South Pass Stories

  The Rock Shop Inn. Gold Rush Days have come and gone and a couple of the State staff are away, so there was no staff meeting today! Gator and I got an early start on taking sarsaparilla over to the Miner’s Exchange Saloon. He went off on various errands and I went into the archives. Today, I photographed invoices from the Smith Sherlock Company Store, a project that is taking a fair bit more time than I expected, but I think I have a system down, at last. I have seen several invoices from the National Biscuit Company during the year 1906. The company was only about 10-years old at that time and in addition to crackers, cookies, and biscuits, they offered a fairly large substantial line of candies (see invoice below). The company later rebranded itself as Nabisco (the first two letters of each word in the company name) and is no longer so big into candy.   The candies that come in “pails” presumably are sold by weight, then there are “cases” of stick or piece candy, a...

    Museum of the Mountain Man. We had a slightly slow morning, ate breakfast, and headed for Pinedale- about a 90 minute drive. Heading out,we saw seven pronghorn antelope on the way out to Highway 28, four along the highway, 12 between Farson and New Fork, and 20 on a pasture outside Pinedale. Apart from the pronghorn antelope we didn't see much wildlife, but between South Pass City and Farson we encountered 6-8 common nighthawks along one short stretch of the highway. I had not seen these birds in Wyoming before. Most of the drive from SPC to Pinedale was dominated by sagebrush. However, from Boulder, about 10 miles south of Pinedale and into Pinedale itself, several creeks and rivers from westward from the Wind River Mountains. The smaller of these streams flow into the New Fork River, which is the northernmost tributary of the Green River. These streams and the lush grass and other vegetation they support are very pretty. We arrived at the Museum, which is dedicated to pr...

    Yellow sweet clover growing on the hillside by the Atlantic City Iron Mine spoils. Well, we slept in all the way until 6:30 (actually, I was awake at 5 something), had breakfast, and then were off to Louis Lake. We saw no wildlife on the way out, or while we were fishing. We fished from 8:30 until 12:30 and gave it up. Not a single bite. But lots of Yahoos. We had planned to kayak after fishing, but, Yahoos. I suggested we go back to SPC, change, and do our weekly shopping and have tomorrow as a free day. Connie agreed to this. We drove back into SPC and saw three pronghorn antelope. We changed, put a few things away, and off we went to Lander. On the way out, our three pronghorn antelope had become five. The drive into Lander went quickly and, just before going down into the valley, we saw five pronghorn antelope. We did our shopping. We saw one pronghorn antelope outside Lander, and one going back into SPC. I stopped along the way back, across from the old At...

 The high yesterday was 92, we only made it to 90 today. Connie and I both had computer work, reading, etc., to catch up on and did so. The AC came on early. About 1:00, I decided to run into Lander for a break. I bought a few items (we are out of eggs and butter) and returned to SPC.  I saw two pronghorn antelope on the way out, but none on the way back in. Too hot for wildlife, evidently. Reading and writing through the afternoon. I an caught up on one project!  Connie has been shelling pecans, I think to make pecan pies for one of the upcoming staff meetings.There is a tradition here of having dessert at the morning staff meeting and sugar in the morning just does not set well with me, so... Speaking of sugar, Connie added sugar water to the hummingbird feeders today, so they are still hitting it. I watched the feeder briefly this evening and saw activity. I was afraid they had all migrated on though the other day, though that time likely is near. After dinner, I ...

    Rufous hummingbirds at our feeder. Today we slept in until 6:30. We had breakfast, then checked on vegetables and ice and saw there was no need to go into Lander for anything today. Connie was getting ready to do laundry and a bit of cleaning in the trailer, so I went down to the archives and did some writing. I took a bit of a break and walked over to the Libby cabin to look at the new "Dark Stories of South Pass City,"exhibit. It is very nicely done. I returned to the trailer about 3:00, read for a bit, and then prepared a cole slaw and grilled some corn. I sat outside while the corn was grilling and saw a least eight hummingbirds. The migration hasn't ended! After dinner, I listened to a couple of podcasts. Connie went for a walk and I went back to work on the computer and then, later, a bit of reading.

The "Grand Finale," fractions of a second after the blast. There is a speck in the sky, about two-thirds of the distance between the tree tops and the edge of the image- that's an anvil. At this point, the anvil is on its way back down. It had gone up some 200 ft. I got into the SPC office at 8:00 and everyone was off making final preparations. I walked over to the Smith Sherlock Company Store and spruced it up a bit. Then I walked over to the Miners' Exchange Saloon to see how the sarsaparilla was holding up. The ice chests had some ice and melt water. One also had a few bottles of sarsaparilla, so I carried them outside, drained the water, and got as many bottles on ice as I could.  A bit later, someone brought ice in from Lander, so grabbed several bags and iced down three coolers full of sarsaparilla. Returning to the shop with spare ice, Ashley, an employee of SPC (and Gator's daughter), asked me to help take the sarsaparilla remaining in the storeroom to the...