With the oil boom resulting from the Salt Creek Field, Casper had amazing growth. In the twenty year period from 1910, Natrona County grew from a population of 4,766 to 24,272 in 1930 before it leveled off during the Great Depression. The result as indicated in the following photos was a transformation of center Street from a dirt thoroughfare lines with false-fronted stores and saloons, to a street dominated by grand hotels and motion picture palaces. The Oil Exhange Building, now known as the Consolidate Royalty Building, was constructed in 1917 and was designed byGarbutt and Weidner. On the left in the right hand photo is the Hotel Townsend, still a landmark in Casper. On the right is the Gladstone Hotel, now gone. Other important buildings related to the oil industry included the art deco Ohio Oil Company Building (now Marathon Oil).

Casper-Salt Creek Stage about to depart from in front of Hotel Henning, approx. 1920.

The Hotel Henning, formerly the Midwest Hotel, was on the southwest corner of Center and First. The 150 room hotel was owned by W. F. Henning. After Henning's death, the building was sold and torn down. A bank now occupies its location. As discussed with regard to Oil Camps, the oil boom hit Wyoming about 1916 with the development of the Salt Creek, Midwest, and Big Muddy Oil Fields. The center of this boom was Casper; and in Casper the Hotel Henning was the center.

Hotel Henning courtesy car, approx. 1920.

W. F. Henning, himself, had a reputation for being a bit difficult to work with. In one instance, he had the hotel's auditor arrested for allegedly stealing a night's receipts. After the charges were dismissed, she successfully sued, the jury finding upon disputed evidence that "some time during the year 1928 the defendant [Henning] made threats against the plaintiff that he would get even with her because she refused to give false testimony at defendant's request in a divorce action then pending between defendant and his wife." See Henning v. Miller, 44 Wyo 114, 8 P. 2d 825 (1932). In another action, a real estate broker managed to get Henning's signature on a contract to sell the hotel. In an appeal, the Supreme Court noted testimony that "any man that could deal with Mr. Henning should be congratulated as Mr. Henning was one of the hardest men in Casper to do business with." Desmond v. Poulos, 69 Wyo. 129, 237 P. 2d 853 (1951).

Hotel Henning, 1930's

As observed by Professor T. A. Larson in his History of Wyoming, "Speculative fever raged in Casper in 1916 and 1917 after exciting discoveries on the Muddy east of Casper."

Casper historian A. J. Mokler recalled, "Men in all walks of life neglected their business and their professions to buy and sell oil stocks." Leslie A. Miller, President of the Chief Oil Company, and later governor, testified before the House of Representatives that there was a "whole herd" of promotors, who for the greater part "do very little drilling. Once in a while to protect themselves from the Post Office Department they do a little drilling, but their chief aim is to sell stock."

Alfred James Mokler was the publisher of the Natrona County Tribune, an ancestor of the present day Casper Star-Tribune; editor of the short-lived Wyoming Pioneer, a bimonthly historical journal; author of History of Natrona County, 1888-1922; Grand Historian of the Wyoming Masonic Grand Lodge; and served two terms as Master of Casper Lodge No. 15.

The Casper Daily Tribune every day devoted one whole page just to the oil trading and the news of new wells being drilled, etc. As noted by Professor Larson, most of the trading was done in the lobby of the Henning. Customers would would overflow into the street on many evenings. Most of the speculative companies went belly-up. Most of the oil in the principal fields was controlled by the major operators, Standard of Indiana (now BP), the Midwest Oil Company (merged in 1920 with Standard), Ohio (now Marathon), and Sinclair

Lobby, Hotel Henning

Other principal hotels were the Townsend, The Gladstone, and the Wyatt depicted on a subsequent page, Iris later the Rex, the Rialto, and the art deco America theatres. In addition the boom on Center Street, another boom occurred as a result of the gushers of oil in the nearby fields. Along the river, west of the lower end of Center Street was an area known as the "Sand Bar." Oil riggers, teamsters, and other workers flocked to the city looking for the jobs offered by the boom. They swarmed to Casper from as far away as Alaska and Texas. Following the riggers were ladies of the evening who set up shops in "cribs" in the Sand Bar District. The Sand Bar received its name following the construction of dams upstream which changed the course of the North Platte and built up land where previously was only a sand bar. Its first two buildings were the city's two "pest houses" in which smallpox victims would be quarantined. The Sand Bar provided cheap land on which the cribs could be built.

