SWEETWATER COUNTY — Sheriff Mike Lowell and the men and women of the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office wished Sweetwater County Search & Rescue a belated 54th birthday today.

The all-volunteer group was formed on February 21, 1963, as a result of the Eskridge tragedy that year.

On February 15, 1963, two Green River brothers, Edward Eskridge, 16, and his 15-year-old brother, Richard Eskridge, left the home of their grandparents “in a small foreign car” to go rabbit hunting on White Mountain. When they did not return home that night, they were reported missing and a search was launched.

The boys’ wrecked car was spotted by a search aircraft. Alongside it was a badly injured Richard Eskridge, who died later. Edward Eskridge had, as reported in the media at the time, apparently “pulled Richard free of the wrecked car, covered him with his own parka, built a fire and then departed to seek help, walking without head cover and in shirtsleeves in the near-zero temperatures.”

Despite a massive eight-day organized search led by Sheriff George M. Nimmo and Undersheriff Jim Stark, Edward Eskridge was never found. The need for a standing volunteer search organization was recognized, and Sweetwater County Search & Rescue was formed.

In its over 50 years of service since, Search and Rescue has completed many hundreds of missions and saves scores of lives. A recent S and R mission was typical: Chris Schutz and Ron Orr, both longtime Search and Rescue veterans, traveled nearly 12 miles in the unit’s 1996 PistenBully, a six-passenger, all-terrain oversnow tracked vehicle, commonly called a “snow cat,” to rescue a Rock Springs man stuck and stranded by severe snow conditions in the remote Long Canyon area north of Rock Springs.

“The people of Sweetwater County can be proud of Search and Rescue,” Lowell said in the Sheriff’s Office birthday greeting. “We at the Sheriff’s Office certainly are; they’re an indispensable resource.”