Wyoming
Little library lives again in Hudson, Wyoming
By Katie Klingsporn
HUDSON, Wyo. — The diminutive white building in this diminutive central Wyoming town might be mistaken for a home if not for the faded book drop outside and the large blue words adorning its front exterior wall: Yablonski Memorial Library.
Those letters, which are new, signify fresh life in a facility revived after a period of dormancy.
A group of volunteers called Hudson Community Heroes reopened the community library in late November after months of work. It will be open on Mondays from 2-6 p.m. for residents of this 435-person town near the Little Popo Agie River — and anyone else who wants to pop in.
In reviving the library, volunteers have also uncovered more about the former company town’s history of mining and labor.
Maralyne Middour and Susan Bronson launched the effort after realizing the library, which could be used as a community space for programs like the Girl Scouts, hadn’t been open for some time, Middour said. After asking around, they discovered the elderly woman who formerly managed it had been moved to a senior facility in Lander, leaving nobody at the helm.
“We were like, ‘this should be an asset for the community,’” Middour said. “‘This shouldn’t be something that’s shuttered.’”
Community libraries like Hudson’s aren’t typically government-funded and maintained, unlike their public counterparts. Instead, nonprofits or groups manage them.
The Hudson Community Heroes obtained permission from the town to run the library, but the task wasn’t as simple as opening the doors. The building had been neglected, Middour said, and a significant amount of decluttering, organizing and cleaning was in order.
“When we walked in here for the very first time, you couldn’t really tell what it was,” she said. “I mean, it looked so cluttered. It was so full of stuff. And there was definitely a spider and centipede infestation.”
Now, books, DVDs and puzzles line the shelves in orderly rows. The collection includes authors from CJ Box to Charles Dickens and the prolific Clive Cussler — whose books fill an entire shelf. Many items can be borrowed on the honor system.
Middour, who is a keen history buff, was also able to reconstruct some of the history of the town and its library. When the project started, she heard a couple different accounts of why it was called the Yablonski Library, she said. After some digging, she discovered the building was formerly the United Mine Workers of America Union Hall. “So that was the original intended purpose of this building.”
In 1974, a group of women called the Hudson Hudsonettes negotiated the union hall property’s transfer to the town of Hudson to be maintained in perpetuity as a library in memory of the Yablonski family, Middour said, “and that’s how it became the Yablonski Memorial Library.”
Joseph “Jock” Yablonski was a labor leader in the United Mine Workers in the 1950s and ‘60s known for demanding better working conditions. Along with his wife and adult daughter, Yablonski was brutally murdered on New Year’s Eve in 1969 in his Pennsylvania home by men hired by a union president he had challenged in an election. After his death, Jablonski became known as a hero for workers in union circles. Cillian Murphy is reportedly playing Yablonski in an upcoming film about the labor leader’s life.
When they began going through the library’s materials, Middour found a framed piece of children’s art. It was labeled on the back as “Portrait of Joseph Yablonski.” She opened the frame and found a photograph of the man behind the art.
The whole experience, Middour said, is a good example of how history can slip away.
“If a couple of generations go by and certain stories aren’t passed along, it’s like history’s just lost,” she said.
Middour and her husband moved to Fremont County from Natrona County in the ‘90s. As she’s driven through Hudson over the decades, she’s watched as businesses have closed and the town has grown quieter. She hopes the library helps in a way to keep the town — which at its peak was home to 1,500 people, including immigrants from many European countries — vibrant.
This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
Much of Wyoming outside of Yellowstone and Grand Teton also struggles with emergency response time.
By Katie Klingsporn, WyoFile
Wyoming’s U.S. Sen. John Barrasso is pushing legislation to upgrade emergency communications in national parks — a step he says would improve responses in far-flung areas of parks like Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.
“This bill improves the speed and accuracy of emergency responders in locating and assisting callers in need of emergency assistance,” Barrasso told members of the National Parks Subcommittee last week during a hearing on the bill. “These moments make a difference between visitors being able to receive quick care and continue their trip or facing more serious medical complications.”
The legislation directs the U.S. Department of the Interior to develop a plan to upgrade National Park Service 911 call centers with next-generation 911 technology.
Among other things, these upgrades would enable them to receive text messages, images and videos in addition to phone calls, enhancing their ability to respond to emergencies or rescues in the parks.
Each year, rangers and emergency services respond to a wide range of calls — from lost hikers to car accidents and grizzly maulings — in the Wyoming parks’ combined 2.5 million acres.
Outside park boundaries, the state’s emergency service providers also face steep challenges, namely achieving financial viability. Many patients, meantime, encounter a lack of uniformity and longer 911 response times in the state’s so-called frontier areas.
Improving the availability of ground ambulance services to respond to 911 calls is a major priority in Wyoming’s recent application for federal Rural Health Transformation Project funds.
Barrasso’s office did not respond to a WyoFile request for comment on the state’s broader EMS challenges by publication time.
The bill from the prominent Wyoming Republican, who serves as Senate Majority Whip, joined a slate of federal proposals the subcommittee considered last week. With other bills related to the official name of North America’s highest mountain, an extra park fee charged to international visitors, the health of a wild horse herd and the use of off-highway vehicles in Capitol Reef National Park, Barrasso’s “Making Parks Safer Act” was among the least controversial.
What’s in it
Barrasso brought the bipartisan act along with Sens. Angus King (I-Maine), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.).
The bill would equip national park 911 call centers with technological upgrades that would improve and streamline responses, Barrasso said. He noted that hundreds of millions of visitors stream into America’s national parks annually. That includes more than 8 million recreation visits to Wyoming’s national parks in 2024.
