Statistics
Origin of Name: Named for the natron, or soda, deposits in the county.
Total land area: 5,369 sq. miles, 5th largest in Wyoming
Year
| Population
|
1890
| 1,094
|
1900
| 1,785
|
1910
| 4,766
|
1920
| 14,635
|
1930
| 24,272
|
1940
| 23,358
|
1950
| 31,437
|
1960
| 49,623
|
1970
| 51,264
|
1980
| 71,856
|
1990
| 61,226
|
2000
| 66,533
|
2010
| 75,450
|
Towns
Casper (county seat): 55,316 (as of 2010)
Bar Nunn: 2,213
Edgerton: 195
Evansville: 2,544
Midwest: 404
Mills: 3,461
Well-known Residents of Natrona County
History
The county was created in 1888, shortly after a railroad was built and towns were established along the route. In 1890, an election was held to determine the county seat. Bessemer won the election with 677 votes, almost double the vote cast for rival Casper. The county commissioners overturned the election, however, after they determined that most Bessemer residents had cast two or more votes. Originally known for sheep-raising, the county became prosperous and heavily populated after oil discoveries were made around Casper and in the northern part of the county near Midwest.
Early Settlement and County Creation
Created by the Tenth Legislative Assembly, Wyoming Territory, on March 9, 1888, Natrona County was not organized until 25 months later on April 12, 1890. Carved out of the northern part of Carbon County, the population of this vast area of arid, sagebrush plains, dry creek bottoms, the North Platte River Valley, and three mountain ranges, was confined to isolated ranches at the time the legislative assembly acted.
The large cattle companies, which had entered the region in the 1870s, controlled the open range, and the first ranch house of Joseph M. Carey's CY Ranch was located in an area along the river, which would become the western section of the City of Casper. But change was eminent in March, 1888.
The Wyoming Central Railroad, which was to become a part of the Chicago and North Western Railroad system, reached the site that had been chosen by the railroad for a town in June, 1888. The town was named for Lieutenant Caspar Collins, who had been killed by Indians in a fight at the Platte Bridge Station, near the site of the new town, in 1865. The railroad platted the town, and the first settlers erected tents and green lumber buildings with lumber hauled from a sawmill on Casper Mountain. Lots were purchased from the railroad and from J. M. Carey & Bro., the original owner of the town site.
Casper survived a mini-boom and bust cycle, similar to what had occurred in the 1860s at Cheyenne, Laramie, and the other towns established along the route of the Union Pacific, but its early prospects for permanence were not bright. During the last six months of 1888 and the first months of 1889, saloons, houses of ill repute, and lawlessness in general predominated in the raw, windswept village. There were not even religious services until March 1889, and the Casper Weekly Mail noted that "while there are but a few of our adult male population that are ordinarily supposed to have souls (worth speaking of) to save, there are women and children."
By 1890, however, Casper had a population of 544, and regular church services. The population in Natrona County had also increased, with new towns at Bothwell near Independence Rock, Bessemer a few miles west of Casper, and Eadsville on Casper Mountain. The railroad had brought homesteaders into the county, and Casper was becoming an important shipping point for the railroad.
Oil Industry Beginnings
During 1889, another development had taken place in Natrona County -- one which, in time, would outdistance all other economic activity in the county. That year Philip Martin Shannon acquired petroleum claims in an area in northern Natrona County that would become known as the Salt Creek Oil Field. Shannon incorporated the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Company and commenced drilling for oil, striking it at 1,000 feet. The well produced about ten barrels per day, and Shannon proceeded to drill three more producing wells. After raising more capital, Shannon's company built a small refinery in 1894-1895, in Casper, capable of producing one hundred barrels of lubricating oil daily.
Lynching of “Cattle Kate” and Jim Averill
During 1889, another event occurred in Natrona County which still survives in the history of the county and state, although it had no enduring impact on either. On July 20, 1889, six ranchers and cowboys, led by big stockman Albert J. Bothwell, lynched homesteaders Ella Watson and James Averill on the bank of the Sweetwater River, near Independence Rock. Watson, a former prostitute and known in history as "Cattle Kate" because she was accused of being the leader of a gang of cattle thieves, was the only woman lynched in Wyoming. Watson and Averill had both filed their homestead entry claims, about a mile apart, in the middle of a vast tract of land that Bothwell used as open range. He and the other ranchers in the area had fought with Averill since he had filed his claim and opened his road ranch in 1886, and had included Watson in the quarrel when Averill brought her from a bawdy house in Rawlins to the Sweetwater to file her homestead claim, two years later.
