Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Let's go swimming with the dog!!!"}]

Smile 7 14 23

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

<title>Daily Smile: Friday, July 14, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Let's go swimming with the dog!!!

Daily Smile: Friday, July 14, 2023

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Government & Politics

A controversial flood mitigation effort that brought 150-200 goats to graze along Bitter Creek in Rock Springs is on hold, at least for now.

After spending about $200,000 over three grazing sessions since the spring of 2025, the Rock Springs City Council chose not to budget additional money for the project in the coming fiscal year, instead directing funding toward cemetery lighting.

"This will be the last we see goats, at least for the next fiscal year of operations," Councilman Dan Pedri told Cowboy State Daily.

The decision at least temporarily halts a program that has generated equal parts criticism and curiosity.

Some residents questioned whether taxpayers should spend tens of thousands of dollars to have goats eat weeds. Others regularly stopped to watch the herd quietly graze along Bitter Creek.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's a little source of entertainment,\" Pedri said."}]

During the latest grazing session, which began April 1 and ended June 30, the goats removed roughly 35 tons of vegetation, according to mayor Max Mickelson.

“This does not meet the creeks are ‘fixed',” he said. “It means one more piece of the long-term flood mitigation work was completed.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Different Approach"}]

Rock Springs has struggled with periodic flooding for decades, Mickelson said, dating to alterations made to the creek channel by the former Union Pacific Coal Company.

"The goal was simple," Mickelson said of the Bitter Creek project. "Reduce noxious weeds, brush and fuel load along the creek corridors so water can flow more freely, fire risk is reduced, and our intermittent creek system is in better condition before the next major storm event.

"Our broader work is about protecting homes, businesses, infrastructure and development opportunities from recurring floodplain impacts."

The city brought in goats in the spring of 2025 on a trial basis, paying a Cheyenne operation $50,000. Mickelson said the goats “performed better than expected.”

Council member Randy Hanson had asked the council to look into goats, pointing to other Wyoming communities such as Cheyenne and Gillette that were using them successfully for targeted grazing.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We aren’t pioneers of this process by any means,” Pedri said."}]

Farson land and livestock owner Josh Skorcz caught wind of the project “through the Rock Springs grapevine” and pitched himself as a local solution to the flood-risk problem.

[{"type":"text","text":"Skorcz was the only person who bid."}]

“I provide a service,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I saw an opportunity where we could supply a service to a local entity that needed it.”

In the fall of 2025, the city paid $58,000 to Skorcz’s LS 5 Livestock for eight weeks.

Then, in April, the Rock Springs City Council voted 6-2 to use goats for a third year for $92,000 – a 59% cost increase.

The increase was largely due to more acreage and longer duration, Skorcz said.

"The city did not pay $34,000 more for the same amount of work," Mickelson said. "The scope, timing, staffing and logistical burden increased in relation to the scope of the project."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Why Goats?"}]

Skorcz said goats can reach steep, brush-choked areas where heavy equipment struggles to operate, reducing vegetation that can create debris dams during high-water events.

[{"type":"text","text":"The work, however, is labor intensive."}]

Under the city's contract, the herd had to be supervised around the clock. Workers also installed and repeatedly moved roughly 10,000 feet of portable electric fencing by hand.

"We're trying to see that incremental decrease over time of the amount of noxious weeds and thick vegetation," Skorcz said. "You're always going to have vegetation, but the type is what's important."

Mickelson said alternatives such as mechanical removal, herbicides, prescribed burning or major construction each come with significant limitations, permitting requirements or environmental restrictions.

Despite reaching stated goals, the project’s growing price tag remained a sticking point.

Pedri and Councilman Rick Milonas – a vocal critic of Mickelson and a contender for this year’s mayoral seat – voted against approving this year's $92,000 contract, saying many constituents questioned the expense.

"That's why I opted not to do it," Pedri said. "My vote was based on the constituents that reached out to me and my promise to be the voice of the majority."

The cumulative cost — roughly $200,000 over three projects — has also become an issue in the mayoral race.

Candidate Katherine Phelps has repeatedly criticized the program on social media. She did not respond to Cowboy State Daily's request for comment.

