Casper of the 1970s.

 

Casper mayor's son remembers him as an industrious leader and an unsettled father.

I don't remember this Mayor at all, but then in 1974, the year this is sort of tied to, I was eleven years old.

Still, this gives a really good glimpse at the Casper that was, even when it tries to portray the city as sort of a typical midwestern slow city, and its not a pretty picture at all.

“Casper in the ‘70s was pretty much an idyllic, all-American, apple pie, pickup truck, horse-riding, cowboy-hat-wearing type of community,” Cody said almost two months after his father died.

Charles came to Wyoming from Michigan. He shot guns and rode his motorcycle and took his kids up Casper Mountain. Under the all-Americanness, though, was the tender underbelly of a family fraying at the seams.

“He was the Hunter S. Thompson in the Casper world of mayoral politics,” Cody said of Charles. “He really was like the party mayor,” he added.

Charles spent his free time drinking, doing hard drugs and chasing women. Everything he did, he did to the fullest extent. He told Cody once that he never lost a case as a litigator. He had a “narcissistic” drive, Cody said, to be the best at what he did, even if it was at the expense of others.

On June 28, 1974, the Casper Star-Tribune reported that Charles had declared a bid for a state Senate seat as a Democrat. The mayor believed that “city and county officials are best equipped to solve impact growth problems.”

I think the "drinking, doing hard drugs and chasing women" was a lot more common amongst Casper's elite in the days than we might want to admit.  Not the slow little town some what to claim they remembers.

The author apparently went on to be a lawyer in the Southwest.

Protests spread to Wyoming.

 

The "Hands Off" protest is a nationwide movement.  And it's showing up even in Casper, in central Wyoming.

Blog Mirror: Drinking Wyoming: Frosty’s, A True Casper Dive Bar Proudly Serving Horrible Liquor

A Casper institution:

Drinking Wyoming: Frosty’s, A True Casper Dive Bar Proudly Serving Horrible Liquor

I used to occasionally order food through the drive through window when I was a sophomore in high school.  The cafeteria was being rebuilt at the time.

One of my aunts loved the place.  A cousin and I used to take her there for lunch. She's passed, but sometimes we still will eat there.

Monday, November 3, 1924. Election Eve.

Both Calvin Coolidge and John W. Davis made radio appeals to the nation.

More locally, a big contest was about to be resolved.

I'll be nearly everyone who could, listened in.

General Feng Yuxiang's troops entered Tianjin.

Locally, the Gladstone was opening.

It stand empty today, and for sale.

Ironically, in the Yellowstone District, just a few blocks away, an elevator shaft for a six story apartment building just went up.

Last edition

Sunday, November 2, 1924. Huang Fu became the acting President of the Republic of China.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Aircraft, China, Chinese Warlord Era, People's Republic of China, Puerto Rico, U.S. Navy

Sunday, October 24, 1924. A glimpse of Natrona County.

Put up for reasons that matter to me. 

Last edition:

Saturday, October 25, 1924. Contrasts.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Art, Girl Scouts, J. C. Leyendecker

Thursday, October 19, 1944. Airbase disaster.

Today In Wyoming's History: October 19: 1944  1944  A bomber from the Casper Air Base crashed killing three crewmembers.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Last edition:

Wednesday, October 18, 1944. Levée en masse.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Auschwitz, Conscription, Erwin Rommel, Greece, Italy, Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, Volkssturm, World War Two

Friday, September 12, 1924. Second Assyrian Uprising and National Defense Day.

The complicated  Second Assyrian Uprising, or the Nestorian Rebellion, broke out in southeaster Turkey.  It was the second such uprising by Christian Assyrians who had returned to their homeland and was brought about due to intentional Kurdish misrepresentations about the intentions of the Turks.

Grossly outnumbered by Turkish and Kurdish forces, relying on promises of British intervention which didn't come, and with most of their fighting age men in British service in Iraq, they were defeated, although the British did end the war with the intervention of aircraft, and returned to Iraq.

In the US it was National Defense Day and the National Defense Test, test of the nation's radio system in an emergency took place.

A lot of military demonstrations and events occurred as well.

Casper participated in events.

Businesses stated their patriotism.

Last edition:

Wednesday, September 10, 1924. Eucharistic Congress, St. Mary of the Woods.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Catholic, Christianity, Music

Sunday, September 7, 1924. Infernos.

Released on this day in 1924.

A different type of inferno had broken out on Casper Mountain.

Spanish dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera issued a manifesto to the army appealing for an extension of his emergency powers in which he stated:  "One year is too short a time to attempt to carry out the work which lay before the directorio when we assumed power."  He'd remain in power until 1930, by which time he'd lost support of the king, and the military, the latter of which had never fully backed him.

Last edition:

Saturday, September 6, 1924. Putting down in Boston.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Art, Boston Massachusetts, Calvin Coolidge, Education, First Around The World Flight

Thursday, May 29, 1924. Getting ready for a second Memorial Day.

1924 was odd that way.  The official day was May 26, but there were also observations on Friday, May 30. 

Indeed, the Friday date seems to have been more widely observed.

That was the day observed in Casper.

The Friday observance seems to have been statewide.

Sometimes monkeys need dentistry, as this photo from this day shows.

