One More For The Road

[{"type":"text","text":"Another argument for security cams...."}]

One more for 1 6 26

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

<title>One More For The Road: Tuesday, January 6, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Another argument for security cams....

One More For The Road: Tuesday, January 6, 2026

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

Andrew Rossi

Outdoors

Public Lands

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying 

 flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming around the area.

Thousands of bees are still homeless and visibly trying to survive in large groups on “bee trees” along U.S. Highway 191. 

Jim Holstein with Yellowstone Tour Guides has been passing through the area where the accident occurred. He took a photograph of one of the bee trees, where thousands of bees had completely covered a small lodgepole in a vast, buzzing swarm.

“They were still there on Monday,” Holstein told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s in the park between Big Sky and West Yellowstone. All the hives have been cleaned up, but there are quite a few bees left.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bee Trees"}]

Cheyenne beekeeper Michael Jordan is familiar with bee trees. They’re an indication that a colony of bees is actively house-hunting.

“It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” he said. “The queen leaves and takes about half or more of the colony and moves to a new safe location.”

Jordan said this is common behavior for honeybees when a hive gets overpopulated. The existing queen will take nurse bees and guard bees to sustain herself in a temporary location while scouts search for a permanent 

“The scouts will search until they find a permanent location,” he said. “In the meantime, you'll have groups and colonies hanging in the trees as they regroup.”

A new permanent home could be a hole in a tree, a cave, or “anywhere that’s out of the water and elements,” said Jordan. 

Bee trees are meant to be staging locations so the scouts can lead the hive to their new home.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sugar High"}]

When the scout bees find a suitable location for a permanent hive, their next priority is

“Right now, they’re looking for a sugar source,” Jordan said. “Bees need sugar to produce wax from their glands. Once they produce the wax and form it, they'll actively engineer foam in what we call a pendulum manner to make honeycombs.”

Bees instinctively know how to build hives, and their goal is to start propagating as soon as possible after a hive-destroying incident.

Once they find a suitable spot with plenty of sugar in the vicinity, maybe a rock formation or building near a flower-filled meadow, the queen will follow the scouts to the new hive. Instinctively, all the bees on the bee tree will follow her.

Jordan didn't think there would be any bee trees for tourists to see by Wednesday.

“Those clusters will be gone within 24 to 48 hours if they find a good location,” he said. “After that, there’s nothing you can do to recover them, because tracking them is very hard.

The fact that bee trees can still be seen along U.S. Highway 191 six days after the June 16 crash might indicate the bees are having trouble finding an ideal place for a new home. But it definitely means the colonies can be safely recovered.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Get Those Bees, Please"}]

Within 24 hours of the semitruck incident, people were at the scene removing the damaged honey boxes and trying to recover whatever remained of the bee colonies that had been residing in them.

Jordan said the first 48 hours are crucial in a bee recovery situation like that.

“If you can’t get new hives set up in 48 hours, the queens will migrate and leave a pheromone trail that the bees accommodating her in that hive will follow,” he said. “That’s what the bee trees are: thousands of bees accumulating around the queen.”

That means there’s a small window to safely save these bees before they become permanent Yellowstone residents.

Jordan’s strategy would be to place a mobile swarm trap. It’s basically a column of PVC pipes with buckets attached to either end. The height can be adjusted to get as close as possible to the colony clusters.

“If the bees accumulate in the buckets as a temporary hive, you can relocate them to an apiary and manage them there,” he said. “You can even hold a bucket up to the colony and shake them inside. That’s how you can naturally collect and remove a colony.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Bears — Yet"}]

Commercial vehicles like semitrucks are banned in Yellowstone, but U.S. Highway 191 is an exception. It hugs the western boundary of the park and is an important 55-mile thoroughfare between West Yellowstone and Big Sky, 

"They've enacted a temporary 35 mph speed limit on the section where the bees are," Holstein said. "People have to keep their windows up, and there's no stopping until crews can get the remaining bees rounded up."

When the bee trees disappear, it means the bees have found a suitable spot to rebuild their hive. Finding and removing the colony would be difficult, if not impossible, especially in the dangerous wilderness of Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","text":"After all, who loves honey more than bears?"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“I haven’t seen any bears,” Holstein said. “Yet.”"}]

Jordan was more concerned about the people who lost their honey boxes and bee colonies. He knew how much money they had lost and must have spent trying to salvage whatever they could from the accident.

“From the way it looks. I’d think about 40-50% of what’s there is salvageable, maybe,” he said. “Each honey box can cost around $500 and generate around $2,000 in honey. 

