Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Now let's all watch a dog prove that opposable thumbs are overrated..."}]

Smile 3 6 24

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

<title>Daily Smile: Wednesday, March 6, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Now let's all watch a dog prove that opposable thumbs are overrated...

Daily Smile: Wednesday, March 6, 2024

 Now let's all watch a dog prove that opposable thumbs are overrated...

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Around Wyoming

 in Hot Springs County that was becoming a ghost town by the time World War II broke out. 

Beginning in 1932, the once busy mines were being closed permanently and families were moving away, with only a few remaining to work in smaller private mines. Then World War II called away the young men of Gebo to serve as soldiers, many of them still teenagers.

and his friends formed the Junior Marines and

re just as dedicated as any who were serving abroad.

“We all tried to be good soldiers, and whenever any of us got out of line, you sure heard about it from the rest of the group,” Bolich, 93, told Cowboy State Daily. “I think the added discipline was good for all of us.”

Bolich said that whenever they heard of a soldier coming home on furlough, the Junior Marines would gather at the schoolhouse and march to the soldier's home to sing the Marines' Hymn.

“When the family would come outside to see what was going on, we would salute the soldier and then march back to the school,” Bolich said. “We never gave any thought to the fact that they might have been in the Army, Air Force or Navy.”

Bolich chuckled at his youthful ignorance and said that when he was older he learned the soldiers and their parents got a kick out of watching the Junior Marines perform, especially if the soldier being serenaded was not an actual Marine.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Teenage Soldiers"}]

The Junior Marines were inspired by two Gebo teenagers who had both enlisted on the same day. 

Stanley "Dutch" Wedlock, 18, had graduated from Thermopolis High School and volunteered in the Marines. His younger brother, Lee, also volunteered to the Marines although he was only 16.

“Lee lied about his age so he could volunteer,” Bolich wrote in his memoirs, “Gebo, Living in a Coal Camp”. “At that time, there was such a demand for manpower that the War Department did not take the time to examine everyone's birth certificate. In fact, many of the soldiers could not produce a birth certificate, so if you looked 18, you were accepted.”

After their boot camp, Dutch and Lee were assigned to different Marine divisions. They were not to see each other for the next three years.

A miraculous story about the two young soldiers was broadcast to the world by the Denver Radio Station KOA and picked up by The Associated Press in July 1944.

“A story of Gebo boys comes out of Saipan, Marianas Islands,” Staff Sgt. Hy Hurwitz, a Marine Corps staff correspondent, reported. “Two brothers from Gebo, Wyo., met here by accident today just as Marines were about to start a push over one of the heavily fortified Jap-held hills.”

Marine Cpl. Stanley Wedlock had run out of ammunition and turned for help from another ‘Leatherneck’ who was unloading supplies on the beach.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Got any ammunition?” Wedlock asked."}]

When the Marine unloading ammunition turned around, Wedlock discovered it was his younger brother, Pvt. Leland R. Wedlock, whom he had not seen since they enlisted together in August, 1941.

Hurwitz, one of the official correspondents for the 18th Marines

, wrote dozens of human-interest stories from Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, and later campaigns. 

He was so impressed with this chance encounter that Hurwitz sent a press release and the story 

 the world, including as the first presented on a new Marine program airing on KOA radio in Denver the following Monday.

“It was a rare experience that two Marines from a little town in Wyoming should meet during a battle on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean,” Bolich said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Young Marines"}]

Their youngest brother, Bob Wedlock, 12, was instrumental in forming the Junior Marines, according to Bolich.

“As patriotic youngsters, we all decided that we would join this group,” Bolich said. “All of the boys in the camp wanted to join.”

Bolich was one of the youngest at age 10 and the other boys who joined he named as Jack Toth, Fritz Jurovich, Joe Bandich, Pete Cavalli, Kenny Halbert, Jack Bretthauer, Buddy Cammock, Jim Hughes, Ken Bolich and Jim Isbell.

“In order to be sworn in, you had to be able to sing the Marines' Hymn,” Bolich said. “Once you did your performance, they would allow you to be a Junior Marine.”

found Navy officer caps in a catalog for about a dollar. The boys all saved money so they would have their ‘uniform dress.’

