Gillette Photos

From Wyoming Tales and Trails

This page: Gillette, The coming of the Railroad, Edward Gillette.



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Welcome Sign, Gillette, 1970's. The Antelope Roundup was sponsored by the American Legion.

Since the photo was taken, Gillette has experience remarkable growth due to an energy boom. The population in 1960 was 3,580; 1970 5,763; 1980, 12,134; and 2000, 19,646. Gillette, West of the Black Hills in northern Wyoming was founded in 1891 with the arrival of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The railroad was originally going to follow Donkey Creek with the sttion to be at Donkey Town then an end of the tracks tent city. The Railroad's engineer, Edward Gillette (1854-1936) located a shorter route, eliminating a number of bridges that would have been required had the Donkey Creek route been used.


 Gillette, 1892

The above view shows Gillette shortly after its founding in 1891. At the beginning, Gillette was a bit "wild and wooly" and provided a place of resort for the railroad workers. The well known early 20th Century lecturer and correspondent Elbert Hubbard in the December 1905 issue of the Philistine, a literary magazine, described Edward Gillette:

The Superintendent of the Burlington down Sheridan way is Edward Gillette, the surveyor who ran the line from Nebraska to Montana, a thousand miles, through sage brush, rattlesnake claims and prairie dog preserves, where no civilizing Whites lived, and greasy Crows and treacherous Sioux were supreme. Gillette is a Yale man -- but he has overcome the handicap.

Writer's notes, Yale Class of 1871. Hubbard's lecture career was cut short by one of the Kaiser's torpedos. Hubbard was on board the Royal Mail Ship Lusitania. According to Hubbard, Gillette was well respected by the Indians who referred to Gillette's private car as a "big tipi on wheels." Gillette, son-in-law of H. A. Coffeen, later served as State Treasuer (1907-1911).


Gillette, 1904, looking southwest.

But if the Indians and rattlesnakes were bad, the worst part of the railroad construction was crossing the Nebraska Sand Hills. Gillette later wrote that while it got to 45 degrees below in the Black Hills, "we did not find it as bad as in the sandhills". In addition to the cold, it was lonely, not even cowboys were to be found, occasionally only the lone trapper. The Indians borrowed the horses (but brought them back after being paid a small bribe).

As a railhead, the town experienced immediate growth similar to that of other end of track towns. It had a commissary operated by Kilpatrick Brothers and Collins, contractors for the railroad, as well as 7 saloons and 3 dance halls. As the railroad moved west, however, the boom ended and by 1894 the commissary had closed and there were only 1 restaurant, 2 saloons, 2 stores (Preston Bros. and the Daly Store operated by John T. Daly, see photo at top of page). The saloons provided varying entertainment. Thus, Ferenc Morton Szasz, in his The Protestant Clergy in the Great Plains and Mountain West, 1865-1915, University of Nebraska Press, 1988, cites a sign displayed at one Gillette saloon:

Preaching at 7:30 P.M.
Dance at 9:00 P.M.
After Dance, Big Poker Game.


Interior Gillette Saloon, approx. 1900.

But at least by that time there was preaching. The Right Reverend Anson R. Graves in his The Farmer Boy Who Became a Bishop, the New Werner company, Akron, Ohio, 1912, relates of having sent a missionary into Gillette: "Some four or five years ago I sent a missionary to the little village of Gillette, Wyoming, to spy out the land. He reported that there were not only no Church people there, but none who cared for Christian services of any kind." Indeed, Bishop Graves complained that he had an easier time amongst the heathen than on the western Great Plains. However, within a few years, Bishop Graves was able to preach a sermon, and conduct confirmations in Gillette.


 Gillette, 1913.

Nevertheless, the town survived, becoming a shipping point for wool and cattle, serving large cattle companies such as that of Gilbert de Saumarez Hamilton (1857-C.1924) and to the southwest Oscar K. Keeline's and Harry W. Keeline's Flying Circle headquartered on Little Thunder Creek in Weston County. The Hamilton ranch was established in 1891 by Hamilton and Gordon Montcrieffe. Hamilton's mother was a member of the Saumarez family of Guernsey (Channel Islands). His father was the managing partner of the SoHo works established by James Watt of steam engine fame.


 Bird's eye view of Gillette, undated.

Next page, Gillette continued.