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<title>Daily Cartoon 2: Sunday, July 13, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon 2: Sunday, July 13, 2025

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

Andrew Rossi

Around Wyoming

A slew of fantastic fossils from Earth’s earliest primates have been discovered in southwestern Wyoming, offering new insights into the evolution of humanity’s tiny, sap-sucking great-uncles and aunts.

A new study published in the Journal of Human Evolution reports on the tiny fossils of three prehistoric primates excavated at Smiley Draw, a sandstone site in the Wasatch Formation of the Eocene Period.

Among paleontologists, Wyoming is well known as one of the best places in the world to find 

. These discoveries add to that reputation while also showing how much remains to be found.

“We've made the picture of the early Eocene more complicated than what we once thought,” said Chris Beard, a Foundation Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. “There will be much more to learn about these fossils, especially from southern Wyoming. There's a reason we're working down there.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Fascinating And Frustrating"}]

Wyoming has been a hub of primitive primate paleontology since the 1880s. The first fossils of lemur-like primates, dating to around 55 million years ago, were discovered in the Bighorn Basin around that time.

“A whole lot of work happened in the late 20th Century in the Bighorn Basin, especially with respect to this animal called Tetonius,” Beard said.

Tetonius, named after the Tetons, is a “vaguely tarsier-like creature,” as Beard described it. It was around the size of a modern-day mouse lemur, less than a foot long and under 2.5 ounces, but its closest living relatives are modern tarsiers.

Tarsiers are tiny, tree-dwelling animals known as “dry-nosed” primates. Endangered populations of these tiny primates still exist in the rainforests of Southeast Asia.

In their study, Beard and his colleagues described a new species of Tetonius, T. varleyorum, from Smiley Draw, an Eocene site in the Great Divide Basin in Sweetwater County.

“In Wyoming, you typically find Eocene-aged fossils in mudstone that erodes very easily,” Beard said. “This particular site is very unusual, if not unique, as it’s a layer of sandstone chock full of fossils. It’s rare to find Eocene fossils in sandstone, so Smiley Draw is exactly the opposite of what we normally expect.”

According to Beard, the discovery of a new species of Tetonius, based on its age and anatomy, is highly significant.

“It’s obviously a different species because it’s younger than the Tetonius and its younger descendant, Pseudotetonius, from the Bighorn Basin,” he said. “The fossils we found in Sweetwater County occur after that whole lineage has gone extinct in the Bighorn Basin.”

The study also describes fossils of two rarely found anaptomorphines, another group of prehistoric primates. Arapahovius gazini and Anemorhysis savage have never been found in the Great Divide Basin, and only a handful of other specimens have been found.

What’s significant is that the fossils of these three primates were found at the same site, which means they coexisted at the same time and place. That just raises further questions about life in the early Eocene.

“We’re finding animals that lived together at Smiley Draw that never ever cohabitated in the Bighorn Basin,” Beard said. “Tetonius, Arapahovius, and Anemorhysis don’t coexist there, but we find them together here.”

That’s why Beard said it’s “frustrating,” from a paleontological perspective, to compare Smiley Draw with the well-researched discoveries in the Bighorn Basin.

“We have an idea that animals evolve, they go extinct, and other animals replace them,” he said. “What we're finding at Smiley Draw is the animals that we think are going extinct at a certain time in the Bighorn Basin probably aren't going extinct elsewhere.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Gradual And Parallel"}]

Tetonius, Arapahovius, and Anemorhysis are all omomyids, a family of early tarsier-like primates known from several Eocene sites worldwide.

Beard said Wyoming’s omomyids are excellent examples of gradual evolution, which is what Charles Darwin proposed in his landmark 1859 book “On the Origin of Species.”

“There was a huge debate in paleontology about how evolution proceeded,” he said. “Did it occur gradually, the way that Charles Darwin predicted, or did it conform more to a punctuated equilibrium model, which was made famous by Stephen Jay Gould and his collaborators?”

The fossils of Tetonius and Pseudotetonius from the Bighorn Basin are a textbook example of gradual evolution. While they are distinctly different animals, Beard said the fossil record shows “no break in the single lineage chain from primitive to advanced.”

The key observation is the significant changes in the lower jaws of these primates, which Beard and his colleagues observed in fossils from the Bighorn Basin and the Great Basin Divide.

