Bad Day at Shoshoni Siding

In 1889 rancher Bryant B. Brooks guided a party of hunters on a six week trip by horseback from Casper to Dubois. Afterward he wrote, "Do you know about the 150 mile stretch between Casper and Lander? If not you have missed nothing."

Seven decades later nothing much had changed, except people could drive the distance or take the train.

We can assume the soldier, being young, untraveled, and from the Deep South, had never before stared out a train window for hours without seeing anything green. He likely never stared out without seeing . . . anything. The dry Wyoming hills ran off to the horizon, where they sometimes disappeared into the shadows of distant mountain ranges. Outcrops of weathered sandstone relieved the eye now and then. Hundreds of square miles of sage brush grew under an immense dome of pale blue, yielding infrequent glimpses of human presence.

His khaki uniform, distinguished only by a single stripe on the sleeve and a parachute qualification badge, was rumpled. Like him, it had a strong smell after four days and three nights riding in coaches. But the trip would end soon. The orders he carried, signed by his commanding officer, declared he would be met at the railroad station at Shoshoni, Wyoming.

Neither he nor his CO were aware that the railroad, when it ended passenger service to Riverton and Lander, abandoned Shoshoni as well. Shoshoni Siding, several miles from the town itself, existed primarily as the location where the main track, west bound from Casper, turned north through Wind River Canyon into the Big Horn Basin. Shoshoni Siding was nothing but a single building, a small brown passenger station boarded up and padlocked, in a vast emptiness. Trains stopped there; but only by special arrangement.

 When remembering that day I’ve wondered what apprehensions the tired young soldier felt as the air brakes hissed and the line of cars shuddered to a halt. Two vehicles waited next to the empty station. Three people stood beside the sedan, an older couple who were probably the parents and a young man his age. Two gentlemen wearing dark suits and ties stood next to the hearse.

The young soldier said later he hadn’t known my cousin, Jim Ridgeway, that well. Jim was just a big cheerful kid in the same mortar platoon at Ft. Bragg, with a crooked grin and dedicated to partying. Others hesitated when the First Sgt. asked for a volunteer to serve as escort. So the young soldier quickly raised his hand. A paid trip to the Wild West would be a welcome break from training.

In 1957 young men who were drafted into the Army did not lose their lives in wars in distant lands. But they sometimes died in dumb accidents on military bases at home.

PFC Jim Ridgeway, 1937-1957

(Don M. Ricks photo)

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