“They weren’t Marine hats but were Navy officer hats, but we got them and wore them,” Bolich said. “Boy, we were something. We felt like we were helping because people we knew were in the war.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Rubber Gun Rifle"}]

Once accepted as a Junior Marine, the boys were required to build a rubber gun rifle they would hold against their shoulders as they marched.

The boys would draw the outline of a rifle on boards they salvaged from the houses being torn down in Gebo. Sig Nelson, the grocer in Kirby, was also recruited into their wartime efforts. He would bring them wooden boxes from his store specifically for their guns.

“We would take a small axe and chop away a lot of the wood,” Bolich said. “When that was done, we moved on to using a knife to make a nicer finish.”

When the rifle was smooth, the boys would nail a heavy piece of string to the end of the "barrel" of the rifle. Four notches 

carved on the top of part of the barrel. Their ammunitions was from old inner tubes from the inside of car tires. The Junior Marines would then cut pieces out of the rubber about an inch wide.

“One tube gave us enough ammunition for our whole squad,” Bolich said.

To fire their guns, they would place one end of the rubber across the front of the barrel, stretch it backward, and place the band into one of the notches over the string. They could pull up on the string, which released the stretched inner tube.

They used the rubber gun rifles when they played war, and if you were hit by the rubber tube piece, you were out of the fight.

“We drilled regularly in the flat area just north of the town, on the old football field, which was used by the high school before the high school was closed,” Bolich said.

They would pick teams, then head up into the hills behind Gebo Hill for their wars.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Scrap Metal Effort"}]

“Our job was to help the war situation,” Bolich said. “We were really busy.”

Aside from singing the Marines’ Hymn to returning soldiers, waging their own wars in the Gebo hills and playing basketball, the Junior Marines were salvaging iron.

“The county was directing a scrap iron drive for the war, so we, as Junior Marines, worked hard to do whatever we could to help,” Bolich said. “We always got together, and our job was to help the war effort. We went up to the mine in Gebo and started hauling stuff away.”

They got spikes out of the railroad, and would haul a rail over to the vacant lot where the old basketball gym used to be to pile up the scrap metal. Once a month, a big truck would come to Gebo to gather it all.

“Since Gebo was being dismantled as a coal mining town, there were lots of items left that people did not take with them,” Bolich said. “We went into abandoned houses, collected whatever metal was left there.”

[{"type":"text","text":"They also got the privilege of legally breaking windows."}]

“We were always aware of any house that was being torn down and obtained permission to get rocks and throw them to break windows,” Bolich said. “We would line up like baseball pitchers do and see who had the most accurate arm.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Bolich said Pete Cavalli had the best pitching arm of the Junior Marines."}]

“Since the mine was no longer working, we were very efficient in picking up pieces of metal there,” Bolich said.  

[{"type":"text","text":"They would all pitch in to carry a rail and made it a military endeavor."}]

“When we all were in position, someone would call out, ‘lift' and we would lift the rail altogether and then wait for the 'forward march, hut, hut, hut' orders,” Bolich said. “We would all march in step to take the rail to the metal stockpile. I often wonder if some Gebo people saw us and just laughed.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Proud To Be Junior Marine"}]

Bolich recalled trying to get the wheel off an ore car and being chased off by a worker who was on the tipple.

"You get the hell out of there — we use those wheels," the worker yelled. “Leave that alone!”

Bolich said he took his wagon and hurried home with what little scrap he was able to salvag

His time as a Junior Marine soon came to an end, despite the war still being fought. Bolich’s own family moved into Thermopolis when he was in the fifth grade. Despite no longer being in the Junior Marines, Bolich said their wartime efforts continued.

“When we left Gebo, my brother got a job because so many men were in the Army, Navy or Marines,” Bolich said. “Ken started washing dishes at the Manhattan Café and I shined shoes for Steve Ely because it was hard to buy shoes.

“Leather went to the military, so Steve would repair the shoes, and I would shine them up. I got a dollar a day.”

As Bolich looked back at his childhood war efforts, he said that he was proud to be a Junior Marine. He would still sing the Marines' Hymn, no matter which branch the soldier

Gebo and young marines inset 7 26 26

<title>Wyoming History: How Gebo’s Gung-Ho Junior Marines Served During World War II | Cowboy State Daily</title>

In the dying coal town of Gebo during World War II, the patriotic Junior Marines were gung-ho in their wartime efforts of gathering scrap iron, marching and singing. They were inspired by the Wedlock brothers, two teens who left Gebo to fight the war.

