One More For The Road

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<title>One More For The Road: Thursday, October 12, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

One More For The Road: Thursday, October 12, 2023

 The good news about the new garbage pick-up service is they are much quicker...

Anna-Louise Jackson

Tourism

 Following the directions from the Interstate 94 exit to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, you might wonder if you’ve missed North Dakota’s new tourist destination, so seamlessly does the building blend into the prairie.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"That’s exactly the point. "}]

The architects who designed the library, which opened lasrt month, want visitors to draw as much inspiration from the exhibits inside the 95,000-square-foot modern marvel as they do from taking in the vast sweep of landscape outside.

And on a recent visit, it seemed that vision had been realized. 

While library visitors spanning all ages could be found crowding around the library’s many high-tech interactive elements, they also took time to relax in a rocking chair or trek up to the library’s roof to enjoy a 360-degree view of the 93-acre site. 

But be forewarned: The library is quickly becoming a popular tourist attraction, so you might want to book tickets ($26 adults) online in advance. 

In the first few weeks, 40,000 visitors flocked to the library, its executive director said.

While tickets are still available for most days in August, the website cautions that it’s the busiest month in Medora. 

“The Library expects to reach maximum capacity on many days and walk-up tickets may not be available,” according to a notice on the website.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Why North Dakota"}]

Word about the new library has spread, thanks partly to a pre-opening visit from President Donald Trump and a healthy dose of media coverage.

There’s also a novelty factor: Unlike most presidential libraries, where planning begins shortly after the president has left office, this one only started to take shape about six years ago and more than 100 years after Roosevelt’s death.

Though Roosevelt hailed from New York, the library’s planners chose North Dakota because of the significance it 

 held for the 26th president. After the death of his wife and mother on the same day in 1884, he retreated to the then-territory, where he owned the Elkhorn Ranch on the banks of the Little Missouri River.

In 2020, planners launched a competition for architects and unanimously selected a design inspired by a leaf atop two pebbles that was the brainchild of Craig Dykers, the library’s lead architect and co-founder of Snøhetta, a Norwegian architectural firm. 

In addition to the building’s design, Dykers wanted to give visitors a variety of opportunities — from a kidney-shaped boardwalk loop through the grasses next to the library to its living roof — to appreciate the uniqueness of the Badlands.

But as anyone who has visited this part of the West before can appreciate, the summer heat can be relentless, especially with little shade covering.

If you’re visiting this summer, you might want to opt for a morning entry and budget time to explore the boardwalk and roof when it's still relatively cool. The temperature can easily top 100 degrees.

The designers were well aware of how harsh this landscape can be, though, and planned for ways to provide visitors respite from the elements.

Most of the parking spots are shaded by a solar-paneled roof, which means your vehicle won’t be roasting in the sun all day. Many outdoor seating areas are shaded and the corridor that serves as the library’s main entrance is entirely under cover.

That shade was helpful because there was a long queue and about a 20-minute wait to bypass security and actually enter the exhibit.

At check-in, you’ll be handed an interactive RFID-enabled wristband and have the option to personalize your visit by registering basic information on an electronic kiosk and taking a photo, all of which come in handy for unlocking the exhibit’s many interactive elements.

As the gal greeting visitors said over and over: “You don’t have to do it, but I highly, highly recommend you do.” 

The library might well rank among the country's most technically advanced, and some of those elements work better than others for learning about the legacy of this one-of-a-kind dynamo.

The exhibit more or less winds you through Roosevelt’s life chronologically, though a central exhibit hall you’ll return to frequently can be trying to get through. 

After check-in, you’ll be greeted by the voice of actor Nick Offerman, who is heavily featured in the exhibit and invites you into the Roosevelt home, where the future president overcame a challenging and asthma-afflicted childhood.

From there, you’ll see the future conservationist's budding fascination with animals and nature take shape, navigate eccentric obsession with taxidermy in college, his falling in love and enduring a double whammy tragedy that forever shaped his life.

One of the exhibit’s most poignant moments is a dark room that holds only Roosevelt’s diary, opened to the page where, on Feb. 14, 1884, he marked the page with a large X and wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”

That diary is one of relatively few original items on display; most others are replicas. That’s owing to many of his belongings being displayed elsewhere, namely at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site in New York City and Sagamore Hill National Historic Site on New York’s Long Island.

But the items don’t have to be real to get a real sense of what shaped this man.

