Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Best friends..."}]

Smile 11 26 23

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

<title>Daily Smile: Sunday, November 26, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Best friends...

Daily Smile: Sunday, November 26, 2023

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

Renée Jean

Around Wyoming

At historic Fort Bridger, one of the site’s most reliable staffers doesn’t draw a paycheck, take vacations and has been on duty for more than a century.

“We just call him Mac,” Fort Bridger Historical Association board member Holli Beach told Cowboy State Daily. “And we actually have had him photographed. Several times, he’s been caught in pictures, and we have some pretty cool pictures of him.”

Mac is short for John McLaughlin, one of the soldiers who came to Fort Bridger with the Twenty-First Infantry in the spring of 1888. 

He was given the last of the fort’s remaining log officers' quarters, most of which had been sold to the local ranching community and moved off site. After his discharge he stayed in the area, watching over the remaining buildings and the small cemetery.

Eventually, old age forced him to move on to the Old Sailor’s and Soldier’s Home in Hot Springs, South Dakota, where he is buried. 

But he always wanted to be buried in Fort Bridger’s cemetery, and many people feel that after his death Mac’s spirit returned to the Fort and has remained ever since.

“Mac’s pretty famous for locking people inside his house, for whatever reason,” Beach said. “If workers go in there alone, they tend to get locked in and have to call someone to come help them.”

Alarms also have gone off at night, forcing police to respond, Beach said — alarms that later can’t be explained.

“The sheriffs will come in, and we have quite a few funny stories about them coming onto the property and getting scared,” she said. “One of our mannequins was almost shot by one of the sheriffs.” 

Fort Bridger also regularly gets reports from people thinking they have seen or heard a child drowning in the creek, Beach added. 

“There are actually historical reports of that happening,” she said. “And so, people have been really taken aback by such experiences.”

Haunted stories like that might once have been downplayed by a serious historic site. But with “dark tourism” now a $34.2 billion global market — nearly 80% of it in North America, according to analyst firm, Grand View Research — ghosts and paranormal phenomena have become an undeniable selling point.

One doesn’t have to look far from Wyoming for a famous example of the power of haunted tourism. 

Colorado’s Stanley Hotel in Estes Park is a 

favorite vacation spot for many in Wyoming

. It’s also the real-life inspiration for Stephen King’s cult classic novel “The Shining.” 

The hotel was on its last legs when John Cullen 

 and many at the time believed it was headed for a date with a wrecking ball. But it found new life thanks to Cullen’s decision to lean into its spooky history.

Before Cullen, hotel managers feared admitting there were any unusual happenings, especially in the Stephen King suite. They feared ghost stories would drive guests away — like tales of suitcases somehow winding up in the hallway with no logical explanation, or ghostly children laughing and playing on the third floor.

Cullen, though, actively marketed such tales, and turned the hotel’s unexplained phenomena into a year-round theme that now draws nearly 200,000 visitors annually — about half of its overall visitor total.

The move saved the hotel and has created a premier destination in the Rockies that blends luxury with a history that “still walks the halls.”

In more recent times, as haunted tourism’s popularity has grown, the Stanley has doubled down on its horror pedigree. It’s working with Blumhouse Productions on a planned horror-film center and it 

 for the “Frozen Dead Guy Days” festival, after that event outgrew its original site in Nederland. 

Reports like Mac’s pranks and the drowning child have attracted attention from paranormal groups wanting to investigate the Fort, but the site’s board has usually turned them down, fearing such activities could detract from the core mission of preserving and sharing the site’s rich, 19th century history.

This year, though, it’s leaning into a select number of paranormal events in hopes it can help boost its visitation stats, which range from 75,000 to 90,000 annually. The figures feed directly into its funding through state allocations tied to attendance.

“First and foremost, I am a historian, and I run a historic site,” Fort Bridger Superintendent Josh Camp told Cowboy State Daily. 

“But really, we are a state park, and we’re meant to be a good amenity to the people of Wyoming," he said. "That’s a huge part of what we do here. So there’s more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes, and I see ghost stories as another way to do just that.”

Camp is a skeptic when it comes to ghost stories in general, but it’s not lost on him that haunted tourism has become enormously popular. He sees it as a new avenue for sharing history with an audience that might not typically turn up at a historic site. 

“When I hear a ghost story talking about someone going through the old Victorian commanding officers quarters and a young girl will have her hair pulled or something like that, for example,” he said. 

“That’s not an uncommon story. Well, that gives me the perfect opportunity to say, ‘Well perhaps this is the spirit of a Victorian lady who has just realized your hair is not done in a way that’s appropriate for a young lady to be in public'.”

