Thirty years before Carrie Nation wielded her hatchet in Kansas saloons, two army officers in Wyoming struck blows for prohibition at a place called Whiskey Gap.

The year was 1862 and the Overland Stage line management had wearied of Indian harassment along their "north route." All along the way from Fort Laramie to South Pass, the stage company had problems. A new route through northern Colorado, across the Laramie Plains and then west to the Green River would join up with the old trail near present-day Granger. Indian troubles would be avoided.

Moving the personnel, supplies and horses from the old stations to the new ones would pose a problem, the managers reasoned, because the Indians could easily take advantage of the slow moving contingents. The army, asked to provide escorts for the stage companies, sent one detachment of troops from the 11th Ohio Cavalry to escort the men, equipment and animals from the old Devils Gate Station to their new stage stop further south.

Recent difficulties with hostile Indians caused a number of emigrants to join the group moving south to safer quarters. Among them was a "purveyor" of whiskey, or so Major John O'Ferrell, the commander of the detachment, was told after the first day's march.

The troops were 11 miles from Devils Gate and had chosen a campsite at a gap in the mountains where a fine spring flowed into a small pond. Plenty of wood was available nearby for cooking purposes.

The major, after discovering that a number of his men were drunk, ordered the officer of the day, Lt. W. H. Brown, to find the culprit who was selling the "fire water." Brown, a Marylander who later served in the Civil War then raging in the East, ordered a four-man detail to conduct a search of all wagons.

The last wagon the troops checked held the contraband whiskey barrel. C. G. Coutant in his "History of Wyoming," describes the rest of the incident" "The officer at once ordered his men to roll the barrel out, knock in the head and empty the contents on the ground.

"This was done, but it chanced that the spot where they whiskey was emptied was just above the spring, and the fiery liquid went pouring down into the water supply for the camp. The soldiers saw what was going on and they rushed forward with cups, canteens, buckets and camp kettles to save what they could of the whiskey.

"Those who were without the wherewith to hold the liquor stamped their bootheels in the ground and caught the whiskey in the hole, and lying down drank it."

Soon after the whiskey was dumped, most of the command was unable to "navigate" properly. The major, concerned that an attack on the camp was possible from the Indians, was not amused when one of his soldiers assured him with a "hic" that the water was the best he had ever tasted.

By morning the men had slept off the liquor and, fortunately, the Indians had not taken advantage of their condition during the night. The detachment continued on south from the site they called "Whiskey Gap" and two weeks after the whiskey incident, they founded Fort Halleck near Elk Mountain.

Located about 25 miles east of Jeffrey City near Muddy Gap, Whiskey Gap is remembered as "the first official raid and probation enforcement of record" some three decades before Carrie Nation took her hatchet against "demon rum."

In the middle 1950s, with the advent of radioactivity and the government's efforts to apply atomic power to "peaceful" purposes, several enterprising Wyomingites started their own businesses based on the principles of "safe" radioactivity. One company advertised "radioactive ore bags" while another sold radioactive pillows. Still another marketed samples of low-grade uranium attached to a certificate swearing to its authenticity.

At about the same time, federal health officials were becoming more familiar with the dangers of high levels of radioactivity on humans and animals. Yet, other federal agencies continued to authorize and sanction underground atomic tests, many in the deserts of Nevada. Winds carried clouds of the fallout far from the test sites including across many parts of Wyoming from October 1951 to the summer of 1962. In recent years, some scientists and writers have accused the government officials of delaying underground tests until such times as high-altitude winds were blowing away from the more populous areas in the Southwest and the Pacific Coast. To the "downwinders" in parts of southern Utah and eastern Washington, the fallout from these nuclear tests brought higher cancer rates and greater health problems for area residents. Federal health officials from the U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare investigated the wide variety of non-medical, unscientifically documented consumer health products being advertised as deriving their medical properties from doses of radioactivity.

Nonetheless, in some parts of America, radioactivity was still viewed as entirely harmless - indeed, even as beneficial in day-to-day uses. Shoe stores throughout the country (and in Wyoming as well) often featured "x-ray" devices that would utilize radioactivity to determine the fit of a pair of shoes on a customer's foot. Owners of uranium mines promoted the benefits of prolonged exposure for cures of diseases ranging from aching joints to sinus trouble. Sometimes exposure was more incidental. For instance, when tourists quietly removed pieces of petrified logs from the "petrified forest sites" in central Wyoming, most probably did not realize that the petrified wood often contained very high levels of radioactive materials. It is difficult to know what health problems may have developed for those stealing the logs from public lands (and denuding whole areas of the natural wonder) and keeping those "rocks" in their homes as parts of living room fireplaces or backyard decorations.

"I have prepared a uranium radioactive ore bag, using the uranium oxide ground up so that you may sleep with it in your bed," read the advertising for the Cody Uranium Bag Company. The owner guaranteed buyers that "there [is] no wearing out of the strength of the rays given off from one. (Lasts Forever)." While treatable ailments were not specified, the advertisement implied great health benefits would come from using the product.

The advertisement further assured potential customers that the bag "does not interfere with your sleeping comfort." It even could be left "in your bed during the daytime," the advertising circular pointed out. "It has never been known to cause any distress or harm to persons, many thousands of miners working in uranium mines getting ore out have never derived any harm from the rays of this ore," the ad copy asserted. Cost was $10 per bag. "Try this bag on a Geiger counter and see the counter work," the ad concluded.

Even though little was publicly known of the dangers of radioactivity and its carcinogenic qualities, federal officials seemed sufficiently concerned that the U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare sent investigators.

An agency report revealed that "radioactive pillows" were being sold from a shoe store in Powell. In the case of the Powell shoe store, the reports came back that the shoe store was selling the radioactive pillows, but they came without any "printed or written information."

Reports from federal health field investigators reveal that laboratory tests were made on a number of these products. Some readings seemed quite high while others, like the Powell pillow "has little radio activity, probably of the lowest commercial grade of ore."

For the Cody-based uranium ore bag company, however, health officials seemed more concerned. The agency launched investigations trying to locate shipments made by truck or rail express from the firm's Cody headquarters. After checking with various local shippers, apparently the agency concluded that few of the items actually had been sold in interstate commerce. In the case of railway express, the investigator noted, "the last shipment was handled about four months ago."

Did health officials simply allow the marketplace to act or were further actions taken? Nothing is revealed from the records held in the vertical file materials in the Wyoming State Archives about what might have happened to the various "radioactive" products being marketed in the Big Horn Basin area in the middle 1950s. Presumably, few of the pillows and bags were sold. Nonetheless, the fleeting episode provides an interesting window on how Americans felt about radioactivity in the 1950s at the dawn of the atomic age and in the depths of the Cold War.

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