“These animals start out with fairly long lower jaws and lots of teeth in between their back teeth, the molars, and their front teeth, the incisors,” he said. “Through time, their lower jaws get compacted from front to back. They lose some teeth and develop a rodent-like incisor that sticks out of the front of their jaw, getting bigger and stouter over time.”

The purpose of this overly large incisor remains a mystery. Beard said that if you asked three different paleontologists, you’d get three different answers.

“In my opinion, they're using that big front incisor to gouge the bark of trees,” he said. “A lot of modern animals do this to stimulate sap or gum or resin to come out of the tree.”

Tree sap contains a lot of sugar. For a tiny primate with a high metabolism, that sap would be a valuable source of energy and nutrition.

Is this change in jaw and dental anatomy driven by a change in diet, or were the omomyids perfecting the tools needed for millennia of the same diet? That’s another debated question, but Beard said the latter is the most likely answer.  

These questions are significant to the new discoveries from Smiley Draw because they show the same thing happening – the shortening of the jaw, loss of teeth, and larger incisor – in Tetonius, but not exactly the same as in the Tetonius from the Bighorn Basin.

“The T. varleyorum from Smiley Draw has shorter haws and fewer teeth, so it’s similar but not exactly the same as what we see in the Bighorn Basin,” Beard said. “These are two different lineages evolving in parallel to achieve the same result.”

Parallel evolution is a well-documented phenomenon in nature. The legendary finches Darwin collected in the Galápagos Islands are an excellent example, as the different but related birds had beaks shaped to suit their diets on their isolated islands.

It’s more evidence that something strange was going on in Sweetwater County 55 million years ago.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hyperthermal Events"}]

Beard and his colleagues are studying all the mammal fossils recovered from Smiley Draw to see if they have the same story as the recently described omomyids. If they do, it would be further proof that different things were happening in different parts of Wyoming.

“It’s an interesting phenomenon,” he said. “We find animals living side-by-side at Smiley Draw that were already extinct or never lived side-by-side in the Bighorn Basin. They were only going extinct locally in the Bighorn Basin.”

Climate change might explain this discrepancy. The Eocene was a roller coaster of climate, which usually leads to extinction or adaptation for flora and fauna.

“We've got lots of iterations of what we call hyperthermal events in the Eocene, where the world warms up very rapidly and cools down again,” Beard said. “When the world warmed up, animals that were more tropically adapted spread northward, from Sweetwater County to Park County. When it cooled down, and they were no longer happy, the animals went back down. It's a very dynamic thing, and we're picking up a lot of these oscillations by looking at Smiley Draw.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Our Great Uncles"}]

This new study on prehistoric primates raised more questions than it answered. That’s not a bad thing, as it gives Beard and his colleagues more reasons to return to Smiley Draw.

Beard said his team was at the site collecting fossils in June. Some of those specimens are already being studied using a micro-CT scanner in North Carolina.

“I can tell you that we found additional fossils of early primates and primate-like creatures that are totally new just two months ago,” he said. “We’ll have a lot more to reveal from Smiley Draw.”

They’re not the only ones looking at overlooked spots in southern Wyoming. Paleontologists with the Duke Lemur Center Museum of Natural History at Duke University have been finding 

phenomenal Eocene fossils in Bridger Basin

, including the best specimens of the earliest known primate-like mammal in the fossil record, Plesiadapis.

“The Bridger Basin is the Madagascar of the Eocene,” curator Matthew Borths told Cowboy State Daily in December 2024. “We transition from a few primates on the landscape to a lot of diversity, hopping around in the rainforests of Wyoming.”

Borths’s dream was to find an omomyid in the Bridger Basin, as they’re humanity’s closest Eocene ancestor. There’s no shortage of omomyids in Smiley Draw, which is less than 200 miles northeast. 

Beard said Wyoming is “better than any other single place in the world, including Europe, Asia, and Africa” for paleontologists studying the origins and evolution of the earliest primates. That’s just from what’s been discovered, let alone what’s still out there, waiting to be found.

“Wyoming is incredibly fundamental to understanding the deep origins of humans,” he said. “None of these animals are the direct ancestors of humans. They're probably great-uncles and great-aunts, but that doesn't make them any less important. In fact, in my opinion, it probably makes them more important.”

That’ll keep Beard and his colleagues busy for decades. There’s a lot more to find, study, and understand – if that’s an excuse to get dirty in Wyoming, all the better.

“I love Wyoming, personally and scientifically,” Beard said. “We wish that we had a perfect fossil record, but we don’t. 

