Roads to the Great War: Some Dandy World War One British Pub Signs: Britain has a unique heritage in its signage: a record of its history and the people who made it. Inn signs depict everything, from battles ...

Sunday, March 30, 2025

Long-Lost Little America Penguin Sign Rescued From Remote Wyoming Junk Pile

Sunday, March 2, 2025

Blog Mirror: Cheyenne Man Builds His Dream House: Throwback Medieval English Mead Hall

Cheyenne Man Builds His Dream House: Throwback Medieval English Mead Hall

Monday, December 4, 2023

Blog Mirror: Wyoming’s Iconic 28-Foot Neon Tumble Inn Cowboy Will Have New Home In Casper

I'll be frank that I don't get this:

Wyoming’s Iconic 28-Foot Neon Tumble Inn Cowboy Will Have New Home In Casper

That is, if its not in Powder River, I don't see the point.

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Life, Death, and Coffee in Clayton, New Mexico

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Life, Death, and Coffee in Clayton, New Mexico: No one is ever on the sidewalks in Clayton, New Mexico. Its population has trended down since 1960 , and if you want to visit a store or oth...

Sunday, July 23, 2023

Railhead: Rail Features. Thyra Thompson Building, Casper Wyoming

Railhead: Rail Features. Thyra Thompson Building, Casper Wyo...:

Rail Features. Thyra Thompson Building, Casper Wyoming.

The State of Wyoming recently completed the construction of a massive new state office building, the Thyra Thompson Building, in Casper. All of the state's administrative bodies, except for the district and circuit courts, are housed there.

The building does house, however, the Chancery Court for the entire state, a new court that's only recently been established.

The building is built right over what had been the Great Northwest rail yard in Casper, which was still an active, although not too active, rail yard into my teens. I can't really recall when they abandoned the line, but it was abandoned.

In putting the building in, and extending the Platte River Parkway through it, the State did a nice job of incorporating some rail features so that there's a memory of what the location had been.

They also put in some historical plaques, which are nice. The curved arch at this location, moreover, is the location of the old turntable. It was a small one, which I hate to admit that I crossed over when I was a teenager, a dangerous thing to do.

Sunday, June 4, 2023

Tumble Inn, Powder River, Wyoming.

As this institution is in the news, and as I knew I'd taken these photographs, I looked to see if I had posted them.

Of course, I had not.

The Tumble Inn was a famous eatery and watering hole in the small town of Powder River for decades. As odd as it seems now, particularly as it would have been practically impossible to leave the establishment without having had at least a couple of beers, it was very popular for travelers and people in Casper, who'd drive the nearly 30 miles for dinner and then drive back.

Open well into the unincorporated town's decline, in its final years the restaurant, which had rattlesnake and Rocky Mountain Oysters on the menu, closed under new ownership and in its final stage was an alcohol-free strip club. Apparently it recent sold and the new owner has taken down its famous sign in an effort to preserve it.

On that sign, I don't know how old it is, but from the appearances, it dates from the 40s or 50s.

The recent news article:

Powder River’s Iconic Tumble Inn Neon Cowboy Hasn’t Blown Over, It’s Being Restored

Thursday, January 26, 2023

Lex Anteinternet: The 2023 Wyoming Legislative Session. Mining Mural Appropriation

Lex Anteinternet: The 2023 Wyoming Legislative Session. End of the f...: HB 264 would appropriate funds to memorialize the mining industry:

HOUSE BILL NO. HB0264
Mining mural.
Sponsored by: Representative(s) Conrad, Berger, Larson, JT and Sommers
A BILL
for
AN ACT relating to the legislature; authorizing the painting of a mural in the state capitol house chamber; providing an appropriation; providing requirements; creating a selection committee; and providing for an effective date.
Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:
Section 1.
(a) Five hundred twenty thousand dollars ($520,000.00) is appropriated from the general fund to the legislative service office. These funds shall be used only for the purpose of the planning, design and painting of a mural in the house chamber at the Wyoming state capitol building. The mural shall depict the history of mining in Wyoming and shall match historically and artistically with the Allen True murals that are currently in the house chamber.
(b) The legislative service office, with assistance from the Wyoming arts council, shall issue a request for qualifications to commission an artist or artists to paint the mural specified in subsection (a) of this section.
(c) A selection committee consisting of the five (5) members of the management council who belong to the house of representatives and three (3) other non-legislative members as determined by the speaker of the house, with assistance from the legislative service office, shall select an artist or artists to paint the mural using criteria established by the selection committee. Members of the selection committee who are not members of the legislature shall receive the same per diem and mileage as members of the legislature traveling to and from meetings or while in actual attendance of meetings of the selection committee and during the performance of their duties relative thereto. The state building commission shall approve of the process to affix the mural required under subsection (a) of this section to the house chamber wall, pursuant to W.S. 9-5-106(e), before any alteration is made to the house chamber under this section.
(d) The funds appropriated in subsection (a) of this section shall not be transferred or expended for any purpose other than for the planning, design and painting of the mural required by subsection (a) of this section. Notwithstanding W.S. 9-2-1008, 9-2-1012(e), 9-4-207(a) or any other provision of law, the funds appropriated in subsection (a) of this section shall not lapse or revert until the mural required by subsection (a) of this section is complete.
Section 2. This act is effective July 1, 2023.

Saturday, April 23, 2022

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Amber and Her Arborglyphs

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: Amber and Her Arborglyphs: M. and I were poking around in the Wet Mountains two days ago, at the site of a now-vanished picnic ground that I think dated from the 1920s...

Painted Bricks?

As we noted in our very first post on this curiously named blog, this blog started off as an effort to photograph and document the painted "ghost signs" on buildings in Casper, Wyoming.

It has since expanded, as we have photographed most if not all of those, into one that captures generally interesting older buildings anywhere, while still recording painted signs on buildings where we run across them. It is one of a series of photograph blogs we have, including our main site, Holscher's Hub, our site dedicated to churches in our region, Churches of the West; our similar site on courthouses, Courthouses of the West; our railroad site, Railhead; and our site dedicated to war memorials, Some Gave All.

In a way, however, this site is a history site, attempting to record a bit of the history of the West through the depiction of its buildings of a certain era. We have a couple of history sites as well, including Lex Anteinternet and Today In Wyoming's History. This one mostly lacks text, unlike those other two, with the buildings speaking for themselves.