Organizing Natrona County & 1st Elections
Organization of Natrona County began in February 1890 with the appointment of organizing commissioners by Governor Francis E. Warren. The commissioners, Bryant B. Brooks (elected Governor of Wyoming in 1904), Jacob E. Ervay, and George B. Mitchell, met on March 5, 1890, in Casper. They elected Brooks chairman, set April 8, 1890 as the date for a county election to choose a county seat and elect county and precinct officers, and established election districts and precincts.
The election was held April 8, and the votes were canvassed by the organ1z1ng commissioners on April 11. The results, as tallied, created a controversy in the county and a problem for the commissioners. Casper and Bessemer were the only candidates for the county seat. Casper, with a population of four hundred to five hundred residents, was considered by the county's citizens to be a sure winner, as Bessemer's population was only about two dozen hardy souls. Consequently, the organizing commissioners and witnesses to the canvas were astounded when the vote tally showed Casper with 296 votes and Bessemer with 667 votes. This was greater than the total population of Natrona County at the time. After recovering from the shock, the organizing commissioners ruled the Bessemer vote fraudulent and declared Casper the county seat of Natrona County.
The votes cast for the county's first elected officers were realistic, and the organizing commissioners issued election certificates. Natrona County's first elected officers were: S.A. Aggers, A. McKinney and J.P. Smith, county commissioners; Pete O'Malley, county clerk; John McGrath, county treasurer; W.W. Jaycox, county sheriff; George Mitchell, clerk of the district court; C. C. Wright, county attorney; Cordelia M. Chaney, county superintendent of schools; E.I. McGraugh, county assessor; A.P. Haynes, county coroner; and J.P. Bradly, county surveyor. Justices of the peace and constables were also elected.
On April 12, 1890, the new county commissioners met with the organizing commissioners in the law office of attorney Wright to take their oath of office. Following the swearing in, the commissioners accepted the oaths and bonds of the other newly elected county officers. They declared Natrona County duly organized and proceeded to conduct county business. The first item was to acquire space for county offices. The commissioners agreed to lease three rooms for county offices on the second floor, above Robert White's saloon, for 32 months at a cost of $450 annually, and accepted the offer of the mayor and council of Casper to use the town's jail for county prisoners and the town hall for district court sessions.
1st Courthouse Built
By 1895, Natrona County had outgrown the three rooms over the saloon, and the commissioners had learned that the noise that wafted upward from the ground floor was not particularly compatible to conducting the county's business. In May, the commissioners contracted for the construction of a two-story frame building, 24' by 36', to be covered with "seam iron," and to include an 8' by 12' brick vault. The courthouse, built in the same block in which Casper's town hall and town jail were located, was completed in June at a cost of about $500. The second floor of the new courthouse contained a courtroom, the judge's chamber, and the office of the clerk of court. All other county offices were on the ground floor, with the county continuing to use the town's jail for its prisoners.
Vigilante Justice
And the town's jail, in 1902, was the site of Natrona County's only experience with vigilante justice, an extravaganza of comic errors if it hadn't been tragic. Charles Woodward was a young, married homesteader, who, with his wife and brother, violated an unwritten code of the West-they stole all of the food supplies in an unlocked sheep wagon. Woodward and his wife were arrested by Sheriff W. C. (Charlie) Ricker, and charged. Woodward's brother fled and was never arrested. Woodward was held in jail to wait trial, but his wife was released. The sheriff considered the case insignificant, Woodward harmless, and, consequently, didn't maintain tight security, giving Woodward the opportunity to crawl through a window and escape. Still thinking Woodward to be harmless, Sheriff Ricker went after him, taking several teen-age boys and young men, looking for excitement, along for the ride.
The sheriff took his youthful posse to the Jack Pot Ranch near Woodward's homestead, believing that Woodward would go there. The lawmen settled into the empty and dark ranch house and waited for the escapee. Near midnight, noises were heard coming from the barn, and Charlie Ricker sent his posse to the back of the barn to prevent escape. He approached the main door to the barn, calling out greetings to Woodward and asking him to come out and surrender. There was a full moon that winter night and Sheriff Ricker was clearly illuminated. A shot rang out from the darkened barn, and the sheriff fell, mortally wounded. To make matters worse for himself, Woodward dashed from the barn and beat the dying sheriff on the head with his gun. He then grabbed the sheriff's pistol and money, leaped on a horse, and fled into the night.