You can step inside a replica of his log cabin in North Dakota, sit around a campfire as cowboys joke about the “dandy,” head into battle with the Rough Riders in Cuba, track his political rise and fall, experience the shenanigans of the Roosevelt children during their years in the White House, tag along for his near-deadly post-presidential expeditions, and stand in the family’s summer home when more tragedy strikes and word goes out that “the old lion is dead.”

All throughout, there are display cases to pore over that contextualize Roosevelt’s sometimes-complicated legacy, tap your wristband to generate a photo of what you might have looked like during one of Roosevelt’s many eras, and you can even ask the late president a question of your choosing, which he’ll answer thanks to the magic of AI.

A young visitor asked AI. "Teddy how many countries existed" when he was president and, after a long delay, he offered a thoughtful response.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Keep an Open Mind"}]

Along with Offerman, you’ll hear a number of familiar voices throughout the exhibit, including George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Garth Brooks, Oprah Winfrey, José Andrés, and Doris Kearns Goodwin, who each take their own spin on reading Roosevelt’s famous 1910 “Man in the Arena” speech.

But one thing that’s surprising is that you won’t hear much of Roosevelt himself, even though some recordings of his speeches still exist.

Even without his voice, you might be surprised by what you learn about a politician who wouldn’t neatly fit into either of today’s dominant political parties. 

A familiar refrain throughout the exhibit is a visitor beginning what amounts to a fill-in-the-blank sentence by saying, “Oh wow, I had no idea that he ...”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"All of this is intentional. "}]

The experiential elements in the library are intended to go beyond exploring Roosevelt’s legacy and encourage visitors to think about their own civic obligations, as Edward O’Keefe, chief executive officer of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation, 

“We wanted to build a place where you can learn about, and from, Theodore Roosevelt, where you can connect with friends and family and nature so you can decide what change you want to see in the world,” O’Keefe said in a piece published by Fast Company.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Other Things To Do"}]

While the library has many places to sit and take a break from the exhibits, there’s also an on-site restaurant with options that are very good — albeit a bit pricey. If you arrive hungry, plan your meal accordingly, as many menu items were sold out by about 3 p.m.

Nearby Medora is teeming with plenty of kitschy tourist shops and you can easily drive the 36-mile loop in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in about two hours, with enough time to stop and snap photos of bison, prairie dogs, or a herd of wild horses. 

Medora might seem more bustling than in past visits, and while there are more lodging options now it remains a tourist trap of sorts. More plentiful (and affordable) options are in Glendive, Montana, about 60 miles west on I-94. 

There’s an additional bonus to staying over the border in Montana: Glendive is home to Montana’s largest state park, Makoshika State Park, where you can walk among badland formations where the fossil remains of many types of dinosaurs have been unearthed. The park’s entrance fee for nonresidents is $8.

Anna-Louise Jackson can be reached at: Jackson.Anna@gmail.com

Roosevelt Library 2284640338 8 9 269

<title>Visiting The New High-Tech Teddy Roosevelt Library In Medora, North Dakota | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Cowboy State Daily's Anna-Louise Jackson visited the new Theodore Roosevelt National Library in Medora, North Dakota. She highly recommends the journey as it offers a winding and interactive high-tech journey through the extraordinary life of America's 26th president.

Visiting The New High-Tech Teddy Roosevelt Library In Medora, North Dakota

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wyoming Life

 years old when he learned that a family friend, Bill Carlisle, was one of the most famous outlaws in America. 

Gillian, now 82 and living in Saratoga, said he only knew the Laramie business owner as a good friend of his grandmother, Olive Peberdy, until one day he overheard his grandma and Carlisle chatting casually about the crimes committed in 1916 and 1919.  

Gillian's Grandma Olive was a frequent guest of Carlisle's at his restaurant in Laramie and he said it was a treat for him to tag along. Peberdy was just one of numerous citizens in Wyoming who admired the former outlaw and thought the law had been too hard on him. 

In fact, thanks to this sympathetic public, Carlisle nearly got away with the train robberies in 1919.

“I thought it was neat because they said he robbed the trains with a toy gun,” Gillian said. “That left an impression on me because I played with toy guns, too.”

According to Carlisle in his 1946 autobiography, “Bill Carlisle, Lone Bandit,” he carried a toy glass gun on his first two robberies but also had a real gun. 

