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

<title>Daily Smile: Wednesday, August 21, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Smile: Wednesday, August 21, 2024

 Now let's all enjoy watching some baby hedgehogs....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

He drove a public bus in Casper in the 1920s and also took the wheel of trucks hauling contraband booze.

By the 1930s his two-bit criminal history in central Wyoming morphed into big-time felonies that made front-page headlines. 

In 1936, Harry Campbell hit the FBI’s most-wanted list as “public enemy No. 2” just behind his friend and partner in crime Alvin Karpis, the leader of the Karpis-Barker gang.

Campbell’s crime career ended with a life sentence at Alcatraz for his role in the kidnapping of a Minnesota brewery heir in 1934. 

But before he arrived at “The Rock” he, with Karpis, successfully escaped an FBI arrest in a hail of machine-gun bullets.

When the FBI finally put Campbell in cuffs for his role in the kidnapping, the raid was led by storied Director J. Edgar Hoover. 

The Casper Tribune-Herald reminded every one of Campbell’s ties to the region.

“Former Casper Man Seized In Toledo Today,” the paper reported on May 7, 1938. “Companion of Karpis Once Drove Bus to Evansville.”

Harry Campbell began life as a New Year’s baby in a new century, on Jan. 1, 1900, in McClintocksville, Pennsylvania. 

He was the fifth of seven children born to George and Melissa Campbell. By the second decade of his life, his family moved to Oklahoma, and it was in Tulsa where his bad seeds were initially sown.

FBI documents on the Barker gang state that Campbell grew up knowing the infamous brood and their mother, Kate “Ma” Barker.

“Many of the sons of Kate Barker became associates of these boys in their later lives,” states the file dated Nov. 19, 1936. “Harry Campbell and Volney Davis matured and grew up with the sons of Kate Barker, and in later years they collectively engaged in lives of crime.”

The file states that Campbell became a prominent member of the gang.

Reflecting on Campbell’s life of crime, The Tulsa World reported on May 8, 1936, that he was first arrested for vagrancy in the city on Dec. 25, 1920, and again on June 11, 1921, for bank robbery. 

He was sent to prison, but a few months later was acquitted and released.

Within the next two years, Campbell moved to the Casper region, first working the Salt Creek oil fields and then from 1923-1924 driving a bus between Casper and Evansville.

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

The Casper Tribune-Herald reported on May 7, 1936, about how Campbell’s wayward nature continued to find opportunities in his new state.

“He gained a livelihood, police recall, from hauling truckloads of contraband liquor. Those were prohibition days, and on several occasions he ran afoul of the law because of his rum-running activities,” the newspaper reported. “He was arrested by Detective Miller in 1924 on a possession of whiskey charge.” 

But Campbell’s criminal ways meant he was never long in one region.

In August 1932, Campbell and Fred Barker were being sought for the murder J. Earl Smith, a Tulsa lawyer who had represented both men. 

Smith had told his wife that he was going to meet men to receive some money for his services. 

Campbell made the appointment to see Smith and had a dispute with the attorney about charges for his representation on a burglary charge. 

Smith’s body and bullet-riddled car were found outside Tulsa.

In August 1933, Campbell was sought in Oklahoma along with two others for the May 11 murder of a truck driver who tried to stop a safe robbery at a trucking firm.

In September 1933, FBI files state that Campbell was recruited by the Barker gang to St. Paul, Minnesota, and he brought along his second wife, Wynona Burdette, from Oklahoma. 

From Minnesota, the gang drove to Reno, Nevada, to meet with others, gamble and drink.

By late December they returned to Minnesota, and late in the month decided to kidnap Edward George Bremer, a St. Paul bank president and son of the owner of the Schmidt beer brewery. 

The plan was tentatively called off after two members left a kidnap planning session and shot and wounded a Northwest Airways employee who was wearing a uniform and mistaken for a cop.

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

By Jan. 17, 1934, plans were back on, and Campbell and Karpis were among five gang members watching for Bremer to drop off his daughter at school. 

When his car pulled up at a stop sign a half-block away after depositing her, a gang member stepped up to Bremer’s door with a gun, told him to move over.

Asecond gang member opened the right-side door, struck him in the head several times and shoved him on the floor, FBI files state.

Bremer’s car, followed by the remaining kidnappers, took off. Hoover later claimed it was Karpis and Campbell who initially grabbed him.

The kidnapping resulted in a $200,000 ransom payment with the serial numbers of the cash recorded by the FBI and later shared with banks across the country.

In its 1936 story, The Casper Herald-Tribune reported that Campbell and Karpis had visited Casper two years earlier in summer 1934 as the heat from law enforcement for the kidnapping made life harder elsewhere in the country.