The good citizens of Natrona County were angry and outraged over the murder, and particularly the beating of a dying man. When Woodward was brought back to Casper by train following his capture in Montana, the male citizens, in two columns, lined the boardwalk that Woodward and acting Sheriff W. E. Tubbs would have to walk on their way to the jail from the depot. Not a word was uttered as the prisoner passed between the two columns of men, but cold contempt and fury was clearly in their eyes and in the expressions on their faces.
Fortunately, the district court was in session or the angry citizens of the county might have taken revenge on Woodward immediately. Judge Charles W. Bramel quickly appointed defense attorneys for Woodward and scheduled his trial. Although it probably would have been impossible with the small population in Natrona County to have obtained jurors that were unbiased or hadn't known the popular sheriff, little effort was made in that direction. The people of the county wanted a speedy trial, a quick guilty verdict, and an equally quick hanging.
The trial was speedy, with the youthful members of Sheriff Ricker's posse testifying for the prosecution, and Woodward himself the only witness for the defense. Under questioning, he broke down sobbing and confessed, but claimed that he didn't intend to kill Ricker. He then begged for the mercy of the court. After the prosecutor and defense attorneys concluded their summary statements, the case went to the jury. Everyone in Natrona County expected a speedy guilty verdict, and astonishment reigned when the deliberations of the jury went on hour after hour. Soon, there were grumblings on the street that the jury, along with Woodward, should be lynched. The problem was one juror, a young cigar maker, who had conscientious objections to capital punishment. In his haste to swear in a jury, Judge Bramel had neglected to make clear that any prospective juror with conscientious objections to the death penalty would be excused. On the first ballot, to the shock of 11 jurors, the vote was 11 for conviction and the young cigar maker against. This went on indefinitely, with the young man standing firm by his convictions, despite continuing haranguing, threats, and pleading by his fellow jurors. Finally, as the end of the day neared and the county's citizens became more rowdy and boisterous in demanding a conviction -- many had spent the day waiting for the verdict in nearby saloons the conscientious juror gave in, and when the jury returned to the courtroom, the foreman, Casper Mayor Wilson S. Kimball, pronounced a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree.
In 1902, there was no such thing as pre-sentence investigations, and Judge Bramel promptly sentenced Woodward to die by hanging, but not before g1v1ng Woodward a long and eloquent sermon. A small part follows:
"When you have returned to the solitude of your prison, where you will be permitted to remain for a few short weeks, let me entreat you by all that is still dear to you in time, by all that is dreadful in the retributions of eternity, that you seriously reflect upon your present situation and upon the conduct of your past life. Bring to your mind the horror of that dreadful night, when the soul of the murdered sheriff was sent unprepared into the presence of his God, where you must shortly meet it as an accusing spirit against you."
Once he had finally concluded his oration, Judge Bramel set the date for Woodward's execution-- March 28, 1902. Apparently, the judge had been too occupied preparing his lecture to Woodward to check the date. March 28, in 1902 was Good Friday. The date of the pending execution went out on the news wires across the country, and the reaction was amazing. Suddenly, because Woodward's hanging was to take place on Good Friday, all of Christendom was focused on and condemning Wyoming and Natrona County. The state was a "Godless place" in the headlines from coast to coast, and Natrona County was a "heathen community." Letters of protest and outrage poured into Casper; editorials assailed the judge, the county and the state; and sermons, more righteous and more wordy than Judge Bramel's, were preached from pulpits in every state and territory.
Confronted by this national uproar, Judge Bramel hastily summoned the prosecutor and defense attorneys to a conference. The only legal solution to the problem was that a stay of execution be granted, and only the state supreme court could grant it. With the prosecutor agreeing not to oppose an appeal for a stay of execution, the papers were drawn, approved by the judge, and forwarded to the supreme court in Cheyenne. Recognizing that Wyoming's reputation was being hurt, the court responded at once and granted the stay.
By this time, one hopes that this comic tragedy has come to an end, with Charles Woodward being lawfully and orderly hung for his crime, and with little public notice and publicity. But it wasn't to be. Good Friday came and passed, but only by a few minutes when a group of masked and armed men pounded on the door of acting Sheriff Tubbs. When he responded, they overpowered him, tied him, and took the keys to the jail. Before going to the jail for Woodward, the masked men kidnapped A. J. Mokler, editor and publisher of the Natrona Tribune, and took him to the county's courthouse. They broke in, led Mokler to the second floor, roped him to a chair, and pushed the chair next to a window so he could see the gallows which had just been built for the legal execution of Woodward.