"What we have are snippets and glimpses; we try to piece together what it means. Wyoming has been overlooked for a while, to be honest, and we’re very fortunate to have such an amazing fossil record there.”

Smiley inset 8 15 26

<title>"Something Strange Going On": 55 Million-Year-Old Primate Fossils Found In SW Wyoming | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A slew of fossils from Earth's earliest primates have been discovered in southwestern Wyoming. Scientists say the tiny primate fossils, around the size of a mouse lemur, is evidence something strange was going on in Sweetwater County 55 million years ago.

"Something Strange Going On": 55 Million-Year-Old Primate Fossils Found In SW Wyoming

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Wyoming Life

The name of Ephraim Ashburn has not come down through history like that of another Battle of Platte Bridge Station casualty — Lt. Caspar Collins.

Collins has a fort, city, and museum named after him. But now both men have their names honored at Fort Caspar Museum in a commemorative cemetery.

The final resting place of 61 soldiers who gave their lives while serving at Platte Bridge Station, which became Fort Caspar from 1862 to 1867, remain mostly unknown.

But a four-year project by Casper historian Johanna Wickman to determine a complete list of those killed in action or from disease while serving in what is now central Wyoming and providing each a commemorative marble headstone at Fort Caspar is nearing the finish line.

Wickman’s “Lest We Forget” volunteer effort began in July 2022 after being spurred on by the 11 headstones placed on the grounds in 1970 by former museum director Bill Judge. 

Those tombstones recognized 11 fallen soldiers from the 11th Ohio Cavalry as well as Collins, who died in the Battle of Platte Bridge and for whom the military post and later the present-day city was named.

“We kind of think what (Judge) was doing was 11 soldiers from the 11th Ohio as kind of symbolic sort of thing,” Wickman said.

A member of the Fort Caspar Museum Association board in 2022, Wickman said she knew the casualty list exceeded those 11 graves. 

Her research showed that the first headstone installed in 1970 was for David Umphlet, who served in the 11th Ohio Cavalry and died on March 22, 1866. It was installed because his family obtained a headstone from the Veterans Administration and wanted it placed at Fort Caspar.

Wickman found Judge had applications to the VA for more headstones that were never approved.

“It could be he was trying to get more and just stopped at 11,” she said.

Her initial research dug into all the various state and national military units sent to the region while Platte Bridge Station troops operated to protect telegraph lines connecting the coasts as well as settlers heading west on the Oregon, California and Mormon trails. 

In addition to the 11th Ohio Cavalry, Wickman found soldiers representing the 11th Kansas Cavalry, Sixth West Virginia Cavalry, Sixth Michigan Cavalry, Seventh Iowa Cavalry and U.S. Army infantry soldiers from the Sixth and 18th U.S. Infantry all had boots on the ground in the five-year period on which she was focusing.

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

Wickman said she approached former Fort Caspar Museum Director Rick Young about getting more headstones for the other soldiers. He gave her the green light to raise funds for the headstones.

“I thought I was looking at maybe another 15 or 20 headstones,” she said.

Instead, four years and thousands of hours later she has the total number needed at 61, 50 more than the original 11 set in place by Judge. When Wickman started the project there was no casualty list for those who served in the region during that era.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"She has now created one."}]

Among them was Ashburn, a member of the Sixth West Virginia Cavalry and who as a Union soldier was captured April 8, 1964, in Winchester, Virginia, and sent to the infamous Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia. Records show Ashburn was released in a prisoner swap in December 1864.

In a letter home written on July 1, 1865, as his unit arrived in Leavenworth, Kansas, he spoke of a riverboat trip where the ship got caught on a snag and horses were tossed off. He also mentioned a train accident that killed four or five soldiers and wounded others.

“We will not stay here long, we are going out on the plans to fight the Indians this side of California,” he wrote.

Most Civil War enlistments were for three years or for the duration of the war, Wickman said. But men like Ashburn, though the war ended, still found themselves subject to the whims of the government and subject to court martial, losing a pension or worse if they tried to go home.

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

“Why did Ephraim Ashburn die out here in December 1865?" Wickman said. “(He) should have been home … it became a situation where the government was like, ‘Well, we still need you,’ so (they’re) out here and they really didn’t have a choice about it.”

Instead of dying in battle, Ashburn, like many in the severe winter of 1865 when 66 developed scurvy, and died of the disease. Scurvy is caused by a lack of Vitamin C in the diet and typically leads to gum disease and death from bleeding or infection.

