The New American Digest

Rock Springs, Wyoming is/was the site of large coal deposits, first discovered by Americans in the 1850s. Nothing much was made of it – the pioneer routes were 40 or 50 miles north.

In the 1860s, Ben Holladay set a stage station at a site near potable water springs (“rock springs”) when he moved the Overland Stage Route south; the beginnings of a settlement.

The Union Pacific side of the transcontinental railroad passed through here in 1868, noting the extensive coal deposits as a fuel source. The UP built a coaling depot along with freight and passenger stations here in 1868. Rock Springs became a town.

The original passenger depot was replaced with the current structure in 1900 which saw its last passenger train in 1997. But this isn’t a story about railroads or coal mines.

Down on Main St in old town Rock Springs Wyoming, right across from the railroad station, sits the old Fountain Club saloon. Once a hangout of Butch Cassidy’s along with a variety of people passing through when the train stopped here – among them, Calamity Jane. She didn’t live here but, being a known drunkard with the Fountain Club directly across from the train station; a handy spot for a quick one while the train was readied for its next leg of the journey.

(Butch Cassidy picked up the name “Butch” when he worked at a butcher shop across the tracks on Front St. It’s not inconceivable the Wild Bunch gang had its beginnings at this bar in 1896 after Butch was released from prison (when Butch was 30). The gang occasionally frequented the bar when they were in the area. It’s been said by some, including his sister, that Butch did not die in South America but returned here to his home in Rock Springs.)

[As a personal note, in 1980 I had occasion to meet an elderly woman in Doyle, California when my girlfriend of the time started talking with this woman. Said woman claimed her husband had worked for Butch Cassidy as a stable hand when a boy sometime around 1910-1915 in Nevada and insisted Butch Cassidy did not die in South America.]

But Butch Cassidy is not this tale. There actually isn’t a tale …

The building left of the Fountain Club is the old National Bank building, built 1892. The larger building to the right was also a bank, the First National Bank built in 1887. It has been lost to time when the Fountain Club was built but probably a bit earlier than the banks. The 1892 National Bank building is abandoned now but the company is still in business in Rock Springs. The 1st National Bank underwent corporate and name changes; the company was shut down in 2000. the building is being renovated.

The Fountain Club building’s in sad shape now – perhaps beyond restoration. This was the core of the original town but over the years, much of modern Rock Springs has built to the east of this part of the historic district – which, other than a block or two along Main St, is mostly empty with a few modern commercial buildings. Front St on the other side of the tracks from Main St, has some historic buildings still standing but for the most part, they’ve been “modernized”.

Going over many of my photos taken over the years, some “themes” become obvious. One of those is “roads”. Bare trails through dusty sage, bustling multi-lane highways through busy urban centers.

Y’all can probably guess which is predominate in my collection …

This one here splits the difference: I-80 in Nevada.

Now – of more interest to me … if one looks just left of the center, a thin dark trail heads up into the mountains.

I couldn’t estimate the number of times I’d have gotten off the highway to see where that road goes. More often than not, nowhere in particular.

But every so often … when the phase of the moon is right … when I hold my tongue in the proper position … I run into something from places long abandoned of times even longer past.

I breathe easy … and I kind of feel at home.


But this … this wasn’t one of those times; my journey to wherever continued.

A few up-to-the-minute headlines in today’s local news.

And that’s today’s big news from the big city …

When attempting to design printed templates – say a book, or presentation, or web page, it is not uncommon for the reviewer to be distracted by the text and overlook the layout itself. Lorem ipsum is used as a placeholder as it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters which looks like readable English but is itself unreadable.

The invention of the moveable-type printing press sometime around 1450 ended the practice of hand-writing books. Up until that time, there were perhaps only a few thousand books in existence in all of Europe. While the first printed book (perhaps) was Gutenberg’s Bible in 1455, there were more than 9,000,000 books in existence by 1500. For the first 100 years, the process of producing books was more or less a free-for-all. After about 1550, the printing process became standardized for the most part.

In the earliest days, many if not most books were printed in Latin, the language of the educated at the time – undeniably the influence of the church of those days.

In order to appeal to customers, printers used a “dummy text” to illustrate different fonts for books. As Latin was the language of the day, the dummy text used was a fragment of Latin prose. This practice died away as printing became standardized and printing languages shifted from Latin to local dialects.

Time passes …

In the 1960s, an advertising company used Lorem ipsum as filler text for advertising blanks. This allowed typesetters to be able to produce mock-ups quickly by simply replacing the text on pre-formatted copy.

About 1980, when PageMaker software was developed for desktop publishing, Lorem ipsum was used as a placeholder for developing page layout. Microsoft Word adopted the practice and now its use has become wide-spread.

Thought to be random Latin words, an America professor of Latin in 1982 traced the text to a 45BC work by Cicero: De finibus bonorum et malorum (“On the Ends of Good and Evil”). Lorem ipsum is a corrupted version of Cicero’s treatise.

Written in 45BC by Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum is a philosophical work consisting of five books in which he explores competing theories of ethics, a popular topic during the renaissance. Lorem Ipsum is derived from Book 1 in which Cicero presents the Epicurean philosophy that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the highest goods.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

“Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system. On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue.”

There’s more – much more … five books worth.
The books are available on-line (isn’t everything?) at https://www.loc.gov/item/unk82083889/

First published by Jean Oct 25, 2012

it’s a tap dance with
no rhythm.
it’s a waltz
counting 3-2-1.
no square dance has
four corners.
the tango isn’t
done with one.
the two-step is
out of step.
the last dance
will always be
ashes, ashes
we all fall down.
trying doesn’t
feel like doing.
even the leaves
don’t make sense.
when they dance 
down the street
it sounds like rain.