Messy buns of today, Camp added, would have been a Victorian nightmare.

“So, for me, it’s an opportunity to talk about the cultures of the time,” he said. “It becomes an interesting way to teach history, particularly to a crowd who doesn’t necessarily usually want to come learn about history.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not A YouTube Screamer"}]

Fort Bridger’s three-day paranormal experience July 30 through Aug. 1 will be a rare opportunity, investigator Marie Mason told Cowboy State Daily.

Mason bills herself as a real ghost hunter, not a “screaming YouTuber.”

“On television and YouTube, they completely sensationalize these things,” she said. “The public is aware that’s all BS for the most part.”

Her approach is different. Guests themselves will become the investigators, using professional-grade equipment she’s spent years acquiring and in some cases building. 

Her events have drawn hundreds of people in places such as Deadwood, South Dakota, as well as to historic hotels in Wyoming such as the Occidental in Buffalo. 

“These events are great business for the historical locations,” Mason added. “People will come for three days and stay, and now they’re going to buy food, they’re going to spend money … families will literally plan their vacations around paranormal events like this.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Where Tragedy Lingers"}]

To Mason, most hauntings are simply people, or fragments of people, lingering where something powerful happened. And Fort Bridger is a place with no shortage of powerful moments.

For one, it was the last major stop for the Donner Party, a group of 87 American pioneers, before they turned onto the ill-fated Hastings Cutoff, where they became snowbound. Nearly half the group died of starvation, disease and freezing, with survivors eventually resorting to cannibalism.

Mason is in the camp of historians who believes their route had been endorsed by Jim Bridger himself, who she sees as something of a scoundrel.

“(Bridger) got a piece of every guide (map) that was sold,” she said. “And this guy named Hastings, who wrote the guide map, told them it’s a shortcut.”

But Hastings had never actually done the route he was selling at all, Mason said, and it was actually longer than the way they had planned. Hastings’ “shortcut” sent the party into the Sierra Nevada mountains, where they would become synonymous with unspeakable tragedy.

Fort Bridger is also where a teen-aged Calamity Jane landed after losing both parents on the trail. She returned to Fort Bridger with her younger siblings and worked in the “laundry,” a euphemism, Mason said, for prostitution. 

“So 14-year-old Calamity Jane,” Mason said. “If you just think about high school, all of that stuff is so clear to us, right? You can remember the first boy you kissed. It’s a very special time in your life. 

“So, for me, if her spirit lingers anywhere, that’s got to be a place. It’s where something traumatic happened to her.”

This won’t be the first time Fort Bridger has reinvented itself. The 37-acre site was started in the 1840s by Mountain Man Jim Bridger as a trading post for Native Americans. 

The fur trade had collapsed at the time and Bridger needed a new career.

“Many people, especially if you look at early historians, feel like Fort Bridger was built kind of out in the middle of nowhere, which, by today’s standards, would be accurate,” Camp said. “But these guys who’d been trapping in the mountains for decades at this point knew about the Native American trade network gained through here. So they certainly knew what they were doing.”

When Bridger’s plan to trade with Native Americans didn’t pan out, he pivoted to serving pioneers on the Oregon and California trails. 

“That was something they hadn’t necessarily planned on,” Camp said. “But they were, of course, more than happy to take advantage.”

By the time pioneers hit Fort Bridger, they were usually short on supplies but had cash available to buy more. 

“Bridger was more than happy to be selling them goods,” Camp said. “And seeing as they were one of the few places you could stop, and it was a couple hundred miles to the closest competition, they were certainly able to get their own prices and certainly took advantage of that opportunity.”

Using Ghost Stories To Keep History Alive

Highlighting all that rich history in ways that make it accessible to new audiences is the main play Fort Bridger is after.

“We’re not trying to claim there’s a portal to hell,” Beach said, poking a little fun at more sensational ghost-hunting shows. “First and foremost, we’re a historic site. The history is what matters to us.”

For Camp, if a few haunted tales around the campfire can help turn more people onto history, the shift will be more than worthwhile.

“Everyone needs to learn their history,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we all need to learn it the same way.”

If a spooky cry along the creek or an unexplained shadow on an SLS camera is what it takes to draw people through Fort Bridger’s gates and into its complicated, sometimes uncomfortable history, Camp believes the gambit will have been well worth the risk.

