The Skeletons of Badwater Creek, Wyoming

 Badwater Creek in Central Wyoming holds many secrets along its path. Lost treasure, mysterious skeletons and even cries from deep in the earth. Join us as we explore the mysteries and horror hidden along the banks of Badwater Creek. 

 The Pioneers of Outlaw Country. 

Cowboys, Lawmen and Outlaws… to the businessmen and women who all helped shape Wyoming. 

Here are their stories

Welcome to the third season of Pioneers of Outlaw Country. We are exploring the stories along the Wind River Canyon Scenic By-Way in partnership with the Wyoming Department of Transportation. This section of Highway 20 is part of the Yellowstone Highway built in 1924. 

 Today’s tale has taken a rather spooky turn as we explore the Badwater Creek and the mysteries of the skeletons that have been found hidden beside it. 

 Badwater Creek flows west along the southern edge of the Bighorn Mountains in central Wyoming. Green cottonwoods and willows grow on its banks as it weaves its way through a varied landscape of broken, mountainous backcountry and sagebrush plains. This stream joins the Wind River as it gathers in what’s now Boysen Reservoir, crossing beneath the Wind River Canyon Scenic By-Way, north of the Town of Shoshoni.

 This creek earned its name from the tribes who had suffered a terrible fate along its banks. The usually placid stream was known to turn into a raging torrent at a moment’s notice. Oral history tells of the people and tepees who were tragically swept away in the flash flood. To warn their people of the danger, the tribes called the creek Badwater.

 In later years, settlers along Badwater agreed it was aptly named when they, too, were caught by surprise by flash floods when the quiet stream became a swift river. Newspaper accounts carried stories of the stream being dry for months before changing into a monster that drowned men, took out trains, destroyed bridges and flooded fields.  

 But this creek did more than flood its banks on unsuspecting victims. It also hid secrets along its path and mysteries of skeletons than may never be solved.

 In 1886, prospectors stumbled onto a horrifying scene. The story was told by the editors of the Laramie Weekly Boomerang on December 2, 1886 as they tried to piece together what horrible massacre had happened at a tributary of Badwater Creek. 

 Between the upper sources of the Badwater and the south fork of the Powder River is a tract of broken, mountainous country.

 In this tract, several of the tributaries of the Badwater take their rise. One of these tributaries has been known since 1872 as “Old Camp” Creek, from the fact that in the spring of the year, some hunters found on its banks a spot which had evidently been the scene of a camp during the greater portion of the preceding winter. A rude hut had been built, a temporary corral enclosed, and the marks of the presence of both men and horses for several months were plainly visible.

 But no trace could be found of the men or horses leaving the camp in the spring. No one frequenting the section had met any of the campers during the winter, and the matter gradually died out of remembrance, the name of “Old Camp” Creek being the only memento left of the mysterious winter sojourners amid the barren mountains of the Badwater.

 But a ghastly discovery a few weeks since has recalled the matter to the memory of old timers and created considerable excitement in the Badwater region.

 The old camp was located, just below where the stream on whose banks it was, issued from a rugged mountain canyon. This canyon was entered a few weeks ago by some prospectors and in its gloomy depths the ghastly discovery spoken of was made. While climbing along the rocky margin of the canyon, one of the prospectors displaced a huge stone which rolled down into the foaming waters below. Glancing at the spot from which the stone had rolled, he who had disturbed it, saw that it had uncovered a cavity in the rocky wall. Peering into this, the prospector was horrified to see a heap of human bones.

 Calling his comrades, the cavity, or rather cave, for it was of considerable size was entered. It was then found that the bones of at least three human beings were huddled together before them. The relics of poor humanity were carefully gathered up and removed to the outer air and light, and were found to consist of the remains of two men and a woman. Bullets had pierced all three of the skulls, and in addition the breast bone of the woman was cleft by a thrust from apparently a large and heavy knife. Nothing in the cave of death gave the slightest clue to the identity of the bodies, and the only conjecture to be formed was that the bones had once been clothed with the flesh of members of the party who had camped on the stream in the winter of ’71 and ’72. The prospectors dug a deep grave on the margin of the stream, within the sound of whose turbulent waters the bones had lain so long without the shelter of their mother earth and covered them up together.

