A person who will be regarded as a complete stooge.
Of course it starts with White Flash Jordan, a man who doesn't know how to wear a sports coat.
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Painted Bricks: Dissing the ConRoy Building, and being inaccurate about it.
Painted Bricks: Dissing the ConRoy Building, and being inaccurate ...: What the crap? The original intent of this blog was simply to record the ghost signs of Casper, Wyoming. It did that pretty rapidly, and th...
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Dissing the ConRoy Building, and being inaccurate about it.
What the crap?
The original intent of this blog was simply to record the ghost signs of Casper, Wyoming. It did that pretty rapidly, and then it went on to catch them elsewhere and expand out a bit from there. Basically, we like historic buildings here.
One of the things we've noted, however, in doing this is that fables grow up around buildings. Sometimes it's really hard to figure out their origin.
I've been familiar with this building for over fifty years. It's one of three sister buildings in Casper that all were designed by the Casper architectural firm of Casper firm of Garbutt and Weidner, who at least based on these three buildings, were heavily into the same appearance for their "skyscrapers" at the time. This is the "ConRoy Building", the Consolidated Royalty Building. We noted its centennial several years, well nearly a decade, ago, elsewhere:
Happy Centenary! Things or rather places, that are 100 years old.
I've been meaning to post this forever but just wasn't in any big hurry to do it. Then it suddenly dawned on me that if I didn't do it soon, these places would be 101 years old, not 100. So here goes.
A thread dedicated to a few local places and establishments that made it to year 100 in 2017.
The ConRoy Building
A thread dedicated to a few local places and establishments that made it to year 100 in 2017.
The ConRoy Building
The ConRoy (Consolidated Royalty Building). The building's appearance has changed somewhat, but you have to really observe it to notice the changes. The windows were replaced from the original style about fifteen years ago, giving it more modern and more efficient windows. The elevator shaft, not visible here, is an enlarged one to accommodate a larger elevator than the one put in when it was built in 1917. The awning restores the building to an original appearance in those regards which it lacked for awhile, but at street level the building has a glass or rock masonry treatment which clearly departs from the original.
One that I've mentioned here before is the ConRoy, or Consolidated Royalty Building. Built in 1917 as the Oil Exchange Building, the building was one of Casper's first "sky scrapers", if in fact not the absolute first. Ground was broken in the summer of 1917 and the building was completed some time in August 1917. The Consolidated Royalty Oil Company, a company in which former Governor B. B. Brooks had a major interest, occupied the fifth floor of the structure.
The ConRoy Building occasionally gets some interesting avian visitors.
Unlike its two sister buildings, the Wyoming National Bank Building (now apartments) and the Townsend Hotel (now the Townsend Justice Center) designed by the same architect, the building has never been vacant and remains in use today. At least one of the current tenants descends from a firm that was a very early tenant, and perhaps a 1917 tenant.
The building has been updated over time, and its appearance is slightly changed due to the addition of an odd decorative rock face in the 1950s, but it by and large looks much like it did in 1917 from the outside. It's one of the few old downtown Casper buildings that hasn't undergone major appearance changes over the years.
May 2, 1917 edition of the Casper Daily Tribune announcing vacancies in the yet to be built Oil Exchange Building. The remainder of this issue was full of war news, and indeed it was partially the oil boom caused by the war that brought the building about.
More recently it figured here, as the owners of the building commissioned some murals on the fire escape doors:
Backdoor art.
So how on earth does it end up in a political campaign?
Frankly, I have no idea, but the entire idea of it being built by "a Democrat" is a real wild one. The principal figure in the building being built was B. B. Brooks, who served as a Republican Governor for Wyoming, as we noted above. Brooks had his offices on the fifth floor of the building.
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B. B. Brooks, Republican. He would not be amused.
This building has been continually occupied since 1917, and some of the businesses currently in it have been in the building since the 1940s although as earlier noted, one of them might have been in the building as early as 1917. Of the other two sisters, one is now the Townsend Justice Center which houses Natrona County's courts, and Wyo. Bank Bldg is an apartment building with a cafe on the street level.
All three buildings originally had, fwiw, massive period style lobbies which are sadly now all gone although you can catch glimpses of them, particularly in the Wyo. National Bank Bldg. The ConRoy once had a cigar store and magazine stand on the street level, after the lobby was taken out, and into the 50s, which explains the current appearance of its very small lobby today. Basically, the ConRoy and the Wyoming National Bank building were victims of "modernization" concepts in architecture from the 1950s and 1960s, at which time those buildings were forty years old and less, and nobody thought of them being particularly historic. The Townsend probably retained its architecture the longest, as it was a hotel originally, and up into the 70s when it closed. By that time it was pretty much a flop house with a popular cafe. I recall it as my father had lunch there until the cafe closed, which many other downtown businessmen and professionals did as well. It made for an odd place to go as a kid, which I sometimes did with my father, as the cafe was really popular, as was the adjoined Petroleum Club, but in the lobby the working girls were recovering from their prior night.
