The Campbell County Public Library is a handsome, low-slung building in the center of the small city of Gillette, Wyoming. Steps lead up to two sturdy stone columns that support an overhang, where patrons can sit on benches protected from the summer’s baking sun or the winter’s driving prairie snow. A tidy garden of wildflowers blooms to the side of the building, punctuated with life-size statues of old-timey cowboys and their horses. Out front is another statue: a pigtailed little girl with a joyful expression, sitting atop a globe perched on a stack of books. According to a plaque in front of it, the sculpture, created by an artist named Gregory Johnson and purchased in 2015 by the Mayor’s Art Council, is called “Cabin Fever.”
On the hot August afternoon when…
