Natrona County Tribune, 1909

Price paid - "WALKED TO PATHFINDER …

"Lou Price walked to Pathfinder from Casper in forty-six hours and fifteen minutes last week and won $250 from Alfred Willy. The bet was that he must make the trip inside of forty-eight hours. … The second morning out he sprained his ankle. … (B)esides having sore feet, the pedestrian felt as though he would bake in the hot sun. … (H)e was halfway between Alcova and Pathfinder when a heavy rain storm set in. … (H)e made tracks as large as an elephant, and carried ten pounds of mud on each foot. … (W)hen he was in sight of the dam he said that for every rod he walked it looked as though the big dam moved away a hundred yards, but with a supreme effort he caught up with it. …

"He weighed 285 pounds when he left here and when he returned he weighed 275 pounds."

Next time, knock - "Now He Wants The Man.

"A couple of weeks ago Harold Banner found a fine new six-shooter in his lawn, and he turned it over to the marshal with instructions to give it to the owner if he could find him. … On last Saturday morning Mr. Banner found a nice pearl handled pocket knife on his front porch, and this he will give to the gentleman who will say that it belongs to him. In a couple of weeks he expects to find the fellow's gold watch and his pocket book, after which he wants the man. He says he does not object to these little donations, but he would much prefer that the fellow come around in the day time to leave them."

Casper Tribune-Herald, 1934

Jurassic discovery - "From the dinosaur 'valley of death' in Wyoming has been taken the skull of a rare reptile that waddled through the swamps 140,000,000 years ago. … The skull is that of a barosaurus, a huge and little-known dinosaur of which there is no complete fossil in existence. …

"(A)n expedition … is penetrating the sensational dinosaur graveyard in the Big Horn mountain region of Wyoming. …

"It is the first barosaurus skull ever found.

"Barosaurus was a semi-acquatic reptile. … Its chief peculiarity was the extreme elongation of the neck vertibrae. They look like sections of a stovepipe. … (I)t had an insignificant brain case. Like all dinosaurs, barosaurus was not very bright. …

"It was first thought that the reptiles had died about 125,000,000 years back, in early cretaceous times; now, they place the period at about 15,000,000 years earlier, in the upper Jurassic age."

Casper Tribune-Herald, 1959

Earthshaking - Beginning Aug. 18 and continuing throughout the week, stories appeared of the 7.3- to 7.8-magnitude Aug. 17 earthquake that rocked the western edge of Yellowstone National Park, killing at least 28 people. The violent temblor dammed the Madison River and created Quake Lake. Here are some excerpts from the stories:

"Hebgen Reservoir was 'tipped askew.' … (A) giant fissure has opened up the length of Hebgen Lake on the north side all the way to West Yellowstone."

"Travel was halted throughout the park. Roads from the east through the park were blocked by rockslides."

"Mountain Looks As If Scooped Out

"A mountain blasted by an earthquake 'looked like someone took a big scoop out of it from top to bottom,' an aerial observer says. 'At least a third of the mountain was moved.' … The scooped-out part of the mountain crashed across the canyon with such force that it was piled higher at the far side than near the mountain. …

"(A) number of other slides, … one was 450 yards wide, … turned the upper part of Cliff Lake into solid mud. … (R)oads closed by rockslides included south from Mammoth, Norris Junction to Madison Junction and from Old Faithful to Madison Junction."

"'Old Faithful' Still Spouting

"… The famous geyser gushed steam and boiling water every hour just as it has done for centuries. … The quake … damaged picturesque Old Faithful inn."

"Casper Resident Reports 'Tremor'

"A minor jolt was reported here in the backyard of Theodore Priess, of 705 East 16th. … (T)wo cracks had opened in the back yard lawn [Aug. 21]. … One crack measured 10 feet long, a half inch wide and about 12 inches deep. The other was smaller, about three feet long and the same depth and width."

Casper Star-Tribune, 1984

Information superhighway - "Hold all calls, here comes electronic mail

"Slowly, but now surely, Americans are discovering an alternative to the telephone call and the U.S. Postal Service.

"Known generically as electronic mail, it is grounded in computers and is still largely a business phenomenon. But as personal computers multiply, so does the private, at-home use of electronic mail. …

"(T)he part of the business said to be finally zooming these days is computer-to-computer communications - typing messages on a computer and sending them to another computer for reading, another computer in your own office or across the country. …

"Among the claimed benefits: an end to 'telephone tag'; … an imperviousness to time zones; an end to garbled messages; an ability to reach dozens, or thousands, of people with the same message simultaneously; and a reduction in the paper flood that confronts many managers.

"Among the drawbacks: it's not necessarily cheaper overall, given equipment costs; many people who work on computers still need help in learning to send electronic mail; there's no guarantee the recipient is checking his 'electronic mailbox' regularly; it reduces human contact and the pleasantries that accompany phone calls; and it poses a financial threat to the government postal system."

"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. Quotation marks surround stories as they appeared in the Casper newspapers 100, 75, 50 and 25 years ago, with their original grammar, punctuation and spelling, unless otherwise noted.