crawford as the man he said he made eye contact with during the incident, says the affidavit.

The following morning, investigators reviewed the counselors' written statements. 

"Both witness statements corroborate the emotional distress and shock of the juvenile campers after they all witnessed the same exposed genitalia and masturbating motions with his hand on his penis," says the affidavit. 

Investigators also confirmed with camp's operations director that the van's windows were not tinted and that passengers inside were clearly visible from outside.

Because Crawford has prior military and Wyoming convictions involving public indecency and sex offender registration violations, the investigating officer asked prosecutors to expedite an arrest warrant, he wrote. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Deputies arrested Crawford later that afternoon without incident."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Court Proceedings"}]

Crawford made his initial appearance in Park County Circuit Court on Monday, where a judge set his bond at $100,000 cash only.

[{"type":"text","text":"If released, Crawford must remain in Park County as a condition of bond."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 22 in Cody."}]

Andrew Crawford Cody sign 7 14 26

<title>Repeat Cody Sex Offender Accused Of Pleasuring Himself Next To Van Of Camp Kids | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A registered Cody sex offender is accused of exposing and masturbating alongside a van of camp kids while making direct eye contact with those in the van. He’s the same man convicted in 2023 for repeatedly exposing himself to female coffee baristas.

Repeat Cody Sex Offender Accused Of Pleasuring Himself Next To Van Of Camp Kids

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Native American Tribes

[{"type":"text","text":"Tribe Tells Christian Church To Leave Reservation; Church Says No "}]

Northern Arapaho Tribal leaders told a Christian pastor who said "a pipe cannot hear your prayers" to leave their reservation. The pastor said she's staying, and won't apologize for preaching from the Bible. 

The Northern Arapaho Tribe’s executive branch has asked a Christian church to leave the reservation, the tribe’s chair said Friday.

In response, Foundations for Nations pastor Sarah Lucas told Cowboy State Daily she and her family aren’t planning to leave yet. They’re looking to legal solutions to stay – and hoping for a “revival” in the meantime, Lucas said.

The church, which has operated in Fremont County for nine years, sits within the borders of the Wind River Indian Reservation, but it’s on a parcel of private, not tribal, land.

The controversy erupted eight days ago when Lucas discouraged some tribal faith practices during a church service, just as the tribe finished its Sundance ceremonies. She had said, “a pipe cannot hear your prayers,” and “we know that Jesus is enough.”

. Northern Arapaho Tribal members were furious at what they cast as an insult to their “grandfather pipe” – a revered relic associated with the Arapaho creation story.

Protests unfolded at the Riverton City Hall and at the Foundations for Nations church site in the town of Arapahoe.

“I want a public apology from them,” said Northern Arapaho Business Council Chair Keenan Groesbeck during a 

 last Tuesday. He stood in front of a yellow tape line that stretched across the church’s driveway. 

[{"type":"text","text":"He said Lucas’ message was disrespectful."}]

“If they don’t want to apologize to us, they can leave,” said Groesbeck. 

Protestors joined in a traditional chant as honks and whoops sounded from passing vehicles.

Lucas went to a meeting with tribal leaders Friday. She said the council allowed its “Four Old Men” elder group to join the meeting, and leaders discussed the importance of the pipe relic and told her to leave.

[{"type":"text","text":"Lucas described the meeting as unprofessional."}]

Northern Arapaho Tribal leaders have told a Christian church to leave the reservation after the pastor preached "a pipe cannot hear your prayers.'  The pastor said she's staying, and won't apologize for preaching that "Jesus is the only way."

One More For The Road: Wednesday, June 7, 2023

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