Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"Darwin at work....."}]

Darwin 8 2 2024

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

<title>Daily Darwin: Friday, August 2, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Darwin at work.....

Daily Darwin: Friday, August 2, 2024

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

When former Fremont County coroner Ed McAuslan arrived in Riverton, Wyoming, as a young police officer in January 1973, the town was rougher than it is now.

“When I first came here, it was a little more wild,” McAuslan said. “There were bombings and just all kinds of things went on back then.”

McAuslan said that a bomb had been placed under the patrol car of Undersheriff Duel Price. The car was parked in his driveway at Price’s home when the explosion rocked the neighborhood. 

No one was hurt, but McAuslan said that it was incidents like the bombing were the on-the-job training he and other rookie cops received. 

There was no police academy in the 1970s and McAuslan learned the intricacies of his job on the streets of Riverton. 

Much of the town's crime centered around the numerous bars in Riverton. McAuslan said that just at the intersection of Third and Main streets there were three bars on the street corners.

McAuslan had gotten into law enforcement by chance. 

In 1962, he had joined the military and spent his tour of duty at Vandenburg Air Force Base in California during the early days of missiles. 

He said that the base test-fired missiles and for the next four years, he was a motion picture lab technician working with film of the missile launches, mostly to the South Pacific.

He left in 1966 and returned home to Wyoming where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Wildlife Management. After graduating, McAuslan was unable to find work in his chosen field. 

“I was married with a young son to support,” McAuslan said. “There were only two openings with Wyoming Game and Fish and 75 applicants.”

The chief of Police in Glenrock encouraged him to apply for a job, and in May 1972, McAuslan was employed as a patrol officer. 

He soon transferred to Riverton and hit the streets in January 1973 as a rookie cop, acquiring knowledge as he went.

His first lessons involved learning the city laws and statutes.

“Our job was to patrol and try to keep the crime down,” McAuslan said. “We also had the responsibility of working traffic and doing accident investigations. We covered the whole aspect of it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Investigator And Coroner "}]

McAuslan was a patrol officer for only 10 months before being promoted into investigations. 

It was there that the rookie learned how to investigate major crimes like burglaries and homicides. He was no longer a traffic cop, but it also meant long hours since McAuslan was always on call. 

His duties increased when, in 1975, Fremont County Coroner Larry Lee asked Police Chief Dennis Horyza if McAuslan could assist with death investigations. 

It was approved. The same year, McAuslan also became an EMT and worked with the Fremont County Ambulance until 1990.

“For a long time, the coroners of the state were just funeral directors,” McAuslan said. “But things got to the point where they did more investigations.”

Lee was a funeral director and fire chief when he asked McAuslan to help him with death investigations. Their jurisdiction covered all of Fremont County and the Wind River Reservation. 

McAuslan worked in law enforcement and in the coroner’s office for the next 24 years. 

When Lee retired in 1998, McAuslan was elected to the office in Lee’s place in 1999 and retired from the Riverton Police Department. 

McAuslan became a coroner full-time and held the post until his own retirement in 2014. 

“Working with families during a death, whether it is natural, accidental or a homicide, is the most difficult part,” McAuslan said.“My job was to determine the cause and manner of death, and to assist families however I could. Having compassion is the most important thing there is.”

McAuslan said that it was crucial to remember to always have respect for the people no matter how they treat you. 

He related almost being attacked when he brought news of a husband’s death in a car crash to the victim’s wife. She reacted in a hate-filled rage and went after McAuslan. 

McAuslan said that although he was just the messenger, he knew he could become the target of the loved ones' anger and learned not to take it personally. 

That day, he was grateful he had taken a pastor with him who was able to calm the grief-stricken woman while McAuslan tactfully withdrew from her home.  

“If you can't respect the people and what's going on with them, then you need to get another profession,” McAuslan said. “You can't react to how they treat you because it is a very difficult circumstance.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bridging Cultures"}]

Since McAuslan had jurisdiction over the reservation, he also had to learn to deal respectfully with two different cultures. He worked closely with several tribal members over the years, including Georgianna “Georgie” Crawford and Willie Le Clair.

One example he cited was when they were dealing with a hit-and-run homicide on the reservation and the family was not allowed to enter the scene. 

They asked McAuslan to allow a tribal elder to bless the body, and he was able to convince the FBI and Indian Police that this could be could be done without disturbing the investigation.

“I made a habit of keeping a braid of sweet grass in each vehicle,” McAuslan said. “If the family wanted something like that, we always had it with us.” 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Preventing Deaths"}]

During McAuslan’s many years as coroner, suicide was a big issue and he became proactive in preventing them, especially with youth.

