Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Many people are unaware that pikas are excellent singers..."}]

Smile 9 13 23

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

<title>Daily Smile: Wednesday, September 13, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Many people are unaware that pikas are excellent singers...

Daily Smile: Wednesday, September 13, 2023

 Many people are unaware that pikas are excellent singers...

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wyoming Life

When Harry Webb left his job at the Embar Ranch in Wyoming to ride broncs with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, he was making $60 a month.

Then a movie production company offered to more than double his pay, impressed with how tough Wyoming cowboys can be after a bar fight between two others in the show.

“Had it not been for Smoky Warner getting in a fight one night in 1911 and kicking an ear off his opponent, it’s a mortal cinch I wouldn’t have become a movie star,” Webb wrote in his memoirs, now at the American Heritage Center and republished in “The M Bar and Other Firsthand Stories of the West.”

Smokey Warner and Walt Cane, both cowboys from Chugwater, had gotten in a fight in Philadelphia, and Buffalo Bill immediately fired them from his show because fighting was not allowed.

“Not hearing from them for some time, we supposed they were bumming their way back to Wyoming, but when we pulled onto the lot in Philadelphia, lo and behold, Smoky and Walt were there to greet us,” said Webb.

The cowboys had landed jobs at Siegmund Lubin’s motion picture studios, and the next day were needed for a Western picture. 

Lubin had founded the Lubin Manufacturing Co., in Philadelphia that, from 1895 to just before its collapse in 1916, grew to be one of the largest motion picture production companies in the world, according to the Philadelphia Area Archives.

Unfortunately for Cane, he got into an argument over a saddle with his former co-workers at the Buffalo Bill Show. This resulted in Cane pulling a knife, thrown into jail and ultimately being kicked out of the state.

Webb was then offered Cane’s job instead, and even though he “knew no more about moviemaking than a hog did about a white shirt,” he accepted the job from one of Lubin’s eight directors, Joe Smiley.

“There were seven of us ‘cowboys' in Smiley’s company, although Smoky Warner and I were the only two who could tell a cow from a haystack,” Webb said.

It was 1912, and Webb was now a wrangler and stuntman for the newfangled silver screen.

By the time of his death on July 16, 1984, he was the last of Buffalo Bill’s bronc riders.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Canoe Chase"}]

Webb’s first role was that of a “redskin,” according to the book. He was put into a canoe to track down a "low-down white scoundrel" who had kidnapped a beautiful Indian maiden.

“I had spent years around the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes in Wyoming, but they were a far war whoop from this picture tribe who used bark canoes instead of travois,” Webb wrote.

The movie was shot in sequences rather than following the story chronologically so that Webb quickly became confused about the plot. 

[{"type":"text","text":"He did, however, remember vividly his first big scene. "}]

He played an expert tracker in search of the stolen maiden. Webb was to follow the villain in a gayly painted canoe.

“I wondered how I was to follow the villain’s footprints over water, but movie scripts call for such legerdemain (deftness) so I off I started,” Webb said.

[{"type":"text","text":"However, Webb couldn’t even get into the canoe without upsetting it. "}]

Smiley stopped the filming to show Webb how to properly board the thing — and suddenly Smiley slipped off a rock into the river.

Webb was horrified as he fished out his new boss and was sure he had just lost the job. Instead, Smiley changed clothes and filming resumed.

Over the next three years from 1912-1915, Webb discovered life on the set was much more dangerous than wrangling cattle in Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Blowout"}]

Many of the films that Webb worked on were faux Westerns that didn’t resemble the West Webb knew, and occasionally Smiley would venture into modern genres. 

Webb recalled a particular scene of a wild auto chase. A rear tire was to be hit by a bullet, which would send the auto careening over a 200-foot cliff.

To stimulate the blowout, the rear wheel was jacked up and spinning. The camera was moved in as close as possible. 

When everything was ready, Smiley directed Webb to lie on his stomach between the legs of the camera tripod and put a .45-caliber slug in the tire. The scene worked well for the camera but spelled disaster for Webb.

“The camera didn’t record what the sudden escape of the 70-pound air pressure did to the shooter,” Webb said. “It all but blew my eyes out and all scenes were halted while I was rushed to a doctor.”

On the same film just a week later, the crew was enacting the final climatic scene of the car chase at an abandoned stone quarry. The car was to tumble down the cliff and land with a spectacular explosion.

Webb described how the rigged car was blocked just out of view of two cameras placed far below and across the deep lake that had formed in the quarry.

Two sticks of dynamite and a can of powder had been placed in the engine. Wires led 100 feet away to a battery that was manned by a powder expert.

