Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"And just like that, Thanksgiving was cancelled....."}]

Darwin 11 30 25

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

<title>Daily Darwin: Sunday, November 30, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

And just like that, Thanksgiving was cancelled.....

Daily Darwin: Sunday, November 30, 2025

 And just like that, Thanksgiving was cancelled.....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

A corrupt Cheyenne mayor and his chief of police ran a protection racket in 1944 that extorted money from black bar owners and encouraged prostitution, leading to their own criminal convictions.  

A new book about how their criminal operation unraveled because of a sting operation is coming out soon.

While working at the University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center as its associate director, now-retired Rick Ewig remembers longtime Laramie County Attorney Byron Hirst mentioning his prosecution of Cheyenne’s former mayor in 1944.

Hirst, who served as county prosecutor from 1943 to 1947, was filing his papers with the American Heritage Center around 2000 or 2001 and Ewig helped him with the project. 

The topic about the mayor came up more than once.

“I thought, that’s really kind of interesting,” Ewig said. “I thought, when I retire, I should write something on that.”

After retiring in 2016, the historian came back to the idea around the time of the pandemic and, once he started digging into the story, found that there was a “lot more to it than just corruption.”

Four years later he is coming out with his book titled “We Are In Charge Now, The Story of Corruption & Intrigue in World War II Cheyenne.” 

The 200-page history delves into the election of Ira L. Hanna and how after arriving in office, along with his police chief and two officers, they attempted to extort “protection money” from black businesses in the city.

Ewig’s research sent him into Hirst’s papers that were at the American Heritage Center and the Old West Museum in Cheyenne as well as through the daily newspapers to get the context of wartime Cheyenne in 1943 and 1944.

“It turns out that Cheyenne was segregated at that time,” Ewig said. "If you were African American, you lived on the west side and that’s where Lola West ran the Black and Tan Club (Cafe), and there was another African American bar owner, Pop Grimes.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"“He ran the Porters and Waiters Club.”"}]

Hirst had kept the information he compiled for his prosecution case, although there was not a trial transcript, Ewig said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A New Mayor"}]

Hanna, who had served as the Laramie County treasurer and then was elected as the county assessor, ran for the mayoral office in 1944. 

After becoming mayor he appointed Jesse Ekdall to be his police chief.

Shortly after coming to power, he and Ekdall approached the two black club owners to sell them protection as well as encourage prostitution, gambling, and illegal liquor sales, Ewig said. 

They were told they would be protected from the Cheyenne Police Department and the military police at Fort F.E. Warren.

“Hirst had kept all those documents related to that,” Ewig said.

The “most fascinating” one he found was related to West and Grimes going to Hirst after being instructed by the mayor and police chief to “not tell anybody” about his protection offer. 

A sting operation was set up between Hirst, two federal IRS agents, and the club owners.

Hirst and the feds were able to obtain a dictaphone device and place a microphone under Pop Grimes’ desk at the Porters and Waiters Club and recorded a meeting between the two black club owners, Hannah, Ekdall, and the two officers in his department.

During the hours-long meeting, Hanna and Ekdall were recorded saying that: “This is what we are going to do. We are in charge now. You have to pay us. If you don’t pay us we are going to shut down your business,” Ewig said.

Ewig said there is no evidence showing that the mayor or police chief attempted to strong arm any white business in town. 

Due to the war and the soldiers at Fort Warren in addition to the other war-support efforts that brought workers to town, prostitution was an issue.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Money Changed Hands"}]

Newspaper trial accounts show money was paid by West and Grimes to the mayor and police and the serial numbers of the bills were recorded.

Fort Warren was putting pressure on the city to get rid of all prostitution due to issues with venereal disease among the troops that hampered training, Ewig said.

But Ewig said the mayor and new police chief were trying to “open up” the city to more prostitution and illegal money to bring in funds despite the city’s stance against it.

His research found newspaper ads from Hanna as he ran for office that promised voters “good, clean government.”

Although all he had was the old newspapers to go by, Ewig did not find any evidence of any election manipulation that may have brought Hanna to power. 

Hanna’s record of public service to that point as the county assessor appeared above board.

“I didn’t find anything that really explained why after 20 years of not any issues at all, all of a sudden, he sees an opportunity to extort money from a certain group in Cheyenne,” Ewig said. 

“In the last part of the book, I do provide answers to what other people thought, but I never found anything that explained it directly,” he said.

During the trial of the quartet, the Casper Tribune-Herald reported on May 5, 1944, that Hanna testified that the money collected were “fines” for illegal activities and were destined for the city’s park and recreation fund.