The newspaper recounted how Campbell was seated at an “inconspicuous table” in a Casper night club and enjoying a drink and music trying to avoid attention. 

A former girlfriend reportedly walked up, called him by name and asked, “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

Campbell exchanged pleasantries and quickly disappeared from the club, the newspaper reported.

“The ensuing hunt for him revealed he had a companion and that the companion was Alvin Karpis,” the newspaper reported.

After the kidnapping and subsequent manhunt, the Casper paper noted that local law enforcement had been watchful for any appearance of Campbell in the region.

“Vigilance had been especially keen in recent weeks as the dragnet closed in on him and Karpis,” the newspaper reported.

When Fred Barker and Kate Barker were killed in a shootout with the FBI in January 1935, Campbell and Karpis were tracked to a hotel in Atlantic City. 

Campbell’s wife had been released by Oklahoma authorities with a promise from her brother that she would lead authorities to Campbell.

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

According to news reports, Campbell’s wife Burdette, aka Louise Campbell, and Karpis’ girlfriend traveled from Florida to join them. 

Some news reports state they tipped off authorities as to who was in the room next door.

When federal agents surrounded the motel room and banged on the door, news stories declared that Karpis sent a stream of bullets through it. 

Then Karpis, wearing trousers, slippers and overcoat, and Campbell with a pistol in his underwear, ran out the door as police returned fire. 

The pair stole a car and then engaged in a running gun battle with police as they gave chase.

“The bandits jumped into a coupe owned by Mrs. Harold Brand, and with Karpis lying on the running board and pumping shots from his machine gun, they drove out Kentucky Avenue,” the Press of Atlantic City reported on Jan. 21, 1935. 

“Store fronts and small hotels on Kentucky Avenue bore marks of the battle as the guns of the fleeing mobsters and police revolvers raked the entire section,” the story addded.

Karpis and Campbell escaped, ditched the car, kidnapped a man and stole his car, and then released him.

Karpis in his autobiography told a different story, writing that he and Campbell were in rooms individually with their women.

When the cops banged on the door, it was Campbell who opened up with the machine gun. No one was on the sideboard. He drove and Campbell fired at cops out of the back window.

The pair ended up in Toledo, Ohio, under assumed names. 

They recruited a couple of other criminals to join them and robbed a mail truck in Warren, Ohio, of $72,000. Two other known criminals were arrested, charged, and convicted, the FBI file states.

But a continued investigation showed Karpis and Campbell were responsible.

Meanwhile, Campbell married a 19-year-old girl named Gertrude as he used the name Clarence C. Miller on May 29, 1935.

On Nov. 7, 1935, five armed men with two machine guns, a shotgun and automatic pistols robbed a train in Garrettsville, Ohio, as it went from Detroit to Pittsburgh. 

Once again, Karpis and Campbell were leading the group, the FBI file states.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"But the law was closing in on them. "}]

They separated and Campbell stayed in Ohio under his assumed name and Karpis went south. 

Karpis was finally arrested on May 1, 1936, in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Hoover made sure he was present.

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

Six days later, agents closed in on Campbell in Toledo.

The FBI file states that at daybreak on May 7, 1936, agents raided his apartment and arrested him. Under his pillow was a .45-caliber Colt automatic pistol.

Headlines across the nation proclaimed the arrest. Hoover had flown to Cleveland to be on hand to bring him in.

Oklahoma prosecutors conceded that Hoover had a stronger case linking Campbell to the Bremer kidnapping than they had linking him to the 1932 murder of the attorney Smith.

Federal agents flew Campbell to Minnesota to face charges.

Campbell’s mother told the Tulsa Tribune for its May 7, 1936, edition that her son “has been a heartbreak to us.”

His parents and other siblings were described as “law abiding” and “mighty nice people” by a local Tulsa police detective.

Once in court on May 12 in Minneapolis, Campbell pleaded guilty to driving the kidnap car that took Bremer to the hideout and for guarding him for 21 days and then taking him to the place where he was released.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on May 13 that the federal prosecutor said Campbell’s split of the ransom money was only $6,000 to $7,000. 

The judge asked him if there was any reason that he shouldn’t sentence him that day.

“No,” the paper reported Campbell stated.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"He got a life sentence."}]

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

The Winona Daily News reported on May 15, 1936, that he was shackled and taken secretly to Leavenworth by federal marshals and FBI agents.

“Campbell, federal authorities admitted, undoubtably will be taken to Alcatraz Prison in San Francisco Bay,” the newspaper reported.

