Electives fall victim to bizarre hoax

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

By PJH Staff

Jackson Hole, Wyo. - Some Jackson-based preservation groups said they were ‘shocked’ last week when electives made preliminary moves to begin building a high-tech, mass transit system in the valley.

At a special joint meeting last week, Jackson’s Town Council and the Teton County Board of Commissioners voted to allocate considerable funding for the construction of a monorail, a passenger train that glides along a single beam.

Dr. T. Cornelius Whitmore Crump, who identified himself as a representative of Whitmore Crump’s Amazing Curiosities of Modernity, a traveling sales company, proposed to build “a wonder of the technologies of the industrialized world - the monorail,” which would, purportedly, connect Jackson with the neighboring communities of Star Valley, Wyo., and Teton Valley, Idaho.

“My spectacular contraption of curiosity will whisk the fine people of this community to and fro in the soundest of safety,” Whitmore Crump said, tapping his wooden cane to the ground at the end of the statement.

The company spokesman, who spoke with an unidentifiable, anachronistic-sounding accent, wore “trousers made of the most exotic materials from the great southern hinterlands,” he said.

Whitmore also donned a topcoat and bolo tie.
One joint board member, commissioner Dan Ellsley, put the feet of Whitmore Crump’s proposal to the fire, grilling him on the tremendous environmental impacts of building a monorail system through the Snake River Canyon and over Teton Pass.

“My good man,” Whitmore Crump replied, “my miraculous marvel of technology will employ nothing but the properties of the most soundless materials known to man.” After this response the board, for a moment, sat in silence. “Sounds good to me,” Ellsley said, leaning back in his chair, smiling.

The joint board voted nine to one to begin earmarking dollars for the project though neither officials nor Whitmore Crump ever mentioned a hard dollar amount.
Some criticized the joint board’s sudden movements to build a monorail, saying it broke protocol by moving ahead without first allowing copious public comment.

“I can’t believe these knuckleheads would buy wholesale so quickly into this charla
tan’s ruse to build a monorail,” said Rusty Alexson, a board member of a valley conservation group. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think this man’s enterprise is even capable of constructing such complex system. I mean, did you see the steam-powered car he drove up in?”

Councilwoman Alyssa Whirley cast the only vote against the proposal.
“These time-traveling swindlers from the late 19th century represent the biggest threat to the future of this valley,” Whirley said.
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