Carlisle fired the real gun into the air to prove he was robbing the train when a passenger thought the whole thing was a joke. 

 into the ribs of a brakeman who also thought the robbery was staged — until the toy gun proved otherwise.

Dubbed the Gentleman Bandit by Wyoming newspapermen, Carlisle

had just a nickel in his pocket when he impulsively decided to rob the Portland Rose, a Union Pacific train near Rock Springs.

 He refused to rob the women and even apologized to them for the inconvenience his robbery caused them. Carlisle tipped the porter and successfully escaped.

“He was a local hero,” Gillian said. “He was always so good to the people that he was robbing.”

Carlisle robbed his second train two months later and again was polite as he passed the hat, collecting money from only the male passengers. He escaped again. 

Now with a reward on his head and headlines reporting on his gentlemanly manners, Carlisle was captured near Laramie by a posse. 

He was a hero to a public that demanded clemency but was instead was given a life sentence.

A model prisoner, Carlisle was hopeful his sentence 

 John B. Kendrick. Instead, in 1919, it was reduced to 50 years, which meant Carlisle would have to serve at least 25 years until he was considered for parole. 

If it had stayed a life sentence, Carlisle said, he could have 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Escape By Delivery Truck"}]

Faced with a lifetime behind bars, Carlisle spent the next few months planning his escape. He worked at the shirt factory at the Wyoming State Penitentiary and decided to stow away in a box

. His plan worked and, when it hit the press, most of the public was on Carlisle’s side.

His first night away from the Rawlins penitentiary, Carlisle had dinner at a sheep camp.

“I told the camp tender that I wanted something to eat, that I had taken only what clothes I needed and a rifle and ammunition,” Carlisle later wrote. “He grinned and said it was all right with him, that he hoped I got away, and that I need have no fear of him or the herder.”

He shared a meal with the two men and then, late in the night, Carlisle said he returned to the railroad at Creston with the intention of heading west. However, the posse was searching all the trains heading that direction from the prison, so Carlisle did what appeared to be the only sensible plan. 

He headed back to Rawlins to board a train going in the opposite direction.

Because he now had the sheepherders rifle, Carlisle pretended to be a guard. Carlisle said he joined a group of railroad men in a shack used for breaks. When they all remained quiet, Carlisle relaxed, thinking he wasn’t recognized.

Then one of the men stared straight at Carlisle in his role of guard and said, “I have got my opinion of a man who will hire out for three or four dollars a day to catch Bill Carlisle.”

Another man agreed, cursing at Carlisle about pathetic guards who would search for 

 for a few measly dollars. Not knowing if this was a warning or if they were truly disgusted with someone they supposed was hunting for the escaped convict, Carlisle slipped out of the shack and boarded the train.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Fugitive Guard"}]

Carlisle said the train passed through Hanna, Medicine Bow, Rock River and on toward Laramie as he pretended to keep an eye out for hobos. He had been a fireman on a train three years prior and knew his role well.

When Carlisle was offered a chance to warm up in engine cab, he gladly accepted and joined the engineer, fireman, head brakeman and rear brakeman in the cab.

“Again, the opinion was openly expressed about train guards,” Carlisle said. “I said the pay was good and that I really hoped I would never meet Bill Carlisle.”

The men all laughed, and this eased the tension. They spent the next few miles in conversation.

“I know Bill Carlisle, would know him anywhere,” the fireman suddenly said. “I was in the courtroom during his trial.”

Carlisle said he looked up quickly to see if he had been recognized but the fireman didn’t react, so he figured it was just idle talk. Just before daylight, they entered the Laramie yard and Carlisle said he jumped down from the engine and started across the tracks when the engineer called out to him.

[{"type":"text","text":"“So long, Bill,” the engineer said, “And good luck!”"}]

In Laramie, Carlisle was eating at a restaurant across from the police station. When he went to pay for his bill the waitress told him to keep his money because he would need it.

“I knew I was recognized,” Carlisle said.  “I told her, you take out what I owe. The government is still making money and when I need more, I will probably get it.”

Carlisle purchased a better gun, using the last of his money. He contemplated robbing a Laramie clothing store but discarded the idea quickly.

“As long as the railroad was looking for me, why should I bother a storekeeper in Laramie, or any other place,” Carlisle wrote. “Why not just go ahead and hold-up another train? I could be in no worse position than I was if I were to hold-up a dozen.”

years lay ahead of him regardless and because of his escape, he could not hope to receive further clemency. He decided to hold up a train once more before leaving Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Another Train Robbery"}]

Carlisle hopped on a freight train and rode it to the Ohio Oil Camp at Rock Creek. He was once more recognized, but the men were all friendly to him. Later, he was approached and warned that one of the five was planning to turn him in.

