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.

Lex Anteinternet: "Denver has outgrown us". El Chapultepec closes.

Lex Anteinternet: "Denver has outgrown us". El Chapultepec closes.: .

"Denver has outgrown us". El Chapultepec closes.

I really wondered how it was hanging on.

I'd never been in there, and I apparently never got a picture of it from the outside for our Painted Bricks blog.  It wasn't very photogenetic anyway.  But when the Mexican restaurant turned jazz club found itself no longer in the seedy Five Points district it had survived in for years, but in the new gentrified up and coming Coors Field area, without moving an inch, it just didn't look quite right.  It's old school "the nightlife ain't the right life, but it's my life" type of genuine atmosphere didn't squire with the hipsterization of where it was.

COVID 19 didn't help things, but the owners were quick to note that it wasn't solely responsible for brining its 87 year existence to an end.

Jazz musicians and blues musicians, they shouldn’t have to time their sets around baseball innings and when the crowds are going to get out and be wild. They should be able to play their music, and the crowd should just be there to enjoy them, The employees and our musicians, our customers, we shouldn’t have to be worried about our safety when it’s time to leave.

Denver’s outgrown us.

So stated one of the owners.

I love Coors Field and baseball, about the only thing about Denver I actually like. But there isn't anything I like about Denver without some degree of reservation.  Like everything else, there really isn't a permanent "old Denver" that was in some state of perfection.  The area that El Chapultepec was in prior to Coors Field was a scary dump which was a bit scary to drive through in the middle of the day.  It wasn't until Coors Field overhauled everything downtown that it changed.

But it was a change that to an end the feeling that the jazz club belonged there.  A jazz club could probably exist somewhere else in Denver, but it wouldn't be genuine in the same fashion that El Chapultepec was.

But that's true of a lot of Denver now.

Indeed, that's true of a lot of the US, but Denver is somehow sort of unique in this way.  The town that my father was born in, four years before El Chapultepec opened, was still around in many ways into the 1980s when I first started to go there on my own. Bits of that, indeed, still are.  But when it pulled out of the oil recession of the 1990s it really started off in another direction even as the oil companies came back.  Prior to that point it was sort of an overgrown cow town in some real ways. Then it started to become a hipster epicenter, followed soon thereafter by a new weedy culture based on pharmacological stupefaction. That's what basically characterizes the town town today.  And the change hasn't overall been a good one.

Not that those who hung out at the jazz club were models of universal clean living.  It was a bar. But the set in seediness in the old Five Points district was of a different sort than the new widespread seediness that characterizes a lot of Denver.  In between was sort of a high point when it looked like the city would overcome its decay without creating a new one, based on Coors Field and what it brought to the downtown.  It did partially succeed but weed took a lot of it away.

The Bars of Baker Montana

The Corner Bar in Baker Montana.

This is a little off topic for here, as these aren't really examples of painted signs on buildings, but they are interesting in context.  These are bars on the main street of Baker Montana.

 Heiser's Bar in Baker Montana.

Baker is a town in far eastern Montana, nearly in North Dakota.  It's a long ways to Baker from everywhere and as a result its managed to retain the classic bar/grill/restaurant in strength that so many places have lost.  It's likely too far away for chains to locate in and therefore the old establishments keep on keeping on.

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Related posts:  Lex Anteinternet: Is Beer the Most Distributist Product Ever? It would appear so.

The Gaslight Social Club, Casper Wyoming, at night.

One of several new eating and drinking establishments in Casper Wyoming, the Gaslight Social Club occupies what had originally been the American Nuclear building, and thereafter part of the Houston Plumbing Supply Company, at which time its upper floor was converted into an apartment, one of the very first older buildings in Casper to see such a conversion.

The interior of the building features Prohibition Era speakeasy murals.

Bar, downtown Denver

Not sure of the name, but its next to Wax Tracks in Denver Colorado.  An example of a contemporary bar mural, advertising Pabst Blue Ribbon.  This place obviously also offers pizza.

Jackson's Sports Bar, Denver Colorado

Mural on the side of Jackson's Sports Bar in Denver, which is right across the street from Coors Field.  This was taken from a distance as I was waiting to get into a Rockies game at the time.

Silver Dollar Bar & Grill, Cody Wyoming

The Silver Dollar Bar & Grill in  Cody Wyomign, which features a painting of Buffalo Bill Cody on its side.

Evangelo's, Santa Fe New Mexico

Tavern sign for Evangelo's in Santa Fe, New Mexico, featuring the famous Life Magazine cover photograph of Angelo Klonis, the founder of the tavern. The late Mr. Klonis was a soldier during World War Two when this photograph of him ws taking by Life photographer Eugene Smith.  Konis, a Greek immigrant, opened this bar in his adopted home town in the late 1960s, at which time his identify as the soldier photographed by Smith ws not widely known.

Landmark Bar, Wheatland Wyoming

Located directly across the street from the Platte County Courthouse, the Landmark Bar features a painting of a map view of the State of Wyoming on its side.

Guest Post #2: Thompson Falls, Montana

Some more photos sent by our friend, Sandy:

These are from Thompson Falls, Montana along Rt 200, which follows the Flat Head River to its confluence with the Clark Fork River and on to Lake Pend Oreille.

College Bar, Douglas Wyoming

Virgin Mary Mural in Salt Lake City

I'll admit that this is a bit unusual for this page, but this is a spectacular mural of the Virgin Mary in downtown Salt Lake City. These photos, taken on my cell phone, do not do it justice in any sense.

This building serves as an art gallery and a pizzeria.

The Wonder Bar

These photographs are of the "World Famous" Wonder Bar. The Wonder Bar has operated on Center Street for decades, although it has had short periods of time in recent years in which it operated under a different name (Tommy Knockers, Dillingers, and very briefly, "Sludge and Eddies"). Still, the bar has been around so long that even efforts to operate it under a different name do not deter the locals from continuing to refer to it as the Wonder Bar.

Downtown Casper once had a vast number of bars. This are of downtown had multiple bars on a single block. Only the Wonder Bar survives as a bar.

At some point in time, decades ago, Lee Riders paid to paint an advertisement on the side of the bar. The sign is still there, although an effort to paint over it was made at some point. This reflects the stockman heritage of central Wyoming, and indeed at one time quite a few cowboys and sheepherders spent time in the Wonder Bar.