Historical Note - Week of March 27th

The Livingston Enterprise, April 2, 1887

Cooke Correspondence.

EDITOR ENTERPRISE: Noticing an article in your paper of the 12th inst. Wherein a certain individual, signing himself D.W.R., says (among other facts and fiction) that the wagon road from Gardiner to Cooke is in splendid condition, and that it is a pleasure to travel over it, and that Mr. J.A. Clark is taking passengers, going and coming, constantly, etc., I beg leave to contradict the same. I do not know who D.W.R. is (although he claims to be a citizen of Cooke), but whoever he may be, I deem it my duty, in justice to the public at large, and especially to those who are contemplating a visit to our camp, to say that D.W.R. is either a natural born fool or else he has an ambition to make himself out a willful and infernal liar; for it is a positive fact that there has not been a single man (or, for that matter, a married man, either), woman or child, going or coming from or to Cooke, since the first of January 1887, except on snow shoes, or leather shoes, calfskin gaitors, silken slippers, buckskin moccasins, woolen stockings, California socks, or bare feet. As far as Mr. J.A. Clark is concerned, I can only say that he is not responsible for the bad condition of the road, for there is not a human being in existence who could have made any reasonable improvement upon it up to the present time. If you can find space in your appreciated paper to publish the foregoing, you will confer a favor upon the undersigned and many other citizens of Cooke.

Very respectfully,

H. GASSERT.

Interviewing J.A. Clark, who is in the city, in regard to the above, he stated that the road has been open for teams to Soda Butte all winter, but since the first of January he has operated a toboggan from Soda Butte to Round Prairie, nine miles from Cooke, and that snow shoes had been used to navigate that nine miles.