FORT RUSSELL, TOWN AND PEOPLE HISTORY

 

In 1867 the War Department chose a definite location for Fort D. A. Russell. The commander of Fort 
Laramie was ordered to see to the construction of a road and telegraph line between the two forts. He 
sent citizen employees with teams and the necessary equipment to do the job. A military escort of 50 
or 60 soldiers including both cavalry and infantry, accompanied the work party as protection against 
hostile Indians. Antoine Ladeau, a guide at Fort Laramie, went along to help select the route.
James Bordeaux, a Frenchman, owned a road-house and small trading post east of Fort Laramie. He 
heard of the expedition and immediately took some road ranch supplies and a few men and made camp 
on Chugwater Creek. The government decided to make a road to intersect the Fort Laramie and Fort D 
A. Russell road some place on Chugwater Creek. Ladeau told Bordeaux the point of intersection, and 
Bordeaux went there and built three small connecting log rooms. He started a store and road ranch and 
put Hugh Whiteside in charge, then he returned to his ranch. The road completed, the escort troops 
returned to Fort Laramie about Oct. 1, 1867. About that time the road between Bordeaux and Fort 
Fetterman was opened. Major Nelson B. Sweitzer went over it with three or four troops of U. S. 
Cavalry and a supply train. This road, sometimes referred to as "Sweitzer cutoff", "Ft. Fetterman 
cut-off" or "Bordeaux cut-off", is now unknown.

Hugh Whiteside was assassinated, while standing behind his counter, by an outlaw named Franklin. 
After Whiteside's death the road ranch was run for a short time by Cy Williams and one Swolley. They 
had in their employ a half-breed Sioux Indian boy named Baptiste Ladeau. In March 1868 the boy told 
Williams he was going to quit and go to Ft. Laramie. He saddled his pony and he and his dog started 
out. Near Chug Springs, some four miles north of Bordeaux, he was overtaken by Williams, Swolley 
and another man, chased up the rocky bluff and boy, horse and dog were killed. Cy Williams was 
killed the next May by some half-breed Indians at the E. Coffey and Kuny ranch five miles southeast of Ft. Laramie. Swolley disappeared about the same time, supposedly went to Colorado. The ranch was then run by several different parties until that fall, when Ed Foucks, an old bull-whacker, got possession of it and ran it very creditably for about two years. Being at the junction of the two roads, it was quite extensively patronized. In mid-1870 Foucks sold out to John Barrett. Barrett sold to John Hunton on Oct. 28, 1870.

The Quartermaster Department U. S. A. at that time carried the mail between Ft. Laramie and 
Cheyenne once a week, taking four days for the round trip. After Hunton bought the ranch, the Ft. 
Laramie Quartermaster established a stage and mail station, built quarters and a stable and kept a 
detachment of eight soldiers there for about two years.

In 1869 (late fall) the Indians were so troublesome on the Laramie River west of Ft. Laramie that 
Benjamin B. Mills and William G. Bullock moved their cattle, about 150 head, from there to about five 
miles above Chugwater station, and in April 1870 moved them north to the mouth of Richard 
(pronounced Reishaw) Creek. In late April the two herders, John Boyed and William Aug, had just 
returned to their tent, pulled off their boots and laid down to rest when Sioux Indians fired through the 
tent and charged. The barefoot herders grabbed their guns, ran and jumped into Chugwater Creek. 
They followed the creek for nearly 10 miles. After this, the herd was moved to the Bordeaux ranch.
Mills died in 1871 and Hunton bought his half of the herd. These were the first cattle on Chugwater 
Creek. Hunton also bought six ox teams, wagons and other equipment from Mills and Gibson Clark. He 
took this outfit to Ft. Fetterman and put in cord wood for the soldiers until May 1872. He returned to 
Bordeaux and hauled hay from the Laramie River to Bordeaux, thereby opening and using the road 
through Antelope Gap to the river near the W. S. Blake ranch. In July 1872 the teams were taken to 
Medicine Bow on the Union Pacific Railroad and hauled the first freight from that station to Ft. 
Fetterman, making four trips that fall, then back to Bordeaux.After Hunton bought the Mills interest, he adopted the brand SO for the cattle and LD for the work 
stock.
 Kathryn Phillippi Baker who moved to the LD ranch in 
1924 wrote that hotel had two large rooms downstairs, two upstairs and two on the back. A store and post office was operated at the old road ranch north of the main house by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Grey about 1910-12. Subsequent owners were: Charles Anderson - 1916; C. J. Peters - until 1920; Henry 
VanHeukelem, Sr. and his son, Henry, Jr. 1922-1936.  They sold to Louis (??)/

The Bordeaux hotel, store and post office, constructed in 1887, was first operated by John Hunton.
Weigand who tore it down in 1938 and used the lumber to build a house.
In tearing down the old building, (put together with square nails), the following information was found 
written on a paper inside a hollow square post at the head of the stairs:"Bordeaux Hotel opened Sept. 22, 1887; John Hunton Co. - proprieters; Thomas Hunton - manager; chief cook - Thomas Harvey; architect - John Hunton; carpenters - Edward Hallway, L. L. Gilmore, W. W. McNeill and John O'Keefe; painter - Robert E. Moore; plasterers - Benjamin Persow and Fred 
Bonser.