"There could be two or three owners who lost their livelihood in that accident. That’s at least one whole company that has to rebuild.”

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<title>Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying millions of bees flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming on trees in the area. “It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” said a Wyoming beekeeper.

Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Wyoming's oil boom in the late 1800s quickly became a frontier land war as former gunmen, prospectors and even nobles from Europe converged on the Salt Creek and Teapot Dome oil fields near Casper.

The cowboys of the Hole-in-the-Wall area were just learning their outlaw trade when the first oil claim had been made in the Salt Creek oil field. 

In the fall of 1889, an oil baron from Pennsylvania, Mark Shannon, known to his associates as a successful wildcatter, producer and promoter, saw the possibilities in the land that the cattle barons had scorned. 

Shannon had started secretly drilling the first well the year the Johnson County War was first erupting. 

While the cattlemen saw nothing in the sparse grasslands, alkali creeks and oil film on the soda lakes, Shannon saw a fortune to be made in oil, according to Ed Bille who grew up in the oil fields during the 1920s Teapot Dome Scandal. 

Bille documented these early days of lawlessness in his 1978 book, “Early Days at Salt Creek and Teapot Dome.”

“When the well came in, the derrick was fenced and guarded and an air of secrecy hung over the project for a few months,” Bille wrote. “The reason given was that Shannon wanted to be sure of a clear title to the land.”

In the days before the automobile became commonplace, Shannon hauled his oil to Casper by wagons using 12 to 18 horses. 

The string teams would then return with a load of supplies while people wondered out loud what this oil was even good for. Hundreds of barrels of the black gold went unused for those first decades, and newspapers lamented the waste. 

In the meantime, there was plenty of scandal associated with those early days of the Teapot Dome and Salt Creek oil fields before the oil hit the fan in the 1920s.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wildcatting"}]

Early day wildcatters were prospectors who took a string of tools and drilled for oil in places it was not known to exist. 

Bille said they came from all walks of life, including ranchers, doctors, lawyers and merchants. 

Those flocking to this new oil boom were also promoters, “fast-buck artists” and former outlaws, such as Butch Cassidy’s best friend Elzy Lay, who made his own claims in Wyoming oil fields after getting out of prison. 

Oil industry historian James A. Clark said that the wildcatter had to be gambler, trader and entrepreneur

“He had a lot of things the old gold miner had,” Clark said. “Many died poor, but a few hit it big.”

These oil pioneers quickly moved into the oil fields located at the southwest edge of the Powder River Basin.

“Land titles were often vague, unstable, and insecure, and claim jumping was a fact of life in the Salt Creek Field from its beginning until the Leasing Act became law in 1920,” Bille wrote.

A location notice filed in the county records would supposedly hold the land for a year. Oil prospectors had to dig or drill a hole in what was called “validating the claim.” Sometimes, three men operating a spring pole outfit could put down three or four validating holes in a day.

Havoc reigned in the oil field as men argued who had the right to the land. 

Confrontations, threats, and violence were common during these early years. 

Often, these arguments were settled by the one who had the quickest draw and was best at handling his gun.

This alkali land, forsaken by stockmen, was soon eyed by nobility of the old world, according to Bille. 

Promoters had brought Wyoming oil to national and international attention by the early 1900s, and a large number of European investors were attracted by the growing realization of oil potential in the Salt Creek area. European  barons and princes began to invest in the development.

At the end of 1903, Shannon sold his entire Wyoming properties — refinery, wells, placer claims — for $350,000 to a group of Europeans. That would be about $13.2 million today.

This set off a fierce rivalry that was fought from 1905-1910 between the Holland-owned “Wyoming Syndicate” and local investors.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hired Guns"}]

Land titles in Salt Creek and Teapot Dome were confusing and unsecured, so many wildcatters and oil companies hired gunmen, known as line riders, to protect their claims.

“Line riders were men of nerve, and they put up a fight for their companies equal to the fights on the range made in the earlier days by the cowboys for what they considered their rights,” wrote Harold Roberts in his book “Salt Creek.”

 in 1910-1920 only slightly deviated from a decade before when differences were frequently settled with .45-caliber revolvers and Winchester rifles. 

During these early gold rush days in Wyoming, it was not uncommon for owners and claim jumpers to mysteriously vanish.

Bille said that reputations had been built during that outlaw time. Oil field claimants were thus more likely to back down in the face of a gun held by someone who was known to have used it in the recent past against horse rustlers.

Early cowboys and gunmen, such as William “Missou” Hines, were hired and well-known for quickness and accuracy with a gun. Hines, who became a line rider in the 1910s, was an example of what the lawless Wyoming oil fields had become.

