WLM | art
WLM: What is your personal history in Wyoming? WLM: How did you go about researching the areas?
JH: I came to Wyoming right after college graduation in fall 1967
(yes! this year will mark a golden anniversary of sorts!) to attend
Law School in Laramie. All of my small-town Iowa classmates were
all headed out to the bright lights/big cities; while I trended in the
opposite direction. And I’m glad I did. The law school thing didn’t
pan out; but I stayed and taught grade school in La Barge and Rock
Springs, with one year between as teacher and sheriff of a one
room, eight student school in isolated rural Nevada. Then I worked
in extension in Laramie and Lander, and completed my Masters at
UW in 1974, exploring practically every corner of the great state on
weekends and every chance I could get. Then I moved on to complete
a doctorate, teach in half a dozen states, explore Arctic Canada, and
twice live in Rio de Janeiro. JH: I researched the background of the story sitting in the busy news
office in Newcastle, reading the old papers from 1903 all nicely
archived on high shelves behind the editor’s desk. I also talked to local
historians in the town, searched the collection of the splendid historical
museum, and explored the layout of the different locales. Several
other big events occurred in Newcastle and Weston County in 1903,
in addition to the early-November “battle”: a gruesome murder and
subsequent gruesome lynching, as well as a visit and speech by the
sitting president of the day, Theodore Roosevelt, that was treated like
something of a homecoming.
WLM: What piqued your interest in the Newcastle, Black Hills & Fort
Laramie areas?
JH: I had only visited Northeast Wyoming on one previous occasion,
but read somewhere that the last battle against Sioux Indians in the
state (the “Battle of Lightning Creek”) took place in 1903 - which
seemed incredible, given that the Plains Indian wars ended a whole
generation before. So I had to check that out -- and what I discovered
seemed like a great background for a good story, based on the
unlikelihood and, really, injustice of what apparently happened.
WLM: What other works have you published?
JH: I have published nine books now, all of which can be found
under my name on amazon.com, and a tenth is due to be released
soon. These include a two volume history of Brazil, a work on US
history, a political satire, a paranormal fiction, and a novel set in Iowa
Territory and pre-territorial days in the 1830s. A book I’m starting now
has to do with US intervention in the early Soviet Union at the end
of WWI.
Wyoming is still my favorite state, I treasure of all my adventures there
as a young man, and I wouldn’t at all mind living there again. WL M
WLM: What historical events are your book based on? Which of your
characters are nonfictional, and which are fictional?
JH: About half of the characters in my story were very real people,
whom I researched and portrayed as accurately as I possibly could. The
other half are invented to make my storyline work. The villain in my
book, “Martin,” didn’t actually exist, and his rather obtrusive presence
may ruffle some feathers - just as the fictional character Matt Dillon
must have upset historical purists in Dodge, Kansas when Gunsmoke
began. In my case, “Martin” represented some antisocial tendencies
I think might have been present, along with genial and productive
ones, in virtually every town. “Martin’s” disruptive presence served
to help explain what must have happened in Newcastle and vicinity
to produce the sad turn of events that took place at the end of the
book’s target year.
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