Fort Bridger inset Carter family graveyard Visual and Written via Alamy 6 27 26

<title>Ghostly Gold Rush: Fort Bridger Chases Haunted Tourism Dollars | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Haunted tourism isn’t fringe anymore. It’s become a $34 billion-dollar segment of the tourism industry. Fort Bridger is among those leaning into dark tourism this year with its most famous ghost, Mac, and a three-day paranormal experience next month.

Ghostly Gold Rush: Fort Bridger Chases Haunted Tourism Dollars

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Hunting

Many hunters would be happy shooting just one buck pronghorn big enough to make the Boone and Crockett Club record books. Larry Hicks of Baggs has bagged 16, including 14 from Wyoming.

The key was figuring out how to consistently and accurately “field judge” whether a buck is one for the books, he told Cowboy State Daily.

In other words, he had to tell by looking at pronghorn, commonly called antelope, through binoculars or spotting scopes, and then decided on sight which bucks had trophy-class horns.

“After 20 years of trying, I finally got to the point where I cracked the code” for spotting record book antelope, he said.

Hicks’ accomplishment is phenomenal, prominent outdoorsman Guy Eastman of Cody told Cowboy State Daily.

“He’s got everybody I know beat,” said Eastman, who represents the third generation of the famous outdoor multimedia family that launched Eastman's Hunting Journal, along with a television show and YouTube channel.

Hicks, who serves as a Republican Wyoming state senator, regards antelope as a Wyoming icon.

“We so under-value antelope,” he said. “We are tremendously blessed in Wyoming."

Antelope live in several Western and Southwestern states, but Wyoming has the most abundant populations. So, there’s plenty hunting opportunity here, Hicks said.

Moreover, antelope hunting is highly accessible. It doesn’t require the expensive gear, time and physical effort of backcountry elk hunting, he said.

“If you’ve got a two-wheel-drive pickup and a .30-06 with a four-power Weaver scope on it, you can go antelope hunting,” he said.

And while the absolutely huge monster bucks come from New Mexico and Arizona, the sheer number of antelope in Wyoming means there are more trophy-sized bucks by volume here, Eastman said.

“Statistically, Wyoming is the best place to kill a Boone and Crockett (B&C) record book antelope buck,” he said.

"If you remove New Mexico from the list, we have more B&C antelope bucks than all the other states combined,” Eastman said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"By The Numbers"}]

The B&C record books are considered the gold standard for fair-chase trophy hunting.

Animals are scored by inches. For antlered or horned game, scores are compiled from numerous length and circumference measurements taken at different spots on the horns or antler racks.

For antelope, that includes measurements of the horns’ overall length, plus circumference at four spots on each horn. 

Also taken into account is the size of the prong protruding from the front of each horn — for which the species is formally named.

Green score, gross score and net score are also terms to bear in mind.

Green score refers to initial measurements taken right after the animal is killed, and the horns might still contain some moisture. 

An official score can’t be taken until after a mandatory 90-day drying period, during which there might be some shrinkage.

The gross score is the compilation of all the measurements after the drying period. What really counts is the net score, which is calculated after deductions are made for any asymmetry in the horns.

B&C has awards record books, which are issued every few years, and then the all-time records book.

An antelope’s net score must be 80 inches to qualify for the awards records, and 82 inches for the all-time records.

Hicks’ trophy antelope so far include three awards record bucks and 13 all-time record bucks.

His largest buck so far scored 87 inches net, 88 inches gross. He shot it in Carbon County in 1999.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘The Golden Square’"}]

While antelope can be found just about anywhere in Wyoming, the best place to find B&C trophy bucks is in the “golden square” at the heart of the Red Desert country in Carbon, Sweetwater and Natrona counties, Hicks said.

It’s thought that about 90% of a buck’s horn growth takes place during their first three years. Bucks have to be roughly 5 years old before they start to hit true trophy sized, Hicks said.

The peak years for antelope in Wyoming were from about 2000 to 2008, he said. There were several mild winters during that period.

However, a harsh winter during the last year of that streak knocked the herd back, he said.

An absolutely brutal winter hit the heart of Wyoming’s antelope country in 2022-2023. That sent trophy buck numbers plummeting, Hicks said.

The herds are still in recovery mode, and although there aren’t as many bucks that are old enough yet to be huge, “they’re out there,” he said.

Eastman agreed that overall numbers are down. This past mild winter, however, with abundant food for antelope probably contributed to robust horn growth.

Buck antelope shed the black outer sheath of their horns in October and November, and they grow back over the winter, Eastman said.

“The numbers might be down, but I think the quality of the bigger bucks this fall is going to be nuts,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mass Matters"}]

To the untrained eye, a buck’s trophy quality might be all about the length of the horns, Hicks said.