The ConRoy, on the other hand, has hummed on much like it has since 1917, although some of the notable early tenants, like the Casper Star Tribune, have moved on. The building was recently featured in the Oil City News when some of the equipment for a new elevator, replacing the one from the 1950s that replaced the one from 1917, was lifted by crane into the structure.
Anyhow, this is baffling. Of course, I only know of this as somebody else whose familiar with the building pointed it out to me and was horribly amused by it. I don't know that I am, as I like things to be accurate.
But why would a person do this, and how would such a wild rumor get started?
The Aerodrome: Blog Mirror: Without explanation, FAA closes El Paso and New Mexico airspace for 10 days, cites national defense
The Aerodrome: Blog Mirror: Without explanation, FAA closes El P...: Oh great, now what? Without explanation, FAA closes El Paso and New Mexico airspace for 10 days, cites national defense
Thursday, February 11, 1926. Calles attacks the Church.
Plutarco Elías Calles nationalized all property of the Catholic church in Mexico.
The degree to which the leaders of the Mexican Revolution were anti Catholic in a very Catholic nation is hard to overestimate, although at the same time, particularly in some regions, Catholic viewpoints were very represented amongst the revolutionaries. Emiliano Zapata in particularly was notably Catholic.
Be that as it may, Madero was not a practicing Catholic and had peculiar spiritual views. He was in fact a spiritualist and a Mason. Still, his victory in the revolution, temporary though it was, was seen by Catholics as an opportunity to form a Mexican Catholic political party, which they did. The Church condemned Madero's assassination.
It was that killing that sparked the second stage of the revolution. Álvaro Obregón and Calles both featured prominently in that, and both were anti Catholic. Calles was also a Mason. In that phase of the revolution, moreover, democratic forces, which had brought about Madero's rise, started to wane and with the murder of Zapata and the victory of Carranza Mexico headed off in a much more radically leftist direction. In some ways the Mexican Revolution, in spite of its romantic portrayal in American cinema, was much more of a 20th Century European Revolution, many of which featured radically anti Catholic leaders against Catholic populations in favor of utopian leftism.
Calles fit that mold and was the sort example in the office of president of Mexico. His anti clerical laws would lead to the Cristero War the following year.
Mexico remains a very Catholic country to this day and the Mexican people are very Catholic. But like other religious communities, the period of anti religious domination hurt the religious nature of the people nonetheless and the culture of the country. Mexico has never really recovered from the anti religious views of the revolution. Ironically, one of the beneficiaries of that has been Protestant Millennialism which has been successful in drawing in religious Mexicans who are unchurched, a byproduct of the revolution.
Actor Leslie Nielsen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War Two as an aerial gunner, although he was not deployed overseas.
Last edition:
Wednesday, February 10, 1926. Going to the League.
Friday, February 11, 1916. Bandelier National Monument established.
The Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos in Sandoval and Los Alamos counties, New Mexico was established by President Wilson.
Bill Carlisle was still at large.
And there was a shakeup in the Department of War. . . the actual one not the Hegseth nom de guerre one that's our current Department of Defense.
The Russians advanced to artillery range around Erzurum.
Senussi's withdrew near Bahariya after being spotted by aircraft.
High water, Roosevelt Dam, Arizona. February 11, 1916.
Thursday, February 10, 1916. Battle of Dogger Bank.
The 2026 Election, 5th Edition: The Saddle Up Edition.
The last edition of this was already sufficiently confusing that a new one is in order.
In this one, when we list the candidates to start with, we're not going to try to comment on each for the most part, as we've already done that in the prior edition. Having said that, we've made some exceptions.
February 1, 2026.
U.S. Senate
GOP
Harriet Hageman. On our don't vote for list.
Jimmy Skovgard.
U.S. House of Representatives
GOP
Jillian Balow
Chuck Gray. On our don't vote for list.
Reid Ransner. On our don't vote for list.
David Giralt
Independant
Daniel Workman.
Governor
GOP
Eric Barlow: At least so far, Barlow seems to be by far the best choice for this office. I'm seeing some of his signs around.
Brent Bien. On our don't vote for list.