 This tragedy of the frontier and the mountain will probably never be explained. Who these people were, where they came from, what was their object in seeking the wilds of the Badwater for a winter’s stay, how large was the party, what was the cause of the murder and whither the murderers, for there must have been more than one of the slayers, bent their steps after the commission of the crimes, are questions which will most probably never be answered.

 “Old Camp” Creek now issues from “Skeleton” Canyon, and these two names are all that can be written in memories of the victims who found a bloody fate in the wilds of the Badwater fourteen years ago.

 
Eight years after the discovery in Skeleton Canyon, another gruesome discovery was made.

 In May 1894, cowboys recently found the skeletons of twelve men in a quake-asp grove on Badwater. It was believed that they were soldiers since buttons from soldiers’ uniforms were found scattered about among the skeletons. These buttons were all that could be found to identify the skeletons as those of white men. Like the two men and woman from the cave, these men were never identified and their deaths remain a mystery.

 
Our last tale takes us into the twentieth century and to a family who were haunted by their discovery along the Badwater. 

In 1940, near this ill-fated creek, Oran, his wife, Catherine “Babe” Lichty and her son, Ray Frye, moved 18 miles northwest of Arminto, Wyoming. They were aware of the danger the peaceful stream could cause; however they were ignorant of another horror they would soon encounter. 

 Their homestead, known as the old Boston place, had no cellar so they decided to build one. It was early October 1940 and Oran hired Larson, a local sheepherder and prospector, to help. 15-year-old Ray was also recruited for the project that Oran predicted would take two or three days to dig with a slip and team of horses. 

 The place Lichty selected for the cellar was on the side of a slight rise near their log house. By tunneling directly into the side of the rise, and gouging out a “large notch,” a good-sized cellar room could be dug. Log timbers would be used to support the stringers across the top where the roof would be mounded above ground with dirt from the digging for insulation.

 The morning that Oran harnessed the horses to the slip for the digging of the new cellar, was described as such a fine morning on Bad Water that the birds in the cottonwoods along the creek found much to sing about. The rush of water rolling over the stones in the creek, held the promise of ample waters for irrigating the meadows already greening with spikes of native hay. The sun was warm and the wind held its breath, sighing only enough to rattle the dried rye grass at the edge of the road.

 Oran started his team and set the slip in motion. The slip, a scoop-shaped implement, raked and gathered the first load of bleached gumbo. Larson and Ray then hurried to the loaded slip and heaved it on edge, tipping it over as Oran released the catches. The two dumped the load of dirt, straightened the implement and waved for Oran to proceed. 

 Oran made another pass with the slip, hitting a few rocks which rolled down the gentle slope and out of the way. As the slip cut deeper into the bank, the clay soil became moist and more difficult to dig. The color was streaked with red, gray and yellow, but the men did not take time to admire the colors. They were too busy trying to drive the slip blade through the balling and packing clay.”

 Suddenly, Oran pulled up the horses, and his wife, who was watching from the cabin, could hear him yelling. She looked outside in time to see him waving his arms for the two to stop dumping the gumbo.

 The teenager and hired man stared at him for a moment and then the three of them dived into the pile of dirt and began pawing through it like “hounds after a badger!” 

Catherine dropped her dish towel and ran out.

 The Ruby Ring

 Oran called out to his wife, “I saw a ring. A ring with a big red stone. It gleamed in the sun as I drove the slip but before I could stop the team or say anything, Ray and Larsen dumped the slip right on top of it.”

Catherine dropped down on her hands and knees to join them, digging through the clods of gumbo for the mysterious red ring. But it had disappeared. 

 Oran believed that the ring was set with a sizable ruby because of the way it had shone in the sun Since he had considerable experience in mining, his assumption was likely to be correct.”

 They reluctantly gave up their futile search and resumed their work. Catherine returned to the kitchen, disappointed.

When Catherine glanced out her door to check on the progress of the project, she was surprised to see that work had stopped once more. She once again made her way to the work site.

The men were strangely quiet. Carefully, they moved soil away from an area which was blackened and different from the surrounding clay. The place appeared to have been burned. Catherine drew closer and before she could ask what was going on, her eyes were drawn to the blackened area again. There, before her lay a human skeleton!

Five arrowheads were scattered among the bones.

News had spread like wildfire through the community and the Casper Star Tribune reported on the find on October 8, 1940. 

