Daniel Sandoval

Money is more than a medium of exchange. It's a measure of success. It's an instrument of survival. Money is a psychological trigger. Greed was in the news for the second week of August.

100 years ago

The Aug. 12, 1908, Natrona County Tribune used the 19th-century technique of describing fugitives, and Adia Irwin, who was running from a $250 bounty, was described from his long, hump bridged nose to his two clubbed feet.

Frank Seese's whereabouts were only worth $50 and his description was sketchier. Irwin and Seese escaped a week before from the Casper jailhouse.

Mine and thine: Catorina Archuleta and Roman Padilla, a couple from Converse County, came to Casper to be married, and were, with Justice of the Peace Warren Tubbs officiating.

Once married, Justice Tubbs mentioned the fee. Padilla handed Tubbs a $10-bill. Tubbs searched through his bankroll and could not find a bill denomination small enough to provide the $5 in change.

Archuleta handed Tubbs a $5-bill, and Tubbs handed her the $10-bill, which she accepted and slipped into her stocking. Padilla cried foul, because his new bride now had his $5 in change.

The newlyweds began to argue, in a language Tubbs admittedly didn't understand, but the vehemence of their discord caused the justice of the peace some indignation.

Tubbs told the couple, married for mere minutes, that they needed to divorce because if such a trifling matter as $5 could create such a problem, then they clearly didn't understand partnership and their marriage was doomed.

Archuleta and Padilla departed with no word on whether they planned to divorce.

Lost worlds: Clarence Spicer found a fossil of a trilobite on Casper Mountain, thought to have a value of about $25. The fossil was an inch in diameter, segmented and purportedly from the Paleozoic age, when Wyoming was an inland sea.

The fossil was on exhibition at Kimball's Drug Store.

City sidewalks: With Casper's courthouse under construction, the Aug. 12, 1908, Tribune proudly announced that cement sidewalks along Center were being laid from Third Avenue (Street) to the new courthouse.

75 years ago

The presidential palace in Cuba was under siege and President Gerardo Machado was force to resign by Gen. Alberto Herrera, as reported in the Aug. 11, 1933, Casper Tribune-Herald.

Life on the lam: Jailbirds were singing as the trio held in Casper's jailhouse confessed their crimes and true identities. Natrona County Sheriff Gilbert Housley had first-hand knowledge of what is was like to be robbed at gunpoint because the bandits took money from him while he was traveling through Kansas.

Emil Pretto, alias William Rush, was wanted in Missouri for 17 robberies and breaking out of jail in St. Louis. Sheriff Housley noted that Missouri was the only state that could impose the death penalty upon someone with three prior felony convictions.

Fred George Clayton and Richard Kolp completed the criminal trio, and between them, Pretto, Clayton and Kolp were thought to have committed 21 robberies in six states during a period of a few weeks.

Shooting star: Gordon Sherman, a rancher living north of Lingle, was standing in a wheat field at 10 o'clock in the morning when he saw a meteor streak down in broad daylight, breaking into pieces as it fell.

Sherman said the main body appeared to fall behind the horizon line of Rawhide Buttes to the east. He also reported hearing a thundering noise some three minutes after the meteor disappeared.

There was a similar account from a man in an area north of Cheyenne, and a number of people in Pine Bluffs thought the impact area was 15 miles northeast of town.

50 years ago

Still enthusiastic about its ability to get photographs by wire, the Aug. 12, 1958, Casper Morning Star put the image of the aftermath of a deadly train wreck in Sloatsburg, N.Y., on the front page.

Landowners: The Casper City Council authorized the city engineer to demand that 19 homeowners install infrastructure in front of their properties. Property owners would be required to put in sidewalks, or curbs, or gutters, depending on the property.

The list of the property owners was put on the front page, next to the AP wire photo of the train wreck.

Relative value: An impoverished couple from Pennsylvania were in a jail in Tulsa, Okla., charged with child desertion. Richard and Helen Margaret Readdy traded their 4 1/2-month-old son for a 1957 pickup truck.

Jesse Lester Berger was charged with aiding and abetting child desertion for striking the deal for Paul Andrew Readdy. All the defendants in the case pleaded innocent.

25 years ago

The Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission issued an emergency order allowing seven gas plants in the Powder River Basin to burn off some 20 million cubic feet of gas, according to the Aug. 11, 1983, Casper Star-Tribune report by Anne MacKinnon.

Heavy hitter: Then Vice President George Bush made a trip to Casper to raise money for the Wyoming Republican Party, but the party bean counters weren't certain the fundraiser covered the expenses.

At early count, the visit cost around $6,000 and the money brought in amounted to some $7,000.

"A Look Back in Time" is made possible with the help of Western History Archivist Kevin S. Anderson at the Casper College Western History Center, which is open to the public.