Daniel Sandoval

Desperate measures are more than the outcome of desperate times because audacity, the reckless move, is an individual choice, and some people are more prone to go wild than others. Desperation was in the news for the first days of August.

100 years ago

The first two words after the masthead of the Aug. 5, 1908, Natrona County Tribune were "prisoners escape," referring to the Sunday night jailbreak of Adia Irwin and Frank Seese from Casper's jail.

Outside help - Forget the Western movies where men tie a rope to the bars of a jailhouse window and use a horse to pull open a hole in the wall - the jailbreak in Casper in the summer of 1908 was done with more subtlety.

They did break out a hole in the side of the jailhouse, the north side, in full view of the courthouse where the sheriff was sleeping and could easily have roused during the night and looked out a window.

After an attack on the west wall that proved too difficult, the outside men took to the north wall, a place next to a window that had delivered Joe Holmes in a previous jailbreak.

Someone also passed a hacksaw in and the escapees used it to weaken two bars on the bottom of the door to get out of their cell.

Adia Irwin was being held as a witness against M.L. Bishop, who was prominent sheep rancher accused of paying Irwin to set fire to the competition's shearing pens, with a trial scheduled in January. Irwin already confessed to setting the fire.

Frank Seese was the Wolton man who was serving time for threatening T.C. Fann with a gun during an altercation involving Fann's wife. The whereabouts of Irwin and Seese was unknown.

There were three other inmates who chose not to participate in the jailbreak. A.H. Burris, in for check forgery, figured he was finished with his jail sentence in two weeks, too close to legitimate freedom. Dave Boswell and C.N. Richards also remained in the jail.

Long haul - R.A. Hudson waited for three months in the Casper jailhouse in hopes of a new trial only to have the judge hit town, tease Hudson with a couple of weeks of indecision, then deny the motion and have him hauled off to prison.

Sheriff Sheffner, in fact, was in Casper only a few hours after taking Hudson to the penitentiary in Rawlins when the sheriff took one last look at the jailhouse across the way and went to sleep sometime after midnight, apparently tired from the sleepless night

That's the night unknown people removed enough masonry from the jailhouse wall for Adia Irwin and Frank Seese to escape.

75 years ago

Three young bandits were being held in the jailhouse after being rousted from a hideout known as the "Cowboy's Roost," some 90 miles south of town, as reported by the Aug. 4, 1933, Casper Tribune-Herald.

Bad pigeon - Richard Kolp, 20, William Rush, 18, and Fred Clayton went on a robbery spree that plundered people and banks and stores throughout a number of states. One of the hold-up victims was Casper's sheriff, G.O. Housley.

Housley was robbed in Ellis, Kan., and Kolp already confessed to taking $180 from Housley, but Rush and Clayton refused to say a word.

Authorities acted on a tip that three men with a Missouri car connected with several robberies were at the Cowboy's Roost. It was a good location for making raids into Kansas and Colorado.

Sheriff's Deputy James Hook got a posse together of five other men, including a former Prohibition agent and a city detective, and surrounded the two cabins 10 miles from Splitrock.

The bandits emerged from the cabins to find themselves staring down the barrels of machine guns and they surrendered without a fight.

Recurrence - Gas well No. 23 in the Sand Draw field burned out of control for a week when Floyd Kimley, of Kimley Brothers, Tulsa, Okla., carried a 25-pound package of nitroglycerine perilously close to the fire, rigged it to blow, tossed it close, strung wire behind a shelter and blew out the fire.

That was Aug. 4, 1933. Well workers rushed in to try and cap the well head. Somehow, the gas reignited and the well exploded into flames again Aug. 6, and the second time the well caught fire three men received burns.

Two workmen were taken to Riverton for treatment. William McCoy, manager of the gas field, was scorched but not to the degree of needing medical care.

50 years ago

Rashid Karam, a rebel leader, called for a cease fire in Tripoli, Lebanon, after fighting erupted as a reaction to the election of Maj. Gen. Fuad Chehab as president, according to a report in the Aug. 5, 1958, Casper Morning Star.

Special needs - An education conference of state officials came up with a seven-point plan to accommodate the 1,500 children in the public schools who would be unreasonably challenged by the standard curriculum.

Velma Linford, state superintendent, said the education plan was the result of a statewide survey of parents of children who required individual attention from teachers.

25 years ago

The Aug. 4, 1983, Casper Star-Tribune published a profile of a destitute woman and the article noted that she was just one of the 5,353 people who were unemployed in Natrona County at the time.

A thousand words - The story about Elsie Ernst hitting hard time had two photos on the front page, one of Ernst and the other of T.J. Alisankus, the sheriff's deputy who served her eviction notice but then worked to get her aid through the county.

Ernst's age is noted as 47, but in the photo she looks as if her difficulties added 20 years to her appearance.

"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.