Smiley was to lift a flag to signal to Webb and Warney to release the blocks and shove the car over the cliff with its dummy driver. 

A second flag was the signal for the battery man to denote the dynamite. The eager battery man mixed up the signal and the car exploded at the first flag.

“Pieces of the car and paper maché dummies were scattered over half an acre, to say nothing of sending Smoky and me to a hospital,” Webb said.

[{"type":"text","text":"The movie was abandoned after that."}]

Webb said that Lubin was a stickler for realism but not at the expense of blowing up his cowboys. 

The $10,000 ($325,000 in today’s currency) that was lost on this one film was nothing in Lubin’s overall budget since he was cranking out a staggering six movies a week and making more money than he could keep track of.  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Trick Horse"}]

Toward the end of his time with Lubin, Webb was involved with training horses for the film “Battle of Shilo” which involved up to 5,000 actors in just one scene. It cost $1.5 million to film, according to Webb.

Webb was given the part of a dispatch carrier who was shot off his running horse by a sniper. 

When Lubin realized that Webb’s horse, Babe, was a natural clown trained to do tricks, he wrote a special scene for the pair.

“Babe would rather lie down than stay on his feet,” Webb said. “I had also taught him to take a canteen in his mouth to a water trough, submerge it and bring it to me.”

When Webb was “mortally wounded,” Babe stopped, came back and laid down beside Webb.

“I crawled belly down across the saddle and was whisked to my general’s tent dead, but with the important message,” Webb said. “Yet, this emotional scene later turned into howls of laughter.

“Where the camera picked up my rear end, it was discovered that my pants and drawers had been torn, showing bare skin.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"California Ho"}]

Another serious picture Webb made at the Betzwood Studios with hilarious outtakes was about a caravan of California-bound gold-seekers. 

They had reached the desert in dire circumstances and carcasses of their starved stock were lying about.

The “desert” had been created on a 200-acre newly plowed cornfield where tons of lime fertilizer had been spread. Imitation bushes were planted about and an artist crew had painted a long, snowcapped range that the desperate gold-seekers were headed to.

Yoked to Webb’s Conestoga wagon were six overly fat oxen. A Jersey cow was tied behind the wagon and his stage family was perched on high seats in the wagon. 

Two cameras were stationed to catch the long string of wagons from different angles.

“I, ragged and weary, was plodding alongside my oxen when a footman, just ahead, flushed a planted rabbit from a planted bush,” Webb said.

The explosion of the actor’s blunderbuss downed the rabbit but also stampeded Webb’s oxen.

“Whoa, Buck! Whoa, Paint!” Webb said he shouted as he tried to keep up.

The Conestoga's wheels threw a wide circle of dust and the Jersey was dragged on her side. Webb’s on-screen family was screaming at him to “stop those silly, bellowing cows!”

As the runaway disappeared over the horizon, Webb said that a whiskered Jayhawker with a perverted sense of humor yelled, “California, here we come!”

Fortunately, no one was killed, but before those oxen left the Conestoga wrapped around a stone gate-post, Webb said that the cameras had recorded some exciting footage.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wild Man Antics"}]

Another of Lubin’s directors, Author Hotaling, borrowed Webb and another cowboy named Billy Lewis for a comedy he was filming about a wild man who had escaped from his circus cage. 

Lewis played the wild man, wearing just a breech-clout, and Webb was one of the farmers hunting him down for the reward.

Lewis had eluded the farmers by leaping to the tops of tall trees. For these scenes, Webb explained, the film was cranked in reverse and the wild man would jump backward from a tree, beating anything that Tarzan ever did.  

“Finally, I, a bushy-whiskered farmer, discovered our wild man hiding in a corn shock and the chase was on with the Wild Man’s leopard breech-clout flaring out behind,” Webb said.

Webb chased the wild man across a meadow and through a pond. Webb was about to pitchfork Lewis when several dozen big geese joined the chase

“Some sunk their beaks in Billy’s breech-clout and were bounced along behind as others beat him with their wings and chewed his legs,” Webb said. “Billy was yelling for help and when I lit in on the fighting, honking horde with my pitchfork I was knocked down and we were both being mauled, bitten and all but smothered under a ton of infuriated squawkers.”

The real farmer and his three dogs finally put the geese to flight. Lewis was so battered, he was hurried to a hospital and Webb said he wasn’t much better off.

“My bib-overalls and shirt were in shreds and my face couldn’t have looked worse had it been kicked by a sharp-shod mule,” Webb said. “As for Hotaling and his cameraman, they were jubilant over catching the funniest scene they had ever filmed.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Final Act"}]

In early 1915, Webb quit Lubin’s company to do a Vaudeville roping act, but was summoned for one last performance on the silver screen.   