“There were a lot of guys who were sick with scurvy, struggling to get supplied and that kind of thing,” she said.

Another name on a headstone is Sebastian Nehring, who was in the 11th Kansas Cavalry and died on July 26, 1865, at the Battle of Platte Bridge Station with Caspar Collins and others.

Wickman said Nehring was a German immigrant and in his 40s, much older than most troops. He had served in the Prussian Army and after immigrating to Kansas and struggling to provide for his family on a farm, so he joined the army.

“When Caspar Collins gave the order to retreat and they are calling ‘retreat’ from the bridge for the guys to come back … he didn’t hear it,” Wickman said. “I think because his primary language is German, it didn’t register. And so one of his dear friends, Henry Grimm, who is also 11th Kansas and also from Germany, hollered at him in German and when Henry did that he was hit in the back with three arrows.”

Somehow Grimm survived the arrows. But Grimm family members told Wickman  the story he passed down was that his friend Nehring was hung up trying to do something with his horse and because of that delay was killed.

Wickman said her research showed some of the fatalities involved former Confederate soldiers who were in prison camps in the north and given the opportunity to swear an oath of allegiance and join a U.S. Army unit being sent to the West.

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

She also found a couple of former Confederate soldiers who died in the region but who gave fake names, enlisted in the U.S. Army infantry and once on site started planning mutinies.

“They were actually executed,” she said. “So those guys did not get a headstone.”

Most of the 50 additional headstones have been installed this summer by Casper Monument. The remaining will go in soon. Funds have been raised through a couple of foundations as well as individual donations at the museum.

Wickman said a ceremony is planned for June 19, 2027, to honor all 61 men and will include a full military honors service and folded flag presentations for any descendants at the ceremony.

In May, the museum association received a grant from the Natrona County Recreation Joint Powers Board to fund outdoor color signs that will be placed on the museum ground. They will provide visitor information on the various units that served the Platte Bridge Station and beyond.

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

The grant is also providing funds for a book Wickman is writing that will provide a short biography on all of the soldiers on the headstones. She hopes to connect with other descendants to learn more about their story before the ceremony next year and include the information in the book.

Wickman said her efforts to uncover the names involved searches through regimental records to find out where the soldiers were, who died at what location, when they died and any other additional information.

Inconsistency with how soldiers' names were spelled and conflicting death dates meant digging deeper to uncover the truth. Names on the headstones will reflect the spelling the men had on regimental records.

The fact that many of the soldiers were immigrants made the research more difficult because they might have joined the military shortly after arriving on American shores without any family ties or previous home address or location.

Among the soldiers who are getting headstones is one who died in the Red Buttes fight July 26, 1965, the same day as the Battle of Platte Bridge.

Wickman said when commemorative headstones were placed on state land outside of Casper for those involved in the Red Buttes battle in 1920, Edwin Summers was left out. He will get a headstone at the fort.

The Red Buttes cemetery is not accessible to the public and is on state land, Wickman said. 

“They didn’t want to put the headstones where the battle happened, and so they deliberately put it out in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “Which is unfortunate because it is still in the middle of nowhere.”

A list of the casualty list can be found at the Fort Casper Museum Association's website 

The headstone project also involves a walkway to the commemorative cemetery. Bricks are available to purchase and help cover costs of that project.

Wickman said her reward for the project has been making connections with a few of the soldiers’ descendants and witnessing their appreciation for the headstones and effort to remember those who served the region.

“If we don’t honor these guys from the Civil War era, what does that mean for our World War II vets 75 years from now or our Global War on Terror vets 150 years from now?” Wickman said. “Will they get neglected, or will people say the same thing? I think it’s reassuring for them, too.”

Cemetery Nehring 8 15 26

<title>Never Forgotten: Names Of 50 More Men Put On Fort Caspar Headstone | Cowboy State Daily</title>

About 160 years after they died serving at Platte Bridge Station and Fort Caspar, 50 more names have been added to a commemorative headstone at the historic fort. When the “Lest We Forget” project began, there was no casualty list. Now there is.

Never Forgotten: Names Of 50 More Men Put On Fort Caspar Headstone

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

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

There is just something about the Elk Mountain Hotel that inspires devotion.

Peter Thieriot, for example, was warned that the Elk Mountain Hotel was nothing more than a money pit. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"He bought it anyway."}]

Locals joked that the hotel required a tetanus shot before walking in.

