Big Horn Coal Company, Bigger Trucks

Looking back thirty-three ago to 1973 it's hard to believe that the internet wasn't even imagined, cell phones belonged in comic books, and long distance calls were super expensive, but in larger cities you could get Kodak overnight processing of Kodachrome (or Ektachrome). Kodak would pick up and deliver to select dealers every day and fly the film and finished slides city to city at no extra charge. Kodachrome was some gorgeous stuff! Light will eventually fade it, but stored long term in the dark it keeps the magic.

We were on our tour of The Great American West, staying with the Kehrwalds, friends of friends, that lived in Sheridan, Wyoming at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains. The Big Horn Coal Company operated the world's largest open pit mine,and the coal was hauled in these trucks. Everything was oversized, HUGE, like this truck which is way too big to drive on the public highways but just used to get the coal to the rail head, the place where the trains bring the cars to be filled. Those tires are about 6 or 7 feet in diameter and a couple of feet wide! The bulldozers that dug the coal were equally oversized.

Dick Kehrwald had a combination photo studio/camera shop in Sheridan. My Miami friend, photographer Bob Greger, had been living there for a year. I've never seen the Kehrwalds since then although I've talked with Dick on the phone a few times. I have no idea what happened to Bob.