“Georgie and I spent a lot of time with the kids and we covered the entire county,” McAuslan said. 

He was working for the coroner’s office when in 1985, a rash of suicides by hanging ultimately claimed the lives of 12 young men from the Wind River Indian Reservation, while 88 others fortunately failed in their attempts. 

During this time McAuslan, Crawford and others doubled their efforts to reach the kids and stop the deaths. 

Eventually, the hangings stopped following a Tribal Ceremony, but left behind grieving families.

McAuslan said that another aspect of suicide that is not considered is how no one talked about cleaning the scene following a suicide. This was left to family or friends. 

It broke his heart as he witnessed the additional pain mothers especially were put through.

“At that time, I realized that an issue no one talked about was how messy it was when someone shoots themselves,” McAuslan said. “I was able to talk to some people and get some money to establish the fund to do cleanup so the families didn't have that responsibility.”

McAuslan said that it takes a special person to be willing to clean up a suicide scene and he finally had a young intern, Erin Ivie who took over the job. 

After proving that she had the same compassion as McAuslan, Ivie is currently the Fremont County Coroner. 

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

McAuslan said that one of the hardest investigations as a coroner was when someone lost a child to SIDS. 

There is usually no explanation for the death and so rather than prevention, he and Crawford set out to give as much support to the grieving families as possible. 

In the early 2000s, their compassionate approach received national attention and they were invited to make a presentation at the National SIDS Conference in Orlando, Florida.

“We would have families who felt ostracized,” McAuslan said. “The only help we could give them was to support them as we did our investigation.”

McAuslan learned to not rush the families and to sit with them as they held their children for the last time. 

“It's not natural for a parent to lose a child,” McAuslan said. 

In dealing with so many deaths over the past decades, McAuslan said that he cannot dwell on the horrors he has witnessed but rather on the people he has helped.

“You can't focus on the deaths or you won't survive,” McAuslan said. “I still remember a few cases, like the couple who murdered their children in 1979 and the suicides in the 1980s, but for the most part, I don’t think about them.” 

In his retirement, McAuslan has turned to photography and taking classes on petroglyphs at Central Wyoming College. 

“It’s important to keep moving forward,” McAuslan said. “To focus on the good.” 

Ed Mc Auslan 2 inset Ed the retired photographer 6 7 26

<title>Wyoming People: Fremont County’s Ed McAuslan Learned To Be A Coroner On The Job | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Ed McAuslan was the longtime Fremont County coroner who learned his trade on the job as a young cop recruited into the office. A rash of 100 attempted suicides by hanging in 1985 — 12 successful — opened his eyes wide to “an issue no one talked about."

Wyoming People: Fremont County’s Ed McAuslan Learned To Be A Coroner On The Job

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

Renée Jean

When Wyoming State Archives materials archivist Suzi Taylor first saw an auction listing for what was billed as the original glass plate negative for Butch Cassidy’s Territorial Prison mugshot in a forwarded email from Cowboy State Daily, she stopped everything she was doing and hustled upstairs to double-check the state's collection.

“I was fairly certain we still had it in our collection,” Taylor told Cowboy State Daily. “But I ran upstairs just to be sure. Sure enough, it was in the box, just where it’s supposed to be.”

That had her breathing a sigh of relief as she carefully put this treasured state item back into its acid-free sleeve and closed it back up in a reinforced box. 

The mix-up highlights how questions of provenance can affect high-value Wild West auctions, but it also shows how Wyoming curators quietly document and safeguard key pieces of the state’s Western history behind the scenes. 

offered by RR Auction failed to meet its reserve price and was ultimately not sold during a recent sale, the company told Cowboy State Daily. 

Questions raised about the negative’s provenance — including the fact that Wyoming still holds the original glass plate — are being reviewed before the company decides whether and how to offer the item again.

Taylor, for her part, said the fact the auction house’s glass plate negative isn’t the original doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a fake. 

She said contemporary copies were made from Cassidy’s print mugshot for wider distribution to law enforcement.

That means while not original, it’s still period to the time. 

Since negatives of the time were made of breakable glass, authorities likely didn’t want to handle the original too often. Re-photographing a print was a much safer way to make additional copies for other law enforcement agencies.

Cassidy’s mugshot is one of the most iconic of the few images ever taken of America’s last cowboy outlaw, made famous in the Robert Redford movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

Taken during Cassidy’s only significant prison stint, the photo freeze-frames were taken of the young man before the notorious Wild Bunch appeared.

Cassidy never owned up to leading the Wild Bunch, though law enforcement officials of the day said he was — loudly and often.

Historians, meanwhile, have various opinions on that. 

