Ellis Hein

“Why not eat insects?” Jim Wangberg asked this in 1987, and it set off more than a classroom discussion. At the time, Wangberg was department head of plant, soil and insect sciences at the University of Wyoming. His question was particularly pressing following Wyoming’s big grasshopper years in 1985 and 1986, with densities of up to 100 grasshoppers per square yard in some locations. That many grasshoppers can devastate an agricultural based economy.

Since the late 1940s, birders in Casper and around the state have pursued annual Christmas bird counts, providing reams of data for a fast-changing world. Rising early and working late, birders live to listen, watch and learn—and the birds keep flying.

“I knew we had to do something really quick. I was ready to lay down in front of a probably D17 [bulldozer] to stop that thing,” said George Frison, head of the anthropology department at the University of Wyoming. Read about the artifact-rich archaeological site Frison was prepared to defend: Powars II at Sunrise, Wyoming.

Two battles on July 26, 1865 near Platte Bridge Station near present-day Casper, Wyo., are best understood in the context of tribal response to the Sand Creek Massacre the previous November. Twenty-eight U.S. troops were killed that day including Lt. Caspar Collins, for whom Fort Caspar and the town of Casper were later named.

On Aug. 29, 1865, troops under Brig. Gen. Patrick E. Connor attacked an Arapaho village near present Ranchester, Wyo. Connor’s detachment was part of a large expedition ordered to subjugate the warring Cheyenne, Sioux and Arapaho in the Powder River Basin. Overall success was mixed. Connor was relieved of his command.