“Folks travel from across the world to enjoy the great American outdoors, and for many families, these memories last a lifetime,” he testified. “This is a bipartisan bill that ensures visitors who may need assistance can be reached in an accurate and timely manner.”
The Park Service supports Barrasso’s bill, Mike Caldwell, the agency’s associate director of park planning, facilities and lands, said during the hearing. It’s among several proposals that are “consistent with executive order 14314, ‘Making America Beautiful Again by Improving our National Parks,’” Caldwell said.
“These improvements are largely invisible to visitors, so they strengthen the emergency response without deterring the park’s natural beauty or history,” he said.
Other park issues
National parks have been a topic of contention since President Donald Trump included them in his DOGE efforts in early 2025. Since then, efforts to sell off federal land and strip park materials of historical information that casts a negative light on the country, along with a 43-day government shutdown, have continued to fuel debate over the proper management of America’s parks.
Several of these changes and issues came up during the recent National Parks Subcommittee hearing.
Among them was the recent announcement that resident fee-free dates will change in 2026. Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth will no longer be included in those days, but visitors won’t have to pay fees on new dates: Flag Day on June 14, which is Trump’s birthday and Oct. 27, Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday.
Conservation organizations and others decried those changes as regressive.
At the hearing, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), assured the room that “when this president is in the past, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth will not only have fee-free national park admission, they will occupy, again, incredible places of pride in our nation’s history.”
Improvements such as the new fee structure “put American families first,” according to the Department of the Interior. “These policies ensure that U.S. taxpayers, who already support the National Park System, continue to enjoy affordable access, while international visitors contribute their fair share to maintaining and improving our parks for future generations,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in an announcement.
WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
Wyoming
Evacuations spread from fires in South Dakota, Wyoming due to strong winds from coast-to-coast storm
CLIMATE TECH: As wildfires grow stronger, faster, and more expensive, a California-based startup is taking a high-tech approach to fight these fires using autonomous drones designed to extinguish flames before they turn deadly. Founder & CEO Stuart Landesberg joins FOX Weather to discuss Seneca’s firefighting drones.
Large, fast-moving fires are causing evacuations in South Dakota and Wyoming due to the impacts of a coast-to-coast storm.
The FOX Forecast Center said winds have been gusting up to 70 mph in the Pennington County, South Dakota area, which has caused the wildfire to spread rapidly.
COAST-TO-COAST STORM CAUSES TRAVEL ISSUES DUE TO HURRICANE-FORCE WINDS, HEAVY RAIN ACROSS NORTHWEST
The blaze, known as the Greyhound Fire, is approximately 200 acres in size. The fire is burning two to three miles south of Keystone and is moving east, according to the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office.
The Greyhound Fire in South Dakota spans 200 acres.
(FOX Weather / FOX Weather)
Highway 40 and Playhouse Road are closed as crews work to contain the fire.
People living along the highway between Playhouse Road and Rushmore Ranch Road have been evacuated, officials said.
TWO KIDS WAITING FOR THE BUS CRITICALLY INJURED DUE TO STRONG WINDS IN IDAHO
Crews are asking anyone in an evacuation zone to leave the area. Officials are advising people in the area to check the Pennington County Public Safety Hub.
A grass fire has caused evacuations in the Winchester Hills section of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
(FOX Weather / FOX Weather)
People in the Winchester Hills area of Cheyenne, Wyoming, have also been evacuated due to a grass fire.
The FOX Forecast Center said winds are gusting up to 75 mph in the area.
The National Weather Service has issued a Fire Warning and says there is a shelter at South High School for evacuated residents.
Check for updates on this developing story.
The University of Wyoming filed a lawsuit this week seeking $2.5 million from an energy company it partnered with to research enhanced oil recovery.
The university in 2024 signed a contract with Houston-based ACU Energy to advance research at the university’s Center of Innovation for Flow Through Porous Media, according to the university’s complaint filed Monday in Wyoming’s U.S. District Court. ACU Energy agreed to pay the university $15 million over the six-year research period. The company, according to the complaint, was to pay the university $2.5 million annually with two payments each year.
While the university kept up its end of the bargain — by assembling a research team, training research members and incurring costs to modify laboratory space — ACU Energy “failed to pay the University even a cent owed under the Agreement, leaving $2,500,000 outstanding in unpaid invoices,” the complaint alleges.
ACU Energy did not respond to a WyoFile request for comment before publication.
The company notified the university in February that it was terminating the contract, and the university notified ACU Energy in May of its breach of contract, according to court filings. The university asked the court for a jury trial.
Enhanced oil recovery refers to methods used to squeeze more crude from reservoirs that have already been tapped for primary production, extending the life of an oilfield.
The university commonly accepts money from private businesses in return for lending resources and expertise to advance research. The Center of Innovation for Flow Through Porous Media is part of the university’s Research Centers of Excellence in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences.
The Center of Innovation for Flow Through Porous Media, led by Mohammad Piri, a professor of petroleum engineering, bills itself as “the most advanced oil and gas research facility in the world.” The center conducts research at the university’s High Bay Research facility, which “is funded by $37.2 million in state dollars and $16.3 million in private contributions, with an additional $9.2 million in private gifts for research equipment,” according to the center’s website.
The center has received donations from oil industry heavyweights like ExxonMobil, Halliburton and Baker Hughes.
Piri was tapped to serve as “principal investigator” for the UW-ACU Energy partnership, according to the university’s complaint. As of press time, ACU Energy had not filed a response to the lawsuit.
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