Cheyenne and Northern Railroad track completed to Bordeaux, Wyo., July 6, 1887; contractors - J. J. 
Brown and Co.; resident engineer - C. K. Bannister. Station established at Bordeaux July 11, 1887; 
superintendent - J. E. Wortete; station agent - J. W. W. Nail.

The site of Cassa, once the home of a post office, store, stockyards, gas station and railroad buildings, 
can now be pointed out only by those with accurate memories. Only a single tree and some foundations 
mark the location.The community of Cassa is located south of Glendo in the Bull's Bend area of the North Platte River. It is between points where Horseshoe Creek and Cotton-wood Creek run into the North Platte. At one time around 75 families lived in the fertile valley. Now under 10 families live in the area.The first postmaster at Cassa in about 1916 was named Freeman. He ran a small store and housed the post office in his home. The railroad also established a section house, a depot, three railroad crew buildings,beet dump and a stockyards at Cassa.Walt ran the post office after Freeman and then took over. The next postmaster, A. L. ??  opened  a  gas  station  outside  the  post building.

Mary  Hammer was  the  next resident and then the building was sold to Clayton Harvey who ran the post office. When Mrs.Hammer died of polio in 1952, Clayton's sister ,Flora Bell and Chet 
Stevens moved awa and Flora Bell became postmaster. When the Taers moved in 1960 the post 
office was closed. Until the late 1920's the primary entertainment was dances held in homes.

 From  around 1925-1935 "Literary" was a part of the social life. met at the school on 
weekends and the ints enjoyed singing, debates, jokes, poetry s and speeches performed by their 
neighbors. A school was started about 1921 and held in the Community center and later in the Cassa Club House. The Cassa was an extension club, was started in the 1920's and the Cassa School was closed, the old school became the Cassa Club  House.  It  housed community get-togethers, served as a polling and an activity center until it was torn down in 1970s.

Rural schools were located in the Cassa district. Pupils were usually not required to travel more than miles so the schools were small and many. The students went through the tenth grade and the last teachers were Mrs. Searl and Stella Woody (Martindale).Cassa was a rich school district and that caused its downfall. When a new brick school building was 
built in Glendo the Cassa district was consolidated with Glendo to help pay for the new building. —by 


Much of the early history of Chugwater is tied to the Swan Land and Cattle Company and much has 
been written about the ranch. However, a village of Chugwater developed apart from the Swan 
Company and survived after the ranch company passed its peak.
Aside from the Swan Company headquarters, store, boarding house and buildings, Chugwater was also 
the home of an assortment of other buildings and residences. Two of the earliest were the Masonic Hall 
built in 1904 and the red school house built in 1908.

The Chugwater Trading Company, owned by L. E. Hunt, carried lumber and general merchandise. The 
Grant Hotel was established in 1912 and was soon joined by the Fox Hotel and Restaurant.
By 1910, homesteaders were arriving daily by train and Jack Porter met the trains and with his team 
and spring wagon took the newcomers to locate their homesteads. Some 500 homesteaders settled 
around Chugwater.

Drouth, hail and grasshoppers played havoc with the homesteaders' dreams and more than half of the 
settlers were soon gone. Enough remained, however, to insure the future of the town of Chugwater for 
many years.
 
Guernsey
 Guernsey, known as the "Hub of the Oregon Trail", was incorporated in 1902. The first mayor was J. 
W. McDevitt. The town derived its name from C. A. Guernsey, a rancher and developer of the area.
Points of interest in the area that figured prominently in the history of the west were The Oregon Trail, 
The Mormon Trail, and Register Cliff.

The Guernsey Dam was built in the early twenties. The Civilian Conservation Corp, working in close 
cooperation with the technical staff of the National Park Service improved the park. The Guernsey 
State Park ranks high in beauty among parks, with its many beautiful native stone structures and 
buildings.
 