Online federal prison records for Alcatraz list him as prisoner No. 322 having been sent there from Leavenworth. 

The record describes Campbell as “of the vicious type and his past record is a definite indication that would not hesitate from using violence in order to obtain his freedom … committee recommends maximum supervision.”

The federal prison record states that Campbell had a daughter with his second wife “of whom he is very fond.”

“In all probability his asocial activities were conditioned by associates and environmental influences,” his record states. “He has always been an oil field worker but was unemployed for three years prior to his arrest.”

Campbell’s potential parole date was May 11, 1951. Where and when he was released from prison is unknown. 

A search for information about his life after prison was unsuccessful.

The website Find a Grave states that Campbell died in Amarillo, Texas, on Nov. 20, 1974. He was buried after a gravesite service in Rose Hill Memorial Park in Tulsa.

Campbell and Alcatraz 6 21 26

<title>From Casper To Alcatraz: Former Bus Driver Hit No. 2 On FBI’s Most Wanted List | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A former Casper oil worker and bus driver in the 1920s careened into a life of crime with the infamous Karpis-Barker gang that included murders, kidnappings, and robberies. He was the FBI's No. 2 most-wanted before being caught and sent to Alcatraz.

From Casper To Alcatraz: Former Bus Driver Hit No. 2 On FBI’s Most Wanted List

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

Andrew Rossi

Dubois, Wyoming, is a name that, to this day, is 

. It's pronounced “dew-boys” instead of the French “deh-bwah" as a deliberate slight to U.S. senator Fred Dubois, after whom the town was named — by Dubois himself.

The locals wanted their town’s name to be Tibo, the Shoshone word for "stranger" or "white man.” It was an affectionate moniker for Episcopal priest Father John Roberts, one of the first white homesteaders in the area.

There’s another strange name that factors into Dubois' strange naming history: Neversweat.

It’s a relic of Fremont County’s early history of bustling wilderness outposts in the mountains of western Wyoming. But was Dubois almost named something as unsavory as Neversweat?

“It's one of those stories where there's some truth in it and some that's not true,” said historian Steve Banks. “I read a little quip one time that said, ‘If you're going to tell a historical story, you have the truth and the myth, and you want to print the one that gets the most attention.’”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"You’ve Got Mail"}]

While Dubois’ history of human habitation stretches back thousands of years, it didn’t become officially incorporated as a town until 1914. Before then, Dubois was one of several small settlements that stretched from Riverton and Fort Washakie into the mountainous wilderness beyond.

“It started out with the first post office called JK,” Banks said. “That was named for J.K. Moore, a prominent settler in this part of the world at the time. That means he was a guy who owned a nonmilitary store that sold dry goods and things like that.”

The Dubois Post Office was officially established on Aug. 6, 1889. It's first postmaster was Charles C. Smith.

Having a post office was an important mark of distinction for any Western settlement. It gave residents an address where their mail would be delivered.

Back then, post offices were handed out like candy. Banks could recall the line of short-lived post offices that settlers and visitors would find as they moved westward.

“There was Morton, Pavilion, Crowheart, Burris, Lenore, Tipperary, Black Mountain, Leesdale, Duncan, Dunoir, Dubois, Dennison, Neversweat, a second Dunoir, Diamond G, Hamburg, and Bar G,” he said. “That's how many post offices there were.”

Many of these places are long-gone, but can still be found on Google Maps in the 21st Century.

Why so many post offices? Banks said it was because of the primary industry, railroading people to the region.

“It was primarily due to tie hackers,” he said. “Many people who lived up here simply to be a tie hack, cutting down pine trees to use for railroad ties for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. Each of these places was a tie hack village.”

As the tie hackers moved throughout the mountains, new post offices were established every 15 miles or so. That way, mail could be distributed more effectively to the growing population spread along the route.

“There was getting to be quite a population up here,” Banks said. “These were little places where they could collect the mail. Otherwise, they would have to go clear to Lander, which had the connection with the railroad.”

Banks said this scattered system of post offices worked well in the early 1900s. Mail would be picked up by stagecoach in Lander and delivered to each spot along the way to Dubois and beyond once a month.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Never Sweat'"}]

Of all the names of these short-lived post offices, Neversweat stands out.

“Each of these places had their own little stories, but the one that gets the most attention are Neversweat and Dubois,” Banks said.

Neversweat was roughly 15 miles northwest of Dubois, following the post office pattern. It got its post office in 1895, and while the U.S. Postal Service didn’t balk at the name, they did decide to condense it to a single word rather than “Never Sweat” as it appeared on the application.