Wyoming History: How Gebo’s Gung-Ho Junior Marines Served During World War II

Coy Knobel

Don Day Weather

Partly to mostly sunny in much of Wyoming on Monday with a chance of rain. Chance of rain overnight. Highs in the 80s and 90s.Lows mainly in the 50s and 60s.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":" "}]

Chance of rain mainly after 4 p.m., otherwise partly sunny and hot today with a high near 98 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph. Gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a chance of rain mainly before 11 p.m., a low near 64 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph.

Chance of rain mainly after 2 p.m., otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 94 and gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a slight chance of rain before 10 p.m. and a low near 63.

 Slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., otherwise mostly sunny and hot today with a high near 97 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph. Gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a slight chance of rain before 10 p.m. and a low near 66.

 Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 89 and partly cloudy overnight with a low near 55.

  Slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 94 and gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a slight chance of rain before 8 p.m. and a low near 60.

Chance of rain mainly after 3 p.m., otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 86 and wind gusts as high as 22 mph. Gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a slight chance of rain before 8 p.m., a low near 59 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph.

 Chance of rain mainly after 3 p.m., otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 85 and partly cloudy overnight a low near 54.

 Chance of rain mainly after 3 p.m., otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 89 and mostly cloudy overnight a low near 54.

  Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 88 and partly cloudy overnight a low near 54.

 Chance of rain mainly after 2 p.m., otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 83 and partly cloudy overnight with a low near 53.

  Slight chance of rain, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 88 and partly cloudy overnight with a low near 53.

Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park

:  Slight chance of rain after noon, mostly cloudy today with a high near 82 and partly cloudy overnight with a low near 46.

Slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., otherwise partly sunny and hot today with a high near 97 and partly cloudy overnight with a slight chance of rain before 10 p.m. and a low near 66.

:  Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 91 and partly cloudy overnight with a low near 63.

  Partly sunny today with a high near 96 and gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a low near 64.

   Chance of rain, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 92 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph. Gradually becoming mostly clear overnight with a chance of rain mainly before 9 p.m. and a low near 65.

  Patchy smoke before 9 a.m., slight chance of rain after 4 p.m., otherwise mostly sunny and hot today with a high near 93 and mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain before 11 p.m. and a low near 61.

:   Patchy smoke before 9 a.m., chance of rain mainly after 4 p.m., increasing clouds and hot today with a high near 91 and cloudy, gradually becoming partly cloudy overnight with a slight chance of rain before 8 p.m. and a low near 64.

Chance of rain mainly after 3 p.m., otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 98 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain before midnight, a low near 66 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph.

   Chance of rain mainly after 3 p.m., otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 96 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain mainly before midnight, areas of smoke before midnight, a low near 70 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph.

:  Chance of rain mainly after 3 p.m., otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 93 and wind gusts as high as 18 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain before midnight, a low near 65 and wind gusts as high as 16 mph.

  Chance of rain after 9 a.m., otherwise partly sunny and hot today with a high near 98 and mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain and a low near 66.

  Chance of rain, otherwise partly sunny and hot today with a high near 93 and partly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain and a low near 61.

  Chance of rain mainly after 3 p.m., otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 98 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain before midnight, a low near 64 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph.

   Chance of rain, mostly cloudy and hot today with a high near 91 and mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain and a low near 61.

  Chance of rain, mostly cloudy today with a high near 86 and mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain and a low near 58.

  Chance of rain, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 89 and partly cloudy overnight with a slight chance of rain before midnight and a low near 56.

  Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 88 and partly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain before midnight and a low near 61.

   Chance of rain, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 85 and mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain before midnight and a low near 57.

   Slight chance of rain, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 88 and partly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain before midnight and a low near 57.

Daycap small 7 27 26

<title>Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Monday, July 27, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Monday, July 27, 2026

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, July 27th.  I’m Reece Cowan, filling in for Mac Watson

This newscast is brought to you by the Wyoming State Fair. Wrap up your summer at the Wyoming State Fair, August 11th through the 15th in Douglas!

