Postcard from the Past: Ranch Girl Elopes With “Busted” Buster

Lots of romance but

no money for belle of Big Creek Ranch

Thus reads the headline and subhead in the June 23, 1905 issue of The Grand Encampment Herald, accompanied by the following front page wedding story.

Miss Ida Casteel is the heroine of a very romantic elopement and wedding. The fortunate and favored suitor is Lindsy Coe, a typical western cowboy of Cowdrey, Colo. The marriage occurred at Cheyenne last Saturday night.

Casteel has spent most of her 23 summers at her home on the Big Creek Ranch and is very well known there.

The account of the affair, as published in the Cheyenne Tribune, will be of interest to many Herald readers. 

The Tribune notes Coe first met Miss Casteel while employed as a cowpuncher on her father’s ranch, where he wooed and won the young lady and they decided to wed. The union, however, met with determined opposition on the part of Miss Casteel’s father, and two weeks ago, the young lady was sent to Cheyenne, ostensibly on a visit but, in reality, to separate her from Coe.

Last Wednesday, Miss Casteel received a message from her father stating her brother Ira B. Casteel had suffered a stroke of apoplexy and was in a critical condition. She left that night for Laramie, being accompanied to the depot by the friends whom she was visiting here. When she reached Laramie, she was met by Coe and induced to return to Cheyenne.

In the meantime, discovering Coe had come to this city, Mr. Casteel sent the following message to County Clerk Joe Cahill, “If Ida Casteel and Lindsy Coe ask for a marriage license, have Miss Casteel call at office in person and read accompanying telegram.”

Saturday evening, Coe called for a marriage license, but before it was issued, he was requested to bring Miss Casteel to the clerk’s office. He returned shortly with the young lady, and they were handed the telegram. It was very lengthy, and for a moment the girl’s face paled when she scanned its contents. 

It instructed the young couple, if they wed, never to return to her home, and it also reminded the girl her brother was dying. It was a fateful moment for the girl. The couple looked at each other for a full minute.

“Make out the license,” said Coe, and in a few minutes they walked out of the office, across the street to the Catholic parsonage and were made man and wife. 

The young couple have taken rooms in the little brick home just opposite the executive mansion. They have made no plans as yet for the future, but neither seem to regret the step they have taken.

The next day

The uncertain sea of matrimony does not always carry the bark into harbors of milk and honey, and the path of roses which began for Miss Casteel and Coe last Saturday when their romantic elopement terminated in their wedding in Cheyenne, which is already beginning to develop a generous crop of thorns and, from the ethereal heights of romance, the young couple have already been compelled to descend to the common places of life and discover love requires something more than kisses to live and thrive on.

The bridegroom, who has been employed as a cowboy, was without means when he married the charming daughter of his former employer, while the bride has been reared in the lap of luxury. 

Coe confessed, when he procured the marriage license on Saturday night, he was not sure whether he had the requisite two dollars. After the wedding, the couple went to the home of an aunt residing in the little cottage opposite the executive mansion, but the aunt is preparing to leave the city and the young couple will be compelled to shift for themselves. 

Coe has sought – but not yet obtained – a position in the Union Pacific shops and, in the meantime, the bride and groom are in actual need.

The parents of the bride, who protested against the wedding, are obstinate in their determination not to forgive the young couple or receive them back in their home, and Coe, reared on the range, is finding it a difficult problem to meet the expenses of city life when unacquainted with the ways and means of making a livelihood in the city.

Brother recovers

Ira Casteel, the brother who was reported as dying, was quite sick for a few days from ptomaine poisoning but has fully recovered.