Recognizing the value of a powerful icon, the Dalton Gang corpses image is reproduced again, this time as a life-size mural painted for the 100th anniversary onto the sidewalk outside one of the banks. It is a unique photo-op, allowing you, the 21st century tourist, to lie atop your favorite 19th century bank robber and pretend to be dead. And, perhaps echoing the "hail of bullets" theme, the Dalton Defenders Museum has another unique and -- potentially, at least -- deadly display: a plaster replica of the "largest hailstone on record," 17.5 inches in circumference, 1.67 pounds.
It fell on Coffeyville on September 3, 1970, NEARLY ONE HUNDRED YEARS TO THE DAY, plus an extra month and a couple of decades, to the Dalton carnage. "Scientists concluded that it struck the ground at a rate of speed of about 105 mph." Wouldn't that have smashed it into smaller hailstones? Or maybe the 1.67-pounder IS a smaller hailstone.
There's a scary thought.

The hailstones were also big enough to bring back memories. "I'll never forget the first hailstorm I was in as a kid back in '39 on Dad's farm," said Don Ward of Aurora. "The hail ruined our corn harvest. The next day, the banker said that was it. It was the end of the farm."
Not surprisingly, the hailstones caused almost as much of a stir at NCAR as they did in Nebraska. Nancy Knight, semi-retired NCAR expert on hail and ice, drove to Aurora on 1 July with UCAR photographer Carlye Calvin to retrieve hailstones that residents had stashed in their freezers and were willing to donate in the name of science. They chatted with Aurora residents, and Nancy told stories about the famous Coffeyville stone from 1970.

H.A.A.R.P. High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. Latitude: 62 deg. 23.5 min. North Longitude:145 deg. 8.8 min. West

HAARP is a Pentagon sponsored radio physics project, officially intended to expand knowledge about the nature of long-range radio communications and surveillance using the fluctuating Ionosphere (the portion of the upper atmosphere extending from 35 to 500 miles above the earth's surface)A 1990 internal document obtained by Popular Science says the programs over-all goal is to "control ionosphere processes in such a way as to greatly improve the performance of military command, control, and communications systems."The HAARP research facility is located near mile 11 on the Tok highway, near the village of Gakona in South-Central Alaska.