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Thursday, December 26, 2024

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Advocates urge broader clemency despite Biden's death row commutes; Bald eagle officially becomes national bird, a conservation success; Hispanic pastors across TX, U.S. wanted for leadership network; When bycatch is on the menu.

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The authors of Project 2025 say they'll carry out a hard-right agenda, voting rights advocates raise alarm over Trump's pick to lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and conservatives aim to cut federal funding for public broadcasting.

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From the unprecedented election season to the latest environmental news, the Yonder Report looks back at stories that topped our weekly 2024 newscasts.

WY historic sites capitalize on Halloween

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Monday, October 14, 2024   

Halloween is a busy time of year for some of Wyoming's historical sites, where staff throw thematic events to help fund programming for the rest of the year.

In October, Wyomingites can experience their state's history in new ways - like paranormal investigations at Fort Caspar, and a haunted evening tour of the Wyoming Frontier Prison in Rawlins.

That prison served as the state penitentiary between 1901 and 1981, during which Historic Site Director Tina Hill said nearly 14,000 people served time.

"When you go through the 80 years of history here," said Hill, "you see how the people who lived in Wyoming thought about crimes, and punishment, and the penal system. And so you can kind of see how things evolved."

In the 1950s, the concept of rehabilitation spread through the penal system - and with it, Hill says, gymnasiums, libraries and classes.

Now, the site is on the National Registry of Historic Places, and about 15,000 people tour it each year.

Northeast of the prison at Fort Caspar, Halloween visitors can use infrared thermometers, laser grids and more on the site's ghost investigations tours.

Aside from the fort's paranormal activities, museum Director Rick Young said it's on a historic migration corridor.

"Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer, Pony Express trails," said Young. "We had a ferry crossing at our location. We had a bridge crossing at our location. It was a Pony Express station. And then it became a military fort."

These days, the site has a central Wyoming history museum and a park.

The historic fort buildings are furnished as they would have been in 1865, the year of two battles there and when the site was formally named Fort Caspar.





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