Northern, Colorado & Southern), from Alliance via Guernsey, and from Casper and points north 
(Burlington, Northern, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy). Schedules were attempted to ensure 
connections at Wendover for travelers coming and going in each direction, but often, uncomfortable 
and lengthy waits were encountered at the junction. Wendover recalls to my mind dreary, lonely vigils 
in a waiting room lighted by one small kerosene fixture. A huge, high, heating stove centered the room. 
The stove was always even colder than the hard slatted wooden benches edging the room.

 To guarantee the waiting rail passenger found no comfort in a prone position, heavy iron "arms" were 
secured by screws, upright, on the benches at regular intervals of about fifteen inches. The 
telegrapher-agent was securely locked in his small snug, well heated office, away from the possible 
demands of the traveler for heat, light or service. In appearance, the depot was an imposing two-story 
building, with the family of the telegrapher living in the top story.
A simple store and post office were combined with the living quarters of the postmaster and 
storekeeper in a separate building. Two smaller buildings were merged to form a fairly large "hall" 
which served as a community center for dances, parties, weddings and such gatherings. A "Beanery" 
offered meals to workers and travelers. A school house was either built or moved to the vicinity, and 
reports have a Mr. Hayes as one of the first teachers. Persons who formerly lived in the locality recall a 
Mrs. Holkan or Holmes who was in charge of the store and post office, reportedly later married to Al 
Laughlin.
Wendover was important as a communication and transportation center. In a crisis requiring medical 
personnel, the telegrapher could send such a message. The junction was within walking or horse riding 
distance for large numbers of ranchers and homesteaders, and used for sending or receiving messages, 
or for rail travel. Homesteaders welcomed employment on the railroad as supplement to their incomes. 
Especially during the drouth and depression of the thirties, pay checks from the railroad meant a living 
for many locals.

Ironically, at about the same time, with extended use of autos, trucks, bus travel, and road 
improvement, with the extension of telephone lines, Wendover was well on its way to being a ghost 
town. Many buildings were moved away, the depot and telegraph station, the post office were located 
elsewhere. Some buildings were razed, with the lumber hauled to different sites. Wendover, once an 
important rail and communication center, just faded away.
 
Wheatland

Johnny Gordon looking at the desolate, dusty, sagebrush and cactus covered flatland, saw verdant 
productive acres, resulting from the application of water from the nearby snow-laden mountains. Judge 
Carey recognized the possiblities. He utilized his business, political and organizational skills to make 
Johnny Gordon's vision a reality.
In 1881, G. E. Bailey, civil engineer, mapped the "Lands of the Sybille Colony", but the colony did not 
get off the paper. Actual survey for the Wheatland Project was made in 1882 and in the spring of 1883 
work started on the tunnel from Laramie to Bluegrass Creek, the Intake Canal and Canals 1 and 2 from 
Sybille Creek to the flats.

By the terms of the Wyoming Development Company Certificate of Incorporation, August-September 
1883, the objects of the Company were to develop an irrigation system and also to "lay out a town and 
supply it with water, together with any railways, tramways, mills or factories that might be necessary." 
In 1885 a townsite to be called Wheatfield was staked out by the Company near Rock Lake, following 
the Colorado and Southern Railroad survey. When the railroad moved their survey eastward, another 
town site was suggested south of the present Wheatland. In 1887 the Company designated the present 
site and named it Wheatland. Business which had located in the area of the "Ditch Camp" (now Lewis 
Park) was encouraged to move to the designated site by free lots offered by the Company.

On the townsite, the Company erected a small one-room frame building to house carpenters 
(McCallum and Robinson) and serve as temporary Company quarters. A two-story building as a 
permanent headquarters for the Company rose at the corner of Gilchrist and 9th (present location of 
Sears Store). The Company building was moved across the alley to the west, when Dr. Huffman built 
his "Pioneer Pharmacy" in 1931. (The Company building is now occupied by Britton's Realty offices.)
 
The first small frame house served as location for Company Superintendent Bill Rowley until 1916. 
Since then it has sheltered a real estate office, candy shop, tailor shop, cream station, town hall, paint 
shop, beauty shop. Ben Franklin store is now on the site of the little building.

Dugouts were built by Jeff Reed for himself and the family of his sister, Harry Dearinger's mother. Jeff 
was a foreman for canal construction, and later was hired by the Company to assist in the 
establishment of the town site. In 1895, Reed replaced the dugouts with small frame houses, one of 
which is now part of the Henry Yeadon residence at 603 14th Street.
Reports indicate that the Wheatland School in "1895 had 13 pupils enrolled and was taught by Dr. C. 
C. Clark's wife". The location of the first public school on which there is agreement, places it in a 
frame structure

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