Through the bitter cold night and blowing snow, the lynch party proceeded to the jail. Except for a light cotton shirt, Woodward was naked, and he pleaded with the masked men to let him dress. They refused, telling him that where he was going he wouldn't need clothes, and led him out of the jail and through the swirling snow to the gallows. Half a dozen of the masked men mounted the gallows with Woodward. They got a rope around his neck, pulled it tight, and tied it to the cross bar. Woodward was crying out that he was being choked and pleading to be allowed to kneel and pray. He was ignored, and then the men shoved him on the trap door; but before it could be sprung, Woodward attempted to jump off of it, slipped on the icy boards, and fell over the side, with the hangman's noose around his neck.
According to Mokler's report in a 4:00 a.m. extra edition of the Natrona Tribune, "The body commenced to go through terrible contortions and a couple of the masked men caught hold of his feet and gave them several hard jerks. They then drew the body toward the north and letting loose the dangling and almost lifeless form of the wretched man swung back and struck the frame work of the gallows."
This was the end of Charles Woodward -- death by strangulation, the coroner's inquest ruled, and it was also the end of vigilante justice in Natrona County. Little effort was made to identify members of the lynch party and no charges were ever filed. At the time, the vigilantes were said to have been "ranchers," but long afterward stories circulated that the lynch party was mainly composed of Casper businessmen.
New County Courthouse
In 1906, Natrona County, having grown considerably in both population and taxable wealth, was petitioned by county citizens requesting that the county commissioners hold a special election so the electorate could authorize the commissioners to issue county bonds to raise funds which could be used to pay for a new county courthouse.
Heeding their constituents, the bond election was held, and the citizens of the county approved the issuance of $40,000 in county bonds to construct a new courthouse. The bonds were sold January 1, 1907, and Natrona County appeared well on its way to having a new and modern courthouse. Then, controversy developed.
The. first fight was over the site for the new courthouse. Three sites were proposed and each had its vociferous advocates. One site proposed was on South Wolcott Street, where the existing wooden courthouse was located; and the third site proposed was on North Center Street. This site was periodically flooded by the North Platte River, but its advocates argued that completion of Pathfinder Dam, some forty miles upstream, would control the flooding. A public hearing, with much arguing and accusation, was held, and only a minority of the county's citizens were pleased when the commissioners finally chose the North Center Street site.
The second controversy involved local architect, R.A. Randall, and his plan for the courthouse, which was accepted by the commissioners. The plan called for two stories and a basement with a dome on top. Both the first and second floors were to have four rooms -- two rooms on the second floor were to be allocated for the district courtroom -- with the county jail and sheriff's residence located in the basement of the building. The controversy concerned the layout of the first and second floors: citizens contended that the rooms were too small, or too large, for county offices and inadequate or unnecessary to meet the needs of the county. In time, some of the forecasts proved correct, but in 1907, the county commissioners considered the plan appropriate and accepted it.
The construction contract, awarded to Schmidt and Esmay of Douglas in the amount of $44,274, was cause for more citizen complaint. Despite the fact that Schmidt and Esmay's bid was the low bid, some county residents argued that it was too high, and others complained that the contract should have gone to a Natrona County firm. All of the controversy delayed the start of construction, but finally, on June 22, 1908, the cornerstone was laid by the Grand Master of Masons. The courthouse was completed in December of that year, and early in January 1909, Natrona County officers moved into their new quarters.
Combined City/County Facilities
Although the new courthouse was certainly adequate for Natrona County government in 1909, with the exception of the two rooms planned for courtroom use and never used for that purpose, within ten years the building barely met the county's needs. The culprit was oil and the automobile, abetted by World War I. Between 1910 and 1920, the demand for oil increased every year, and production in Natrona County kept pace officials that construction of new governmental facilities was vital. A joint plan was agreed upon by Casper and Natrona County: Casper would construct a new city hall to house most city departments; jointly, Natrona County and Casper would build a Hall of Justice for the city's police department, the county sheriff's department, jail facilities, and complete court facilities; and finally, Natrona County would remodel the city and county building to meet county government needs, and solely occupy the building as the Natrona County Courthouse.
By 1980, ten years before Natrona County would celebrate its centennial, all three phases of the agreed-upon building program were finished. The Casper City Hall was beautiful, modern and functional. The joint Hall of Justice, constructed to blend with the new city building in the city-county government complex, met all standards for criminal justice and provided spacious and useful facilities for the city and county court systems; and with the extensive remodeling completed, the Natrona County Courthouse was a pleasant combination of the architecture of half a century ago and current emphasis on functional efficiency.
With these excellent governmental facilities in place, the citizens of Natrona County are assured of effective county government for many years into the twenty-first century.
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