Webb was waiting at the Pennsylvania Railroad Station near the

when Smiley called him over from a nearby outdoor set. 

Smiley was filming a shootout between a sheriff and an outlaw who had barricaded himself behind a trunk in a hotel room. Smiley wanted the scene to look realistic and recruited Webb to help since he didn’t trust his sheriff to make the shot.

"Here, take this six-shooter, and when you see splinters fly off that door you shoot back, but shoot a little high," Smiley said.

One camera showed the outlaw crouched and shooting over a trunk as Webb’s shots sent wood splinters flying over his head, while a second camera caught the outlaw's leaden damage on Webb’s side.

“I had put four .45 slugs through the door when a cry from the other side fetched me running,” Webb said.

[{"type":"text","text":"The actor lay on the floor yelling, \"I'm shot, I'm shot!\""}]

His head and face were blanketed with blood, and Webb thought a bullet had ricocheted and struck him in the head. 

Instead, Webb’s last shot had smashed a heavy mirror and a big chunk of thick glass had dropped 6 feet and nearly scalped the outlaw.

"Did you get that scene, Mac?" Smiley asked, ignoring the yelling actor.

"I sure as hell did," the cameraman said. "That's our punch

scene. Now we're making pictures an audience will remember overnight."

As he said his final goodbyes to Smiley and the rest of the crew at Lubin’s studios, Webb wrote that he was proud to be part of the films that would “wring tears from a rhinoceros” and were breaking box office records around the world.

Fewer than 200 Lubin films are known to survive. Most of the movies Harry Webb appeared in were most likely lost in a film explosion in 1914.

“I could now lay claim to being a movie actor even though in most scenes my back was more prominent than my face,” Webb said.

“In my last great scene, fate would have me a sharpshooter, yet as invisible as the Pennsylvania air, which seemed a poor climax to my movie career, as the next day Bill Arthur and I were off on our new adventure and four months later I was back in Wyoming where fantasy was replaced by good old reality,” he wrote.

Hollywood cowboy 1 Harry Webb 7 18 26

<title>Wyoming History: Silent Film ​Stuntman Got Start In Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Wyoming cowboy learned life was more dangerous on movie sets in the early 1900s than riding broncs for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Harry Webb recounted how he barely survived his career as a stuntman for silent Westerns.

Wyoming History: Silent Film ​Stuntman Got Start In Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show

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

Renée Jean

Outdoors

Public Lands

Up until this past May, much of Hell’s Half Acre had been fenced off behind “No Trespassing” signs for roughly two decades, doing little to take advantage of an attraction that is so alien and surreal it once was the scene of another planet in the cult classic 1997 science fiction film “Starship Troopers.”

, which added a new viewing platform, boardwalk, and other improvements, county geolocation data for May and June show visitation running about 30% higher than before the upgrades. 

The facelift helped set the stage for what Visit Casper says is a first — 

 in National Geographic magazine touting the city and it’s nearby alien landscape as a vacation destination. 

The feature story highlighted the 320-acre badlands as an intriguing travel stop on the way to Yellowstone, then went on to describe Casper as a convenient overnight or weekend base for adventure. 

Independence Rock, Casper Mountain, and the area’s blue-ribbon fishery were among activities highlighted in the article.

It’s another notch in the tourism belt for Casper, which has been working hard to position the city as more than just a quick fuel-and-food stop on the way to Yellowstone. 

“Boy, they really packed it all in,” Visit Casper CEO Annette Pitts told Cowboy State Daily after hearing what was in the story. “We had a lot of conversations, but I did not expect they’d actually include all of it. 

"That’s fantastic. This is a real win, and we’re thrilled.”

Casper’s Growing List Of Travel Accolades

National Geographic’s article is not the first time in recent history that Casper has earned unexpected travel accolades. 

 as a “breathtaking Western region” over pricey Jackson Hole. Other cities making that short list were Colorado, Branson in Missouri, and Greater Palm Springs in California.

The article cast Casper as an “authentic Western experience minus the crowds of Jackson Hole and Yellowstone National Park” with activities like hiking, kayaking and fly-fishing in a stunning mountain landscape.

While Casper doesn’t try to portray itself as another Jackson Hole, nor as an alternative destination, Pitts said she believes Casper has a lot to offer vacationing tourists seeking an affordable alternative in the Cowboy State.

“There are a lot of incredible things to do in the Casper area,” she said. “Hell’s Half Acre really should be part of an overall itinerary. It’s incredible. You can drive out there, have a picnic, and enjoy time with family or friends. 

