Daniel Sandoval

Civilization offers a sort of material immortality, from the grand edifice to the more humble works, but some of the things that mark our lives will endure beyond them. Legacy was in the news for the third week in June.

100 years ago

The writer in the June 17, 1908, Natrona County Tribune effused with excitement about the construction of the Pathfinder Dam, excited enough to call the as yet incomplete dam the "Most Interesting Irrigation Project in the United States" in the subhead.

Soggy redemption - Thank goodness there wasn't anything new happening at the Pathfinder Dam construction site, the stuff modern journalists consider news (key word, new), because that meant the readers of the June 17, 1908, Tribune could get some history.

Readers were taken back to Aug. 24, 1842, when Capt. John C. Fremont, the "Pathfinder" himself, led an expedition along the North Platte River. A couple of miles downstream from the mouth of the Sweetwater River, the explorers entered a dramatic cut through an immense granite escarpment.

In physics, to put the same amount of water through a more confined space means that the rate of flow increases with the water pressure, proportional to how much the space constricts. The rapids through the canyon capsized their boats and they were grateful to have survived.

The opening Fremont boldly paddled into in 1842 was a 210-foot-tall dam made of massive masonry blocks, that in 1908 would bear Fremont's well earned sobriquet, Pathfinder. The dam would be completed the following year.

Buckets of ire - Even though the Pathfinder article took more than half the front page of the June 17 Tribune, the newspaper did weigh in with a snooty article about a court finding in a water use lawsuit.

Presiding in district court in Lander, Judge Charles Carpenter ruled in favor of Wyoming Central Irrigation and against Settlers Co-operative Irrigation Co. The Tribune writer gloated by saying it was the right decision to have favored WCI on every point.

The Tribune then taunted the losing party in the lawsuit by dismissing the entire affair as a "bunch of Buttinskies" from Lander getting together with a "few soreheads" from Riverton to ruin a fair water distribution agreement.

75 years ago

It was time to kick back for lawmakers and the June 16, 1933, Casper Tribune-Herald ran the top headline, "Congress Adjourns Session." The more remarkable thing about the issue is there wasn't a front-page article about the dismantling of Prohibition.

Paper shuffling - Vern Mokler was re-elected as head of the Wyoming State Postmasters Association.

The postmasters convention in Casper in 1933 chose Newcastle as the town to host the association for the following year.

Association members also appointed Joseph O'Mahoney as assistant postmaster general. O'Mahoney didn't serve long as an assistant postmaster general because an extraordinary turn of events would make O'Mahoney a U.S. Senator by the end of the year.

Money stream - Prohibition was nowhere to be found till page seven of the Tribune-Herald where it was noted that beer licenses had brought $12,650 to the city and county coffers.

The fees were from 35 retail and 13 wholesale licenses to distribute beer in Casper. This did not include additional fee revenue brought in from licenses issued by the incorporated towns of Mills, Evansville and Edgerton.

50 years ago

Tucked in behind 11 previous pages of the June 17, 1958, Casper Morning Star is a photograph of John F. Kennedy standing amid five ladies and one of Wyoming's Democratic heavy hitters, Dr. Gale McGee.

Face recognition - The state central committee of the Democratic Party had a meeting in Casper in mid-June 1958 and Sen. John Kennedy, D-Mass., attended the Sunday evening banquet.

State Democratic Party Chairman Teno Roncalio said the capacity crowd for Sen. Kennedy's banquet was a first for the party in Wyoming.

McGee was a candidate for U.S. Senate. McGee chose William Norris as the financial director of his campaign, and Norris was a known campaigner because he helped Sen. Joseph O'Mahoney get elected, again, in 1954.

25 years ago

The lead story in the June 16, 1983, Casper Star-Tribune was about the U.S. Supreme Court striking down many of the restrictions imposed by various states on access to abortion, restarting debate in the 10th year after the 1973 Roe v. Wade case.

Ostentatious - A woman suspected of theft from a Casper antiques store was spotted in Douglas an hour after the heist. They lost track of her again and authorities wanted the woman for questioning.

What clued authorities to make the connection was the fact that her accomplice in the theft was a trained monkey in a pink dress and a diaper.

The monkey took three rings from Marshall Antiques, and the rings were thought to be the same items a woman and a monkey tried to get appraised in a shop in Douglas.

"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.