Oil City News23%
Caspar Collins Heritage Festival honors Casper’s namesake 67%
By Nick Perkins76%
7/19/2026, 5:00:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Anecdotal, and Availability Heuristic, with Post Hoc (False Cause) as the most egregious example at 27.5% saturation with 165 hits. Analysis detected 1,061 faulty-reasoning hits from 601 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 60.6% and a BS Rank of 67% (7,311 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 66.60% of the article peer group.
CASPAR, Wyo. — Caspar Collins was a lieutenant in the U.S.
Army, so the story goes (as told by Fort Caspar supervisor Steve Gainer).
“He’d only been here for a couple of days when he got the call and went across the bridge to, essentially, where Mills is,” Gainer shared.
“And he found a large band of Native Americans, one of whom was Crazy Horse, who was actually friends with him.
This is a little known fact.
Crazy Horse told his people, ‘Don’t harm him.’
Unfortunately, there were at least three tribes there: the Arapahoe, the Cheyenne, and the Lakota Sioux.
So he ran into some of the others, and that was the end of young Caspar.”
It was an effective story, one that was heard by attendees of the Caspar Collins Heritage Festival, which took place on Saturday, July 18 at the Fort Caspar Museum .
He did a lot with very little time and that, Fort Caspar says, is why we’re named after him.
“This [place] had been called Platte Bridge Station,” said Fort Caspar Museum curator Michelle Bahe.
“That’s what the army had called this.
So Lt.
Collins died and, as the army likes to do, they rename the place after fallen soldiers.
So they named this Fort Caspar, after his first name, because Fort Collins had already been named in what’s now Colorado, for his father.
So all of the maps were calling this place Fort Caspar. 25 years later, when the railroad comes to town, coming across this part of Wyoming, this is where it ends up being the end of the line, before they start building the next one.
This was the name on the maps; the place here had been called Fort Caspar, so that’s why they chose ‘Casper.'”
Caspar Collins achieved a lot in very little time, as a lieutenant in the army.
And that’s why he’s so important to our city’s history.
“He’s the namesake,” Bahe said.
“He’s why we remember this area of the Oregon California Mormon Pony Express Trail.
It’s just part of the communal history of the area.
These facts and more were all a part of the day’s festivities, which included living history presentations and demonstrations, including a pioneer camp, mountain men, Frontier Army soldiers, and Mormon handcart displays.
And horses.
There were horses, too.
Additionally, the day featured hands-on ranching experiences, historical games for children, a classic car display, food trucks, and more.
And horses.
Two gorgeous, studly horses.
Bahe said her favorite part of the day is seeking how people light up when they see what Fort Caspar has to offer.
“The stereotypical answer is seeing the kids,” she said.
“They get to see the horses.
And cavalry drills.
I was watching the kids on the spinners; they’re spinning wool.
So watching the kids as they see that process — ‘Oh, that’s how that happens’– and learning new things that they don’t get to see very often.
It’s just seeing the light in their eyes.
And it’s not just the kids, either.”
Several people came out on Saturday to get a little piece of history.
“It’s a great opportunity for families to come and embrace the history of our location, and understand why they should be proud of this place,” Gainer said.
“It’s an extraordinary location.
A great historical site.
And they got to interact with all of these wonderful tradespeople and craftspeople.
It’s just an all-around great family day.
This location is an all-around great family location.”
Pictures from the Caspar Collins Heritage Festival can be seen below:
Speakers
3speakers73%attributed speech162writer words
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100%flagged-word coverageFort Caspar
19 attributed words4.3% of attributed speech56% writer coverage
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