"I definitely encourage that. But you don’t want to drive for just one thing. You want to have a nice, rounded experience.”

The stories by Good Housekeeping and National Geographic aren't accidents, Visit Casper’s Tia Troy told Cowboy State Daily. She has been actively pitching ideas to national media, trying to get people to look beyond Jackson Hole.

Hell’s Half Acre is an Eocene-age Wind River Formation shaped over millions of years into hoodoos, gullies, and sheer cliffs. 

Fossils of early horses, primates, and other mammals have helped tell a story of a once subtropical Wyoming with trees and crocodiles.

The site was part of a 960-acre tract of land donated to Natrona County from the federal government in 1942. About 320 acres of the site are an exposed Wind River Formation with deep ravines, caves, and wind-shaped earth and rock.

That badlands appearance is what attracted Starship Troopers to choose it as t

he set for the fictional alien world Klendathu

But the area was attracting human attention long before that. Archeological evidence suggests indigenous peoples were using the rim at the site as a buffalo jump and hunting ground dating back thousands of years.

Europeans who settled the area called it various things, like Devil’s Kitchen, the Pits of Hades, and the Baby Grand Canyon. 

Legend has it that a cowhand showed up one day and, looking at the alkali and bogs and rough badlands terrain before him, declared that he had just found Hell’s Half Acre. 

It’s not the only legend about how the place got its name. Another says that the name was a mistake in an advertising campaign to bring more tourists to the roadside attraction.

Thousands of postcards were ordered with “Devil’s Kitchen” on them, but when the postcards arrived, they instead said “Hell’s Half Acre.”

With limited funding available for the effort, the group decided to keep the postcards, and the name stuck.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Future Geotourism Hub"}]

Once upon a time, Hell’s Half Acre brought upwards of $4 million to the Natrona County area from tourism.

With the popularity of film trails, it’s thought the area could once again drive significant tourism revenue to Natrona County. 

Visit Casper’s film liaison Kelly Eastes has told Cowboy State Daily the site has already been added to various apps that help road trippers find film locations.

There’s also talk of creating geotourism opportunities, including guided tours to the bottom of Hell’s Half Acre.

The site with its soft mudstones and silt built up over millions of years is ever-changing. Wind and rain and time are forever shaving away the surface sculpting things anew.

Existing caves and pinnacles thus disappear in time and then new features are revealed — an endlessly fascinating world that never runs out of new secrets and stories to tell.

Hells Half Acre via Alamy

<title>National Geographic Profiles Wyoming’s Famous Hell’s Half Acre | Cowboy State Daily</title>

National Geographic has raised the profile of Wyoming’s famous Hell’s Half Acre by featuring the alien landscape in its latest issue. It comes at a time when much of Hell’s Half Acre that had been inaccessible to the public for roughly 20 years is open again.

National Geographic Profiles Wyoming’s Famous Hell’s Half Acre

Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"Turns out, that plank was there for a reason...."}]

Darwin no play 7 19 26

<title>Daily Darwin: Sunday, July 19, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Turns out, that plank was there for a reason....

Daily Darwin: Sunday, July 19, 2026

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

Andrew Rossi

CODY — Chloe ODonnell, 7, almost had no one to celebrate her birthday with her when 15 invitees to her party canceled. 

With one message, Cody rallied last weekend to ensure the little girl and her family knew the community has their backs.

After all the invited guests canceled, Chloe’s mother Melanie turned to Facebook to see if anyone would be willing to swing by and celebrate with them. 

 150 people reached out within 15 minutes.

“We just wanted her to feel like she had a group of people there to have fun with her,” Melanie told Cowboy State Daily. “It blew me away that so many people just showed up or wished her a happy birthday. They made Chloe feel so loved.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"None Of 15 Invitees Came"}]

 birthday party in Cody’s Mentock Park. Around 15 people, mostly new friends in the neighborhood, had been invited.

When Sunday turned into the hottest day of the summer, with temperatures in Cody over 100 degrees, the party was relocated to Millstone Pizza Company & Brewery.

That’s when the cancellations started coming in. Everything from heat-related concerns to, in one case, a death in the family.

“When the last kid finally said that they weren't coming, we had already set up at Millstone,” Melanie said. “Our decorations were out, I’d bought this big cake, and we were all sitting in the downstairs arcade center by ourselves.”

Melanie and her four kids are new to Cody, having moved there in January. They’re still trying to establish themselves in their new home, but that’s especially difficult for Chloe.

