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Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

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

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

<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 business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

A stoned Vietnam War lieutenant’s inside joke slipped right past Army brass and straight into history. 

The lieutenant, Joe McCarthy, slyly christened his improvised gun truck “Uncle Meat,” his favorite track on the 1969 rock album by Mothers of Invention.

“He used to listen to that while he was stoned,” National Museum of Military Vehicles owner Dan Starks told Cowboy State Daily. “It was his little secret act of rebellion to name his gun truck after a stoner album, and the Army didn’t pick up on it and never objected to the name.”

Today, the lieutenant’s inside joke lives on in a serious place. 

A replica of the gun truck is the latest new artifact at the National Museum of Military Vehicles near Dubois, which boasts the world’s largest private collection of military vehicles, with more than 500 that are fully restored or operational. 

“To be clear, the truck is a reproduction,” Starks said. “Gun trucks were all unauthorized weapons, improvised in Vietnam. None of them came from the United States and only one of them was ever brought back.”

The one surviving original gun truck is called "Eve of Destruction." It’s displayed at the Army Transportation Museum in Fort Eustis, Virginia. 

The rest of the gun trucks were all destroyed or left in Vietnam. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The Road Called Ambush Alley"}]

Gun trucks tell a particularly poignant story about Vietnam.

At the time, there was essentially one road between the deep-water port of Qhi Nhon and the strategically important Central Highlands — Highway 19. 

It might have been called a highway, but it was more like a rough two-track. Just picture 110 miles of unpaved, mountain-hugging, jungle-choked dirt road with no shoulders, hairpin curves and 1-foot-deep potholes. 

This was the only route available to supply American combat forces in the Highlands.

“There was a lot of strategic significance to our being able to maintain a presence in the Central Highlands and keep the enemy from using it as a safe haven to launch attacks into other parts of Vietnam,” Starks said. “So, what the enemy figured out is, here we (had) all these combat troops (in the) Central Highlands and they realized, ‘Hey, we don’t need to fight all these combat troops. All we’ve got to do is cut the road.”

America’s convoys, meanwhile, were not set up to face intense combat, which made them sitting ducks.

“We’re sending 19- and 20-year-old truck drivers down Ambush Alley literally every day, and sometimes twice a day, on a 220-mile round trip,” Starks said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"A Gun Truck Is Born"}]

One day, the enemy decided to close the route. That day was Sept. 2, 1967. In a particularly brutal attack, Vietnamese fighters waylaid a 39-truck convoy, destroying 34

“The colonel in charge of convoys had to send trucks right back down that same road the next day, and the next day, and the next day,” Starks said. “The Army doctrine was the security for truck convoys is a matter for military police.”

There weren’t enough military police, however, which meant the truck drivers were usually on their own. 

So the colonel took it upon himself to defy army protocols. He ordered some of the truck drivers to turn their convoy trucks into weapons. 

“He went to truck drivers and said, ‘Hey, truck driver, you are now a machine gunner',” Starks said. “They had no training. He just said you are now a machine gunner.”

But saying it wasn’t enough to make it happen.

“The Army wouldn’t issue him any machine guns, because it was outside of regulations,” Starks said. “So they had to steal them. They had to trade whiskey for them. They had to take them off of downed helicopters. And they had to make them out of spare parts.”

They also had to figure out how to create gun boxes on the trucks to protect those machine gunners, who would now become prime targets.

“They took these gun trucks and sprinkled them through the length of the convoy,” Starks said. 

When the enemy next ambushed the convoy, it was they who were surprised. 

The new strategy had gun trucks racing into the heart of the ambush as fast as they could go

to drive the enemy away. Everyone else was to drive out of the killing zone and get away.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Built By A Survivor"}]

The museum’s replica was built by a Vietnam veteran who was among the 19- to 20-year-old men who served on the original Uncle Meat. Werth’s service was in 1970/71. For Werth, building the replica was a way to remember his buddies and make sure their story didn’t disappear.

“Logan lost a bunch of buddies in the truck ambushes back there in Vietnam,” Starks said. “And he was lucky to survive himself. 

"He came back to the United States 100% disabled and in the years he was working to recover from his Vietnam War experience he decided to create this reproduction of the truck he served in.”

Three friends were killed in ambushes that Werth survived, so he put their names on the truck. They were Michael Hunter, Richard Frazier and Robert Thorne.

“He used the truck to keep alive the story of these teenagers, making up their own weapons to try and stay alive,” Starks said. “And he wanted it preserved forever.”

Werth was approached many times by people who wanted to buy Uncle Meat, but he was never willing to sell it —  not for any amount of money.

After his death, he charged a friend with finding someone who would preserve it, and that’s how it has come to Dubois.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"A Rolling Fortress"}]

Werth’s attention to detail and the story behind it he worked so meticulously to preserve make the reproduction one of the best in existence, Starks said. 