Hanna said he and Ekdall decided to make the black business owners “pay fines” if the Fort Warren military police allowed prostitution, gambling, and the sale of liquor in the businesses, the newspaper reported. 

Hanna testified he received $340 from his police chief and put it in an envelope with other funds collected and a list of “from whom for what.”

Hanna testified he was found with three $5 bills that had been paid by West on his person because he wanted to “get a $5 bill to contribute to the Red Cross.” 

He exchanged a $20 bill for four fives that were in the envelope, he said.

West’s daughter testified at the trial and said she paid $100 on two different dates to police for protection. 

One of the officers on trial told her that if she received a phone call and “told us to wash our necks, there was going to be a raid,” the newspaper said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ewig said all four men were convicted."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sentenced And Commutation"}]

The Casper Herald-Tribune reported on May 7, 1944, that both Hanna and Ekdall were sentenced to not less than seven or more than 10 years in prison on charges of soliciting and accepting a bribe. 

The officers and E.K. Violette received a sentence of two to three years, and officer G.J. Morris a one to two years.

However, on Oct. 4, 1945, the Casper Tribune-Herald reported that both Hanna’s and Ekdall’s sentences had been commuted by a state board of pardons and they would be eligible for parole on Dec. 15, 1945, and discharged from parole on Dec. 15, 1946.

The newspaper reported the board of pardons had received more than 200 letters encouraging the commutation of their sentences. 

While in prison, both men quickly obtained trustee status with Hanna keeping the books for prisoner accounts at the prison and Ekdall serving as a caretaker for the governor’s mansion.

Ewig said his research did not corroborate something that Hirst had told him a couple of decades ago about mafia from Denver and Chicago being involved with criminal activities as well. 

He said there is a chapter devoted to one individual who may have had ties to the mafia, but he could not prove it.

The book is about more than the corruption of the mayor. 

Ewig said he tried to portray the whole atmosphere of Cheyenne during that time in the war.

“I’ve done a lot of Wyoming history, and this one was so Cheyenne specific that it was fascinating about life in World War II Cheyenne,” he said. “It’s not only the story about Ira Hanna and Lola West, I also look at what Cheyenne was like during World War II. 

"It was a boomtown, and there was a housing shortage, and all these issues come up.”

The book, Ewig’s third, is published by WordsWorth Publishing of Cody and will be available in bookstores in the next week or two, he said. It can be ordered now from 

A bonus from his research led to a friendship with Lola West’s grandson, Leon Reed of Cheyenne, Ewig said.

“He allowed me to use some of the family photographs in the book,” he said. “I’m going to sit with Mr. Reed and do and oral history with him because he would like the story of the African American community in Cheyenne to be better known, and to be explored more. So, that is going to come out of this research as well.”

Black and Tan Cafe inset 5 31 26

<title>Wyoming History: Cheyenne's Mayor, Police Chief Convicted Of Extorting Black Bar Owners | Cowboy State Daily</title>

It was 80 years ago that Cheyenne’s mayor and police chief were convicted of running a protection racket and extorting black bar owners. "You have to pay us. If you don’t pay us we are going to shut down your business,” federal agents recorded them saying.

Wyoming History: Cheyenne's Mayor, Police Chief Convicted Of Extorting Black Bar Owners

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Perched atop a rocky knoll along the Snowy Range Scenic Byway in the Medicine Bow Mountains of southern Wyoming, the Libby Flats Observation Area rises nearly 11,000 feet above sea level.

Its weathered stone wall, turret facade and steep wooden staircase lead to a platform where visitors can look out at the Snowy Range to the north and the Laramie Valley to the south.

It looks more like what’s left of the ruins of a Medieval castle than a modern attraction.

For Laramie photographer David Peel, it's been a source of fascination for much of the last half-century.

"It's like an old ancient structure," Peel said. "Your mind kind of starts making up some fancy histories about it.”

Peel said its weathered stone and isolated perch above the tree line remind him of places far from Wyoming — Ireland, old European ruins and the kinds of structures that are much older than the observatory.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Mystery Of The Tower"}]

The site is managed by the Medicine Bow National Forest and was approved in 2024 as a $5-per-vehicle day-use recreation site.

It’s also not ancient. It was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s, according to F.E. Warren Air Force Base.

Aaron Voos, public affairs specialist for the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest and Thunder Basin National Grassland, said U.S. Forest Service maps mark the location as an "observation point" as early as 1956 in its records.