[{"type":"text","text":"Pedri said the debate ultimately came down to competing priorities."}]

Like many cities, Rock Springs faces a limited budget while weighing other costly needs, including long-term repairs to its civic center.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Could The Goats Return?"}]

Although the goats won't return next year, Mickelson said the city is awaiting a vegetation study from LS 5 Livestock evaluating the project's effectiveness.

That report will help determine whether targeted grazing is included in future budgets after the 2027 fiscal year.

"We intend to make it an annual tool," Mickelson said, "based on council deciding to allocate funds for it."

[{"type":"text","text":"He acknowledged the program's cost can be difficult to justify."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Nobody likes spending $92,000,\" he said."}]

But he said he believes prevention is ultimately less expensive than recovering from flood damage.

"A community pays one way or another," Mickelson said. "We can pay in steady, boring maintenance before the storm, or we can pay in emergency response, damaged property and regret after it.

"I would much rather answer hard questions about prevention today than stand in front of flooded homes and explain why we didn't use a cost-effective tool we had available."

For now, the city will continue monitoring the Bitter Creek corridor. If conditions create an immediate flood or fire risk, Mickelson said, the council could consider a future budget amendment.

Hungry goats 1 7 6 26

<title>Rock Springs Ends Controversial Goat Grazing Program After Spending $200,000 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After spending about $200,000 in goat grazing for flood mitigation since 2025, the town of Rock Springs is putting an end to it for now. One council member said residents say it’s too expensive. "This will be the last we see goats,” he said.

Rock Springs Ends Controversial Goat Grazing Program After Spending $200,000

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

Public Safety

A Fourth of July fundraiser concert at a Gillette bar had ended, the music was over and patrons were beginning to head home when a firework exploded outside the entrance, blowing all the fingers off one man’s hand and injuring four other people.

"I tried to light a firework and throw it, it blew up instantly," Matthew Lynch said in a public apology he issued Monday about the mishap. "People got hurt and I feel like total shit for it.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I’m sorry for being wreckless (sic) and injuring anyone.\""}]

The explosion happened around midnight early Saturday outside the Otherside Bar & Grill, where a concert raising money for a reproductive health clinic had wrapped up about 30 minutes earlier.

"I almost bled out and got life flighted to Billings,” Lynch wrote in his apology posted to Facebook. "I'm gonna be fine. I'm back home. I'm positive and feel OK, other than immense pain."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bleeding Profusely"}]

Otherside Bar & Grill owner Chris Ingersoll described the scene to Cowboy State Daily on Monday.

"There was a gentleman with an arm injury bleeding profusely,” he said.

Ingersoll said someone — possibly one of his bartenders — applied a tourniquet before first responders arrived. 

Police officers were only about a block away and reached the scene within minutes to begin rendering aid, he said.

Ingersoll said he believes a man who had come over from another nearby bar ignited what appeared to be a large firecracker near the front entrance.

Surveillance cameras captured the incident, and the video has been turned over to investigators, he said.

Lynch also wrote that he lost all the fingers on his right hand, shattered the bones in his left hand, suffered burns, hearing damage and partial blindness.

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

Gillette Police Department Interim Chief Brent Wasson said the incident remains under investigation and no tickets or arrests have been made.

He also pushed back on early reports that the firework had been "launched" from the man's hand.

"There were no launching of fireworks," Wasson told Cowboy State Daily, cautioning against relying on initial reports while investigators continue determining exactly what happened.

[{"type":"text","text":"Whether alcohol played a role remains unknown, he said."}]

According to Wasson, the person who was handling the firework suffered the most serious injuries and was transported by ambulance to the emergency room at Campbell County Health.

Two additional people were taken by ambulance but declined treatment at the hospital, while two others refused transport at the scene.

Ingersoll said he believed the man who was holding the explosive was out of the hospital and back in Gillette, which Lynch confirmed.

[{"type":"text","text":"Messages left for Lynch weren’t returned by publication."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Explosion, Not Fire"}]

Campbell County Fire Department Battalion Chief Cam Siplon said firefighters were dispatched to the bar for a report of an explosion.

By the time crews arrived, the Gillette Police Department and EMS personnel were already treating patients, he said. Firefighters found no fire or smoke, only a crowd gathered in the parking lot.

