A Look Back in Time
Posted: Monday, May 14, 2007 12:00 am
Daniel Sandoval
Shadowing us is a social assessment of who we are, a sort of collective opinion generated by what the rumor mill does with our exploits. Reputations were in the news the second week of May, with a train fare in 1907, a pinning in 1932, an election in 1957 and a political ad in 1982.
100 years ago
Indecent labors - A scheme to recruit fresh floozies to Casper's rookery of soiled doves failed and charges were filed in mid-May 1907. Fay Hovey, her husband Eddie Hovey, George F. Robinson and Ed Earl were charged with unlawfully enticing Kate Gessner, 22, away from Sioux City, Iowa, and bringing her to the Captain Ball, a house of ill fame.
Appearing before Justice of Peace Hagens, Fay Hovey was released on $500 bond, George Robinson on $1,000 bond, and a trial date was set for June 7. The other people named in the complaint could not be located.
Mr. and Mrs. Hovey and Ed Earl met Kate Gessner in Sioux City and purchased train tickets for her and her sister Midget Gessner, 19, to come for jobs in a Casper hotel. Once the Gessners arrived and realized the sort of work they would be expected to perform, as one side of the story went, they wanted none of it.
Robinson was steward of the Captain Ball at the time the Gessner girls tried to beg off from a life of prostitution. Robinson told them if they wanted to leave with their luggage, they would need to pay back the train fare they had been given. They couldn't and barricaded themselves in a bordello room for a night.
The following morning, Kate and Midget Gessner took up residence in the Hotel Adsit and their belongings were delivered there within a few days. Kate Gessner was set to serve as chief witness for the prosecution.
An additional charge of running a house of ill fame was filed against Robinson. He denied having brought the girls to Casper or inviting them to the Captain Ball. Robinson also said proof that the Gessners knew what they were getting into would be revealed at trial.
Soggy dash home - Fooled by the wide variation in springtime temperatures, many visitors of the countryside were caught unprepared for the snowstorm that hit the Casper area in the first half of May 1907. The May 15, 1907, Natrona County Tribune describes a number of residents making frantic effort to get home before the brunt of storm made travel impossible.
The people seeking shelter included Mr. and Mrs. G.F. Stilphen coming in from Deer Creek Park and S.W. Conwell and A.J. Mokler coming in from Hat Six but with good strings of trout.
There were also those who decided to wait for the storm to pass like J.S. Van Doren, Dr. G.T. Morgan, W.A. Blackmore and Dr. Pflaeging, who spend a cold night on Muddy Mountain and slogged through slush a foot deep on their return journey.
75 years ago
Recognition - The board of trustees for a Casper hospital recognized the dedication of its superintendent in the second week of May 1932. Mrs. Mary Anne Eschwig was honored with a 10-year service pin during commencement exercises for graduates of the hospital's nurses training school.
William McCamley, vice president of the board of Memorial Hospital, made the formal presentation on the platform of the pinning ceremony at the Elks auditorium. A portrait of Mrs. Eschwig was published in the May 15, 1932, Casper Tribune-Herald.
Obsessive tragedy - The body of Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was found May 12, 1932, and the media fixation on the kidnapped toddler turned macabre once it was known that the boy was slain by his abductors.
The tragedy was inescapable in the print media, so much so that three days after the discovery practically every news page had at least one story related to the Lindbergh case.
April showers - Statistician Arnold J. King released some encouraging news May 14, 1932, when he said that soaking showers in late April had greatly improved prospects for Wyoming crops.
50 years ago
Purse strings - Casper voters went to the polls in the second week of May 1957, when four bond issues were put to the people instead of the politicians. One example of a political hot potato was the old city hall.
A 1951 report published on election day in the May 14, 1957, Casper Morning Star called for demolition of the building. Slipped into the $223,000 bond issue for the improvement of parks was language that provided for renovating the old city hall.
The 6-year-old report characterized the building as "a heterogenous assemblage of wood, steel, brick, tile and concrete materials, all used together without any apparent structural significance."
Yet, Howard Daugherty, president of the Casper City Council, urged people to pass the bond because they would be spending about $45,000 to save a $500,000 building, and without the structure, groups like the Red Cross, Boy Scouts and United Fund would be tossed out into the streets.
Water supplies - The Soil Conservation Service in Casper release an upgraded assessment of snowpack, watershed and range conditions in the May 14, 1957, Casper Morning Star. Storms in April returned runoff to normal or near normal levels.
25 years ago
Spin machine - The state Democratic chairman begged to differ with a U.S. senator's TV spots in mid-May 1982. Then-chairman Dave Freudenthal asked how Malcolm Wallop could claim he helped the elderly when he voted to reduce their benefits six times.
Undaunted - In spite of persistent rain and cool temperatures, the Wyoming State Track Meet commenced in Casper and the May 14, 1982, Casper Star-Tribune printed a photograph of Kelly Walsh runner Diana Jones raising a splash with her footfall on the rain-soaked track.
"A Look Back in Time" was made possible with the help of Western History Archivist Kevin S. Anderson at Casper College Library, which is open to the public.