Daniel Sandoval

Purpose can be more important than place, and people are increasingly on the move. The character of our wayfaring can vary dramatically from the industrious trips of the business traveler to the desperate forays of the refugee. People out of place were in the news for the second week of January, with a waif in 1907, a suspect in 1932, a minister in 1957 and a fantasist in 1982.

100 years ago

Inexplicable - Left to fend for herself, a 4-year-old girl was at the mercy of strangers for a number of months until she was finally put in the care of an orphanage in January 1907. The railroad-building of the previous summer brought a great influx of people and among them was a couple and their young girl.

After much of the railroad work was completed and the weather became challenging, the couple departed, presumably out of the state, but the golden-haired girl remained in Lander, where she was in the care of various families for different periods of time.

Quite common for the newspapers of the time, the Jan. 16, 1907, Natrona County Tribune presented the story with some melodrama, describing the child like some Dickensian street urchin, shifting about Lander "half-clothed, neglected and forsaken." The article also did a bit of editorializing by labeling the couple who abandoned the girl as "inhuman."

Notably, the Tribune lamented that there should be a law to punish the people who may have abandoned the child.

Miss Allie Jewell of the Children's Home in Sioux Falls, S.D., became aware of the little girl's plight, and Miss Jewell made arrangements for the child to be brought to Casper and to stay with the Rev. and Mrs. Craig until Miss Jewell could come get the girl.

The child and Miss Jewell went to South Dakota, where the little girl would reside at the Children's Home and be placed up for adoption.

Location - Debate about a new courthouse for Natrona County veered from whether or not it was needed to where it should be located with a proposed site at the north end of Center Street in the second week of January 1907. A petition to locate a new courthouse on Center Street was circulating in Casper and reportedly signed by many businessmen.

Other proposed locations for a new courthouse included a site in the Park Addition and the site of the old building on David Street. Weighing in on the issue was a letter to the editor by George S. Martin, a proponent of the location on Center.

Jurisprudence didn't depend on the courthouse location, however. Wherever traveling Judge Charles Carpenter donned his robe and slammed his gavel, there too was District Court, and Judge Carpenter cleared up the court docket of defendants unlikely to appear, so long-lost fugitives like Martin Trout, the already-in-prison like Frank Foote and the deceased like G.W. Pike were taken off the trial docket.

Disposition loomed for three remaining cases in District Court in Casper. There was Ed Taysen, who was charged with attempted murder in the slashing of Jimmy Martin. There was Jack Williams, a fugitive from felonious assault charges, and there was Frank Webb, the former sheriff accused of letting Williams escape.

75 years ago

Domestic violence - A Casper man accused of shooting his wife during a dispute was found to be fit for trial, but the incident would not result in criminal charges and the shooter was allowed to leave the state in January 1932.

In a fit of despair James Kerley threatened to shoot himself, but when his wife tried to intervene, he shot Mattie Kerley in the chest. Mrs. Kerley's wounds were not considered serious. Nevertheless, James Kerley fled by taking a taxi to Glenrock, where he boarded a passenger train and was apprehended at Wheatland.

Natrona County Prosecutor George Weedell explained how the case could not go forward because Mattie Kerley refused to sign the criminal complaint, and she was also adamant about not testifying in court. With such hurdles, there was no point in pursuing litigation. James Kerley was expected to leave Casper and return to his former home in Pittsburg, Kan.

50 years ago

Cold War - A former finance minister of Hungary talked to a capacity crowd at a conference room in Casper Jan. 14, 1957. Oil City Dinner Club hosted an after-dinner speech, "Is America winning or losing the Cold War?" by Dr. Nicholas Nyaradi, at the Crystal Room of the Gladstone Hotel.

Dr. Nyaradi emphasized that the Soviet Union didn't really have a foreign policy much different from the time of Lenin. The general lack of policy, combined with ideological and geopolitical ambition, made the Soviet Union a threat to the world's stability.

Americans are going to have to be the impetus to winning the Cold War, said Nyaradi. Yet, with their prosperity, Americans were too complacent, Nyaradi reminded his audience, and the Cold War could quickly turn into a shooting war.

Nyaradi cited the Hungarian revolution and Soviet crackdown in late 1956 as a good example of just how close the political tensions were to battles on the streets. The former Hungarian finance minister said that when the Soviets invaded Hungary the people who were killed also died for Americans, according to the Jan. 15, 1957, Casper Morning Star.

25 years ago

Attention - The cultural allure of fame got another footnote in 1982, when a charlatan in Casper managed to gather the gullible with a line about being a recruiter of extras for a movie by Clint Eastwood. A phone call to Eastwood's production company proved the claim to be a hoax. The "recruiter" was unidentified and vanished by the time of the story in the Jan. 15, 1982, Casper Star-Tribune by Ron Franscell.

"A Look Back in Time" is made possible with the help of Kevin S. Anderson, archivist for the Special Collections Library at Casper College, which is open to the public.