We left Riverton around 9am for Rawlins, our half way stop to Warren AFB, in Cheyenne.
But first I want to take this time to thank Dirk, Lissa, & Vonda for their Wyoming hospitality. Without them Mom & I would not have seen half the stuff we did. They pointed us to the best places imaginable. To them, we give them a “Big Arizona Thank You!
Out trip was only a two hour cover 122 miles. 122 miles of nothing between Riverton & Rawlins, I could count the number of homes on one hand…talk about wide open spaces.
Get the picture!!
ROUND UP ON THE PRAIRIE!
ONE BEAUTIFUL STATE!!
Entering Rawlins ~ first stop Western Hills RV Park for lunch.
After Lunch we toured the three best know sites in Rawlins.
The car with “TWO FRONT ENDS”.
The car that doesn’t know which way it’s going. This vehicle has a driver’s seat and steering wheel on both ends. A dream car for the directionally-challenged.
Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. But maybe he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t visited Rawlins, Wyoming.
Edison came to this then-remote town in 1878 to view a solar eclipse and to test his “microtasimeter,” a device that he claimed could measure temperature to a millionth of a degree. He pointed it at the Sun’s corona, and it burned up.
With nothing else to do, Edison went fishing — and here’s where the light bulb comes in. Edison was at that time looking for something to use as a filament in his still experimental bulb. He went fishing with a bamboo pole, and this — according to Rawlins — gave him the idea to use bamboo as the filament, which eventually proved successful (Don’t bother to check your light bulbs; bamboo was phased out years ago).
Second the Frontier Prison.
Our tour guide!
Wild Women of the West!
THE PUNISHING POLE!
If the men misbehaved, the guards would drag them in here and chain them to this Punishment Pole. Then they’d whip them with rubber hoses and leather straps. And as they screamed, all the men in A Block would hear them, and they’d know what would happen to them if they misbehaved.
The Library.
Chow Hall & there famous inmake artist!
The prison’s unique “humane gallows called, “The Julian Gallows”. Where a condemned prisoner would essentially hang himself by standing on a trap door that fell open when his body weight forced enough water out of counterbalanced bucket. He could hear the water draining out the entire time, setting the scene. It gave him time to think about what he did. ~ but sometimes, if the guards didn’t like you, they’d make you fill your own bucket.
the gas chamber, essentially a big steel tank with thick windows and an air pump. The stainless steel death chair isn’t comfortable, but we suspect it was easy to clean with a hose.
The last stop on the prison tour was a door — the only surviving relic from the affectionately-named Old Hole. This was a pitch black punishment cell whose tiny outline remains marked onto the concrete floor of C Block. In solitary confinement you got a blanket, but here you were just naked with a bucket, if you were good they’d let you empty it four or five times a week. If you were bad you only got two or three.
Why the Old Hole was retired. “One prisoner who the guards didn’t like, changed his feeding schedule, instead of three times a day, they fed him seven or eight, so he thought the days were going by faster. So when he thought his six weeks were up, he kept waiting and waiting and waiting for the warden to come let him out. But when he never did, he went completely insane.” He sue the state for cruel & unusual punishment & won!
THANK YOU FOR OUR PEACE KEEPER!!
ONTO CHEYENNE & WARREN AFB TOMORROW!!