Speaker 1: 0:03

We'd like to start today's show with the honoring of America, with the playing of the National Anthem, with our upcoming Memorial Day.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Thank you. The President's Read symbolizes the memorial tribute of a nation at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Later in the amphitheater, overlooking 44,000 graves of soldier dead, Mr Roosevelt is to be listener rather than spokesman, the orator's privilege being given to the AEF commander, General Pershing.

Speaker 3: 1:22

It does seem amazing that civilized nations should continue to adhere to war as an element of national policy. A people who complacently submit to unreasonable demands of a clamorous minority will certainly become the prey of a dictator. This nation, as one of the great powers, can do no less in the fulfillment of its manifest duty to humanity than to make the most earnest and devoted effort for the preservation of Wyoming and across the US.

Speaker 1: 2:27

And it's a time that I guess, as you get older and you really start to think of the sacrifices that were made, that how important it is that we remember the observance of Memorial Day, those people that have made the ultimate sacrifice, and I want to read some parts of a story that came from Travis Detay. Travis is the state of Wyoming, chairman of the Wyoming Veterans Commission, and this was written back in 2020, may 23rd of 2020. And so I'm going to skip through parts of it, because it relates to COVID, and go really to the heart of the message that he wrote. Regardless, we will still pay homage to those who laid down their lives in our great country. Throughout the course of history, from our war of independence to the Civil War and World War I, from World War II to Vietnam, from Korea to Iraq and Afghanistan, time and again, americans have found themselves standing against the evil forces of oppression and tyranny, and time and again, they have risen to the challenge because the freedom we have and hold so dear is worth fighting for and worth dying for.

Speaker 1: 3:46

On the lawns of the Wyoming State Museum, in the shadow of the Wyoming State Capitol in Cheyenne, stands the Wyoming Fallen Warrior Memorial. The inscription reads Wyoming remembers, dedicated to the many soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and coastardsmen, and their families, from Wyoming, who made the ultimate sacrifice while in the service of our state and nation. Flags will be flying on residential streets, classes will be raised and some chairs will be shed. We must always remember that our freedom is not free. Freedom carries a very high price and it is worth paying, as Rudyard Kipling wrote so eloquently. All we have of freedom, all we use or know this our fathers brought us long and long ago. There is no doubt we have our trouble today, but I for one feel blessed to live in this wonderful country and am thankful for the glorious freedoms and rights that every American is guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And I'm thankful to the countless men and women who have given so much, many, that last full measure of devotion to pay for the freedom we all enjoy. In the book of John, jesus said for us and something greater than themselves. Wyoming indeed remembers and it was well said, and we all know someone in our past that has been affected by service and has paid the ultimate price, and always remember that we do have a Veterans Day where we salute all those that have served, and today is that day for Memorial Day that we recognize those people that made the ultimate sacrifice and the families that have lived through that. And you think back, there's a lot of people that have given their life for our country and so I think here we are in 2023. It definitely is a troubled time in our country right now. We have a lot of things going on, a lot of issues that divide us. It really breaks my heart sometimes to think about the people that fought for our country. What is taking place in our country? I think we've lost this respect for our country a lot of people. With what is taking place, I still get back to that point. We have to remember about what Memorial Day means and honor those people that made that ultimate sacrifice, knowing that this country was worth giving their life for and that we have a lot to do and we continue to remember and work on improving our country so that these people that made this sacrifice didn't do it in vain. Again, make sure that you remember May 29th, memorial Day here in the United States. God bless all those people that gave their life.

Speaker 1: 7:16

Good morning and welcome to let's Talk Wyoming. I'm Mark Hamilton, your host, and we hope you enjoyed our salute to Memorial Day. In the rest of our show today we'll be taking a look at Wyoming weather. Also, we'll talk about our Wyoming celebrity 399. And finally we'll look at the Black and Yellow Trail in the start of our tourist season here in the state of Wyoming. Thanks for joining us today and we hope you enjoy the show.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Taking a look at Wyoming weather here on the 26th day of May we have sunshine. That is a rarity here. Over the last few days We've had storms and such blow through. We've continued on with this crazy pattern of cool weather showers, cool weather, a lot of wind, cool weather had a little bit of hail during the week off and on and I know there were spots that had hail. But I'm seeing the forecast getting to the end of the month. We're looking at 80s next week at the or I should say at the end of this week and through the weekend. And then I see the following week. I see getting back to 65 and some cooler temperatures. So it is a little strange but it is green, green, green.