[{"type":"text","text":"The origin of the name is disputed."}]

Some say it’s because people working in the area never sweat because of the warm, dry winds rushing through the terrain. Others say the small settlement had a lackadaisical atmosphere, thus you “never sweat” while stopping in.

[{"type":"text","text":"Banks heard another story about how Neversweat got its distinct name."}]

“It was a joke on the heating stove,” he said. “Neversweat originally had a little bar where a lot of the tree hackers would hole up, and they had a thing that the only time they put any wood in the fireplace or in the stove was when it got cold enough. 

"When one person got cold enough, he was the one delegated to go get another chunk of wood. That’s where that name got it started.”

The Neversweat Post Office was established on Oct. 31, 1895. It's first postmaster was Laura Pease.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Yellowstone Highway"}]

Even when Neversweat was a happening spot, at least by standards of Wyoming at the time, Dubois was already becoming the true metropolis of the Upper Wind River Valley.

“It eventually became the main post office because it was in a better spot for distributing mail,” Banks said.

Dubois ultimately gained national notoriety as a desirable alternative along “the Yellowstone Highway.”

As stagecoaches and railroads gave way to automobiles, people could choose their own adventure when traveling to Yellowstone National Park. The roads that would become U.S. Highways 26/287/20, stretching from Lander to the Jackson Valley, were what Robert Frost would describe as “the road less traveled.”

“That route was advertised on roadmaps and other media as the Yellowstone Highway,” Banks said. “The people who did all of the tourism of that time period decided that it would be easier and better to find a different way for people coming from the east to go through Wyoming and into Yellowstone.”

The original Yellowstone Highway started with a train ride to Rawlins, followed by a stagecoach to Lander, where people got a dose of civilization before continuing onward to Yellowstone.

By the time cars became the primary mode of tourist transportation, Dubois was already on the map as a key stop along the Yellowstone Highway. The community was already the most developed and populated spot between Lander and Yellowstone when it was incorporated in 1914.

“That was what put Dubois on the map as being a traveling route to get to Yellowstone,” Banks said.

Neversweat never stood a chance. Granted, it never stood a chance, anyway.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Never An Option"}]

There was controversy when Dubois got the name it didn’t want in 1914, but the alternative was never Neversweat. Locals wanted their town to be called Tibo, but their new namesake wouldn’t allow it.

“Fred Dubois was a politician who was given charge of all of the businesses that took place in Fremont County,” Banks said. “When he came here to form the post office, he said, ‘You can't have an Indian name. It's just not right, and it's not the way it ought to be.’ So when he got ready to draw up the papers for the name of the post office in Dubois, he gave it his own name.”

Dubois, allegedly, hated it when people mispronounced his French surname. Wyoming residents have been mispronouncing it, out of spite, ever since.

It wasn’t the first time Dubois named something after himself. He has a namesake town in his home state of Idaho, which Banks noted is exactly 200 miles away from Dubois, Wyoming.

“You have to be careful if you order anything out of Idaho,” he said. “Make sure that they get it to Dubois, Wyoming, and not Dubois, Idaho. I’ve made that mistake before.”

Neversweat was lost to time after another obscure settlement near Dubois, Dunior, asked for a new post office to be placed at the base of Union Pass. That request was granted, wiping Neversweat off the map and Dubois’ brow forever.

The Neversweat Post Office didn't even last that long. It ceased operations on Nov. 30, 1897, just over two years after it was established.

That’s why Banks and many other historians classify this story as pure fiction. Neversweat existed, but it was never almost Dubois.

“It was never a decision between Neversweat and Dubois,” Banks said. “It wasn’t even a choice between Dubois and Tibo. That was the decision of one politician whom we’ve been slamming ever since."

Dubois sign 9 7 23

<title>Wyoming Communities: How Dubois, Wyoming, Got Its Name And Its Pronunciation | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Dubois is a name that, to this day, is spoken out of spite. It's pronounced “dew-boys” instead of the French “deh-bwah" as a slight to U.S. senator Fred Dubois — who named the town after himself — and hated it when people mispronounced his French surname.

Wyoming Communities: How Dubois, Wyoming, Got Its Name And Its Pronunciation

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

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

Economy

CHEYENNE — Wyoming knows it has a huge housing problem. 

Builders, city and county administrators, state officials, business and community leaders — it doesn’t matter which of them you ask, most will agree the state is short tens of thousands of homes.

Scott Hoversland, who heads up the Wyoming Community Development Authority, puts the number of homes the state needs somewhere between 28,000 to 38,000 by 2030 — roughly 2,070 to 3,680 homes annually to keep up with population growth and aging infrastructure.

On paper, Southeast Wyoming Builders Association’s Joe Killpack acknowledges that sounds like it should be a developer’s dream. 