When it comes to judging horn length in the field, consider that the top of a buck’s ears is about 7 inches, he said.

So, a buck that has as much horn above the tips of his ears as below them might be entering trophy territory, Hicks said.

But those circumference measurements, or mass of the horns, it what really adds up, he said.

That can be devilishly difficult to judge in the field, Hicks added. A quarter-inch at each of the four circumference points on a buck’s horns can add an additional 2 inches to the score.

However, “trying to determine a quarter-inch difference through binoculars at 400 yards is extremely hard,” Hicks said.

“I tell novice hunters to look for a lot of black,” he said. Or in other words, signs of real mass in the horns. “Our antelope in Wyoming tend to have shorter antlers, and more mass."

As are as horn length in Wyoming goes, “16 inches is rare, 17 inches is really rare, and 18 inches is unheard of,” Hicks said.

Extremely mild winters with plentiful feed are what produces world-record setting monster antelope bucks in Arizona and New Mexico, Eastman said.

“There was a movement at one time to recognize them as their own subspecies, because they’re so ridiculously huge,” Eastman said. "Their horns will be 18, maybe 19 inches long, they’re just insane.”

The biggest antelope of all time came from the southwest and was in the neighborhood of 97 or 98 inches, Eastman said.

“As far as I know, no antelope has ever broken 100 inches, but they’ve come close,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wyoming Antelope Are Tough"}]

Even so, Wyoming’s antelope have bigger bodies than their southwestern counterparts, Eastman said.

“Our bucks are big, horse-headed animals built for the winters," he said.

Wyoming antelope can survive conditions ranging from 50 degrees below zero in the winter, to over 100 degrees at the height of summer, he said.

“Pound-for-pound, they are the toughest animals in North America, in my opinion,” Eastman said.

Hicks said antelope are perhaps his favorite animals. Even when it’s not hunting season, he loves watching them.

“I invented distracted driving,” he said. “I’ve probably spotted 100 or more B&C trophy book-class Wyoming antelope bucks, just alongside the highways.”

Antelope meat gets a bad rap, but Hicks thinks that’s unfair.

The key is to “make a clean kill” and get the meat cooled off as soon as possible.

“If it’s a really hot day, I’ll get the meat off the bone and into a cooler right away,” he said.

When it’s handled correctly, antelope is some of the best wild game there is, Hicks said.

And he still hopes to add to his collection of record-book bucks.

“The good Lord willing, and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department still providing the opportunity, I’m going to hunt antelope until the day that I can’t walk out of the house,” he said.

Larry Hicks Antelope 4 6 27 26

<title>Wyoming Hunting: Larry Hicks Is King Of Trophy Antelope With 16 Record-Book Bucks | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Larry Hicks of Baggs has bagged 16 record-book trophy antelope bucks, including 14 in Wyoming. “After 20 years of trying, I finally got to the point where I cracked the code for spotting record book antelope," Hicks said.

Wyoming Hunting: Larry Hicks Is King Of Trophy Antelope With 16 Record-Book Bucks

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

Andrew Rossi

The Fry family lost their 14-year-old corgi Lola on May 16. She was wandering near her home along Wyoming Highway 50 south of Gillette when she disappeared without a trace.

Nearly a month later, Lola turned up in a Facebook Classified post in Wisconsin, more than 1,000 miles away.

“I got a call at 8:15 a.m. and just cried," Kimberly Fry told Cowboy State Daily. “By 10 a.m., my husband, dad, and a family friend were on the road and drove all night to get her from Wisconsin.”

Lola is frazzled and lost a little weight after her strange journey, but is doing fine otherwise. Fry’s children, 7 and 3, were overjoyed to have the family dog back home.

Nevertheless, Fry is still trying to parse out what happened. She believes her corgi was stolen and abandoned by the people who stole her, making their reunion a miracle.

“You try not to give up faith,” she said. “After a month of hell, it’s very surreal to have her back.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'My Newspaper Dog'"}]

 but she’s a bit of a handful in her old age. After all, she’s at least 98 years old in dog years.

“She’s deaf, her back leg shakes because of a partially torn ACL, and she’s on a sensitive dog food diet because of heart issues,” Fry said. “But she’s the sweetest thing ever.”

Fry called her corgi “my newspaper dog” because that’s how she 

 found her. It’s a reminder of just how old she is.

“Someone put an ad in the newspaper that they had puppies for $150,” she said. “We don’t really have newspapers anymore.”

Lola’s routine has been spending most of her time outdoors on the family ranch. Fry said she hangs out with the sheep, horses and chickens, and has been happy “doing her thing” for years.