Speaker 1: 8:49

I'm getting so tired of cutting grass and I've cut my lawn three times this week to try to keep in front of it. In the pasture and other places. Everything's growing. So it's been definitely a busy time. It's been so cold that I haven't really done any gardening type because it really hasn't been warm enough to even plan anything. But heading into summer, we all know what's going to happen it's going to quit getting cool and rains are going to quit and the heat's going to come. So just about what it did last year and with all this green grass, we know what that'll do. But here in the state of Wyoming, getting into that tourist season time of the year, beautiful time to come to the state. Yellowstone Park is open, so get the kids packed up, get the car going, come to Wyoming. A lot of great things to do here in the state and especially this time of year, beautiful time to get out with all the green. We don't have it green like this very often, but again, wyoming weather, we'll enjoy it. While we Today in sports, we are going to go a different angle.

Speaker 1: 9:54

I wanted to play a recording that I had from back a couple years ago, dedicated to our favorite celebrity, grizzly Bear, number 399. And we all know that she passed away this last year, got hit by a car and we all know that she passed away this last year, got hit by a car, so we definitely want to dedicate this to 399, and you surely are amiss. We wanted to bring up an update on one of our famous residents here in the state of Wyoming. Grizzly 399 has emerged with a cub and she is unbelievable. She's one of the oldest known grizzlies to have a cub in the Yellowstone ecosystem. She is definitely our famous lady here in the state of Wyoming. She has people following her all the time and has definitely has, I think, probably more followers than most people here that are listening to the show on social media. She did have that single cub, which is amazing. They did not know whether she'd be able to have a cub at her age, but she has the cub out and about and all reports that she's definitely looking good and a healthy lady and so it'll be interesting to see how her summer goes. There's always been a problem of where they end up and such, but with the amount of attention that she gets, she's pretty well a protected lady and it'll be interesting to see how the summer goes and to follow her journeys as she wanders about the area that she's in in that Green River drainage area and up near the park and Grand Teton Park area. So if you get to Wyoming, I guess if you see a lot of people, stop someplace and looking. It may be 399 is in the vicinity. 399 is in the vicinity.

Speaker 1: 11:54

With the travel season upon us, I'm going to go to a story from wildhistoryorg. I talked about one of my favorite my wife and I's favorite trips is across the Bighorn Mountains here in the northern part of Wyoming, going across from Worland to Tensleep to Buffalo, and that opens up so many other ways you can go. You can go north into Sheridan, back across on 14, or, when you're in Buffalo, you can continue on to the Black Hills and just some beautiful country to travel. And in this article that I'm referring to, I'm going to go back to just a segment of it, but the story was, let Us Ramble, exploring the Black and Yellow Trail in Wyoming and this is by Robert G and Elizabeth L Rosenberg and they talk about the travel back in the early 1900s and I'm not going to read the full article, but I want to go back to a point is when they start to talk about the route that coming from the Black Hills across Wyoming, the northern part of Wyoming and coming from the route from where they were crossing the Bighorn Mountains. And from this story, the most challenging segment was crossing of the Bighorn Mountains between Buffalo and Tensley.

Speaker 1: 13:14

In 1915, before the era of federal aid projects, august Hettinger of the Buffalo District of the Bighorn National Forest met with local officials to offer an allocation of $15,000 to construct a portion of the road within the forest boundaries. Work began that summer on a two-mile stretch of an existing county road in Moser Gulch, west of Buffalo, and was completed by October. Given the difficult nature of the route, engineers speculated that it might be possible to construct 20 miles of road. The following year, in 1917, a $10,000 survey was completed for the forest road from Buffalo to Tansleep. The portion was located in the forest qualified under the Section 8 Fund of the Federal Aid Act, which provided federal funding for forest roads. In 1918, $20,000 was spent on building five miles of this 75-mile roadway.

Speaker 1: 14:13

Construction was divided into two sections the 22-mile Buffalo to Sourdough section, which was the approach up Clear Creek from Buffalo, and the 53-mile Sourdough Tentsleep section. In May of 1910, a cooperative agreement between the state of Wyoming and the Secretary of Agriculture enabled the Buffalo sourdough section to be built by the Forest Service at an estimated cost of $105,000. The Forest Service is part of the Department of Agriculture. Wyoming's share was $25,000. The next section, west sourd Tensley, would be built by the Forest Service at an estimated cost of $210,000, of which the state would pay $85,000. Wyoming divided its costs among three counties involved Johnson, bighorn and Washakie. By 1920, 90% of the Black and Yellow Trail had been completed in Johnson County portion, but only 35% had been completed in Bighorn County. The county line runs along the mountain crest. It appears, then, that the road was generally built east to west. The entire Buffalo to Tensleep Road was finally completed by september of nineteen twenty two, a graded gravel road without an oiled surface, constructed with a combination of horse-drawn equipment, caterpillar trucks, graders and dump trucks.

Speaker 1: 15:43

Auto was conceived about the same time as the trail. A Good Roads Club convention was held in Douglas to promote a north-south route to Yellowstone National Park from Denver, colorado, and the delegates from Buffalo were sent to encourage a link-up of the two highways. The Yellowstone Highway, today's US Route 20, yellowstone Highway, today's US Route 20, passed through Douglas, wyoming, casper, shoshone, the Wind River Canyon after 1924, thermopolis and Worland, where it joined the Black and Yellow Trail, then north through Basin Grable and Cody and on to Yellowstone. The two routes therefore were the same, from Worland to the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

Speaker 1: 16:37

Yellowstone was subject to early legislation prohibiting steam vehicles within the park boundaries. This was meant to ban steam trains but later interpreted to include all powered vehicles, including cars. Some Yellowstone personnel felt that autos would ruin the park. However, the numerous Good Roads clubs were determined that auto tourists have access to Yellowstone and they had a strong influence on the park policy. Also, the officials realized that allowing access to cars would generally increase visitation. Auto tourism in Yellowstone was inevitable and the park welcomed the first cars at the east entrance in 1915. This policy led to improved roads both within Yellowstone and leading to the park, such as the Black and Yellow Trail and the Yellowstone Highway.

Speaker 1: 17:28

But this devil's agreement would haunt some Yellowstone officials far into the future. Almost two decades after the first cars passed through the east entrance, sanford Hill, landscape architect for the New Deals Emergency Conservation Work, lamented in his 1934 report In the early days of the park, the stagecoach and the pack outfits were the mean of transportation. The stories told by these early adventurers are indeed very interesting and it seems that the pleasures and thrills they enjoyed were lasting memories of their lives. They were fortunate, however, in seeing the park in its natural state. The progress of man has changed this picture. Until now, people rushed through the park seeing only a few of the many wonders. High-speed highways and automobiles have no place in the picture painted by Mother Nature. The writer strongly recommends the return of the stagecoach and pack outfits. Today, with yearly visitation exceeding three million, can foresee a future where the park could prohibit private auto traveling.

Speaker 1: 18:32

Granting Sanford Hills' wish, the Black Hills and Yellowstone Highway Association set May 16, 1921 as a day for the Boy Scouts and the Good Road Club and other civic groups to erect signs along the Black and Yellow Trail. In July, a group of 200 Boy Scouts from Clinton, ohio, traveled the route in 60 automobiles, passing through Buffalo and over the Big Horn Range en route to Yellowstone National Park. In 1925, the federal government recognized the need for a national system of highway marking. The new system designated east-west routes with even numbers and north-south routes with odd numbers. The standard US route markers became a shield bearing the number of the route, the letter US and the name of the state in black on the white background. The black and yellow trail was designated US Route 16.

