Stephanie Lowe

Toomey’s Mills in Newcastle, Wyo., began operations as Newcastle Milling Company and Electrical Light Plant in 1905, producing flour by day and generating electricity at night. In 1919, D. J. Toomey purchased the business and it remained in the family until 1965. In 1974, new owners converted it into a restaurant, the Old Mill Inn. In 1995, current owners, Doug and Larita Brown bought the property, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, in 1995.

When Thomas Boylan started collecting dinosaur bones on his homestead in 1915, he first envisioned completing a dinosaur skeleton and using it to attract customers to his gas station on U. S. Highway 30 near Como Bluff. However, he was told that he didn’t have enough bones for that. Instead, he used more than 5,700 bones to build a structure that has become known worldwide as the Fossil Cabin. The historic Fossil Cabin was built in 1932 and stands about five miles east of Medicine Bow, Carbon County, Wyo. The cabin has been featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The T Cross Ranch north of Dubois, Wyo., on Horse Creek in the Absaroka Mountains was first homesteaded around 1900 by Ernest O. Hadden. In 1919, Henry Seipt acquired the property, named it “The Hermitage” and operated a dude ranch here. Robert Cox became the owner in 1929 and changed the name to “T Cross Ranch,” but continued the dude ranch. The ranch is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is still operated as a dude ranch.

In 1908, Albert P. “Prof” Sommers established his ranch headquarters on property southwest of Pinedale, Wyo. Three generations of his family have lived and ranched here. When Prof died in 1928, his widow, May, continued to own and operate the ranch. She also served as Sublette County superintendent of schools. She sold the ranch to her son, Albert, in 1947. The property is currently owned by Albert Sommers, Jr. and his sister, Jonita. The ranch is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Hyart Theatre in Lovell, Wyo., opened in 1951. The owner, Hyrum “Hy” Bischoff, used creative designs that were in fashion at the time. He included a curved screen for CinemaScope movies and stereophonic sound in the theater, which contained 1,001 upholstered seats. The Hyart also has a unique façade. The Bischoff family owned and operated the theater until the early 1990s, when it was closed. Through the efforts of a local nonprofit group, the Hyart was reopened Nov. 13, 2004, and continues to delight moviegoers and serve as a place for local entertainers to stage performances.

In 1929, Lloyd Huxtable, together with his wife’s brother, Charlie Olin, purchased the property south of Glenrock, Wyo. known as the Huxtable Ranch as well as the original 1887 water rights. Huxtable had worked for the second owner, Willard Heber White, who bought the ranch from its original owner, Charles Smith, in 1896. The ranch, was expanded to 1,500 acres under Huxtable’s ownership. Huxtable did not believe in acquiring unnecessary debt, and this thriftiness enabled him to own the ranch free and clear by the 1950s. He died in 1976. The Huxtable family sold the ranch in 1992, and it continues to be privately owned. The ranch is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Hotel LaBonte opened in January 1914 in downtown Douglas, Wyo. Its purpose was to serve area ranchers, participants in county courthouse sessions and travelers on the Yellowstone Highway, and the hotel was created in the finest and most luxurious style of the day. The rooms had electric lights, steam heat and hot and cold running water. The structure was named for the LaBonte Pony Express and stage station on the Oregon Trail.

The Greybull Hotel, built in 1916, was the first and largest of its kind in downtown Greybull, Wyo., to be constructed with brick and concrete. Its main commercial space has served as a bank, a clothing store and a bar; during Prohibition there was a speakeasy in the basement. The hotel’s location--at the corner of Greybull Avenue and Sixth Street and at the intersection of Wyoming Highway 14 and Wyoming Highway 16/20—was of primary importance in the early days and remains so today.

The Finley Site, located near Eden in Sweetwater County, Wyo., was used by early American Indians to trap and kill bison. The Finley Site is an early Holocene Paleo-Indian bison-kill and processing area, dating back about 7,500 to 12,500 years before the present. This was the first place where Eden points and two kinds of Scottsbluff projectile points were found together, showing that the three were contemporaneous. The Finley Site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Durlacher House in Laramie, Wyo. was built in 1878 for Civil War veteran Simon Durlacher. Durlacher arrived in town a decade earlier and just one month before the Union Pacific Railroad tracks reached Laramie. The house, designed by architect Charles Klingerman in late-Victorian Queen Anne style, was also used as a church and now is used by a private business. The Durlacher House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.