I am spending a couple of days in Evanston, a town of about 12,000 souls in the extreme southwest corner of Wyoming. Tomorrow I have an appointment with the Evanston pastor.
A couple of interesting things happened today. As is my custom, I parked downtown (no parking meters in Wyoming, and always a parking place!) and just set out, walking the interesting-looking streets. Evanston is the county seat of Uinta county. Right, I did not know how to pronouce it either. So, rather than persisting in ignorance, when I passed the very impressive public library, I went in, found a lady sitting at the desk in the children's room, and asked her (knowing that she had faced dumber questions), how do I pronounce Uinta?. Like a good librarian, she smiled and told me: U-IN-ta - the name of an Indian tribe. Encouraged, I ventured another question: did she know where the local Presbyterian church was. She smiled and said, yes, indeed, she did, since she is an elder in that church. What a good librarian! Remember, this was the only person I spoke to all morning. And she was a Presbyterian elder - people scarcer than hen's teeth in these parts. Doesn't that make you believe in providence or predestination or something?
So then I went to the Uinta County museum, which is in the old Carnegie public library. (Picture attached.)
In their small but interesting historical exhibits, I found two notable things. I will have to illustrate the signs with photos. Maybe you can read them if you enlarge them. Sorry. In an exhbit on the rise of motor vehicles, there was this sign about the first (known) trans-continental autmobile trip, in 1903. Read the sign - and what do you discover. The mechanic on board was a Crocker, no doubt one of my relatives. It's how I got my love of road trips - minus the mechanical ability.
This elation was counterbalanced by another exhibit, on a famous early murder in town.. Read the sign and you will see that the accused but acquitted murderer was also one of my relatives. Had to be.
I asked to check the telephone directory on my way out. There are no Crockers in Evanston now.
And, most astounding, in an exhibit on the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway, completed in 1913, there was an old map, compiled later, of all the early national highways. Look closely at this picture, and you will see the map of Alabama, featuring my hometown of Thomaston, a village of at present 400 people. However did it get on the map?
This afternoon I visited a small church in Mountain View, a town of 1900 people, 35 miles away, ninety percent of whom are Mormon. A simple well-kept facility, but not enough money to pay a pastor. All older. The younger people have been drawn to a non-denominational "Gateway Community Church.". So, in the absence of a Presbyterian pastor, the Assembly of God pastor comes over every Sunday to lead their worship. Now, that's ecumenicism.
I am guessing that it is only in Wyoming that an AG pastor would be deemed just fine for leading worship for a Presbyterian congregation.
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