Dan Adamson, a cattleman from Nebraska, wrote in the Jan. 1, 1934, Omaha Daily Journal/Stockman that Missou was known to whip out his gun and shoot at even his friends for sport. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Adamson said that became known as a “Missou joke.\""}]

When the town of Casper was still young, Missou was riding down the street with his fellow cowhand, Texan Charley "Red River" Stuart. 

Adamson said that Missou pointed out that Red River was riding a horse with a reputation as a hard bucker and asked if Red River could really ride such a horse.

[{"type":"text","text":"“You bet your life; every jump in the road!\" Red River responded."}]

Missou promptly whipped out his gun and shot under the horse's nose. The old bucker went after Red River in earnest and threw him off in the street.

Another time, Adamson said a magician was performing in Casper and claimed that he could catch a bullet shot from a pistol in his mouth.

“Of course this was hooey as his partner in the audience was supposed to do the shooting, changing to a blank cartridge,” Adamson said.

Just as the head performer got through with his explanation, Missou got his gun out and hollered, "Are you ready?"

“The fellow took one look at Missou and bolted for the door, but Missou punctured his coat tail as he went out,” Adamson said.

Missou was first hired to guard the oil fields by engineer William Fitzhugh, described as a fiery tempered, capable, energetic person who could be both generous and very difficult to deal with. 

Fitzhugh hired Missou to keep trespassers off the field and discourage the jumping of his claims by others, Bille wrote.

Fitzhugh also took the fight to the courts because he openly had plans to “jump” every claim in the field and take the entire Salt Creek area. 

He believed that the titles which others had were no good and promptly filed on all of it and started drilling wells to acquire title. He clashed with representatives of the Dutch properties, The Midwest Co., and others.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Evicting Squatters"}]

Since much of the land in the Salt Creek area was public domain, homesteaders could settle the area as “mineral claims” or “desert claims.” They just had to do a certain amount of assessment work to get a patent to the land.

With the new developments, and new strikes in different sands, much of the alkali flats became valuable oil land. Squatters subsequently settled on some of that land in an effort to lay claim to it.

“Many of these squatters, attempting to establish holdings in the oil fields, were attacked and beaten,” Bille wrote. “In some cases, contestants moved in with teams of four and six horses, and plenty of strong-arm help, and moved the squatters’ shacks.”

While there was the threat of serious trouble hanging in the air, most of these eviction events occurred without major incident. In fact, as the horses dragged away the shacks, large crowds would gather to watch.  

Eventually, the oil field was mostly under the domain of Midwest, which had won the right to most of the land in Salt Creek and Teapot Dome through strong armed tactics.

However, even as Missou and other hired guns began hauling freight instead of flashing their rifles, trouble of another kind was ahead for the infamous fields of Salt Creek and Teapot Dome.

Corrupt politicians had also seen the potential of the oil-rich area as oil became more in demand. The fight for control of the Salt Creek and Teapot Dome oil fields soon drew the attention of the world. 

However, those who once patrolled the oil fields knew that the 

was not the beginning, but only the continuation of a fight that had been going on for decades in the lawless land of Wyoming. 

Teapot Rock inset Getty 6 21 26

<title>Teapot Dome Oil Fields Were Plenty Scandalous Before Historic Scandal Of 1920s | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Years before armed Marines invaded Wyoming and a cabinet secretaries went to prison for the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s, those same oil fields were already plenty scandalous. Arguments over land were often settled by whoever had the quickest draw.

Teapot Dome Oil Fields Were Plenty Scandalous Before Historic Scandal Of 1920s

Dietz was once a busy and bustling community made up of a collection of mining camps scattered along the Tongue River Valley.  

Barefoot children were full of mischief, baseball games were played between rival camps, and then the explosions would come. 

Families would rush to the mines to discover if the men who were working that shift had survived.  

Stanley A. Kuzara of Sheridan was born on Oct. 15, 1906, into this dangerous and poor — but lively — life. Along with many others, found that growing up in a dangerous coal town, the first life lesson was survival.

His parents were Polish immigrants and his father was working in Mine No. 5, so the family lived at the coal mining camp of Dietz No. 5 at the time of Kuzara's birth. 

The Kuzara family, which eventually grew to seven boys and five girls, lived in a converted barn that was formerly a camp grocery store and post office, Kuzara wrote in his book “Black Diamonds of Sheridan.” 

Later, their camp would be renamed Dietz No. 8 when Mine No. 5 closed and a new mine established in the same area.