Based on the severity of the injuries, Siplon said he would expect the firework was something larger than a typical firecracker, although he emphasized that was not an official determination.

He also could not confirm who applied the tourniquet because EMS had already begun treating the injured man when firefighters arrived.

Siplon urged people to leave fireworks to professionals, noting that serious injuries are more common than many people realize.

"Our best bet is that fireworks should be left to the professionals," he said. "They tend to be better anyway, and not as many people get hurt that way.”

Otherside bar and grill gillette 7 6 26

<title>Gillette Man Blows Fingers Off Hand With Firework Outside Bar, Four Others Hurt | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A man blew the fingers off his hand and injured four other people outside a Gillette bar around midnight Saturday. In a public apology, the man, who was life-flighted to Billings, said he tried to throw the firework "but it blew up instantly."

Gillette Man Blows Fingers Off Hand With Firework Outside Bar, Four Others Hurt

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Cody resident and photographer Laura Redmond had her camera ready for the 2026 Cody Fireworks show. It didn’t disappoint.

A fast-spreading fire that burned throughout the fireworks show proved just as entertaining.

“I was near “The Scout” statue behind the Buffalo Bill Center of the West,” Redmond said. “As soon as the fireworks started, tiny spots immediately started, then more started, and they all merged together.”

The fire sparked by the first fireworks grew throughout the show. By the end, the rockets’ red glare was replaced by an eerie orange glow on the overhanging clouds of smoke.

Redmond and other locals weren’t concerned. International visitors who came to see the fireworks were deeply concerned, she said.

“We all assured them that it happens every year,” Redmond said. “Everybody settled down and watched the firemen do their work. Some people were there watching the firefighters longer for that than they were for watching the fireworks.”

The entire fire was extinguished that night by the Cody Volunteer Fire Department. 

[{"type":"text","text":"There was only one downside for Redmond."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“The flames blew out all my photos,” she said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"American As Apple Pie"}]

Cody wasn’t the only Wyoming community to set itself on fire with fireworks.

Thermopolis’ show also started a small blaze near the fireworks launch site on top of T-Hill, visible to everyone watching the show in the town and parks below.

The Thermopolis Volunteer Fire Department assured residents they had the situation under control after "a fire started by some of the best fireworks (they'd) ever seen." Cowboy State Daily was unable to reach the department for comment by the time of publication. 

Thermopolis Fire Chief Dale Andreen said that it’s “pretty common to get a fire from fireworks. That’s a big reason fireworks are banned everywhere and are outlawed the rest of the year, too.”

He said the fire that started near the town’s launch site Friday wasn’t much at all.

“Just a small patch, just six or eight juniper trees and some sagebrush,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Monday. “Wouldn’t have been about a 10th of an acre, I would say."

Thermopolis resident Debra Davenport was watching the fireworks show from her driveway. She was getting ready to call it a night when the grand finale sparked the fire around 11 p.m.

“They set off a really big sequence that set off the fire right below where they were launched,” Davenport said. “I know they had a lot more fireworks than they usually do.”

Davenport said the fireworks were more widespread across the top of T-Hill, clearly for a larger-than-average show to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It was a lot more than normal,” she said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Banned Or Burned"}]

Douglas, Gillette, Riverton and other communities took proactive measures to prevent fireworks fires. They banned private fireworks and/or canceled their annual shows due to excessively dry landscapes and extreme fire danger.

Meanwhile, small fires were spotted throughout Wyoming leading up to Independence Day and were still burning when the fireworks started.

A section of Pine Bluffs was set on fire before any fireworks started. Meanwhile, a grassfire quickly engulfed a hillside behind the Studio City Mesa movie theater in Casper, threatening several homes.

“Quite frankly, I was surprised there weren't more bans over this holiday weekend,” Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day said. “For as dry as it’s been since last fall, there was a very high chance that any fireworks were going to set something off.”

However, Day is never surprised to hear about fireworks fires around Independence Day. By this point in the summer, it’s usually dry enough for a small thing to spark a potential inferno.

“Fireworks burn so hot that there's always that concern,” he said. “The last time I wasn’t concerned about the fire risk was in 2023. I know it seems like that never happened, but that was one of the wettest years on record.”