“She has some developmental struggles and doesn’t make friends easily,” Melanie said. “She hasn’t made a lot of friends yet, and I so badly wanted her to have a great day.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"They Came Bearing Gifts"}]

Desperate to give her daughter a happy birthday, Chloe turned to Cody Area Classifieds on Facebook. She asked if anyone with young kids wanted to come hang out in Millstone with Chloe and her siblings.

Within 15 minutes, multiple families RSVPed that they were on their way. And they came prepared.

“They arrived with gifts for her,” Melanie said. “People offered to drop off gifts for her, which I told them wasn’t necessary. It was really heart-warming.”

Melanie said responders expressed their desire to attend or send a gift so Chloe wouldn’t feel alone.

“A man from Red Lodge, Montana, messaged me and said, ‘I obviously cannot come down, but I have grandkids,’ and that really touched me,” she said.

The man sent Melanie $25 via Venmo so she could get Chloe a birthday gift.

However, one of the most touching displays of kindness came from a child who arrived for the party, Melanie said. He came with a gift that came from the heart.

“One little boy actually shopped in his room for something she might like and put it in a gift bag for her,” Melanie said. “He gave one of his own items to her. It was very sweet.”

The birthday party turned into a networking event. Many new bonds were forged, and phone numbers exchanged.

Meanwhile, dozens of people sent messages wishing Chloe the best on her birthday.

In a moment of desperation, Melanie found an overwhelming wave of friendship for Chloe and her entire family in Cody.

“The people who showed up were complete strangers, but they all acted as if they had always known each other,” she said. “The children were so sweet and well behaved. Chloe had an amazing time.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Old And New Roots"}]

Melanie said the last three years have been “so rough” for Chloe and her three siblings. In that time, Melanie got divorced, remarried, then lost her mother and both grandmothers.

Melanie’s new husband, “my high school sweetheart,” had been working in Cody for over a decade. The whole 

 family has been there for less than a year, but it already feels like a loving home.

“I’ve learned this town shows up for people,” she said. “We came from a larger city, and this is the kind of thing that would never have happened there.”

What Melanie didn’t realize until recently is that she wasn’t establishing new roots in Cody. She was rediscovering old ones.

“My grandfather told me that our family lived in Cody at one point,” she said. “My great-grandmother actually lived here in the early 1900s and moved back to the East Coast in the 1920s. I didn’t know about that connection until my second or third visit.”

In that sense, the birthday party was like a family reunion. More than anything, Melanie’s happy she got to give Chloe a memorable birthday and better bonds in her new home.

“She started making friends really fast,” she said. “It was a beautiful moment of a small town supporting each other. They are amazing, and we love this town.”

Chloe O Donnell IMG 8932 7 18 26

<title>Hooray! Cody Residents Rally When No One Shows Up For 7-Year-Old's Birthday Party | Cowboy State Daily</title>

When no one showed up for a Cody girl's 7th birthday party, her mom went to Facebook to see if anyone would swing by. That's when the town of Cody rallied. More than 150 people stopped by the local pizza place to wish Chloe O'Donnell a happy birthday.

Hooray! Cody Residents Rally When No One Shows Up For 7-Year-Old's Birthday Party

Wildlife

 in the Bridge Bay Campground in Yellowstone National Park, several people rushed and yelled at the angry animal to prevent it from attacking the 65-year-old grandpa again.

Their efforts were successful, sending the bison running. As far as the world could see, that was the end of the incident.

Joshua Lewis of Colorado Springs encountered the belligerent bull bison at the same campground moments after it tossed McDaniel and ran off. He said that the incident was “only the beginning of the bison’s rage.”

“I noticed how fast everybody jumped on and started retelling the story and what happened afterward, but there was a lot more that happened after the fact,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “Nobody’s aware of what happened after Round One.”

On the evening of July 10, Lewis was camping in spot E-243 on the E-Loop at Bridge Bay Campground. He was there with his cousin and her son from Switzerland.

 coming from the D-Loop, he assumed it was “a bunch of guys getting or about to get drunk.”

“We heard the yelling and thought it was drunks having a brawl,” he said. “No one yelled ‘bison’ that we heard, just adults yelling ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ and ‘Stop.’ Not even a scream of terror.”

What Lewis was actually hearing was photographer Mike MacLeod and others charging and yelling at the bull bison that had just tossed Mike’s grandfather Carl into the air.

 to prevent it from harming the older man any further.

After an agitated bison flipped a 65-year-old man in Yellowstone last weekend, it charged after another group of campers. The first incident was “only the beginning of the bison’s rage," said a Colorado man who said the bison targeted a 12-year-old.

Daily Smile: Wednesday, September 13, 2023

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