By the early 1900s, Dietz was among the largest coal-producing communities in northern Wyoming with 800 men working the mines in the winter and 400 in the summer. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Unlike a single town, Dietz was a collection of mining camps. "}]

G.B Dobson of Wyoming Tales and Trails wrote that each town bore the number of its corresponding mine, thus when Mine No. 5 was closed and replaced by Mine No. 8, the camp was renamed Dietz No. 8.   

Other mines in the region included the Hotchkiss, Acme, Model, Carneyville (later Kleenburn), Monarch, and Kooi.

Nearly every European country was represented in the camps which Kuzara listed as Polish, Hungarians, Welsh, Scotch, English, Italians, Czechoslovakians, Bulgarians, Austrians, Germans, Serbians, Montenegrans, Irish, Slovaks, Japanese, and French.

[{"type":"text","text":"Life was precarious in the camp. "}]

When Kuzara was a year old, his parents had to live in a tent with the family while they waited for their new house to become available. That would be the John Hecht Place located about midway between the Dietz No. 7 and the Dietz No. 5 camps.

It was while in this tent that Kuzara said his mother had him in a high chair placed near the coal range to keep him warm. 

One of the other small boys began to climb on the high chair and, when it became unbalanced, Kuzara fell on top of the hot range. 

He severely burned his right cheek and carried the scar for the rest of his life.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Dangerous Games"}]

Kuzara said that the kids in the coal mining camp would have to get inventive in their games.

He remembered how at times, they would “borrow” a handcar from the CB&Q railroad. 

These carts would be left on the siding of the tracks by a maintenance crew and proved too tempting to the boys who found it. 

Some of the older boys would carry them to the interurban tracks whose bed was not level as the railroad tracks.

“We would all push the hand-car up to the top of an incline just to experience the sensation of coasting down at quite a speed,” Kuzara said. “It was a wonder that we survived as the handles of the hand-car would be pumping up and down of their own accord.”

Another favorite pastime in the winter was to slide down the hills on homemade sleds, bobsled and toboggans.

The children would also ice skate on the sloughs and river, the latter which was kept clean of snow by flooding.

“Of course, skating on the river was sometimes very dangerous since the ice was either very thin where the water was naturally swift or was even non-existent,” Kuzara said. “We had to remain constantly on guard and did have some narrow escapes.”

A game unique to the coal mining camps was playing with carbide, a compound of carbon and a metal.

Kuzara explained that it was the habit of the miners to clean out their carbide lamps of the residue of carbide. 

He said that near the exit of the mine, one miner after another would unscrew the base of his lamp, knock it against the post and deposit the residue until there was quite a pile of spent carbide powder.

“As the men would empty their cans, we children would finger through the carbide dust, picking out all granules of unused carbide,” Kuzara said. “Sometimes we would merely pile it, drop water on it and light it; other times, place a supply of carbide in a bottle and after watering it, quickly cap the bottle and get quite a charge out of the resulting explosion.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Different Rules"}]

Kuzara recalled that even the men had their games that were usually of various contests of strength such as boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, and throwing horseshoes.

“My father once bet one of the more husky miners, Joe Stucca, that he could not lift a certain water-soaked oak railroad tie about 20 feet long,” Kuzara said. “The bet was $5.”

Stucca not only lifted one end of the tie on his shoulder, but gradually worked to its center until he had it balanced. Then the miner walked off with it. 

[{"type":"text","text":"It was estimated that the tie weighed about 800 pounds."}]

Kuzara said that all ages played baseball. Each camp had its own team and there was real rivalry among the various camps as well as with teams from Sheridan and the surrounding area.

“Even with us younger boys, baseball was one of our principal activities,” Kuzara said. “However, instead of competing teams, we used to play work-up.”

A player would begin at left field position and as a batter was struck out, the players would gradually move up a position until finally, the boy would arrive at the batter’s box where he remained until he was put out. 

This made it so that the younger boys became very adept in each position, and they became particularly good batters. 

The end results were that when they were older and joined the men on the baseball teams, they were already very good at the game.  

Even in the wintertime, Kuzara said the men were able to keep involved in physical activities when not working their long hours in the mine

“Frequently with a keg of beer nearby, the frozen river became the scene of a game called Pravo, sometimes referred to as curling,” Kuzara said. “In this game of competition, one would run to a foul line and slide a disk or quoit along the ice, as in bowling, to an objective spot or line, frequently glancing off another’s quoit to gain advantage.”

Kuzara said that as a young boy, he also played on the frozen river in the wintertime. One of the games was called Shinny, which resembles hockey today.  