No one was laughing once Thieriot finished restoring it. 

He took the hotel back to its studs, then rebuilt it room by room by room.

Nine layers of wallpaper were stripped from the dining room. Samples of each layer still decorate a wall just outside the dining room, even though Thieriot no longer owns the hotel.

Christine Neel is the hotel’s present-day owner. 

She did what a lot of small-town Wyoming kids wind up doing — leaving Wyoming. 

Her folks packed up and moved to Texas before Neel graduated from high school. She went to Texas A&M, becoming an “Aggie,” with a major in nursing and business.

But when the 120-year-old Elk Mountain Hotel went up for sale in January 2020, she leapt at the chance to take over the tiny boutique hotel in little Elk Mountain, where the elevation of 7,264 feet far exceeds its population of 146 people. 

“I’ve been in love with the hotel since childhood,” Neel told Cowboy State Daily. “I grew up not too far from there on a ranch … I remember going to brunches over there, attending weddings over there, before and after the renovation.”

When she heard the owners had decided to get out of the hotel business, something clicked. 

She suddenly knew she wanted to own that hotel.

“I think it just has a charm like no place else has,” she said. “I’ve always just loved it. So I couldn’t say no when the opportunity came up.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Reborn From Ashes"}]

Neel says many travelers find the Elk Mountain Hotel by surprise when they’re traveling to Yellowstone National Park along Interstate 80. 

It’s a pleasant surprise for most. Tripadvisor shows a 4.8 out of 5-bubble rating, and it’s easy to see why.

At first sight, it’s like gazing into another time and place, and then melting into it with each step toward the hotel. None of the rooms have televisions, which deepens the effect.

There are no air conditioners humming, either.  

Tiny refrigerators and microwaves are the only nod to the modern world — and they do not bother. They’re quiet.

The hotel sits at the base of Elk Mountain, in the same spot where the Overland Trail once had its stage stop, just east of the Medicine Bow River.

The establishment was then known as The Crossing. 

After Union Pacific finished the Transcontinental Railroad, The Crossing fell into disrepair and burned down in 1905.

A man from Wales named John Evans built a new hotel on top of the ashes, naming it Mountain View Hotel. It was white with green trim then, and it’s white with green trim now.

No one knows exactly how or why Evans came to Wyoming. What is known about him is that he was adopted by the Jones family and worked for a time at the Evan's Bro’s Store in Carbon, now an abandoned coal town southwest of Medicine Bow.

Eventually, Evans married his adoptive sister, Mary Ann Jones.

The couple had 10 children, seven of whom died very young. Some of those children are buried at the old Carbon Cemetery.

When the couple moved from Carbon to Elk Mountain to work for J.S. Jones, they had two living children, Joseph and Aubrey. John ran the bar and Mary was the cook. 

They bought The Crossing from Jones in 1903. Two years later, after their son William was born, The Crossing burned down.

The couple borrowed money from Mary’s sister Catherine to rebuild the hotel. 

They had 16 bedrooms upstairs and a bar and dance hall downstairs. It had indoor plumbing and Elk Mountain’s first power plant. In addition to itself, the hotel’s coal-fired plant supplied power to neighbors as well. 

The dance hall quickly became a community gathering spot for dances, parties, political rallies and town meetings.

In the 1920s, John Evans and his boys built an open-air dance pavilion.

Many famous people would come to play at the Garden Spot Pavilion, including Lawrence Welk and Louis Armstrong.

The hotel’s 12 rooms echo some of that history. 

Two are named for both Welk and Armstrong. Others are devoted to famous Wyoming figures Jim Bridger, Esther Hobart Morris and Eliza Swain. 

Another honors someone infamous: “Big Nose” George Parrot.

Each room leans into its historic namesake, with relevant photographs, artwork, and history hanging on the walls. 

The hotel is framed by mature trees and a profusion of pink hollyhocks — perfect for the Victorian architecture.

Inside, the vintage charm continues with a warm mixture of leather, wood, and posh upholstery alongside photos of historical Elk Mountain figures that help tell the hotel’s unique story. 

The restaurant serves steaks and pasta, along with homemade desserts and cocktails. Reservations are required.

Stay there once, and it’s easy to understand why people keep coming back. Because there’s just something about the Elk Mountain Hotel. 

