CASPER, Wyo. — Hundreds of yellow boxes containing decades of visual Casper history are crammed into rows of file cabinets at the Casper College Western History Center. It might be impossible to ever know exactly what’s all in there. There are a lot of prints, but there are far more unprinted film negatives with nothing […]
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BACKSTORY: Historic building remodel aimed for ‘mall’ experience in downtown Casper
CASPER, Wyo. — A nearly full-page ad in the Feb. 26, 1976 edition of the Casper Star-Tribune proclaimed what it billed as an exciting evolution to Casper’s downtown. The House of Bargains, located in the former Montgomery Ward building on the corner of East Second and Durbin, announced its liquidation after the building’s sale. “Plans […]
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Backstory: Photos tell story of ‘James Dean wannabe’ on infamous murder spree through Nebraska and Wyoming
CASPER, Wyo. — Douglas, Wyoming is likely little known to people outside of central Wyoming, but in January 1958, the small town became a media epicenter with a terrifying week-long murder spree that started in Lincoln, Nebraska before ending in Wyoming. Media at the time was transfixed by the story of a swaggering killer, his […]
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Backstory: Glimpses of Casper Thanksgivings from decades past
CASPER, Wyo. — Like most towns and cities in America, the Thanksgiving Day holiday has for decades meant gathering with family and friends for company and food. While the prices and businesses have changed in Casper over the past century, the traditions for the most part have not. We have to admit, however, that filling […]
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Backstory: ‘The West’s Finest Air Conditioned Shopping Center’ changed Casper retail nearly 60 years ago
CASPER, Wyo. — On the far southern side of Casper, among the foothills, sagebrush and wind-swept prairie, a 17-acre site was being touted by its developers as a state-of-the-art glimpse into the future of retail. “Once the shopper leaves his car and enters the building, the rest of his shopping trip will be completed inside […]
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Backstory: Casper clothier Harry ‘The Man in the Barrel’ Yesness was a showman at heart
CASPER, Wyo. — Harry Yesness was not a man who was afraid of attention. In fact, the man who became a downtown business force during Casper’s heyday made some of his earliest paychecks getting the attention of audiences at night clubs and on vaudeville stages. For decades the Harry Yesness clothing stores were landmarks in […]
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(PHOTOS) Backstory: Casper’s downtown Gladstone Hotel tower had grand past, faces unknown future
CASPER, Wyo. — The concrete nine-story tower at First and Center Street in downtown Casper had been out of the spotlight for decades until a proposal to convert the building into affordable transitional housing was floated by City Council recently. The plan, proposed by local realtor and investor Erin Marquez, involved securing a $500,000 Community […]
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Backstory: Casper’s Commissary Mall was once the town’s major ‘supermarket’
Update: The Commissary Mall was demolished in March of 2022. See photos of the demolition here. CASPER, Wyo. — What’s left of the Casper Commissary might not seem very exciting today, but nearly a century ago it gave Casper residents their first taste of the modern supermarket. The Commissary Mall, as it now stands on […]
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Backstory: Casper Drive-In Theaters did social distancing before it was cool
Watching a movie while maintaining appropriate social distance used to be the mode. When people watched films from their automobiles.
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Casper museum preserves memories, stories of Wyoming veterans
CASPER, Wyo. – In 1941, the land about nine miles west of Casper looked like most of the areas outside of city limits – miles of flat , wind-swept prairie covered in sage, migrating antelope and numerous other small critters. That changed with breakneck speed the following year, when the United States Army Airforce commissioned […]
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(PHOTOS) Casper nonprofit brings faith-based service and recovery program to foot of Laramie Peak
CASPER, Wyo — About 24 participants of the Wyoming Rescue Mission’s Discipleship Recovery Program took their fellowship and faith-based recovery practices last week to the Hank Raymond Recovery Camp in the Medicine Bow National Forest near Esterbrook. They fished, raked trails, cleaned out buildings, conducted horse tough baptisms, meditated, and reflected, WRM’S Director of Men’s […]
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Casper College archivist layoff fuels growing concern over ‘irreplaceable collection’
CASPER, Wyo. – Casper historians, students, journalists and researchers have viewed the massive collection at Casper College’s Western History Center (WHC) as an essential and invaluable resource for decades. “I think it’s a wonderful collection,” said Tom Rea, editor and co-founder of the Wyoming State Historical Society’s WyoHistory. “It’s filled with an enormous, weird and […]
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Backstory: Historic photos give glimpse at Casper’s mostly-gone small grocers
CASPER, Wyo. – A recent Backstory column looked into Casper’s early neighborhood grocery store boom during the first half of the previous century. At one point Casper and the surrounding areas had around 75 small grocers, mostly tucked inside neighborhoods and surrounded by houses. After the article published, Casper College Western History Center archivist Vince […]
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Backstory: When 70+ grocery stores dotted Casper’s neighborhoods
CASPER, Wyo. – Casper was booming in the 1920s thanks to the oil industry, which was in huge demand to fuel America’s new industrial economy. There was another boom as a result of that: Grocery stores. A nearly full-page ad in the Casper Tribune published on Aug. 3, 1923, for Butter-Nut Coffee lists 75 grocery […]
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Backstory: Trove of photos document vintage Casper in glorious color
CASPER, Wyo. – A deep collection of color photos gathered by the Casper Area Chamber of Commerce over the decades preserve a long-gone era.
