train wrecks

Rough Riders are usually associated with Theodore Roosevelt, but his was not the only cowboy regiment organized to fight in the Spanish American War of 1898. Wyoming had its rough riders, too, but due to a train mishap and the shortness of the war, they never saw combat.

Thirty or more people were killed Sept. 27, 1923, when a Chicago, Burlington & Quincy passenger train nose-dived into Cole Creek from a washed-out bridge 16 miles east of Casper, Wyo. It was the worst train wreck in the state’s history. Some of the bodies were never recovered.