Some suggest there’s good evidence Cassidy would have scoffed at the idea anyone could lead such a loose confederation of misfits and malcontents as the Wild Bunch, while also pointing out he couldn’t possibly have been in as many places as law enforcement was claiming. 

Others have suggested the Wild Bunch was probably Cassidy's way of getting even with Wyoming for the trumped-up horse thief charges that the cowboy outlaw always maintained were fabricated by his enemies.

Cassidy’s younger sister, Lula Betenson, meanwhile, once claimed her brother told her during a secret family reunion that if Wyoming wanted to treat him as an outlaw, then he’d show them what an outlaw really was.

The truth of that will never be known for certain. Instead, there’s this compelling photo that captures the mystery of it all in a glance. 

In it, Cassidy looks less like an outlaw posing for a mugshot and more like a patron posing for a casual portrait on a relaxing Saturday or Sunday afternoon. He wears a dark, structured suit coat and a white shirt buttoned up to his neck.

It’s his enigmatic expression that captures and holds attention, though. He offers the viewer neither smile nor frown, but his eyes seem to know something his lips aren’t about to ever tell.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Rarely Sees Light Of Day"}]

The original glass plate negative used to create Cassidy’s Territorial Prison mugshot is on a short list of treasured artifacts whose condition is frequently monitored at the Wyoming State Archives.

“I had laid my eyes on that one not too long ago, but I had to make sure it was exactly where I’d left it,” Taylor said. “I check it fairly regularly, just to make sure it’s where it’s supposed to be and hasn’t deteriorated.”

Glass is among the most non-reactive substances on the planet. But the chemicals used to create the image itself, which are laid down in a thin emulsion directly on the glass, are much more fragile.

“The image itself and the emulsion can, if the chemicals weren’t properly fixed, start to fade in odd ways,” she said. “So, we want to be able to catch that. And sometimes the emulsion gets really dry and starts flaking off the glass itself, because the image sits right on top of the glass. 

"Over time, it can delaminate and separate, so we want to make sure we are extra careful and catch that before it becomes a problem.”

Taylor frequently spot-checks other mugshots in the Territorial and Wyoming State Penitentiary collections, which include thousands of negatives of outlaws. 

Among the collection are mugshot negatives for other Cassidy contemporaries like Albert “Slick” Nard and Joseph Nutcher. 

All of the glass plate negatives are kept in acid-free sleeves inside a rigid box with additional support. That ensures the glass plate won’t accidentally break. 

Cassidy’s negative, in particular, is rarely handled. 

“We have a digital surrogate that we use instead of taking the negative out,” she said. “The less it’s handled, the less likely it is to break.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Helps Tell Territorial Prison’s Story"}]

Another place where Cassidy’s mugshot appears is the Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site, where Superintendent Jessica Lira has made it a prominent part of the museum’s exhibits.

“We have a big portrait of his mugshot, his intake photo, right when you walk into the building,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “The exhibit talks about his life and how, even though he only spent 18 months and was let out early for good behavior, it was after that he starts blowing up trains and blowing up safes around Wyoming and Colorado.”

Cassidy, Lira said, is the most famous outlaw the territorial prison ever held, and his face is an instant hook into the larger story of crime and punishment on the frontier.

Lira uses high-quality prints and digital reproductions for her exhibits, keeping the originals at the Wyoming State Archives to protect them. That’s how the state balances public access with preservation.

Lira uses the mugshots to tell stories about real people, as well as to illustrate changing ideas about law enforcement in the West.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"How Experts Know"}]

There are several telling details that immediately distinguish Cassidy’s original Territorial Prison mugshot negative from the mugshot negative offered in RR Auction’s Western Americana sale of the Jochen Zeitz collection. 

“The (prison) photograph of Cassidy was taken in May 1895 by Laramie photographer Louis Heyn,” historian and Cassidy expert Mike Bell has told Cowboy State Daily. “The original shows a wider view of Cassidy, including part of his leg in striped pants. 

"The picture was then cropped to show the head and torso version, which is well-known and widely circulated.”

Bell, too, believes it is possible the auction house’s glass plate negative is a contemporary copy of the original photograph. Lots of police departments did have copies of Cassidy’s mugshot at the time.

“For example, Sheriff Louis Grant Davis of Sweetwater County got a copy,” Bell said. “He showed it to E.L. Carpenter, the manager of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company, which was held up by two men in 1897.”

Carpenter told Davis at the time that he recognized the photo of Cassidy as being one of the two men who had held him up.