Rodeo, Demolition Derby, live music, entertainment and fair food await. Learn more at W-Y State Fair dot com. See you at the fair! This ad was paid for by Converse County Tourism.

A patient attacked a Rock Springs emergency nurse, breaking his nose and chasing him through Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County this past week. Cowboy State Daily’s Zakary Sonntag reports that the nurse said "He was fully focused on trying to get me." Health care leaders say this is not unique. 

“A 26-year-old emergency room nurse named Christian was doing a routine medical check on a patient, and within moments of asking the patient if he had taken his medication, he was punched in the face with a closed fist. His nose was broken. The patient chased him to the hospital multiple times. He caught up to him. He threw more punches. He threw knees. It's a pretty extreme example of what is actually not a uncommon phenomenon of violence against healthcare workers. They are statistically a lot more likely to see violence in the workplace than are other workers.”

Wyoming lawmakers have tried to address violence against health care workers.Bills introduced in 2023, 2024 and 2025 would have strengthened reporting requirements, created workplace-safety standards and increased penalties for assaults against health care workers. None became law.

A Douglas man wanted on 72 felony charges alleging sex abuse of minors was released on his own accord by a Colorado court Thursday instead of being held for Wyoming authorities. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that the Converse County undersheriff says “We’re out looking for him again.”

“Officials in Converse County were a little surprised when a a a man wanted on 72 child sex and pornography charges was arrested in Colorado near Fort Collins in Laramie County, and when he hit the court, the the judge had to basically let him go. She gave him a $50,000 PR bond. But he already was violating a $250,000 bond he had posted in Wyoming and that was a little unusual too, because someone on his behalf walked into the Converse County Detention Center with $250,000 cash. So people are are upset saying, you know, how does this happen?”

If convicted with maximum concurrent sentences, John Smallbone could face up to 791 years in prison and fines of up to $710,000. The most serious is the sexual abuse of a minor charge, which calls for a sentence of between 25 and 50 years.

A 12-foot-long dinosaur nicknamed Dino that usually stands outside a Sinclair gas station near Gardiner, Montana, was stolen Sunday night. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports it reappeared bolted to a 100-foot cliff face overlooking the Yellowstone River.

“The Sinclair dinosaur was bolted to a concrete pad in front of the Sinclair gas station outside Gardner, they not only unbolted it from the concrete pad and transported it away to a large rock overlooking the Yellowstone River in the Jim Yankee Canyon. They bolted it into the rock so it wouldn't go anywhere. So that's pretty elaborate. So the employees at the Gardner Sinclair assumed that this had to have been planned, and they're actually not planning to pursue any charges or anything like that. They don't know who did it, but clearly someone went through a lot of effort and planning to do what they did, and they said they were just laughing about it the whole time.”

Stealing Sinclair dinosaurs has become a common Western prank. In November 2025, “DINO,” a 300-pound dinosaur standing outside Sloanes General Store in Alcova, was stolen overnight. For Brian Black, it wasn’t a victimless crime.

A Colorado “rain maker” company claims it has used electricity to boost water supplies in two western states by 10-15% and can do it for Wyoming if lawmakers don't conflate their methods with cloud seeding. Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinze reports that Two legislators say they want proof first. 

“There's this there's this company called Rain Enhancement Technologies. They say this isn't cloud seeding where like where they fly planes and and use silver iodide to try to you know enhance the precipitation on the clouds. What they're saying what we do is we actually try to ionize clouds. We we put up these, they just look like gigantic football goal posts, and it's just a really high output antenna that can ionize aerosol droplets in the air and thereby encourage them to converge and form big enough droplets to actually fall as rain. They claim they can guarantee a 10% increase in precipitation at one of their sites.  They think they've cracked the code to generate more precipitation, particularly if we can get more water in the Colorado River Basin.”

Using ground-based electricity to generate more precipitation isn’t a new idea, said Rain Enhancement Technology’s CEO Randy Seidl, but his company is a pioneer in attempting to deploy it on a large scale.   

I’ll have more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

Cowboy State Daily News continues now….

By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside Casper into a gearhead's paradise. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports the oilfield worker spent a lifetime hauling home muscle cars, hot rods and vintage trucks. Now they are all finding new homes.