Then, in her old age, Lola suddenly started to “see people,” as Fry put it.

“Two years ago, she decided she was lonely and walked a mile to visit the neighbors and their cats,” she said. “She’s just a friendly old dog.”

That’s why the Fry family wasn’t immediately concerned when Lola wasn’t home one night. It was the first night of an agonizing ordeal for the family.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lola Lost"}]

On the morning of Saturday, May 16, Fry’s 

-year-old daughter was taking Lola to her kennel when the dog slipped out of her collar.

“It's common for ranch people to have their dogs' collars pretty loose,” Fry said. “She made it into the kennel but without her collar.”

With Lola in her kennel, the family went into town at 1 p.m. When they returned home at 2 p.m., Lola was gone – the kennel’s door hadn’t been fully shut.

Nobody panicked. They figured Lola was off visiting someone and would be back soon. It was only when it got dark that the family started getting worried.

“My husband looked a little that night, but there was no sign of her,” Fry said. “We figured she’d be back tomorrow. She never came back.”

By Monday, the Frys figured someone must have taken Lola to the pound. When they called that morning, Lola wasn’t there.

That’s when, according to Fry, “the real panic started.” She started posting about Lola in every Facebook group she could, asking for any sign of her missing corgi.

“On Tuesday, we searched with a lady who had a tracking dog,” Fry said. “We found that she had gone to the neighbors, and someone had seen her near the highway on Sunday.”

On Wednesday, they searched with another tracking dog, thermal scopes, and a drone. No sign of Lola.

Fry feared the worst, but the evidence didn’t add up. That was simultaneously hopeful and dreadful.

“If she had passed away, the tracking dogs would have smelt her,” she said. “We were set on (the explanation) that someone had picked her up.”

If so, they weren’t reaching out. Fry tearfully recalled the long wait for any information.

[{"type":"text","text":"“You never want to give up,” she said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'I Have Your Dog'"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"One week. Two weeks. Three weeks."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Still no sign of Lola."}]

Both of Fry’s children celebrated their birthdays without their corgi. Fry gave herself an emotional break from posting about Lola, but started again in mid-June.

[{"type":"text","text":"On June 14, Fry got a call. It was a woman from Wisconsin."}]

“She said, ‘I have your dog,’ and I just started bawling,” Fry said. “I asked if she was sure, because we had a couple of people reaching out trying to help, and she said, ‘Yes, I have your dog'.”

The Wisconsin woman had acquired Lola via Facebook Marketplace. Someone was trying to give Lola away, for free, to anyone who’d take her.

According to Fry, the woman who picked up Lola got some details from the people who had her. It was a young couple who apparently picked up Lola while moving from Wyoming to Wisconsin.

“They saw her on the side of the road and picked her up,” she said. “They just took her.”

The couple said they tried asking someone nearby if they knew who Lola belonged to before taking her. They claimed they weren’t aware she was missing and desperately wanted back.

The woman wasn’t aware Lola was missing either, but Fry said she had “the gut intuition” to check.

“She was going to pick Lola up because she wanted to be the free home, and was OK getting an old dog,” Fry said. “But she had a gut intuition to look into it, she searched Facebook and found us right away.”

Lola made it home at 7:30 a.m. June 19. She was tired, flustered, and had lost a little weight, but quickly settled in when she realized she was where she belonged.

“We’ve taken her to the vet, and everything’s good, all considering,” Fry said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Jumped And Dumped"}]

Lola’s back, but Fry is still trying to determine what happened to her dog. The circumstances have left her upset and angry.

The couple who picked up Lola claimed they had no idea anyone was looking for her. Fry doesn’t believe it.

“I had missing posters all over Facebook and at every veterinarian in the area,” she said. “I posted in the In Search of Missing Dog group on Facebook. I called the police and the sheriff’s department. I contacted every pound in the state.”

Assuming they didn’t know, their decision to give her away for free on Facebook Marketplace is, for Fry, telling.

“She has issues, and she was probably puking because she didn’t have her special dog food,” she said. “I feel like (the couple) decided she was more work than they wanted, and they put her up for free.”

Fry said if the couple had made a point of checking whether anyone in the Gillette area was missing a corgi, they could have easily found and contacted her, and gotten Lola back much sooner.

When Gillette's Kimberly Fry got a phone call at 8:15 a.m. that someone had found their 14-year-old corgi in Wisconsin, she started crying. An hour later, her family was on the road and drove more than 1,000 miles straight to get their rescued dog.

Daily Smile: Sunday, November 26, 2023

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