Butch Cassidy negative main illustration 6 7 26

<title>Wyoming Archives Has Butch Cassidy Negative, Despite ‘Original’ Offered At Auction | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Despite an East Coast auction house advertising a glass plate negative of Butch Cassidy’s mugshot as a one-of-a-kind, the original is housed in the Wyoming State Archives. “I was certain we had it in our collection,” archivist Suzy Taylor said.

Wyoming Archives Has Butch Cassidy Negative, Despite ‘Original’ Offered At Auction

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

[{"type":"text","text":"As a young girl, Debbie Rude wondered if she had imagined it."}]

Growing up in a tiny rental house on Walnut Street in Rock Springs during the 1950s, some of her earliest memories are of standing at the fence line beside her family’s yard and staring up at what looked to her like something pulled from the pages of a storybook.

The building towering beside her family’s modest home was Schlacter Castle — a hulking stone fortress with rounded turrets, battlemented towers and thick, gray masonry that seems better suited for Germany's Rhine Valley than the windswept coal country of southwest Wyoming.

Its heavy arches and castle walls rise above the hillside with a dreamlike absurdity, as though a medieval stronghold had somehow wandered into Rock Springs and decided to stay.

The fence separating the properties made it feel, Rude said, “as though I lived in two separate worlds.”

On her side sat a hard-packed dirt yard scattered with toys and lined with a clothesline fluttering with work shirts and bedsheets in the Wyoming wind. 

Beyond it rose another world entirely — emerald grass trimmed neat beneath the shadow of stone turrets, flower beds bursting with color around a castle that seemed impossibly elegant against the coal-dust grit of Rock Springs.

“I’d dream of going inside and of living in that castle, like a real princess,” Rude said.

More than a century after German immigrant John Schlacter finished building the castle in 1914, the strange stone fortress still clings to the hillside above Rock Springs, keeping a medieval eye on the city below while generations drift through its halls and the city changes around it.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Castle In Coal Country"}]

Nobody seems entirely sure why Schlacter decided to build a literal castle on a hill overlooking Rock Springs.

That mystery is part of what has kept the building embedded in local imagination for generations.

Born in Germany on Feb. 23, 1866, Schlacter came to the United States in 1886 and eventually married Viola Van Kaiser in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1890. 

The couple raised several children before moving West, first to Diamondville in 1899 and later to Rock Springs in 1907.

By then, Schlacter had already established himself as a master stonecutter.

Historical accounts credit him with helping build the Carnegie libraries in Rock Springs and Green River, along with foundations, homes and churches throughout southwest Wyoming.

With their grand stone facades, towering arched windows and stately symmetry, the libraries Schlacter helped build carried an almost cathedral-like permanence onto the Wyoming frontier — monuments to knowledge and ambition rising from dusty mining roads.

He also built portions of the local Episcopal Church, stone foundations on D Street and C Street, and homes across the city alongside fellow stoneworkers.

According to local historian Helene B. Novotny’s self-published history “The Days After Abraham Lincoln 1943-1949,” Schlacter once bid unsuccessfully on the stately Taliaferro home on Cedar Street.

One local theory suggests Schlacter responded by buying property across from it on Walnut Street and building an even grander stone residence to prove “what an excellent stonecutter he was.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Tall and imposing on the hill, it certainly accomplished that."}]

Construction on the castle began in 1909 and took roughly five years to complete. 

The stone reportedly came from the same local quarry used to build the old Rock Springs City Hall, now home to the Rock Springs Historical Museum, though the quarry itself has since been lost to time.

Schlacter hauled much of the stone himself using two horses and a wagon, according to the Rock Springs Historical Museum.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'My Baba Had To Pull Me Along'"}]

Rude only lived beside the castle until age 5, but the building left a permanent imprint on her memory.

Her family’s roots run deep in Rock Springs’ immigrant coal-mining community. Her father, Pete Mirich, attended Rock Springs High School before leaving to fight in World War II. 

Her grandfather, Sam Mirich, came from Montenegro and worked in the coal mines while helping raise seven children.

Like many immigrant families in Rock Springs at the time, they lived modestly.

[{"type":"text","text":"That made the castle next door feel even more surreal."}]

“My Montenegrin Baba would often take me for walks to the town cemetery to visit my grandpa’s grave, and she would always have to tug on my hand to get me moving when we walked past the castle,” Rude said.

Part of the fascination, she believes, came from the mystery surrounding the place.

“I don’t ever recall seeing a person go in or out of the house,” she said. “That may actually have made it easier for me to create my own fantasies about it.”

Her parents sometimes had to call her inside because she spent so much time staring at the building.

“Others would laugh and say it was just a little girl’s flight of fancy,” she said. “In fact, there was a period of time when I wondered, myself, if I had simply imagined it was there. 

