Devil's Gate

Tom Rea shared a chapter from his book, Devil’s Gate: Owning the Land, Owning the Story, in which he discusses alleged cattle rustlers Ella Watson and James Averell, who were lynched by a group of wealthy ranchers in 1889. In his book, the author explores how this event was reported in newspapers around Wyoming and how exaggeration and misinformation can become historical fact.

C-SPAN’s Local Content Vehicles (LCVs) made a stop in their “2014 LCV Cities Tour” in Casper, Wyoming, from July 6-10 to feature the history and literary life of the community. Working with the Charter Communications local cable affiliate, they visited literary and historic sites where local historians, authors, and civic leaders were interviewed. The history segments aired on American History TV (AHTV) on C-SPAN3 and the literary events/non-fiction author segments aired on BookTV on C-SPAN2. close