Engineering blueprints from 1959 show plans for a parking area, footpath, restroom and the stone observation tower visitors see today, said Voos. 

The overlook typically opens with the Snowy Range Scenic Byway each spring and remains accessible through the summer and fall before winter snow closes the road.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Where The Stars Take Over"}]

Peel said he has spent countless nights at Libby Flats photographing the Milky Way, auroras, and sunrises.

The high elevation and lack of light pollution create some of the darkest skies in Wyoming for photographers.  

"Up in the Snowies, it's nearly pristine," Peel said, adding that the tower is one of his favorite places to take photos. 

On moonless nights, the Milky Way stretches across the sky with a clarity that's difficult to appreciate until you're standing beneath it, he continued. 

Illuminated by starlight, Peel says the structure resembles a watchtower guarding the edge of the continent. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'The Flats Of Libby' "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Peel has lived in Laramie for nearly 47 years."}]

He's hiked the Snowies, camped beside alpine lakes and brought his children into the mountains when they were young.

[{"type":"text","text":"The observation tower remains one of the places they always returned to."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"His children thought it looked like a castle."}]

After decades of hiking, camping and photographing the Snowies, Peel found himself writing about them too.

One of his Irish compositions, "The Flats of Libby," borrowed its name from the windswept landscape surrounding the overlook .

More than 60 years after it first appeared on Forest Service maps, and nearly a century since the CCC built it, the overlook remains one of the most recognizable stops in the Snowy Range, drawing everyone from road-trippers and hikers to photographers chasing the stars.

Libby Flats Observation Tower Pat and Chuck Blackley via Alamy 5 30 26

<title>What The Heck … Is That Medieval Castle-Looking Thing On The Snowy Range Byway? | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The observation deck that looks like a Medieval castle ruin has turned heads for decades in the Medicine Bow range. For Laramie photographer David Peel, the 11,000-foot elevation and lack of light pollution make it a great place for astrophotography.

What The Heck … Is That Medieval Castle-Looking Thing On The Snowy Range Byway?

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

John “Josh” Deane was 16 years old when he left his home in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, for the Wild West in 1872, lured there by the adventures he had read about in the 10-cent novels of his day. 

Instead of the excitement he dreamed of, the teenager found life a struggle just to survive.

Deane eventually took a job for $75 a month driving freight, a profession known as "bull whacking." 

By 1876, Deane was 20 years old and landed an opportunity that he considered an advancement in life. 

He was hired as a government dispatch carrier at the princely sum of $125 a month. 

In 1928, Deane told his story to a biographer about he carried one especially important dispatch, related in his own words in the book “The Mayor of Meeteetse.” 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Rumors Of A Fight"}]

Deane had arrived at Fort Brown in the middle of June 1876 and was told by Col. Julius Mason to remain a few days. 

Mason had just arrived himself from Fort Riley, Kansas, and was concerned because there were rumors of a fight with the Indians in the Rosebud country. 

“A little later, he decided to send me to the camp of Custer and Reno and told me to select an Indian to accompany me,” Deane said. “I picked Niogen Doget, a Shoshone, and we started out on the morning of June 24, with our saddle horses and one pack horse.”

The two men had orders to reach their destination as quickly as possible, so they traveled fast and light. 

Crossing Cottonwood Creek, they made our way up the slope of the Owl Creek Range. 

On the summit of the mountains, Deane described pausing to look down for the first time into the Big Horn Basin which would one day be his future home. 

“From my point of vantage, I could see the Big Horn River and could trace its course for many miles, by the line of cottonwood timber along its banks,” Deane said. “Not a human being, nor a sign of human habitation, was visible in all the valley.”

As Deane and Niogen Doget took in the view, they were unaware of the danger that Custer, Reno and the others would be facing the next day along the Little Bighorn River.

Deane said that the Pryor Mountains were dimly visible, and the Big Horn Range, with snow-capped Cloud’s Peak, rising in its midst, was easily discerned. 

Only a few miles beyond the smooth northern slope of the range on which they stood, the men could see the peculiar, brick-red, conical hills of the hot springs region, in which the town of Thermopolis would later spring up. 

They descended the northern slope of the mountains, passing close to the spot where Col. Torrey’s Embar Ranch would soon to be situated, the same ranch that Butch Cassidy and others of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang would be working on in the 1890s. 

He forged unnamed creeks and swam rivers in his haste to reach the camps. 