Carlisle said he calmly ate his dinner and told his confidant not to worry, that he would soon be long gone. Carlisle described then how he returned to the train yard as a train slowly moved through. He swung up between two coaches and rode for a mile before attempting to enter.

When he stepped inside the passenger car with a drawn gun, Carlisle was shocked. Most of the passengers soldiers and sailors on their way home from France.

“I felt that I would be very fortunate if I ever left this train without a fight,” Carlisle said.  "Some of these men had as much, if not more, nerve than I had. They had fought overseas and would not be as easy to handle as the passengers had been on my other hold-ups.”

It was too late to back out now so Carlisle shouted out to the men to put their hands up. The command was obeyed and Carlisle said he was scared for the first time during a robbery.

“Had I lost my nerve, I wondered,” Carlisle wrote. “It was no time for me to hesitate. This time I did my own collecting.”

He ordered a man to put coins in his cap and moved on to the next seat where two soldiers sat, their hands up and watching him curiously.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Just back from France?” I asked."}]

When the soldiers responded to the affirmative, Carlisle told them to keep their money.

“I would have been over there with you had they let me go,” Carlisle said.

He only robbed about six passengers — all men. He let alone all the soldiers, women and an old couple.

“All I wanted was enough money to buy an outfit of clothes that would allow me to dress so that I would not arouse suspicion when I reached Denver, where I had planned to go,” Carlisle said.

Word had spread through the train that he was robbing it. A young man appeared holding a gun and, not wanting to shoot anyone, much less a youth, Carlisle attempted to disarm him and ended up getting shot in the wrist.

“Wounded, with no thought of surrender, I stood formulating new plans,” Carlisle said. “I would have to take to the hills again until such time as it would be safe; or until I could get my hand taken care of, which might be weeks."

At Medicine Bow, Carlisle jumped off the train. A man leaned out of another car and started shooting at him and Carlisle threw himself down. As he rolled out of range, another man who had jumped out took aim and shot once but then he, too, had to run for cover from flying bullets.

“Every car door was belching forth fire,” Carlisle said. “Passengers and guards alike were shooting wildly into the night and anyone within range of their bullets could have been hit.”

Carlisle ran over ground he knew well and disappeared into the range, leaving behind a small trail of blood.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Into The Hills"}]

Carlisle spent the next two weeks on foot, walking from one ranch to another, his wounded hand giving him fits. Sometimes he was recognized, other times the families were unaware of who the fugitive was they were hosting.

Carlisle described how they kept track of the posse on the ranch telephone. As the posse passed a ranch, someone at that ranch would phone ahead that it was coming. They kept track of the posse until one day it reached Antelope Basin and failed to show up again.

The posse had given up the hunt for Carlisle and had gone antelope hunting.

None of the ranchers ever turned Carlisle in for the $1,200 reward and, as one rancher wife simply told Carlisle, “Why would we do that?”

In the end, Carlisle was cornered by law enforcement in an isolated cabin and, despite his hands being up, was blasted through the lungs by a rifle. Trying to surrender saved his life because after the shot, when he lowered his arms, the skin closed around the bullet hole.

Carlisle was roughly treated and not given proper medical care by the deputies until he reached a hospital in Laramie. The doctors were furious at the treatment, and this only built more public sympathy.

Carlisle was again a model prisoner and ended up serving 20 years. Thanks to the persistence of Rev. Gerard Schellinger, he was released in 1936 at the age of 45. Carlisle went on to marry and became a successful businessman with his Carlisle’s Cabins, Roundup Café and The Lone Bandit Trading Post in Laramie.

[{"type":"text","text":"Gillian remembers eating at the cafe as a child."}]

“I think the biggest thing about Bill Carlisle is how he changed his life so much,” hesaid. “Usually when someone gets on a bad road, they stay on the wrong there, but Carlisle wanted to do good and was just so well-liked.”

Frontier prison inset Allen Brown via Alamy 8 9 26

<title>Wyoming's 'Gentleman Bandit' Was National Sensation For Polite Train Robberies | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Newspapers dubbed Bill Carlisle the "Gentleman Bandit" after crime sprees in the early 1900s that earned him favor with Wyoming locals. “He was so good to the people that he was robbing," said an 82-year-old whose grandma was a friend of the bandit.