Most of the cribs were little more than dilapidated shacks. The influx to the Sand Bar began about 1916. Periodically, the city attempted a crackdown on the area because of an increase in crime in the area. William Congreve in 1697 wrote, ""Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned." As oil riggers and laborers moved from camp to camp, they left behind in their wake women with whom they had ot one time professed love. Several of those women in their rage tracked the object of their fury to Casper. In 1916 as a result of railroad construction, there had been an employment boom in Anchorage, Alaska. In 1917 with the end of the boom in Anchorage, Lawrence Barrett moved on to Casper. In Anchorage, he had courted Bessie Fisher and assisted her, according to a later statement by Fisher in "squandering" $40,000 of her money. Perhap unknow to Miss Fisher, Barrett had a wife and child in Port Townsend, Washington State. With the $40,000 nearly gone, Barrett told Miss Fisher to "Go to Hell," and he packed his bags, sold his possessions and proceeded on to Wyoming where he apparently intended to open a drayage business serving the oil fields. After a month in Casper, he sent for his wife and child in Washington State. The day after Mrs. Barrett arrived, Miss Fisher succeeded in tracking Barrett and appeared in Casper. The Casper Record reported that Miss Fisher "forced" Barrett "to go to her room and then got him drunk." Mrs. Barrett had both Fisher and her husband arrested. The Record reported, "When the police arrived Miss Fisher is said to have been devoid of clothing." The paper did not report on the state of Barrett's attire. Miss Fisher was released from police custody on the promise that she would leave town.

West side of the 100 Block of South Center St., approx. 1912.
Rhinoceros Restaurant to right of The Inn hotel and to the left of the Elkhorn Saloon.

With Miss Fisher apparently out of the way, sweetness and light returned to the Barrett household. At noon, the day of Miss Fisher's release, The Barretts were enjoying their noonday meal at the Rhinoceros Restaurant on South Center Street. Why the restaurant would be called the Rhinoceros is probably unknown, but the term "rhino" was Cockney slang for a thing of value perhaps derived from the Celtic roinn, a share, a division, and was used by thieves to signify the part of spoil, booty, or plunder, to which they considered themselves entitled, and then, by an extension of meaning, money generally. See McKay's 1887 Glossary of Obscure Words. A more speculative derivation is given by Les expressions animalières en anglais, Presses Universitaries du Mirail, 2000, indicating that the term comes from the value of rhinoceros horn as an aphrodisiac. As the Barretts were eating, Miss Fisher appeared in the restaurant and emptied one chamber of her 38 caliber revolver into Barrett. Although Barrett was rushed to the Private Hospital at 840 South Durbin Street, he expired nine hours later as a result of his wounds.

The Casper Record quoted a taxi driver who claimed to have known Barrett in Anchorage as saying that Miss Fisher resided in the "Red Light District" of Anchorage and that Barrett had never been intimate with Miss Fisher. Nevertheless, the jury deadlocked, eleven votes not guilty and one vote holding out for guilty. Apparently, the jury believed that it was self defense. Miss Fisher was not retried.

Private Hospital, Casper, 1919.

At the time, Casper had two hospials, the Private Hospital operated by Dr. H. R. Lathrup, as physician and surgeon in charge, and Natrona County Hospital. Both hospitals opened in 1912. The opening of Natrona County Hospital, originally operated by the State as a part of the Wyoming General Hospital, provides a more interesting view of the politics of the time. The county hospital was going to be located on property formerly owned by Judge Carey but dedicated for park purposes. Before, however, the paperwork relating to consent to use the park for the hospital, Judge Carey got into a snit about taxes. A letter was received from one of Judge Carey's representatives, in the words of A. J. Mokler, expressing Judge Carey's renging on consent to use the park:

"while Judge Carey was willing to give some charitable organization a site for a hospital, he would not, either directly or indirectly, donate a site to the town of Casper, the county of Natrona, or the state of Wyoming. The reason he would not give a site for the hospital was that he thought he had been unjustly treated in the matter of taxation, and until that was righted no favors might be expected from him."

An alternative site was purchased on East 2nd Street. The legislature appropriated funds for the new hospital and it was completed and accepted by the State in 1910. The hospital then sat vacant, lacking any equipment. In 1911, Judge Carey became governor, but, apparently, had not gotten over his snit. The legislature apprpropriated funds for equipping the hospital. The appropriation bill was promptly vetos by Governor Carey. The funds were finally sneaked into another appropriations bill which could not be vetoed without great damage to the state. In October 1912, the County Hospital formally opened.

Natrona County Hospital, 1920's.

In so far as irate scorned girl friends were concerned, in 1921 it was déjà vu all over again. John W. Delury was shot by Ida Graham at a carnaval in the Sand Bar District. Delury had left Graham in Oklahoma where he had destroyed her furnniture, curtains, and clothing. Graham tracked Delury to Casper where she did the evil deed with a 38 caliber revolver similar to that used by Miss Fisher. Only this time, the jury convicted Graham and she was sentenced to twenty-one to twenty-two years in the Penitentiary.

The Wyoming Saloon, West side South Center Street, approx. 1912.

Intriguingly, in 1919 there was one night when things were quiet in the Sand Bar. At midnight, June 30, 1919, Wyoming went dry. While large crowds were getting gloriously drunk in one last toot on Center Street, nothing was happening in the Sand Bar. At the time, Center Street had some nine saloons along its short lenght. The Casper Daily Tribune noted,