As the two men traveled with the dispatch from Fort Brown on June 25 and 26, they were completely unaware that the Battle of the Little Bighorn, known as the Battle of the Greasy Grass by the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, was being fought. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Reno Sick in Tent"}]

On June 27, Deane said that he and Niogen Doget reached the head of what is now called Reno Creek. 

They followed down a long bench, hunting the camp of Custer and Reno. 

“As we drew near the camp, which was on the bank of the Little Big Horn River, I could see dead horses and other traces of a fight,” Deane said years later in 1928. “Sergeant Ned Bowling, whose widow is still living in Lander, Wyoming, greeted me and pointed out Reno’s tent.”

Deane said he hurried over to the tent but was surprised when Reno’s orderly would not let him inside. 

Deane was told that Reno was ill and unable to receive dispatches. 

“I was sent to the second in command to whom I handed over the small locked pouch, used by the government for secret messages, and the sealed envelope containing the key,” Deane said. “As he tore open the envelope, I remarked that I would look around a little and return later.”

Deane was ordered instead to wait while the officer prepared dispatches about the battle to send back to Fort Brown. Deane was then told to start back with the messages at once. 

“My curiosity was now thoroughly aroused, as well as some resentment,” Deane said. “When a man has just covered 170 miles, in two days, it must be a very urgent matter which sends him back over the same route, without at least, one night’s rest for himself and his horse.”

Deane could see that “serious things had been happening.” 

He described how the faces of the officers were grim and haggard; there were dead horses and bandaged men, and Reno was evidently seriously wounded. 

He pulled his friend Bowling to one side while waiting for the dispatches and asked what had happened. 

Bowling told Deane that Custer and Reno had quarreled at Rosebud, and Custer, impetuous and hot-headed, had taken a small group and gone ahead to attack the Indians, without waiting for Reno’s support. 

Deane learned that Custer and his men had ridden forth upon a rolling ridge and were going so fast that the ammunition wagon and Gatling gun could not keep up. Indians, outnumbering his forces 10-1, were in ambush in the timber along the Little Big Horn River, which paralleled the ridge. 

Bowling said that Indians had pushed upon Custer’s little group, taking them by surprise, cutting them off from the retreat and from their ammunition, and had them at their mercy. 

The soldiers had put up a brave resistance, but when their ammunition was gone, they were helpless and were slaughtered without quarter by the furious Sioux.

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

Deane said that Reno, coming along later in the day, had a skirmish with the Indians, in which he lost a great number of men. 

The rest of the soldiers were so exhausted that no attempt had as yet been made to bury the dead from the Custer massacre. 

“As a matter of fact, except for a thin layer of soil thrown over the bodies where they lay, they were left untouched for many months and then buried in one huge pit, above which stands the Custer monument bearing their names,” Deane said.

According to Deane’s account, small stones were set up at the spot where each man fell, and where he lay before each soldier was given a permanent resting place. 

Custer, alone of the victims of that day’s slaughter, is not buried on the field, Deane said. His body was removed to the East.

“Orders or no orders, I could not go back to Fort Brown without a glimpse of that battlefield,” Deane said. 

When his dispatches were ready; instead of starting back, Bowling and Deane slipped away to the spot, only a short distance from the camp, where the soldiers lay dead. 

“As we approached the scene of the massacre, we saw a horse quietly grazing on the hill side, apparently the sole survivor of the recent battle,” Deane said. “He had a bullet wound in his neck, but was not seriously hurt, and as I happen to know, died many years later, of old age.”

The scene that Deane observed before him was one that remained with him for the rest of his life. 

He described how men and horses were lying where they had fallen, scattered singly or in groups of twos or threes, on both slopes of the ridge and on its summit. 

“Most of the bodies were fairly close together, but occasionally we noticed small groups or individuals at some distance from the rest,” Deane said. “Piles of empty shells could be seen everywhere.”

As Deane walked among the battlefield, he said that none of the soldiers appeared to have more than two or three cartridges left. 

The whole field, as indicated by the positions of the dead, was about a square mile. 

He said that the bodies of the men were all on this unsheltered ridge, where sagebrush was the only vegetation, but dead horses were scattered through the timber close to the river. 

There were no dead Indians to be seen, though they must have lost at least as many men as the whites. 

They had evidently paused long enough after the fight to gather up their own dead, as well as to take the scalps of a good many of their victims. 

“We came upon General Custer lying across the neck of his horse, a pistol in his hand,” Deane said. “The Indians must have respected his rank for he still wore his scalp. 

“I remember noting that he had yellow hair, a fact which I have since had to dispute with several people who have insisted that Custer was dark.”