But the reality is a lot more complicated, Killpack told Cowboy State Daily. It’s a tangled knot of economics and investment risk, criss-crossed with infrastructure costs and policy decisions that make houses more costly and time-consuming to build.

“This is a macro problem, not a micro problem,” Killpack added. “It’s not like we’re going to be able to pinpoint one issue. There are several issues. We’re talking about labor costs. We’re talking about commodity costs. We’re talking about development costs.”

Those make homes too expensive for Wyoming’s middle class to afford.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Middle Class Squeeze"}]

If Wyoming’s housing crisis has a face, it’s the middle-class worker earning median wages. 

Once, that would have signaled a solid, respectable income. Today, it increasingly falls short as wages continue to lose ground against persistent inflation. 

 was $75,500 in 2024, 7.4% below the U.S. median. 

Year over year, incomes rose just 1.3% while inflation climbed 2.9% — a clear decline in real purchasing power for the typical Wyoming family. 

Over the long term, the trend remains problematic. 

Wages have stayed relatively flat since at least 2010, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. For much of that time, inflation was modest, hovering between 1% and 2%. But that changed in 2021, when it surged 4.2%, before peaking at 9.1% in June 2022 — the highest level since 1981.

The result has been a widening gap between what workers earn and what it costs to live. 

Regardless of the causes, the stark reality is wages have not kept pace with living expenses for most Wyomingites. 

That marks a fundamental shift for the state’s middle class. 

Median incomes that once reliably supported homeownership — a cornerstone of financial stability for many families — no longer stretch as far. Increasingly, the workers who power local economies are priced out of the communities they serve. 

The strain shows up in everyday decisions. Longer commutes. Delayed home purchases. And, in some cases, leaving the state altogether.

Wyoming loses roughly 70% of its residents by the time they reach age 30, state officials have said. Housing costs are frequently cited as a key factor in that outmigration, which has led to 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Math Problem"}]

The problem, as Killpack sees it, isn’t that developers can’t see the demand. It’s that the basic math of putting up homes, especially ones that regular families can afford, no longer works. 

On the cost side, labor, commodities, tariffs and fuel have all climbed, pushing construction budgets higher even before projects hit city hall for approval.

After that, fees and regulations are adding as much as $10,000 to the cost of homes, along with code changes like thicker exterior walls or new sprinkler requirements.

“Every time a new code is adopted the costs go up,” he said. “We’re doing these new codes to protect the health and the safety of our people who are living in these homes, which, hey, I can’t disagree with. But that doesn’t mean that costs go down. They only go up.”

Codes requiring particular types of insulation, for example, have meant using two-by-six-inch lumber in exterior walls, which adds to the cost versus a two-by-four.

“In Laramie, we have to do a draft stop in the basement,” he said. “So most are doing sprinkler systems and everybody thinks that’s wonderful, right? Because it truly is. If there’s a fire, it’s great. It’ll stop a fire. But the costs still go up, every single time.”

Meanwhile, waiting times for permit approvals stretch to as long as 18 months or more. In some cases, during which time interest rates, prices, and demand are all shifting.

“I’m involved in a project right now where we were going to build some apartments,” he said. “And this project originally started three years ago. They have had to stop, because the market changed.”

What The Median Buys V. What Developers Can Build

The gap comes into sharp focus when median income is translated into buying power. 

A median salary of $75,500 supports up to $2,097 for a monthly mortgage, assuming a borrower with minimal debt and strong credit. On a 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 6.47%, that maximum mortgage payment tracks back to a maximum loan amount of $332,842. 

Homes in the low $300,000 range no longer pencil out for developers, Killpack said.

“A single-family home under $400,000 is almost impossible,” he said. 

Builder margins, he added, are much lower than people think.

“Most people think it’s like 15, 20%,” he said. “It’s actually very minimal. I mean, you’re anywhere between 3-6% and that’s it.”

Which means developers themselves don’t have much wiggle room when it comes to their budgets. 

Given that kind of margin, when you look at a city like Cheyenne where 5,000 homes are needed, the kind of investment it takes doesn’t feel like it’s worth the risk, Killpack said.

“(Let’s) talk about building 1,250 homes in a year in Cheyenne just to meet the minimum of what we’re projecting,” he said. “And let’s just say $400,000 homes … you’d need a $500 million investment annually.”

Wyoming needs tens of thousands of new homes, but only a fraction of the need is under construction because builders say the math doesn’t work. Middle-class wages aren’t high enough to afford to buy houses while home-building costs just continue to rise.

Daily Smile: Wednesday, August 21, 2024

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