Real Crook counties rise above news from Cook County

In researching the political shenanigans, patronage, ineptitude and outright crime that earns Cook County the moniker of Crook County, I end up on a Web site for a Crook County monolith named Steins Pillar.

Monolith must be a creative term to describe some longtime politician who couldn't be budged from power without an indictment. But none of the more than four dozen aldermen, judges and other county officials convicted of crimes during the years is named Steins or Pillar. The new lieutenant governor nominee who refuses to budge is Scott the Pawnbroker, not Steins the Pillar.

So I read on.

"An easy four-mile, round-trip trail meanders through Ponderosa pine forest and meadows on the way from the road to the base of the tower. Only there can visitors experience the immensity of the monolith."

No one in Cook County considers a four-mile trip easy. Turns out Steins Pillar isn't some bloated politician. It's a giant rock. And Crook County isn't just a nickname; it's a real county.

Established in 1882, the scenic county in central Oregon was named after Army Maj-Gen. George Crook, a Civil War commander who distinguished himself during the Indian Wars. Crook won battles but, more importantly, he won universal respect by often speaking out on behalf of American Indians.

Crook had such an impact in the West, Wyoming also named a county after him. That Crook County also boasts a rocky monolith-Devils Tower National Monument. It was featured in the UFO movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

Wyoming's Crook County actually has a more familiar movie link. The county seat is Sundance, which is home to the Sundance jail, where a horse thief who served time got the nickname Sundance Kid, who became a movie character played by Robert Redford, who started his own film festival in Utah and named it Sundance.

Unlike Cook County, the Crook County in Oregon has only three commissioners, and they did not inherit their positions from relatives or when their predecessors were indicted. This high desert community boasts more cattle than people, and also takes in a bit of the rock formations and pines of the Ochoco National Forest.

Handling the day-to-day operations in the county of 27,000 residents is 58-year-old Mike McCabe, county judge. He doesn't have a law degree and is not a legal judge, but they keep the old, impressive title because if you call the state capital "and you say, 'This is Crook County Commissioner McCabe,' you'll be on hold for nine days," McCabe jokes.

A farmer before his election, McCabe is a Republican but says, "There's just no room for partisanship in politics in Crook County."

There's also not much room for political scandals. McCabe, who says he won't let his wife be on the library board as long as he is judge because it wouldn't look right, admits someone brought up a conflict of interest complaint against him, but it was dismissed. The sheriff once faced charges of threatening to fire anyone who ran against him, but he also was acquitted.

However, Oregon's Crook County shares one problem with our Cook County.

"We had five sawmills, and we're down to no sawmills," McCabe says, noting unemployment is down a bit from a high of 22 percent. While the state just passed new taxes on corporations, Crook County used local tax breaks to lure one new business.

"Facebook just came to town," McCabe says. "We had our groundbreaking two weeks ago. We're just elated. We're looking at putting 200 people back to work" building the headquarters for the social networking giant.

Crook County, Wyo., is a bit more partisan than its Oregon counterpart. The Republican-leaning folks there haven't voted for a Democrat since FDR. John McCain took 81 percent of the vote against Barack Obama in 2008. But with only 6,000 residents, there's not a lot going on outside Devils Tower, that rocky monolith.

You know, put on the ballot in Illinois, "Rocky Monolith" probably would have won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor.