Once damaged, things are never the same. The car involved in a crash handles differently. The repaired violin never plays as sweetly. The slightest wound can leave a scar. Destruction was in the news for the fourth week of May.

100 years ago

Gov. B.B. Brooks returned to Wyoming after a governor's conference, and the May 27, 1908, Natrona County Tribune reported Brooks said that the states were well represented with 44 governors meeting at the White House with President Theodore Roosevelt.

Conspiracy - Adia Irwin was arrested for setting alight the shearing pens on Casper Creek. That much was known and Irwin was jailed soon after the May 11 arson.

The real fireworks were touched off by Irwin's confession; he was offered money to torch the shearing pens.

According to the signed confession, M.L. Bishop, a prominent woolgrower, conspired with Irwin at the shearing pens at Cadoma, shearing pens which Bishop owned and competed with the pens that were burned.

One day in early May 1908, Irwin was sharpening his shears at a grindstone in the Cadoma pens when Bishop approached. The signed statement carried a transcript of the conversation:

BISHOP: "Adia, if you go over to the Casper Creek pens and burn them I will pay you for it."

IRWIN: "How much?"

BISHOP: "Fifty dollars."

IRWIN: "I'll do it."

Bishop was arrested and charged as an accomplice with burning the shearing pens. After pleading not guilty, Bishop posted $5,000 bond and was released. The case was bound over to district court.

Irwin's confession included considerable detail about the arson and an allegation that Bishop had suggested Irwin torch the pens in December 1907, but the matter was temporarily forgotten.

Speculation - The May 27, 1908, Tribune carried an article by H.G. Wells in which the famous author pondered the sort of intelligent life that might inhabit the planet Mars.

Wells was responding to the 1906 discussion of what appeared to be canals on the Martian surface, published in the book, "Mars and Its Canals," by Percival Lowell. Lowell was an astronomer and founder of the Lowell Observatory in Arizona.

Although the essay by Wells was well reasoned and somewhat imaginative, the illustration that went with the article was shameless fantasy. The Martian, for example, looked like the Star Wars character Chewbacca with large, furry butterfly wings.

75 years ago

President Franklin Roosevelt thought that the United States needed to go off the gold standard, and the May 26, 1933, Casper Tribune-Herald ran an article with enough repetition of basic facts to suggest that the writer didn't understand what that meant.

Mayhem - Following a protracted legal tussle about jurisdiction, extradition and liability, Casper truck driver George J. Stewart was acquitted of a charge of mayhem by a district court jury in Greeley, Colo.

Cheyenne resident Rudolph Johnson lost an arm in a traffic accident involving his car and a truck Stewart was driving Aug. 16, 1932, near Greeley.

The courtroom was filled to capacity and a couple dozen of those in the gallery were truckers interested in the outcome of the trial. The jury deliberated for 20 minutes before returning a verdict of not guilty.

Death duel - Justice of the Peace C.B. King, of Cody, dismissed first-degree murder charges against Artis Royal, for lack of sufficient evidence.

Royal was charged in the death of his uncle Jack Spicer, with whom he apparently traded pistol shots. Royal was also wounded in the incident. Royal said he would immediately return to his home in North Carolina.

50 years ago

Five frightened children posed in front of the Pineview School outdoor incinerator because lightning had struck the chimney while they played nearby on May 26, and the kids were standing by it so their picture could be published in the May 27, 1958, Casper Morning Star.

Credible source - As was the journalistic custom at the time, hometown people were often introduced with their address, so few may have considered the risk of introducing Mabel Brayton, of 1769 S. McKinley, Casper's new meter maid.

Brayton was selected from a pool of about 100 applicants for the $300-a-month job. Condescending in the attitude of the 1950s, the article pointed out the advantage of women freeing up men to do more dangerous police work.

Insanity - Defense attorneys for Ten Sleep resident Norman Chamberlain motioned for a psychiatrist to be brought into the trial to address whether their client was sane. Chamberlain was charged with repeated sexual assaults of his 13-year-old daughter.

Heart wrenching testimony from the child described living in an environment of constant threat.

25 years ago

The May 26, 1983, Casper Star-Tribune published a front-page photo of Lucille Van Dorn painting a veteran's cross at Highland Cemetery, a yearly tribute to war veterans organized by the American Legion Auxiliary.

Buggy grin - Motorcyclists, at least those older than 18, could finally feel the wind in their hair because Wyoming's mandatory protective headgear law expired at 12:01 a.m., May 27, 1983.

"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.