“This shows you exactly what a gun truck looked like back then,” Starks said. “And I’ve got a lot of history on this from people who were there and commented to him about how perfect this reproduction was and giving him little tidbits of information to make sure he would get it exactly right.”

Uncle Meat was outfitted with four M2 .50-caliber machine guns — one on each side and a twin-.50 setup mounted at the rear. 

There were additional hand-held machine guns so that the gunners could hit targets that were too close or too low for the M2s to hit.

The gun box was double-steel armor, with a space between the plates that could be filled with sandbags. The cab was double-armored, too, and included ballistic glass windshields.

The driver had an M79 grenade launcher, with his own set of rounds, which included smoke to mark positions for support. The truck also carried rations, extra tires, tools and stretchers — because Uncle Meat doubled as both gun truck and rolling service truck for the convoys it protected.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Not Just A Relic"}]

Uncle Meat won’t be part of the museum’s regular display. It will be a rolling exhibit instead, for parades and touch-a-tank events where people are invited to climb into military vehicles or take rides. 

“We’ll keep it in our parade building so it will be well-protected,” Starks said. “And we’re going to drive it in the Fourth of July parade this year.”

The day before July 4 will also be an America 250 celebration at the museum, with free vehicle rides, as well as tank demonstrations, speakers, and other activities.

Telling the story of Uncle Meat has never been more important than it is now, Starks added. Vietnam veterans are in their 70s and 80s. They came home to a country where many did not honor their service. They were spat upon and called names such as "baby killer." 

“I know a lot of these truck drivers and a bunch of them ended up dying of Agent Orange and nobody knows their story,” he said. “They lived through all of this and it’s still haunting them.”

Starks wants as many of them as possible to know before they die what they did has not only been seen, it’s going to be remembered and honored.

What began as a stoned lieutenant’s inside joke has outlived the war — and many of the young men who rode in it — and found a lasting place in history.

Uncle Meat 20260328 110448 6 20 26

<title>Legend Of Vietnam War Gun Truck ‘Uncle Meat’ Lives On At Wyoming Museum | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The "Uncle Meat" gun truck is the latest important artifact at the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois. “I know a lot of these truck drivers and a bunch of them ended up dying of Agent Orange and nobody knows their story,” the museum's owner said.

Legend Of Vietnam War Gun Truck ‘Uncle Meat’ Lives On At Wyoming Museum

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

A Casper man says he's being forced to part ways with his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig at his wife's behest, blaming the vehicle's irresistible appeal to the opposite sex.

"I knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it hurt any less," Austin Griess wrote in a tongue-in-cheek Facebook post advertising his lifted 1984 AMC Eagle wagon for sale. "My wife is making me sell my lifted AMC Eagle because of all the attention it brings. 

"I only have eyes for her, yet this car seems to draw in way too many female lookers for my comfort."

Austin 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 added a modern stereo.

The goal was to debut the finished wagon with 150,000 original miles on it at a Memorial Day car show.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We didn't make it in time for entry,\" Griess said."}]

"The payment is due here in June," he joked. "No trophy making a payment."

After months of wrenching and modifying the Oldsmobile, he said that his wife has had enough of competing with the AMC for attention.

[{"type":"text","text":"“The wife just kind of had enough of me at that point,” he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"So, the Eagle is now looking for its next owner."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Finding Bigfoot"}]

Along with making whoever drives it irresistible, "This would be a perfect Bigfoot hunting rig,” said Griess, adding that his day job is in sales.

[{"type":"text","text":"The four-door Eagle is rugged, practical, and weird. "}]

"That's the ideal car to take your wife and two kids and throw all your crap in the back, go to the mountains for a picnic, and go fishing" says mechanical philosopher Ron Gordon. 

The Eagle is powered by a 4.2-liter inline-six engine shared with old Jeeps.

The original muffler is still hanging on, although Griess admits it's become a little rough around the edges.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's a little bit raspy,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Perfect For Wyoming"}]

Long before crossovers filled dealership lots, vehicles like the AMC Eagle were doing much of the same work.

Ron Gordon owned an auto shop in Big Piney for 15 years and has spent nearly 70 years around cars. When shown photos of Griess’ golden Eagle, his first reaction was blunt.

"One of the Lee brothers made it: Ug Lee or Home Lee," Gordon said with a laugh.

[{"type":"text","text":"But beneath the humor was genuine admiration."}]

"It was a pretty unique car in its day," he said. "It was the first real sport utility vehicle on the market."

[{"type":"text","text":"The Eagle debuted years before today's crossover craze."}]

It combined station wagon practicality with four-wheel-drive capability, making it particularly appealing in places where winter weather and rough roads were facts of life.

"It'd be good for anything from going fishing or to sheep ranch," Gordon said.

That versatility made vehicles like the Eagle a natural fit in the Cowboy State. 

A Casper man says his wife is making him sell his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig — a lifted 1984 AMC Eagle wagon with 150,000 miles he says attracts too much female attention. "I knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it hurt any less,” he said.