Meggan Degenfelder. On our don't vote for list. Degenfelder is from the relatively hard right and has been tarred with the brush of a Trump endorsement, which she really doesn't seem fully comfortable with. She may be aware that it's problematic.
Democratic Party
Gabriel Green: Green is listed here for the first time. He's associated with the DINO movement, so while he's running as a Democrat, it's "in name only". Indeed, he founded the state's DINO movement, and he might be the only person to run under that banner. He's aggressive in this strategy, and is nearly as hard on the Democrats as he is the Republicans.
This is an interesting approach, and I've wondered why somebody hasn't tried it before. It'll be interesting to see how he uses it. Many of the state's past Democratic Governors were as conservative as any Republican, in actual terms, so there is something to be exploited here.
Independant
Joseph Kibler. On our don't vote for list.
Kibler announced as a Republican, but now is running as an independant.
Kibler is a carpetbagger and has the typical carpetbagger "I just moved here from California for all your freedom and now I'm going to run things".
Go back to California.
*******************
On this race, WyoFile has asked the candidates, asd seems to have caught all of them, on what they think about the Freedom Caucus budgetary nonsense.
Where Wyoming’s gubernatorial candidates stand on budget cuts: WyoFile asked the five candidates whether they supported some of the more drastic proposals lawmakers will consider in the upcoming legislative session.
Treasurer
GOP
Curt Meier
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In election related news, Chuck Gray turned over the entire state's voter rolls to the Federal Government.
UPDATE: Gray defends voter roll compliance after Wyoming’s League of Women Voters slams transfer
I'd really question the legality of this, but if the Trump Administration ordered states to run over kittens with bulldozers Gray would gleefully comply. His actions provoked the criticism of the League of Women Voters which Gray accused of being liberal fanatics, his standard retort to everything.
We're stuck with Gray until the end of his term, assuming that he doesn't get elected to the US House, which we should dearly hope he does not. If he fails to get the House, we can be assured that he will not run for Secretary of State again, as his only point in running for the office in the first place was to try to position himself for higher office. He'll wonder off to some other state at that point.
In another developments, Texas continued a nationwide trend of Democrats advancing at the state level in advance of the November election. In a district that voted heavily from Trump in the last general election, a Democratic candidate defeated a Trump endorsed Republican candidate whom Gov. Abbot had attempted to assist. This means that the GOP holds the Texas Senate by a mere five seats. They hold the House by 22 seats. Some of these state legislatures are going to flip in the next election.
More locally, Harriet Hageman has been taking flak at town halls, with the one in Casper directly confronting here on her claims to be a "Constitutional lawyer", a status itself which I've never really figured out what it was supposed to mean.
February 3, 2026
Donald Trump has called for nationalizing the elections.
Chuck Gray turned Wyoming's voters rolls over to the Federal Government, which is seeking them. Wyoming apparently was the first to comply with this outrageous request which not all states intend to honor.
This should disqualify Gray from being considered for anything further in Wyoming, right down to Walmart greeter.
Ranser is running piles of images of himself with rifles on his social media, apparently seeking to boost the view that he's an outdoorsman. Perhaps he is, but brings up the necessity of asking certain questions. He's also come out with a statement that public lands should always remain in public hands, which I fully agree with but which is surprising given Ranser's generally slavish loyalty to the extreme far right. This may be his genuine view, or he may realize that this is what the overwhelming majority of Wyomingites' hold.
There's clearly a current effort to take on the Wyoming Freedom Caucus that's developing. It's late to the game, but it's definitely on. A lot of focus has been given to it's funding which is overwhelmingly from out of state organizations with a far right political view.
February 5, 2026
Bo Biteman is considering running for the House.
And a candidate has entered the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction:
Tom Kelly Announces Run For Superintendent Of Public Instruction
And in addition to Kelly, a Chad Auer is considering running.
Bar Nunn Mayor Peter Boyer has announced a run against Freedom Caucus member Bill Allemand. Allemand, who is currently facing charges for DUI in Johnson County is a member of the Freedom Caucus who is very much on our Don't Vote For List. We hope Boyer handily defeat Allemand.
February 7, 2026
The Tribune has an interview of Skovgaard in today's edition.
It's better than most local candidate interviews, but again frustratingly light on background. I don't know why local reporters ask such lightweight questions.
Cowboy State Daily took a look at the race against Bill Allemand.
'No-Nuclear’ State Rep. Bill Allemand Has Challenger For House Seat
February 8, 2026
And it's happened again.
Democrat Chastity Verret Martinez has won the special election for Louisiana House District 60, defeating Republican challenger Brad Daigle by a wide margin in a district that supported President Donald Trump in 2024. The district is traditionally Democratic, but like a lot of the traditionally Democratic blue collar or socially conservative regions of the country, it had been going to the GOP recently.