Last edition:

Wednesday, May 28, 1924. Border Patrol and Foreign Service.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, baseball, Border Patrol, Calvin Coolidge, Diplomacy, Foreign Service, German Weimar Republic, Immigration, Japan, New York National Guard, Panama

Wednesday, May 21, 1924. Big membership drive.

 Casper saw a big Chamber of Commerce Drive:

Apparently the drive did well.

The papers were advertising Daughters of Today, which apparently featured scandalous conduct by then contemporary young women.

Last prior edition:

Monday, May 19, 1924. Bonuses and Tick Fever.

1920s, 1924, Australia, Diplomacy, Iraq, It was because of World War One, Japan, Korea, Medicine, Royal Australian Air Force, Turkey, United Kingdom

Sunday, May 4, 1924. Summer Olympics. Not ousting councilman over booze.

The 1924 Summer Olympics opened in France with preliminary competitions and a really cool logo.

Men, opened.

It's lost.

The Society of American Wars, which was a thing, met with Coolidge.

Efforts to boot Councilman Royce failed, due to the state of the law.

And the transglobal flight was back at it.

Locally, plans were being advanced for the construction of the Presbyterian church, which were published in one of the papers.

The church ultimately constructed would look a big different.

City Park Church, formerly First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming

This is City Park Church, and was formerly, as noted below in the original entry, the First Presbyterian Church.

This Presbyterian Church is located one block away from St. Mark's Episcopal Church and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, all of which are separated from each other by City Park. 

The corner stone of the church gives the dates 1913 1926. I'm not sure why there are two dates, but the church must have been completed in 1926.

This century old church became the home of the former First Baptist Church congregation on February 28, 2020, and as noted in a thread we'll link in below, had been experiencing a lot of changes prior to that.

The original entry here was one of the very first on this blog and dated at least back as far as January 25, 2011.  While the architecture hasn't changed at all, with the recent change our original entry became misleading to an extent.

Related Threads:

Grace Reformed at City Park, formerly First Presbyterian Church, Casper Wyoming

Changes in Downtown Casper. First Presbyterian becomes City Park Church, the former First Baptist Church.

And, as can be seen, events have resulted in some denominational shifting.

The morning edition was full of all sorts of dramatic news.

British sponsored Assyrian Levies killed 50 in Kirkuk.

German elections were held, resulting in the Social Democratic Party of Germany narrowly maintaining a small plurality of 100 seats. The German National People's Party finished with 95.

The Soviet Union demanded an apology for yesterday's police raid.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, May 3, 1924. Foundings.

1920s, 1924, Art, boats and ships, California, German Weimar Republic, Judaism, Nebraska, Nebraska (Omaha), Omaha Nebraska, Personalities, religious organizations, Teenagers, USSR, Youth Organizations

Tuesday, April 29, 1924. The Townsend Fire.

In Casper, the well known fire in the Townsend Building broke out.

The building still stands, and still looks largely the same as it did in 1924, although its exterior would be renovated in 1934.

This building is not, of course, to be confused with Casper's Townsend Hotel, which is now the Townsend Justice Center.

And Councilman Royce was struggling to retain his position.

There was a huge tornado outbreak in the southern United States.

"His Master's Voice", Chicago Tribune, April 29, 1924.

Southern Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, elected its first colonial legislature, with voting restricted to whites.

Last prior edition:

Monday, April 28, 1924. Another West Virginian Coal Mine Disaster.

1920s, 1924, 1930, 1930s, Coal, Crime, Disaster, Herbert Hoover, Indiana, Ku Klux Klan, Mining, West Virginia

Easter Sunday, April 20, 1924.

The first public Mass at the Catholic Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. took.  The Mass was celebrated by Bishop Thomas Joseph Shahan.

Shahan is interred in a crypt as the basilica, the only person to have received internment there to date.

The Turkish Constitution was ratified by the Grand National Assembly.  It established Islam as the official religion and Turkish as the official language.  Ankara was established as the capital.

The Casper Daily Tribune issued an Easter Sunday edition noting the result of the prior day's meeting on a councilman with a liquor charge.

And tourists were being de bugged.

Last prior edition:

Holy Saturday, April 19, 1924.

1920s, 1924, California, Calvin Coolidge, Cartoons, Casper Wyoming, Country & Western Music, Easter, Health, Holy Saturday, Music, Radio, Tourism, Transportation, Wyoming (Casper)

Holy Saturday, April 19, 1924.

The Saturday Evening Post went to press observing Easter with a Leyendecker illustration.

National Barn Dance, a direct precursor to the Grand Old Opry, premiered on Chicago's WLS, running a whopping four hours every Saturday night.  It would run until 1968.

The Washington Post depicted Coolidge holding fast in a political cartoon.

In Casper, there was a big meeting to oust a city councilman who had been convicted on a liquor charge.

And Arizona tourists could get into California before Easter.

It's interesting to realize that motor tourism had become a thing by 1924.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 17, 1924. Japanese reaction.

1920s, 1924, baseball, Cartoons, Democratic Party, Farmers Labor Party, Francis Warren, Government, Japan, Movies, Politics, Progressive Party, Prohibition Party, Republican Party, Sports, United States, Wyoming