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Backstory: When a beloved, aging Casper school was sacrificed for a midcentury masterpiece
CASPER, Wyo. – Casper’s Washington School was documented with photos and nostalgia during the end of its final school days in June, 1960. The location on the corner of First and Durbin was home to Casper’s first school starting in 1881, when Central School first opened. A new brick school was built there in 1910, […]
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Today in Wyo History: unique state-run workers’ comp act signed in 1915
CASPER, Wyo — On February 27, 1915, Wyoming Governor John B. Kendrick signed the “Wyoming Worker’s Compensation Act”, codified in Wyoming statue 27-14-101 . According to historian Patrick T. Holscher, Wyoming retains one of the few, if not the only, state-administered workers’ compensation fund in the United States. Most states use a system that incorporates […]
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Casper homeowner looks for clues on baptismal certificate found during remodel
CASPER, Wyo. – Tricia Provence and her boyfriend Billy Lytle didn’t expect any surprises as they went to work removing a wall in Tricia’s Casper home recently. Billy, experienced in construction, took down some kitchen cabinetry that was installed around the time the late-50s era home was built. The plan is to open up the […]
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‘The Last Western:’ new book reexamines infamous 1978 killing in Rock Springs
CASPER, Wyo — A 1978 killing in Rock Springs and subsequent murder trial that garnered national attention is reexamined in “The Last Western”, a new book by journalist Roan Tempest, one of the founders of WyoFile. In July 1978, Rock Springs Director of Safety Ed Cantrell shot his deputy Michael Rosa, an undercover investigator, during […]
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New Fort Casper exhibit has at least one story for every letter of the alphabet
CASPER, Wyo — The staff at the Fort Caspar Museum has organized a new way to explore Casper’s history, according to release Saturday. The “A, B, C’s of Casper History,” exhibit “takes a fun look at some of the people, places, and things that make Casper unique through rarely-seen objects from the Museum’s own collection,” […]
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(PHOTOS) Hazard tree becomes David Street Station’s 2020 centerpiece through volunteer efforts
CASPER, Wyo — When Kevin Hawley, executive director of Downtown Development Authority, saw architect Lyle Murtha and engineer Bob Lower’s designs for a “frozen pond” skating rink around a Christmas Tree at David Street Station, he was giddy. “I was thinking: ‘this was going to be the coolest things in the world, like a Hallmark movie,” […]
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Black 14 launch 180-ton food initiative with UW, Mormon Church
October 30, 2020 by Angus M. Thuermer Jr, WyoFile The University of Wyoming’s famous 1969 Black 14 football players are teaming with historic adversaries to deliver up to 180 tons of food to fight hunger in vulnerable communities in the coming weeks. The Black 14’s “Mind, Body and Soul” initiative plans to dispatch tractor trailers, each loaded […]
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UW Cowboys host Hawaii for Paniolo Trophy at War Memorial home opener Friday
UPDATE: The Cowboys defeated the Rainbow Warriors 31-7 and retained the Paniolo Trophy Friday. The Pokes lead the series 15-10. CASPER, Wyo — The University of Wyoming Cowboys are kicking off their 2020 home season at War Memorial Stadium Friday, Oct. 30 as they battle the Rainbow Warriors from the University of Hawaii for the […]