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

<title>You Still Here? Sunday, September 14, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Annie Agar's NFL meeting week 1....

You Still Here? Sunday, September 14, 2025

Coy Knobel

Don Day Weather

Chance of rain near and east of the Continental Divide in Wyoming on Monday, otherwise sunny. Mix of clouds and clear skies overnight, with a chance of rain. Highs from the low 70s to upper 80s. Lows from the mid 30s to mid 50s.

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Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise sunny and breezy today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph. Increasing clouds and breezy overnight with a low near 50 and wind gusts as high as 23 mph.

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 88 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 51 and wind gusts as high as 29 mph.

 Sunny and breezy today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 32 mph. Increasing clouds and breezy overnight with a low near 46 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph.

 Sunny today with a high near 81 and wind from 11-16 mph. Mostly clear overnight a low near 44.

  Breezy, gradually clearing today with a high near 87 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 49 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph.

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 40 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph.

Sunny and breezy today with a high near 76 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 38 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph.

 Sunny and breezy today with a high near 82 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 42.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 78 and wind gusts as high as 26 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 37 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph.

 Sunny and breezy today with a high near 75 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight a low near 41 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph.

  Sunny and breezy today with a high near 80 and wind gusts as high as 21 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 41.

Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park

:  Sunny today with a high near 71 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph. Mostly clear overnight with a low near 35.

Slight chance of rain mainly after 3 p.m., otherwise sunny and breezy today with a high near 84 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph. Mostly clear and breezy overnight with a low near 50 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph.

:  Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise sunny and breezy today with a high near 75 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 48 and wind gusts as high as 31 mph.

  Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise sunny and breezy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 28 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a low near 49 and wind gusts as high as 34 mph.

  Chance of rain mainly after noon, sunny and breezy today with a high near 73 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph. Mostly cloudy and breezy overnight with a chance of rain, a low near 50 and wind gusts as high as 29 mph.

  Patchy fog before 9 a.m., chance of rain, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 73 and mostly cloudy overnight with rain likely, patchy fog after midnight and a low near 46.

:  Patchy fog before 9 a.m., rain likely, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 72 and mostly cloudy overnight with rain likely, patchy fog after midnight and a low near 46.

Chance of rain after noon, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 77 and wind gusts as high as 22 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain, a low near 48 and wind gusts as high as 24 mph.

  Patchy fog before 9 a.m., chance of rain after noon, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 75 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain, a low near 50 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph.

:  Chance of rain after noon, otherwise partly sunny today with a high near 78 and wind gusts as high as 20 mph. Mostly cloudy overnight with a chance of rain, a low near 47 and wind gusts as high as 18 mph.

  Chance of rain after noon, gradually becoming sunny today with a high near 87 and partly cloudy overnight with a slight chance of rain before 9 p.m. and a low near 55.

  Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise mostly sunny today with a high near 86 and partly cloudy overnight with a slight chance of rain before 9 p.m. and a low near 55.

  Slight chance of rain after noon, otherwise sunny and breezy today with a high near 79 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Increasing clouds and breezy overnight with a slight chance of rain before midnight, a low near 47 and wind gusts as high as 32 mph.

  Slight chance of rain after noon, increasing clouds today with a high near 83 and partly cloudy overnight with a slight chance of rain before 9 p.m. and a low near 51.

  Slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., increasing clouds today with a high near 80 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with a slight chance of rain before 9 p.m. and a low near 48.

  Chance of rain after noon, increasing clouds today with a high near 84 and partly cloudy overnight with a slight chance of rain before 9 p.m. and a low near 52.

  Slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., otherwise mostly sunny and breezy today with a high near 82 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Partly cloudy and breezy overnight with a slight chance of rain before 9 p.m., a low near 48 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph.

  Slight chance of rain after 3 p.m., increasing clouds and breezy today with a high near 83 and wind gusts as high as 30 mph. Partly cloudy overnight with a low near 46 and wind gusts as high as 25 mph.

  Mostly sunny today with a high near 86 and partly cloudy overnight with a low near 46.

Daycap small 6 22 26

<title>Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Monday, June 22, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Don Day's Wyoming Weather Forecast: Monday, June 22, 2026

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Monday, June 22nd.  I’m Mac Watson

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. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that even middle-class wages aren’t high enough to afford to buy houses while home-building costs just continue to rise.

“They're building homes that are 400,000 and up, and so why not any affordable units for regular working class people who have a median income of 75,500. When I went to developers about why aren't people building homes in this range, that would be the affordable range for Americans, and they basically can't pencil out below $400,000. So we have this huge gap, between $300,000 and $400,000. They can't make the numbers work.”

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.

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A Cheyenne judge Friday ordered the Wyoming Board of Equalization to apply a law capping residential property tax increases at 4% annually, for now, despite the board’s claim the cap violates the Wyoming Constitution. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Gov. Gordon sued the board last week.

“Gordon's office, through the Attorney General's personnel, asked Judge Hibben, ‘Hey, make the tax board follow the law real quick while we sort through these tax values.’ And Judge Hibben granted that request. The judge basically said, ‘Look, we're going to sift through the constitutional issues. The court's going to look at those and decide, but for now you just follow the law.’ So, this is what we call a temporary restraining order. It's generally a very quick court order telling people what they're supposed to do while the controversy is going on in court.”

The Wyoming Constitution calls for equal and uniform property taxes within each tax category, and this tax cap creates stark disparities in how some homes, despite being nearly identical, are taxed in different regions, the report says.