Wyoming's 'Gentleman Bandit' Was National Sensation For Polite Train Robberies

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

Renée Jean

Will Grant still has the two horses, Chicken Fry and Badger, that he rode across Wyoming in the summer of 2019 when he retraced all 2,000 miles of the Pony Express trail. 

Chicken Fry was born in New Mexico, and no one knows for sure how old he is.

“He’s had some hard miles on him,” Grant said. “Not a hard life, but plenty of work. So we rope off them a little bit, but not too much, and they’re like trail horses.”

Some of those hard trail miles happened in a landscape that deeply respects its roots. Wyoming, Grant told Cowboy State Daily,  has cared for its Pony Express Trail better than other states.

“You can see it there,” Grant said. “It’s very well marked in Wyoming. Very well marked.”

Mosquitoes in Jeffrey City are particularly bad, while South Pass can be freezing cold even in July. 

That’s left Grant wondering how Pony Express riders kept their feet and their hands warm, given that they were riding through South Pass in January of 1861.

“The winds through there are no joke,” he added.

These are just a few of the gritty details Grant learned about Wyoming as he rode through it on the back of a horse, surrounded by a vast, windswept sea of sagebrush. 

He had known from the outset that he would face the same brutal elements the pioneers did — shifting mud, relentless wind, desert conditions, mosquitoes, and the like.

But, as he wrote in his book, “The Last Ride of the Pony Express,” thinking about the hardships ahead of time and experiencing them firsthand are two very different things. 

That point became starkly clear under the flash of a sudden Wyoming summer storm. Grant and his two horses, he realized immediately, were the highest point on the landscape. They were walking targets clad in iron horseshoes. And there was nowhere for them to take cover. It was just miles of open sagebrush in every direction, as far as his eyes could see.

The crack of thunder overhead filled him with dread as he rode across the land in that gathering storm. He also gained a new appreciation for the 1860s couriers who wrote of learning to read the landscape in between blinding pulses of lightning strikes.

“I learned that the Pony Express as a mail service was a really impressive display of American entrepreneurship,” he said. “There’s no other country in the world that could have done the same thing given the same environmental parameters. There were no horses out there. There was no infrastructure on which to set up a fast horse mail relay over 2,000 miles to deliver a letter in 10 days.”

There were wild horses, and they were a huge danger to a lone rider managing two horses. Grant writes about that in his book, how careful he was to avoid either inciting an attack or losing his horses to that stallion’s wild harem.

The Mongols and the Romans and the Persians did have ancient horse relays to quickly traverse their kingdoms. But these were created in already civilized areas that their empires controlled, and those relays were fed and maintained by the full resources and might of those empires. 

America’s Pony Express was a business venture started completely from scratch, with no empire behind it at all, traversing a vast and empty land that was openly hostile. There were no resources from a surrounding empire to help them through all the places that lacked food, water and shelter. 

Pony Express riders didn’t wait for perfect conditions, though. They rode in all kinds of weather, making a 2,000-mile trip in a just 10 days. 

Grant took his time, compared to them. His journey lasted 142 nights.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Modern-Day Station Masters"}]

He also had something else the original 1860s riders didn’t. Wyoming ranchers — many of them descended from original homesteaders — who helped him all along the way, as did members of the modern-day Pony Express riders. The ranchers, in particular, were an informal network of modern-day station masters, ready and willing to help him all along the way.

Time and again, just as weather threatened to overwhelm him and his small string of horses, Grant would ride up on a private gate to find it already opened to him. The rancher before had let the next farm know he was on the way and to watch out for him.

These ranchers didn’t just grant him passage through their land. They would actively pull him out of a storm, offering secure pasture space and protection from the elements. There were often hot meals and a dry bunkhouse were included, as well as their stories.

“The traveling horseman still finds a lot of hospitality in Wyoming, I’ll tell you that,” Grant said. “People were good to me. Opening pasture gates, no worries. Really good people all along the way.”

There was the time a well-meaning rancher tried to talk him into taking an ornery mule with him … 

But warm hospitality and cheerful dinners and storytelling were more common. It was a powerful reminder that while the physical shelters of the 1860s may have crumbled, the human infrastructure of mutual aid remains intact across the Wyoming plains. It’s been actively kept alive behind the closed gates of modern cattle ranchers, many of whom are still living by the unwritten code of the West, handed down from one generation to the next.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Write What You Know"}]

Grant’s Pony Express ride wasn’t just a history fascination for him. He found in the ride a perfect intersection for the two halves of his life.