“The skeleton was found about 100 yards east of the old Joe Moore place, now owned by Ernest Bostelman,” the editor wrote. “It was curled up and was about two and a half feet underground. A fire had been built over the grave, evidently to keep off marauding animals.

 “Five arrowheads were found among the bones, one of them a very fine specimen. The youth collected all the remains and had not yet decided what to do with them.”

 15-year-old Ray had fetched a cardboard box and the bones were placed within. He took the box into the cabin and over his mother’s protests slid the box of bones under his bed in the kitchen where he slept near the stove. 

 Neighbors kept wandering over to view the skeleton and hear the story of the flashing ruby ring. The work on the cellar became even slower.

 The neighbors wanted to “have a look” and marvel at the arrowheads in the bones. Old timers on the creek stared and tried to “remember back” to a time when Indians might have “done such a thing,” but most conceded that “that was all before my time.” 

 The first evening after the skeleton had been uncovered, the Licheys’ had to be away from the ranch. Ray was left alone to take care of the chores. 

 That night as he slept, something caused him to stir and set up in be. Something was fluttering over his head! His eyes flew open. 

Ghosts!

He blinked, then he made out his mother’s dish towels hanging across the wire over the stove where she always left them to dry after doing dishes. Yet the thought of the skeleton beneath his bed was a trifle too much for a fellow all alone in the still of the night.

 As the owls made their mournful call, Ray crept out of his bed and pulled the box of bones from their hiding spot. He carried the gruesome contents out into the night, crossing over the slippery rocks of Badwater Creek.  

He scrambled up the other side of the bank and, clutching the box to himself, trudged toward the barn. He climbed awkwardly up the ladder into the hayloft and shoved the box with its grisly bones into the rafters. He hurried back to bed, glancing with a sheepish grin at the towels hanging over the stove.

The skeletons remained in the box, tucked away in the barn rafter on Badwater. Every so often, someone would ask to “have another look” and the Lichteys would bring it out. 

A doctor later identified the skeleton as female and of the white race. 

The root cellar had been finally finished and Catherine set to work putting it to order.

One morning, in the gloom of her new root cellar, Catherine heard a soft sighing sound and then a moan. It was just the wind in the cellar vent, she thought. She continued arranging the jars on the shelves. The sighing grew louder. She shrugged away a certain nervous feeling and went up to the cellar steps for another load of canned goods.

In the bright morning sunlight, she realized that the wind was not blowing. She turned back to search the cellar with her flashlight thinking it was perhaps a wounded animal. There was no sound and no wounded animal. She stood there for a moment. The sighing began again, growing into a moan and then became distinct feminine sobbing.

Her husband and son were gone and she was alone with the eerie wailing. Wanting a witness, Catherine ran to get the neighbor, an old man who lived above the choke cherry thicket. He had a reputation for not tolerating nonsense.

The two of them returned to the new root cellar and descended the cellar steps. Shoulder to shoulder, they stood quietly in the dark and waited. 

Ghostly crying and soft moans soon pierced the darkness.

Catherine whispered hoarsely, “Do you hear that?”

“You bet I do! And I’m getting out of this dang-blasted place!” the old fellow responded, turning on his heel. He wasted no time in scaling the cellar steps despite his cane and age.

The crying and moans continued throughout the years, but the Lichtys never did determine the cause of the crying. Catherine refused to give up the use of her hard-won cellar and learned to live with the soft crying. 

Perhaps she later said, the ghost was mourning the loss of its arrow-ridden bones.

A few years later, the Lichtys moved away from Badwater. The root cellar has fallen back around the skeleton’s original resting place and, by the 1970s, it was no longer possible to enter.

The ghost has been left to mourn its lost arrow-ridden bones all alone.

The remaining resting place of these 16 skeletons has been lost to time and we may never know what caused their deaths over 200 years ago in Wyoming along the banks of Badwater Creek. 

As you travel over the bridge of Badwater on the Wind River Canyon Scenic By-Way, take a moment to remember these lost souls that lost their lives so tragically in the Wyoming Territory, leaving behind the mystery of not only their deaths but who they were. 

 Thank you for listening to Outlaws of Pioneer Country. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of this historic series. 

This program has been made possible through a partnership with the Wyoming Department of Transportation.

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This was a production of Legend Rock Media.