“Instead of owning any manufactured hockey stick and puck, we used to find a willow or some other tree which had a crook in it shaped like a hockey stick, and for a puck we used to use a bung from a barrel,” Kuzara said.

In the summertime as they tramped around in the trees, he said they were always on the lookout for a better “shinny stick.”

Another game Kuzara said was played by the men on the ice was called Bolina. 

He described this as similar to curling except that balls were used. A smaller target ball was rolled a distance, then the larger ball rolled, or lagged, to see how near one could get to the target ball.

[{"type":"text","text":"In all of these games, enthusiasm ran very high."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Celebrations"}]

Each of the mining camps had its own polka band that appeared in many of the big parades that were held in the early 1900s. They also played at the many Polish weddings and christenings.

Instead of celebrating birthdays, it was the accepted custom at the camps to celebrate their “name days.” 

On St. Joseph day, for example, every Joe in the camp set that day aside for celebrating his patron saint. On St. Maria Day, all Marys would celebrate. 

By the time all the Joes or Marys got together to celebrate they would have quite a party, complete with a band, Kuzara said.

The union hall in practically each mining camp would usually also serve as an auditorium for functions of other organizations and also for school plays and programs. 

Frequently, officials at the mine would give gifts to children at the Christmas party and, if times were good, these were quite elaborate.

Despite all the fun and community spirit Kuzara experienced, he also saw a lot of tragedy at a young age. 

Deaths were all too common from explosions, gas leaks and other accidents. 

His own father tried to stay out of the mines, and throughout Kuzara’s childhood, his father opened up stores that sold a wide range of goods, from liquor to furniture. 

Despite his efforts, his father would often have to return to the mines to feed his large family. 

Kuzara said that knowing he did not want a low-paying mine job, he studied hard in school. He pursued many careers to keep himself out of the mines. 

However, he also ended up doing his time underground, but kept striving to get other jobs that would get him above ground.

It was when looking back at his childhood that Kuzara appreciated what he had survived. 

Not just the hard labor, but the antics of the boys and men who lived in the coal mining camps of Wyoming, especially now that most of these coal mining camps are ghost towns with fading memories. 

"As I look back retrospect, I feel now that it really was a unique privilege to have been born in the mining camp of Dietz No.5, Wyoming," Kuzara wrote. "The fun, the frivolity, the pathos, and the hardships."

7 Dietz schoolchildren 1920s

<title>Wyoming History: Surviving A Dangerous Childhood Growing Up In Coal Town Of Dietz | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The ghost town of Dietz was once a thriving coal mining community near Sheridan. Stanley Kuzara grew up around the mines where explosions were commonplace. Families would rush to the mines to discover if the men working that shift had survived.  

Wyoming History: Surviving A Dangerous Childhood Growing Up In Coal Town Of Dietz

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Law Enforcement

Crime & Courts

Sound surveillance technology has gone largely unnoticed and un-debated in Wyoming while residents clash over video-surveillance license plate reader cameras, like Flock.

ome Wyoming law enforcement agencies use microphone surveillance systems in Cheyenne to detect gunshots, authorities have confirmed.

Gunshot detection sensors are acoustic detection systems built to alert authorities to gunfire and help them locate it. 

ShotSpotter, a prevalent system brand, relies on an artificial intelligence algorithm and network of microphones to identify gunshots.

Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak said his office uses that tech in just one place: the local courthouse.

The Cheyenne Police Department has used shot detection technology and “the microphones can be deployed on our mobile observation platforms at large community events, or in hot spots for crime,” said agency spokeswoman Alexandra Farkas in a Friday text message.

The surveillance video cameras have been far more controversial so far, as Wyoming law enforcement agencies use license plate cameras in at least 

In the audio surveillance world, the prominent brand Flock is now transitioning to train its high-powered microphones to listen for ambiguous sounds like screaming and human distress rather than just gunshots, according to 

[{"type":"text","text":"State of Surveillance calls that expansion “mission creep.”"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Kozak said he hadn’t heard of microphones doing that yet."}]

Kozak in his Friday phone interview said that when he was chief of police for Cheyenne, the agency used the microphones at the huge Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo to locate any gunfire on site quickly.

As for Kozak’s newer role as sheriff, the courthouse is the only place he uses the sound technology, he said.

While Wyoming debates surveillance cameras, what's gone largely unsung and un-debated is sound sensor technology. Law enforcement authorities in Cheyenne say they are using noise sensors to detect gunshot sounds. Some worry it could lead to "mission creep.”

One More For The Road: Tuesday, January 6, 2026

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