“I’m a journalist, and I mostly have been writing for magazines,” he said. “What I really wanted to do is write a book. The Pony Express emerged as a topic that I thought I could shed some light on because I worked as a horse trainer and a cowboy.”

Grant, born and raised in Littleton, Colorado, spent his summers cowboying on a ranch between Chugwater and LaGrange in Wyoming, studying under a foreman named Tim Sussex.

“Those were good years for me because Tim really showed me how to handle horses in a lot of different ways, but really how to be quiet with a horse,” he said. “That is the best thing you can do, get a ranch hand job on the wide open prairies of Wyoming.”

His first degree program was forestry and geology in Tennessee, after which he went back to horses, breaking colts in Larkspur, Colorado, then working for a ranch in Texas. 

In 2008, he went back to school to study journalism at University of Montana School of Journalism.

“I needed it,” he said. “I’d been training horses and doing ranch work for like eight years. I had to use a different part of my brain.”

When he went hunting for a book idea, the old writer’s advice — write what you know — stuck.

“I saw the Pony Express as a way to overlap my expertise with horses and write what you know,” he said. “I decided to dive into the Pony Express and I thought, ‘Well, obviously, I’m gonna have to just ride it. Travel it by horseback.’”

That, he added, was the “best summer of my life.” 

Even if it was the summer of 2019 — not the summer of ’69.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Trail Logic And Life"}]

Spending five months on the back of a horse gave him new perspectives on hardships and life. 

“When things are bad, you can expect they are going to get better,” he said. “If you have a bad camp, then the next night is almost certainly going to be better. And if you have two bad nights in a row, then your odds are even better that you’re headed for greener pastures.”

That simple trail logic helped him keep his morale intact through the inevitable stretches of cold and wet, hot and thirsty, tired and hungry all along the way.

He also learned more about his horses than he expected.

“I’ve been around horses my entire life,” he said. “But I learned a lot about their nonverbal communication. I learned you can tell a lot about a horse by listening to the way they walk.”

Any discomfort comes out in the sound of the hooves striking the ground.

He also noticed things about humans as well, including that they seem to care more about someone who is riding on the back of a horse than they do about someone who is on foot.

“They’re more likely to offer support because of the horses,” he said. “People cared about the wellbeing of the horses more than they cared about the wellbeing of me for sure. Having the animals with you opens up a lot of doors.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Next Book"}]

These days Grant lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Chicken Fry and Badger have the run of the place, and Grant spends more time “wrangling sentences” than he does cattle.

He’s already knee-deep in his next book, which is about the ancestry of the American cowboy.

The research has already taken him to Mexico, Spain, and soon Morocco. Next summer he’ll tackle history that’s “closer to home.”

Whether that brings him back to Wyoming remains to be seen. But Wyoming will have its thread in the book regardless.

“I’ve got a lot of good Wyoming material built up over the years,” he said. “Horsebacking it across Wyoming for the Pony Express gave me a pretty good look at the country.”

And being a wrangler near Chugwater was a whole other dimension of the state and its cowboys.

After riding the Pony Express across Wyoming and sleeping under its stars, Grant may have left tracks that already blew away. But the stories Wyoming whispered to him in the night still live on, indelible memories that explain the code of the West in ways words never could.

Will Grant 7 N8 A8831 8 9 26

<title>Cowboy Rides All 2,000 Miles Of Pony Express, Says Wyoming Weather Overwhelming | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Cowboy and journalist Will Grant rode all 2,000 miles of the Pony Express trail on horseback. He said the trip gave him a newfound respect for Wyoming weather. Mosquitoes in Jeffrey City are bad, while South Pass can be freezing cold even in July. 

Cowboy Rides All 2,000 Miles Of Pony Express, Says Wyoming Weather Overwhelming

Food

Four decades ago, Chugwater was just one more dot on the map about to be swallowed by the modern economics of ranches consolidating and farms disappearing from “the flats.” 

When agriculture took a nosedive in the 1980s, five ranching families in tiny Chugwater, Wyoming, decided to do something about it. They formed a company called Chugwater Chili, and 40 years later the chili — and the town — are still going strong.

One More For The Road: Thursday, October 12, 2023

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