It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Monday, October 28th. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by 4 Wyoming Pack. 4 Wyoming Pack says, “This November, Wyoming will vote to allow residential homes to be taxed at a lower, fairer rate, even the playing field, and give families a much-needed break.” 4 Wyoming Pack wants you to Vote Yes on Amendment A.
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There are too many bison in Yellowstone National Park.
That’s what Yellowstone’s bison program manager reports - over 6,000 of them, actually, and plans are to remove more than 1,300 over the winter, in order to keep the herd within population ranges established by the Interagency Bison Management Plan.
But wildlife advocates believe the long-term ecology of Yellowstone’s bison management is being jeopardized by short-term decisions to cull the herds, which are perceived as political rather than scientific. That’s according to Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi.
“The concerns are that, as the expert that I spoke to put it, we're gradually domesticating bison… because we're keeping them confined to this space where their gene pool is being diluted because they're not don't have the ability to expand into their historic range. So we're losing a part of the bisons wild nature because of this management plan, and that's not the fault of the National Park Service for implementing it. It's because of the conflicts outside the park that they the Bison would inevitably run into.”
Through the work of the National Park Service, tribal partners, and conservation groups like the Montana Wild Bison Coalition, there are possible solutions to address this urgent issue. The stakes are high, as the consequence is losing wild bison forever.
Read the full story HERE.
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Wyoming uses cloud seeding as an environmentally friendly way to squeeze a little more snow from clouds, boosting annual snowpack. That feeds a little more water into its reservoirs to supply both cities and agriculture.
But, if this technique is truly effective, why isn’t it being used to help fight wildfires? Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean, a scientist herself, went searching for the answer to that question.
“In order to seed a cloud, you have to have a cloud. Cloud seeding does not conjure clouds for you… the reason we get rain is sometimes these little bits of water vapor are happy to get closer and closer and clump together, and they get heavy enough to fall… but sometimes they could care less about each other, and they just keep their distance in the clouds, then just kind of dissipate and go away and we get no rain… this is where the cloud seeding can kind of come in and help… so you can shoot some silver iodide in there that gives something that's gonna help attract and clump together these little water particles so they'll finally fall out of the sky… And there are months of studies that go into where do these ground cannons need to be aimed, how much iodide do they need to shoot?... You can't do that kind of study in the middle of fighting a fire.”
Jean says the dry air compounded the conditions that made this fire season so destructive. Even if cloud seeding had been an option that firefighters were prepared to implement, there were no clouds to seed during the worst of the fires.
Read the full story HERE.
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Nearly four weeks ago, the Elk Fire exploded by nearly 20,000 acres across the eastern face of the Bighorn Mountains in northern Wyoming and right toward the small town of Dayton.
Fast-forward almost a month later and not only aren’t people’s homes being threatened anymore by what’s grown to be a nearly 97,000-acre late-season wildfire, firefighting crews are now using terms like “full containment” and “damage assessment,” according to Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson.
“It went from Friday they had 58% containment on it, and by Saturday, it was at 73% which is where they're still reporting it Sunday… The owner of the Parkman Bar and Grill says that, you know, finally, people are starting to think about getting back to normal… It's a big relief for everybody up there. But again, the fire is not out, so they're not totally unaware of what's going on. However, they're no longer threatened that they have to leave their homes or anything like that.”
Fire officials report that two people lost their homes and some lost their cabins. Additionally, much winter pasture lands are gone for ranchers, as well as some summer pastures on the mountain.
Read the full story HERE.
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When longtime Denver TV reporter Daryl Orr lost his job unexpectedly in midlife, he wasn’t worried — until he couldn’t get another job in his field, because everyone kept telling him he was overqualified.
So the Cheyenne man decided to do something completely different. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that Orr took to the road, becoming a long-haul truck driver.
“He just kept getting, you're overqualified, you're overqualified, sorry, or overqualified, everywhere he went for like a year and a half. Finally, when he got kind of thinking outside the box, you know, what can I do that's gonna have this much salary so I can make ends meet. And that's when he noticed all these truck driving ads, like everybody's hiring truck drivers… There was a lot to learn, a lot of names. You have to do an inspection twice a day of your truck. So there's a lot to remember… But you know now he's making more than he was before, probably more than he would ever get to in a media job… he hasn't given up storm chasing. He really liked, he loved the meteorology gig… he's turned that into kind of a hobby. He does little videos in his downtime.”
Midlife job losses are tough, Orr said, and they can be harrowing experiences. But, with persistence and an open mind, they can have a happy ending.
Read the full story HERE.
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Today, some residents of Rock Springs don’t know much about the town’s legacy industry - even though the departure of coal mining gutted the community nearly 70 years ago.
Until recently, unstable underground mines caused sinkholes that damaged city infrastructure. Cowboy State Daily’s Reilly Strand visited Rock Springs, and spoke to a historian who took them on a tour of the town, and its precarious position on top of a network of coal mining tunnels.