Speaker 1: 19:30

During the mid-1920s, the Wyoming Highway Department made a concerted effort to oil the major roadways with gravel and crushed rock surfaces. Early efforts proved unsatisfactory as the surface disintegrated within a few months, creating a very rough roadway. Starting in 1927, a new oil formula proved more durable, known as the asphaltic oil treatment, or more commonly as bucktop. It was soon in use on roadways across the state. By the end of 1926, the Highway Department had improved the trail from Wyoming-South Dakota border westward to its connection with Yellowstone Highway in Worland. However, the highway consisted of segments of varying condition. Consisted of segments of varying condition ranging from unapproved to surfaced or paved highways. In 1913, the trail from Buffalo over the Big Horn Mountains to Tensley was described as an all-weather road that was not paved or oiled.

Speaker 1: 20:27

In 1931, $128,000 became available to regrade and oil 11 miles of the road from the North Fork of the Clear Creek to the crossing of Sourdough Creek. The 1932 highway map of the state of Wyoming depicted US Route 16 as gravel or crushed rock surface from Gillette to the Sheridan County line. Federal aid projects reconstructed the road between Tensleep and Worland in 1936. Aid projects reconstructed the road between Tensleep and Worland in 1936. As a result of this upgrade, portions of the original roadway were relocated and a new truss bridge, still in place today, was constructed over the Nohut River just west of Tensleep. In the 1960s, us Route 16 was reconstructed between Tensleep and Worland, generally north of the 1930 highway. The trail became a county road 580A and included the Truss Bridge over the Norwood River.

Speaker 1: 21:25

In the mid-1930s, two highway projects began applying asphalt oil treatment to the trail between Buffalo and Tensleep. Oil treatment to the trail between Buffalo and Tensley. A 2.5-inch oil mat was laid over a 3.5-inch gravel base, completed by September of 1940. This work also involved grading and overall improvement of the roadway surface. From 1939 to 1941, the trail from Gillette to Arvada was improved in a similar manner. Other improvements include grading, widening, overall upgrading of the roadway surface, new concrete bridges and some major realignments of the right-of-way.

Speaker 1: 22:08

The portion of the black and yellow trail over the Bighorns did not receive any further improvement until after World War II. In the early 1940s the road had suffered from neglect due to the war effort. However, in 1946, the first five miles of the roadway up Moser Galtz was reconstructed with reduced grades, chandler curves and wider road surfaces by the end of the summer of 1946, a heavy asphalt mat was laid on the new road. Finally, the construction of Interstate 90 in the 1960s fundamentally changed traffic patterns between the Wyoming-South Dakota line west to Buffalo. It provided a more direct link between Gillette and Buffalo and the Black and Yellow Trail. Us Route 1416 through Spotted Horse, arvada, claremont and New Cross became a secondary route. The northward curving section of the trail between Sundance, carlisle and Moorcroft suffered the same fate, although a portion of it is used today to access Devil Tower National Monument. Today's US Route 14 and 16 split at La Crosse. Us Route 16 generally maintains the original route of the Black and Yellow Trail over the Bighorn Mountains. Us Route 14 continues northwest to Sheridan, wyoming, and then crosses the Bighorn Range via Dayton and Burgess Junction to Lovell, to the Bighorn Basin. Both routes ultimately access the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

Speaker 1: 23:38

Due to the wide, open and undeveloped nature of Wyoming's landscape, the adventurous can still find and explore remnants of the historical road. So go ramble. And it's an outstanding story when you read through this. The one correction I would put is on this Route 14, which they talk about, and the story goes from Dayton to Burgess Junction to Lovell. It also goes to Shell and to Grable.

Speaker 1: 24:06

The 14A route is the one that goes into Lovell and the 14 is the one that goes directly into Shell and Crable. But it's an outstanding story and it's amazing when you think back of what we did in this country with our roads and across the United States, and what it really did to help develop our state. And now that you drive across there and it's just a beautiful route, going across those descriptions and hearing about how they built the roads at that time, when you come to Wyoming, you definitely need to go and explore the black and yellow trail here in our great state of Wyoming. Thanks for joining us today and we hope you enjoy our podcast. As per the code of the West, we ride for the brand and we ride for Wyoming. We'll be right back. One, two, three, four, five, six, go, go, go. Thank you.