That's over.
February 11, 2026
Trump stated in an interview that the GOP should win in "a landslide" this November.
It's clear the opposite is true, which makes this clear.
Trump intends to steal the 2026 election.
Related posts:
Blog Mirror: WYOMING: IT’S TIME TO TAKE OUR GOVERNMENT BACK
Last edition:
The 2026 Election, 4th Edition: The Wasting No Time Edition*
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 117th Edition. Sen. Lummis wakes up from a long winter's nap.
I'm shocked — shocked — to find that gambling is going on in here!
Captain Renault, Casablanca.
Initially my reaction to all this was, I don’t care. I don’t see what the big deal is. But now I see what the big deal is. The members of Congress who were pushing this were not wrong!
Retiring Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis.
About fucking time.
It's frankly very difficult to credit this comment. A pack of rich men, and 30 members of the current Trump interregnum, are mentioned in the Epstein files, including Trump, and she didn't see what the big deal was? As if the rich and powerful buying underaged sex slaves on U.S. territory, pretty openly, isn't a big deal.
That would be the viewpoint of a complete moron.
Lummis isn't a moron.
She's also not running for office again either.
Either she's really checked out, which at age 71, and admittedly now too worn down to do her job, she may very well be. Maybe she just isn't paying any attention.
Or maybe her lifetime in politics has simply numbered her to stuff like this, which should worry us all, as that would suggest some pretty gross filth is pretty common.
Or, maybe retiring, and after having realized that a tsunami of filth is coming, she decided to get out of the water.
Now, if only we could draw some candidates for her replacement who never sipped the Koolaide.
And maybe now somebody will confront Barrasso whose only purpose seems to be to stand behind Trump and company and give stern looks.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 116th Edition. Dissing J.D., What's the point of the National Prayer Breakfast?, Drip.
Wednesday, February 10, 1926. Going to the League.
Germany applied to join the League of Nations and indicated that it would submit the South Tyrol dispute to the body.
Last edition:
Sunday, February 7, 1926. Negro History Week.
Labels: 1920s, 1926, Education, Egypt, Ethnicities, Italian Army, Italian Empire, Italy, Libya, Personalities, Senussi
Thursday, February 10, 1916. Battle of Dogger Bank.
Light ships of the Royal and German navies fought at Dogger Bank.
Canadian soldiers rioted in Calgary and vandalized two businesses owned and operated by German Canadians. There were rumors that the stores hired illegal aliens rather than Canadian veterans, which sparked the violence.
Last edition:
Wednesday, February 9, 1916.
Sunday, February 10, 1901. Boers invade Cape Colony.
Boer General Christiaan de Wet's troop invaded the Cape Colony.
Last edition:
Friday, February 8, 1901. Russian overreach.
Thursday, February 10, 1876. Terry ordered to take action against Sioux.
Today In Wyoming's History: February 10: 1876 Gen. Terry ordered to take action against Sioux and Cheyenne who remained off their reservations.
Last Edition:
The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Tenth Edition. Finger on the nuclear trigger.
Oh yeah, that's the look of a sane man, right? Photo by LAURENT GILLIERON / POOL / AFP via Getty Images, posted under Fair Use Exception.
Kaitlan Collins: "Mr. President, what would you say to sex abuse survivors of Epstein who haven’t seen justice”
Donald Trump: “You know, I’ve never seen you smile”
Man, that's creepy.
I wonder how many teenage girls head that after they were raped at Epstein Island?
February 7, 2026
Trump claimed in an interview with the New York Post that Venezuela failed to get their AAA rockets off the ground during the U.S.'s raid as the US used a "discombobulator" on them.
Um. . .sure.
In a bit of a defense for the deranged prince, what the military probably was referring to was an electronic jamming system. While no doubt the most recent variants are quite advanced, such systems have been around for a very long time.
Trump's incredibly racist post depicting the Obama's as apes was taken down and blamed on a staffer.
Um. . . sure.
Trump is also claiming that the US has wanted a triumphal arch for 200 years, with is complete nonsense and which is only slightly less weird than his claim that Presidents have wanted the giant outhouse he hopes to build for 100 years.
February 9, 2026
Loss of inhibitions can be a sign of dementia.
This is definitely a "get off my lawn" moment.
February 10, 2026
A spoiled brat and a real estate developer by trade, he sees the world through a pinhole. His mind is turning to much. He needs to be removed.
Last edition:
The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Ninth Edition. Trump is insane and the end of the United States as a great nation.
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