"After all, how could there be a real castle in Rock Springs, Wyoming?”

Friends and neighbors later described the Schlacters as intensely private people, which only deepened the mystery surrounding the looming stone home.

Two of Schlacter’s daughters eventually lived in the castle, including Olga Schlacter, who remained unmarried and reportedly lived there longer than anyone else in the family while working at Parker Brothers Drug Store in Rock Springs.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Soldiers, Ghost Stories And Survival"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The castle’s history only grew stranger with time."}]

According to local historical accounts, Schlacter opened the building during World War I to soldiers in the area, allowing it to be used as temporary barracks and providing room and board to military personnel.

[{"type":"text","text":"Local stories also suggest tragedy followed the family. "}]

One account claims Schlacter and his wife returned to Germany grief-stricken after the reported death of an older son shortly after World War I, leaving much of the remaining family behind in Wyoming.

After World War II, the castle was eventually sold to the Greek family. Residents who visited the home during that era remembered wandering staircases and cavernous interiors. 

One former piano student reportedly joked she spent more time staring at the staircase and wondering how horses could ever climb it than practicing music.

Later, the castle sat vacant for years — boarded up, dark and looming over Walnut Street.

[{"type":"text","text":"That was when the ghost stories began."}]

For generations of Rock Springs kids, the abandoned stone fortress became the kind of place people dared each other to approach.

Eventually, the Hamm family purchased the building and converted it into apartments. During renovations, portions of the original structure were altered, including removal of the attic roof and modifications to the turrets. Large picture windows were also added overlooking the city below.

Those renovations ultimately prevented the building from qualifying for the National Register of Historic Places.

[{"type":"text","text":"Still, the castle survives."}]

More than 112 years after its stone walls first rose above Rock Springs, the fortress remains perched on the hillside — weathered by Wyoming winters, softened by time and stubbornly standing watch over the city below.

Today, Rude still makes a point to drive past it whenever she passes through town.

“No trip through town is complete without driving past the castle and the tiny little house that still sits in its shadow,” she said.

Schlacter Castle Screenshot 2026 06 06 at 10 23 32 AM 6 6 26

<title>Why The Heck … Is There A Castle In The Middle Of Rock Springs, Wyoming? | Cowboy State Daily</title>

No one knows why German immigrant and master stonemason John Schlacter built a castle overlooking Rock Springs more than a century ago. He spent five years building it by hand, hauling locally quarried stone by horse and wagon before finishing it in 1914.

Why The Heck … Is There A Castle In The Middle Of Rock Springs, Wyoming?

Most sheriff cruisers are designed to blend into a fleet, but the newest cruiser in the Laramie County Sheriff's Office fleet was designed to do the exact opposite.

It not only stands out, “it looks pretty badass,” said Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak.

Covered in Western artwork featuring a cowboy on horseback racing forward with purpose on a white background, the 2025 Dodge Durango LCSO SUV is pure Wyoming.

That it turns heads is exactly what Kozak said he was going for in commissioning the look of the department's new recruiting rig.

It squats low and mean with a wild-eyed horse charging across its sides, mane whipping viciously in the Cowboy State wind. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Clint Eastwood-Inspired Cruiser"}]

When it came time to create the design, Kozak called on Cheyenne mural artist Jordan Dean, whose giant wild horse mural transformed the city's towering water tanks north of town.

Dean has become one of the state's most recognizable mural artists, painting everything from large public art installations to massive water tower projects that require boom lifts, projectors and specialized industrial paint.

[{"type":"text","text":"Kozak had a simple request for Dean."}]

"I wanted a high plains drifter, Clint Eastwood kind of cowboy hard charge-in graphic,” the sheriff said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Dean delivered."}]

The result is a rolling Western mural that has already been drawing attention from residents and fellow law enforcement officers.

[{"type":"text","text":"Kozak said he keeps hearing, \"That is the coolest car we've ever seen.\""}]

The cruiser's first major public appearance in Cheyenne was Saturday during a downtown summer event, where families were able to climb inside, check out the lights and meet members of the sheriff's office.

[{"type":"text","text":"Wyatt Earp On Wheels"}]

Dean said his relationship with the sheriff's office began years ago when Kozak called looking for an artist to paint murals inside the Laramie County Detention Center. 

When he was done with that, he told the sheriff, "I would love to take a crack at your vehicles. I've always just thought it would be the coolest thing to design a law enforcement vehicle." 

When Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak wanted a new design for the newest SUV in the fleet, he asked a local artist to create a "Clint Eastwood High Plains Drifter" look. "It looks pretty badass," Kozak said, noting he's received many compliments.

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