Redmond was expecting some flames from Cody’s fireworks. The Cody Volunteer Fire Department expected the same.

“It happens almost every year,” she said. “I feel like the Cody Fire Department is one of the best out there. They had spotters on both sides of the Shoshone River and plenty of personnel in place to make sure everyone stayed safe. They know what they're doing, and they were very prepared for it.”

Davenport, however, had a different view of the spectacle and the fireworks fire in Thermopolis.

“Everyone was concerned about starting a fire before the show, and after so many people in Colorado and Utah have lost everything because of fires, I felt sad and a little disrespectful.”

More than 55 fireworks shows in Colorado were canceled due to fire danger. Utah governor Spencer Cox issued an executive order temporarily banning fireworks statewide in late June, calling it “a matter of life and death.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Worse Before It Gets Better"}]

Now that bombs aren’t bursting in air, one might think the worst fire danger of the season has come and gone. They’d be wrong.

Day and other meteorologists are monitoring “an interesting paradox” that could make July a dynamic month across the western U.S.

“We're going to have really big heat waves, especially in the eastern and northeastern parts of the state, starting this weekend,” Day said. “We're going to be seeing triple digits in the Bighorn Basin, northeastern plains, and out near the Nebraska border.”

It might seem counterintuitive to think triple-digit temperatures could bring a windfall of rain to Wyoming and many other western states. That’s what seems poised to happen, at least potentially, in the latter half of July, Day said.

“This is the paradox,” he said. “The heat wave that's going to develop may ultimately be the kicker, the thing that tips the scale to finally get some subtropical moisture back into the western United States.”

Day said the heat wave will result from a high-pressure ridge moving into the central U.S. That could increase the chances of precipitation across all of Wyoming and beyond.

According to Day, nothing’s guaranteed, but extremely high temperatures in Wyoming could create the exact conditions needed for more moisture.

“When you build the heat in the plains, you pump subtropical moisture out of Mexico and Central America farther north and into the west,” he said. “We may have to go through four or five days of really hot temperatures and very little rain before the better rain chances come in.”

While the heatwave is coming, it’s too distant to say whether it’ll be enough to pump moisture to Wyoming. Regardless, one will only follow the other.

“It's going to get worse before it gets better, but part of it getting worse is going to help initiate the type of pattern we've been waiting for,” Day said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Simple Sparks"}]

One reason Redmond wasn’t concerned about a serious fireworks fire was the staging area. Cody launches its fireworks on the north bank of the Shoshone River, opposite the Cody Stampede Rodeo grounds, in a spot that naturally stops any spread.

“The river is their break on one side, and a road is the break on the other side,” she said. “They only have to watch it from two sides. It was just a very pleasant evening, and they did a good job putting the fireworks on the fires out.”

July and August are usually the worst of Wyoming’s fire season. The real hazards are everyday occurrences, not a weekend of intense pyrotechnics.

“In these circumstances, simple things start fires,” Day said. “It’s a hot muffler on a four-wheeler off-roading for the weekend. It’s a chainsaw cutting firewood. It’s dragging chains behind a trailer and throwing a cigarette butt out the window. Things get started so easily.”

Day didn’t want to “jinx anything,” but his outlook on wetter weather in the second half of July was “more optimistic than I have been this summer, so far.”

“The pattern shows the potential for more frequent chances of thunderstorms that produce that rain that we want,” he said. “That could really help us in the second half of July into the month of August. We might finally see something go our way for a change.”

Fourth fires composite 7 6 26

<title>Fires Break Out In At Least Two Wyoming Towns During July 4 Firework Shows | Cowboy State Daily</title>

At least two Wyoming cities got bonus shows for July 4 when fireworks started wildfires near launch sites. In both Cody and Thermopolis fires began during the shows but citizens weren't concerned. "It happens every year," Cody resident Laura Redmond said.

Fires Break Out In At Least Two Wyoming Towns During July 4 Firework Shows

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’

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

Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

On America’s 250th, Dubois did something few towns in America can do — fielding a parade with more than two dozen military tanks and vehicles spanning 80 years of U.S. history. "It’s the most unique parade in America,” said one patriotic-feeling parade-goer.

Daily Smile: Friday, July 14, 2023

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