“A Casper man spent his life collecting more than 220 cars, including Chevelles, race car engines, Corvettes, lifted pickup trucks, and speedboats. When Rick Knigge passed away suddenly and unexpectedly last fall, his widow Stephanie took on the task of finding new homes for all these vehicles. They had 20 acres where most of them were parked in Evansville, Wyoming, and after he died, she decided it was time to find new owners for his collection. And so they had an auction earlier this month. Stephanie said that it was bittersweet. But all of the more precious items and sentimental things did go to family members.”

Stephanie Knigge said her husband was a successful businessman, a devoted husband of 36 years, a father, grandfather and great-grandfather who loved fishing almost as much as fast cars. 

One of the most difficult rivers to gain access to float is the pristine Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The odds are 1 in 55, with 20,000 applicants vying for 350 slots each year. After trying for 40 years, Cowboy State Daily's Jeff Welsch won the lottery.

“I really fulfilled a dream that I've had for 40 years, and that is to run the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in central Idaho. By just about anybody's measure, it is the crown jewel of wilderness rivers in the lower 48 states. But it is so difficult to get a permit. Only seven launches are allowed per day. Middle Fork of the Salmon is renowned because it is 104 miles with 100 rapids, almost continuous, and man barely touches this river. There are no dams. There's no diversions, no pumps for agriculture. Everything. Mother Nature is purely in charge of the flow of the Middle Fork.”

The Middle Fork of the Salmon is born at the confluence of gin-clear Marsh and Bear Valley creeks on the eastern edge of the Sawtooth Mountains. The river carves a serpentine chasm through the craggy Idaho Batholith and, climactically, Impassable Canyon, the third deepest gorge in North America. 

U.S. House candidate Steve Friess concluded the Thursday-night debate by saying polling shows the Wyoming GOP race is really between two people — himself and Chuck Gray. "[Gray's] unfavorable ratings are astronomically high," a campaign spokesman said.

“There was a House debate Thursday evening, and at the end, Steve Freeze, who's one of the nine Republican candidates, said that he believed one candidate was not there. Frank Chapman had dropped out that morning. He believed that candidate was not there because he'd probably seen the polling he'd seen, and he said this is a two-man race now. Friess’ team later told me that they believe that Freese and Secretary of State Chuck Gray are neck and neck. A super PAC that is helping Gray disputes that, showing the secretary with a much higher lead.”

Teton County-based attorney Frank Chapman dropped out of the race that morning, casting it as a waste of multiple people’s money for him to continue in a race with so much “clutter.” 

In an attempt to connect Cody and Cooke City, the Wyoming Department of Transportation built 8 miles of road in 1969 and then stopped. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports the "Road To Nowhere" became known as "The Road of Death" after a car with 5 people drove through the road's end.

“In the 1960 s, Cody and the state of Wyoming wanted a route between Cody and Cook City, Montana, to give them access to the northeast entrance of Yellowstone. The debate was where they were going to put it, and the initial effort spearheaded by a Cody resident was to build it through the bottom of the Clark's Fork Canyon, and then use that as a natural route to connect to a road that was being built near Cook City. Ultimately, that didn't happen, but they started and paved the first nine miles of it. So if you go out there today, you can still ride this really nice paved scenic nine-mile route that ends abruptly in a dirt parking lot”

On May 5, 2002, five teenagers were driving the Canyon Road when the pavement ended and the vehicle went off the road and through a barbed wire fence. The vehicle was airborne for 90 feet before landing, rolling several times, and stopping in a boulder field. There were only two survivors. 

And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on 

 - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our 

 channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I’m Reece Cowan, in for Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

News image 7 27 26

<title>Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Monday, July 27, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Today's headlines include: 
*Patient Attacks ER Nurse
*Story Behind The Road To Nowhere
*Stolen Sinclair Dinosaur Found Bolted To Cliff

Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Monday, July 27, 2026

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

CASPER — By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside the city into a gearhead's paradise.

He had Camaros and Chevelles. Prewar Ford hot rods. Corvettes. A 426 Hemi-powered Plymouth GTX. Monster trucks. Speed boats. Race engines. Shipping containers packed with parts.