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A tornado made a rare appearance in Sublette County on Saturday, bringing with it more than 700 power outages. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that Meteorologist Don Day calls it a “landspout” tornado.

“It's not a true tornado in the sense that it comes down from the clouds, rather it's a spinning closer to the surface that winds its way up to the clouds, and it lasted probably no more than 30 minutes, and even that's really long. They tend not to be long-lived, and they're not as destructive as tornadoes. So it was literally just a perfect storm of circumstances as thunderstorms and a cluster of thunderstorms was moving through Wyoming on Saturday that brought rain to some places and thunderstorms to others.”

Meteorologist Don Day tells Cowboy State Daily that landspouts tend to be more common in the spring and summer, especially when Wyoming’s area gets humid. When summer thunderstorms carry moisture into Wyoming, the likelihood of landspouts increases.

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A Casper man says his wife is making him sell his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that the car is a lifted, 1984 AMC Eagle wagon with 150,000 miles that owner Austin Griess says attracts too much female attention. 

“Griess posted the car online last week, and it got a lot of attention, especially from males who commented that maybe he should keep the car and get rid of something else. According to gearhead Ron Gordon in Sublette County, who spent a lifetime admiring station wagons, this AMC Eagle would have been the perfect family car. It is all-wheel drive, so it was made to go camping, especially lifted.”

Griess found the 1984 AMC Eagle 4X4 Wagon on Facebook Marketplace during the dead of winter. During the cold months he worked on it, installing a lift kit, tuning it up and making it reliable enough to serve as a daily driver. Then he said he turned it into a true “chick magnet” by adding a modern stereo.

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

Cowboy State Daily News continues now….

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Laramie's Erika Babbitt-Rogers considers herself to be a professional “worm wrangler.” Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that she says anglers and pet owners are regular customers, but the real demand is for worm poop. 

“She has discovered that really worm castings, which is just a fancy way of saying worm poop, is a huge seller, and the reason is that it makes really good, highly nutritious, slow release fertilizer for plants or lawns and whatnot. She says sells mass amounts of worm poop to people, and she said some people turn it into tea, and don't get the wrong idea, it's not tea you drink. What they do is they make like a tea mixture that they can spray on their plants or spray on their lawn, so it's tea for plants, not for people.”

Erika Babbitt-Rogers grew up in agriculture and always figured livestock would be part of her life, but she didn’t expect that “livestock” would be worms. Around 2009, she got the idea to raise worms on a larger scale and sell them for fishing bait and food for people's pet reptiles and, of course, worm poop for gardening. 

The American Dream in Powell is Wyoming’s last operating drive-in theater and has survived since 1949 as a retro experience for movie-goers. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the current owner, Kathleen Heny, bought it in 2004 just to save it. 

“One day her husband came home from the hardware store, and, ‘Oh, honey, our drive-in theater is for sale.’ They kind of had a soft spot for this theater, and they just decided that they were afraid that somebody's going to buy this and, you know, knock it down and build something else, and they didn't want that, and so they bought it themselves. They operated themselves.There are 370 drive-in theaters left in America. These guys are the Iron Man of an era that is long gone, the 1950s and 60s. These were fueled by the post-war boom. Everybody had their automobiles with their flashy chrome fenders. They needed places to show it off. The drive-in theater was perfect.”

Some of the locals go so far as to bring full-size couches in their pickup beds and camp stoves to make s’mores and other snacks as the overhead sky darkens and a sweep of stars begins to shine.

Wyoming’s prisons have 109 vacant positions, despite years of recruiting. Cowboy State Daily’s Kolby Fedore reports that now, the Wyoming Department of Corrections is turning to a certain group of people because of their training. 

“Former retired director of the WDOC, Bob Lambert, said that these positions are incredibly hard to fill. It's a demanding job. There are a lot of safety concerns. Inmates, as he puts it, are not usually there for singing too loud in church. Prison officials are currently recruiting active duty military members to serve as correctional officers in these prisons, so it's a pipeline that would help members who are nearing the end of their contract with the military to quickly start a new career with the Wyoming Department of Corrections.”

Through a new partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense's SkillBridge program, transitioning service members can train with the Wyoming Department of Corrections before separating from active duty, creating what officials hope will become a new pipeline into correctional careers.

Yellowstone rangers resorted to using a front-end loader and a bit of creativity to get a 2,000-pound bison carcass away from a busy road near Canyon Village on Friday. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that a wildlife photographer said a grizzly was circling the area determined to have the roadkill for breakfast.

“First they tied a chain around the bison's neck and lifted it, but then they couldn't get it up high enough to get in the dump truck, so they had to tie up one of its legs and lower it in that way, and this was all within public view. Most things that die in the park stay in the park. So when there's a bison carcass that people see near the road and the parks move it, they take it to a secret location where it can be dumped, and then it's free for all the animals in the park to utilize, because that's a big source of food for a bunch of animals.” 

Photographer April Mead has seen and shared images of Yellowstone’s carcass removal process before, but this one was notably different. It seemed as if the park’s experienced staff were improvising the best way to get the job done quickly and safely.

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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 

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

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

News image 6 22 26

<title>Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Monday, June 22, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Monday's headlines include:
* Wyoming’s Housing Shortage
* Rare Tornado In Sublette County
* What Exactly Does A Worm Wrangler Do?

Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Monday, June 22, 2026

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.’”

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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.”

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.

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