Elk Mountain Hotel 20260811 095626 8 15 26

<title>How Wyoming’s Elk Mountain Hotel Went From Money Pit To Historic Showplace | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Built 120 years ago when an Overland Trail stage stop burned down, many warned its previous owner it would be a money pit to restore. He did it anyway, and now the Elk Mountain Hotel has become a showplace on the National Register of Historic Places.

How Wyoming’s Elk Mountain Hotel Went From Money Pit To Historic Showplace

Jen Kocher - Headshot CSD

Jen Kocher

For the Haux sisters, the enduring mystery of their father’s fate still crystallizes around one stark image: His truck, abandoned in the Red Desert, an image taken from a newspaper article.

Clifford “Russ” Haux of Mills vanished on Nov. 26, 2003, near Wamsutter in south-central Wyoming where he worked as an oil-rig driller. The 42-year-old husband and father of three had gone out with a co-worker to free a stuck vehicle and never returned.

The last image of him is his fading headlights as he drove off into a winter night trying to find a place to cross a ditch.

One minute he was there, the next, he was gone — last seen driving his pickup into a ditch, looking for a place to cross.

For two years, extensive searches turned up nothing. Then a hunter found his purple Ford Ranger less than six miles from where he was last seen. Its front tires were stuck in a washed-out riverbed, with evidence suggesting he’d tried to free them.

His children – Lois, Justy and Chancy – grew up on memories and secondhand stories, left to wonder what had happened to their father.

The story doesn’t add up based on their recollections of their dad: A guy they describe as a “driller through and through” and seasoned “mountain man” who was also a skilled outdoorsman.

“I don’t know what happened out there or the trauma he had to go through,” Justy told Cowboy State Daily. “Anything could have happened.”

The Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office likewise can’t speculate about what might have happened to Haux after he left the vehicle. But there’s no evidence to date to suggest Haux was a victim, said Jason Mower, public information officer with the department.

“Based on the evidence available, including what was found when Haux’s vehicle was later located, the disappearance has been considered accidental rather than the result of foul play,” Mower wrote in an email to Cowboy State Daily.

More than two decades later, Mower said the case remains active and unresolved with no new leads they can publicly release at this time.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Disappearing Headlights"}]

His daughters have many questions about what transpired the night their father disappeared and how his vehicle went overlooked for two years, given the extensive search efforts described in the documentation shared by the sheriff’s office.

All they know is that Haux and his friend and co-worker left the oil rig the night of Nov. 26 to retrieve his Suburban that they’d gotten stuck in a mud bog on Nov. 18.

In the early morning hours of Nov. 19, Haux’s rig mates returned to camp, Mower said. Haux apparently stayed with the vehicle and was rescued on Nov. 20. The sheriff’s office did not specify how Haux was recovered, though his daughters were told it was by a search plane.

It was this vehicle that Haux and his rig mate were going to retrieve the night he disappeared.

The man named in the report was driving the forklift they’d borrowed from the rig to dig out the vehicle. Cowboy State Daily is not identifying him, as law enforcement has not labeled him a person of interest in Haux’s disappearance.

It’s not clear if they were successfully able to free the vehicle, but when Haux tried to cross a ditch in his pickup, he was unable to do so. The co-worker tried “to knock down the bank of the ditch” that was blocking Haux from crossing but couldn’t, according to the sheriff’s report.

[{"type":"text","text":"Instead, Haux headed south along the ditch, looking for a passable route."}]

The co-worker watched Haux’s headlights fade into the night. That was the last time anyone saw him alive.

When nobody could locate him, Haux was officially reported missing two days later to the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office, which launched a 10-day search effort complete with four-wheelers and vehicles, said the report.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Frantic Search"}]

Lois, then 5 and the daughter of Haux’s second wife, Laquana, remembers how frantic her mother was when they got the call that Haux was missing.

Justy, who was 15, learned about it when she tried to call her father to wish him a happy Thanksgiving. She and her brother, Chancy, then 18, lived with their mother in Worland.

The sisters recall the family wanted to help look for him but were told by rescuers to stay put for their safety, given the dangerous terrain.

Meanwhile, the sisters said, Haux’s brother hired a pilot and attempted to search by airplane.  

The temperature the night Haux disappeared plunged from a high of 27 down to 10 degrees with no precipitation, according to historical weather data for Rock Springs from the National Weather Service.

Nearly 23 years after Clifford “Russ” Haux vanished in the Red Desert near Wamsutter, his daughters are still haunted. The 42-year-old husband and father of three had gone out with a co-worker to free a stuck vehicle and never returned.

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