“Sinkholes definitely did open up next to houses. There was the sinkhole that opened up right in front of City Hall. And there's not really much warning for a lot of this stuff… but as the historian told us, it wasn't like this big doom and gloom situation. The people in the town, they were used to living really hard lives, so they weren't really that bothered by it. It was just like, well, it's just something we got to fix… that may be as a testament to the personalities and attitudes of people that live in Rock Springs. They're very tough people, from what I can tell.”
Clean-up from the old mines is coming to an end, with a project to shore up old coal tunnels under I-80.
Read the full story HERE.
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During Prohibition, “Rum Runner” Joe Carey partnered with the First National Bank in Greybull to make sure the residents there — including the local cops, Elk’s Club and pharmacist — still got their liquor. He did so well that he was able to buy the bank building in April 1927 when it failed leading up to the Great Depression.
Cowboy State Daily’s Jackie Dorothy visited the building, which Carey turned into a hotel, and spoke to its current owner, Myles Foley - not about the rum running, but about the supposed ghosts that still haunt the halls.
“I wouldn't say it was heavily haunted, but it was definitely something there and down in the Speakeasy, just like Myles Foley, the owner was saying, is that it feels like a cheerful place. It there's no oppression, nothing. It just feels like you're back in the 1920s with these people that are enjoying life, not necessarily doing anything really illegal.”
Foley said that the spirits that still linger at the Greybull Hotel aren’t sinister. Laughter has been heard - and those voices from the past still greet patrons of today.
Read the full story HERE.
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The horror of mutilated cattle, cheeks cut off on one side, tongues missing, sexual organs removed, bloodless carcasses and no visible signs of predation made big, bold headlines across Wyoming and the West in mid-1970s.
Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck took a look back at the mysterious, almost otherworldly happenings - and said that for some folks, the horror of it still hasn’t gone away.
“For me, the story began when I was in the Air Force, back in those days in Colorado. So I remember the headlines, but we just decided just to take a look back at that story to see you know what relevance it is today, and what, what surprised me was that there's still cattle mutilations going on. There were some in Oregon, in Texas a couple years ago… talking to the sheriff from the county in South West Wyoming, where he was on the ground. He investigated those mutilations… he said they had evidence of rotor wash. They saw where helicopters had landed. So for him, this story is not about UFOs, but his suspicion was it was something to do with the US government, US military.”
The Casper Star-Tribune reported on Oct. 26, 1975, that suspected cattle mutilations surpassed 45 cows, with 10 in Sublette County alone, and 16 in Uinta County.
Read the full story HERE.
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If the 1884 walls at Bohemian Metals in Cheyenne could talk, oh the tales they’d tell.
The store’s owner, Brian Snyder, has a few remnants of that history. But most of its story seemed destined to remain a mystery, until one day out of the blue he got a message from a San Diego history buff.
Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean spoke to Mike Hennessy, who traced his grandfather’s path back to the period of time between 1865 and 1910, when Abraham Underwood was a mover and shaker in the railroad town of Cheyenne.
“Mike Hennessy had dug into some history on one of his ancestors, and the trail led straight to the Bohemian Metals building… And then next door, you've got the steel looking kind of modern-ish, 1960s vintage shop. Well… that used to all be part of one building, and it was built by the Knights of Pythias, a fellow named Justus, and then this A. Underwood. Well, Brian's always known the name A. Underwood, but… He didn't know anything about the guy. And so here comes Mike Hennessy with his shopping bag full of old documents from his family, and he's kind of filling in some of the blanks of Cheyenne history.”
Underwood history is still being revealed, and it’s been fun for both Hennessy and Snyder to fill in some of the blanks about the building, and illuminating the story of one of America’s early settlers, who helped build the West and Cheyenne.
Read the full story HERE.
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Cody residents Greg and Tammy Poley are trying to find a new home for a cabin sitting on their property along the Southfork Highway near Cody.
The ramshackle structure might be a relic from a community submerged over a century ago, but as Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports, its history is a mystery.
“This cabin possibly came from the community of Marquette, which is basically Wyoming's Atlantis. It was a community that was sitting behind the spot where the Buffalo Bill dam would be built, and then it was eventually flooded by the Buffalo Bill reservoir… Old Trail Town, it preserves a lot of historic structures from the early settlement of Cody and the neighboring region. So that seems like it would be the natural place for it, but I spoke with them… It very easily could have been in Marquette, but they couldn't confirm it… like the brothel that they opened this summer. They can trace the history of the brothel, but this cabin is a little more elusive.”
The Poleys say they were told that the cabin was the post office for the town of Marquette - but until they find out more about the structure’s history, its origins will remain a mystery.
Read the full story HERE.
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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel! And don’t forget to drop in on the Cowboy State Daily morning show with Jake Nichols, Monday through Friday from 6 to 10 a.m.! Thanks for tuning in - I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