The scene Deane described decades after the fact matched that of Captain Frederick Benteen, battalion leader of Companies D, H and K who walked the battlefield on the same day. 

“The only approach to a line was where five or six horses found at equal distances,” Benteen reported. “Ahead of those horses there were five or six men at about the same distances, showing that the horses were killed and the riders jumped off and were all heading to get where General Custer was.”

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

After walking the battlefield, Deane and Niogen Doget reached Fort Brown late in the evening of the second day. Deane went immediately to Mason and handed him the envelope and dispatch pouch.

“Huh! Hell of a note! Did you hear the details?” Mason said after reading the dispatch. 

Deane repeated to him what Bowling had told me of the cause of the affair and described the battlefield as he had seen it. 

Mason appeared disturbed but made no further comment, except to wonder if the news had been dispatched to other quarters. 

Deane told him that dispatch carriers had been sent to Helena. 

“I should have reached my destination, however, before they did theirs,” Deane said. “There was no telegraph line at Fort Brown so we were unable to pass the news along before it had reached the world through other channels.”

Robert Hall, the telegraph operator at Fort Stambaugh, about 50 miles south of Fort Brown, had the distinction of first wiring the news to the headquarters department at Omaha. 

General Crook at Fort Rosebud had dispatched Shoshone Indian runners to Fort Stambaugh, as soon as he heard of the catastrophe. 

Stambaugh had a telegraph line, but there was a break in the wire, just then, which had not yet been located. 

The commanding officer had relays of horses sent out along the telegraph route and gave Hall the dispatches with instructions to ride along the route until he found the break in the wire. 

He found it at a point about 50 miles from the Fort, and from there he sent his news to Omaha.

“Nothing more that was exciting or worthy of special notice occurred during my career as a government dispatch carrier,” Deane said. “I made only the usual routine trips from one fort to another.”

A year later, Deane had not saved much of his money and had grown weary of the monotony of the long, lonely rides over the hills. He quit the job of delivering messages for the military and headed to Green River.

Eventually, Deane returned to the Big Horn Basin during a more peaceful era and settled in Meeteetse where he was appointed mayor. 

There, he lived his last years as an old timer of the region and became famous for his barbecues.

Custers last stand Getty Images 514887526 5 30 26

<title>Wyoming History: The Courier Who Carried First Dispatch From Custer’s Last Stand | Cowboy State Daily</title>

John “Josh” Deane came West looking for adventure — and got more than he bargained for when he took a job as a military dispatch rider. It was 150 years ago that he found himself carrying the first message about Custer’s last stand to Wyoming’s Fort Brown.  

Wyoming History: The Courier Who Carried First Dispatch From Custer’s Last Stand

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

Andrew Rossi

Outdoors

Public Lands

[{"type":"text","text":"Wyoming’s winds are so strong, they actually move Devils Tower."}]

The nation’s first national monument has been swaying back and forth for millions of years — and it’s moving right now.

 published by the Geological Society of America has revealed that Wyoming’s iconic Devils Tower is constantly moving. 

An international team of geologists studied the massive monolith and determined that it's perpetually and ever-so-slightly swaying, twisting, and turning in the wind.

“It’s not only a static rock structure, millions of years in the making,” said Jeffrey Moore, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah and lead author of the new study. “It is moving on human timescales. It's constantly in motion.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Solid As A Rock"}]

Devils Tower is a giant, eroded plug of volcanic rock. It was an intrusive body of magma that cooled under the surface and was gradually exposed by millions of years of erosion.

When most people see Devils Tower, they assume it’s as solid as a rock. Moore’s research shows that it isn’t entirely true.

“It’s lively with vibrational energy,” Moore said. “You can't see it, feel it, hear it, or anything, but it's nonetheless very real. It’s happened right this very second.”

Moore and his colleagues studied Devils Tower using ambient vibration modal analysis techniques. 

It’s a way of analyzing the ambient vibrations moving through solid rock forms, identifying the mode of those vibrations, and determining the extent and nature of movement they cause.

“It’s similar to playing a note on a piano,” Moore said. “If you looked at the sound wave of that, it wouldn't look like much, but if you looked at the frequency, it would tell you quite a lot about the frequencies of what you’re hearing. That’s what we did at Devils Tower.”

New research published by the Geological Society of America has revealed that Devils Tower is constantly moving. An international team of geologists determined that it's perpetually and ever-so-slightly swaying, twisting, and turning in the wind.

Daily Darwin: Sunday, November 30, 2025

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