[{"type":"text","text":"If it was loud, fast or had the potential to be, Knigge wanted it."}]

The Casper-area oil field worker spent a lifetime hauling home muscle cars, hot rods, vintage trucks, race engines and enough performance parts to fill shelves, sea cans and storage units. 

Nearly every evening after work ended the same way: he'd settle into his chair and spend an hour combing through classifieds, searching for the next great find.

"He was obsessed with it," his wife, Stephanie Knigge, told Cowboy State Daily. "That was probably an hour process every night, just going through all the ads to see if there was anything he was missing out on." 

When Knigge died unexpectedly at 65 on Sept. 10, 2025, he left behind more than memories.

He left a sprawling automotive collection so large it drew bidders from across the country to a massive July 18 estate auction near Evansville for his "Go Fast" collection.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Born To Build"}]

Long before the rows of classic cars filled his property, Knigge was working.

He started driving trucks as a young teenager after his family launched an oilfield water service business. 

Eventually, he and his brother helped build Melco Inc., an oil tank cleaning company that took them across much of the United States. He later became vice president, a role his family said he took great pride in. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Those work trips often turned into treasure hunts."}]

"He got a lot of opportunity to drive around and see what was around and collect stuff," Stephanie said. "So that's how I think it all started." 

By the time she met him in 1989, the collecting bug had already taken hold.

"That's why he started working in the first place — because he wanted parts for cars" she said. 

As the years went on, the collection evolved with whatever captured his imagination.

Some years it was 1930s-era Ford hot rods. Other times it was vintage Jeeps, Broncos or speed boats. If it looked like a bargain, Knigge usually found room for it.

"He would kind of get on a kick every now and then," Stephanie said. "He was always looking." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Twenty Acres "}]

Things really escalated after the family moved to 20 acres outside Casper.

"He really went crazy with it," Stephanie said with a laugh, "because he had the room to park all of it." 

[{"type":"text","text":"Before long, the collection had grown so large the county took notice."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Knigge's solution wasn't to stop buying cars."}]

It was to buy shipping containers, rent storage units and devise an organizational system only he truly understood.

"His brain was pretty intense," Stephanie said. "If I would have had all of that going on in my brain, my mind would explode." 

Eventually, the property held roughly 220 vehicles, along with countless engines, body panels, race parts and automotive memorabilia.

VanDerBrink Auctions dubbed it the "Go Fast" collection. The catalog ranged from 1932-1940 Ford, Dodge, Plymouth and Chevrolet hot rod bodies to Camaros, Chevelles, Corvettes, monster trucks, Humvees, speed boats, racing engines and shelves of vintage speed parts. 

Ironically, Stephanie said her husband rarely had time to enjoy many of his favorite vehicles.

"He didn't even really have the time to enjoy it," she said. "He just worked until he died. He had all these plans." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'You're Burying Me Alive'"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Living with more than 200 vehicles wasn't always easy."}]

About a year before his death, Stephanie finally tried to slow the collection's relentless growth.

"I was like, 'Honey, you are kind of burying me alive with all this,'" she recalled. 

[{"type":"text","text":"It didn't work."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He just did what he wanted,\" she said with a laugh. "}]

Despite the occasional frustration, she understood exactly why he kept collecting.

[{"type":"text","text":"It made him happy."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"And sometimes, it paid off."}]

Buying and selling cars over the years helped finance construction of the couple's home, she said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Little Things"}]

Knigge died after complications related to diabetes and previously undiagnosed heart disease. What he initially thought was heartburn quickly became a medical emergency, Stephanie said. 

Without a will or trust, the family eventually concluded selling the collection was the only practical option.

"There just wasn't a choice," Stephanie said. "We had to be able to pay the bills, keep this place going." 

Rows of hot rods, muscle cars, speed boats, race engines, body panels and carefully cataloged parts stretched across the property as bidders wandered from lot to lot, loading trailers with pieces of a collection Rick spent decades building. 

By day's end, what had once been one man's automotive playground was dispersing across Wyoming and beyond.

By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside Casper into a gearhead's paradise. The oilfield worker spent a lifetime hauling home muscle cars, hot rods and vintage trucks. Now they are all finding new homes.

Daily Smile: Wednesday, March 6, 2024

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