Office of the Lighning Flat Flash newspaper, Lightning Flat, Wyoming, 1923

Lightning Flat was located in an area of short grass prairie, northwest of Devil's Tower. The town was about eight miles northeast of Rockypoint and a five miles south of Ridge, Montana, near the headwaters of the Gammon Prong of the Little Missouri and the aptly named Prickly Pear Creek. Both are intermittent water courses. Nearby is the Scott Reservoir, itself short of water for good parts of the year. The reservoir is named after early homesteaders who settled immediately south of the Montana state line. To the west is a line of low lying hills marking the divide between the Belle Forche and Powder River. The Belle Forche, itself, is regarded as the western boundary of the Black Hills. Prior to homesteading, the area was a part of the customary range for a number of cattle companies including the Standard Cattle Company owner of the 101. The Standard Cattle Company, however, was in a sense migratory, It first was located in Texas and was established in Wyoming and Montana in 1888 when 3-4,000 cattle were trailed to Crook County. Later, the Wyoming unit was used only as a calf ranch and two year cattle were fattened in Montana. At the turn of the century, the main headquarters was moved to Nebaska and it became essentially an early feed-lot operation boasting a barn that would house three thousand head at a time, fed in part on sugar beets. Thus, northeast Crook County was opened for homesteading.

Besides, the Scotts who had numerous claims along the northern part of Crook County, Paul Yeoman came and started a weekly newspaper, the Ligtning Flat Flash, engaged in the freighting business and was a land commissioner. E. W. Lau and had one of the few steam traction engines in the area. Margaret Cooper had a store. Leon Alderman sold groceries. Gasohol could be obtained from the WMAX Fair Price service pump in front of the store. Ethel Yeoman was postmaster. Stage service to Rockypoint eight miles to the south was available on Wednesdays and Saturdays. A roundtrip took all day.

Times turned tough. Dry farming on short grass prairie is a risky business at the best. Across the border in Carter County, the homesteaders attempted to eliminate the sage by hoeing it up in the winter when the ground was frozen. Population in Carter County is today one-third of that at the height of the homesteading craze. In the 1920's, the Scott name began appearing in the deliguent tax lists published in the Sundance Times, ultimately to appear in lands to be sold for taxes. In 1927, the Flash discontinued publication.

The Flash was typical of many rural weekly newspapers. It was more like a neighborhood newsletter which kept loneliness on the prarie hopefully at a minium. It covered the comings and goings of neighbors in Lightning Flat, Ridge, and Swartz Divide. Front page news from the January 13, 1922, issue of the Flash was typical: