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<title>You Still Here? Wednesday, September 6, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Yeah, just put that anywhere...

You Still Here? Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Perched atop a rocky knoll along the Snowy Range Scenic Byway in the Medicine Bow Mountains of southern Wyoming, the Libby Flats Observation Area rises nearly 11,000 feet above sea level.

Its weathered stone wall, turret facade and steep wooden staircase lead to a platform where visitors can look out at the Snowy Range to the north and the Laramie Valley to the south.

It looks more like what’s left of the ruins of a Medieval castle than a modern attraction.

For Laramie photographer David Peel, it's been a source of fascination for much of the last half-century.

"It's like an old ancient structure," Peel said. "Your mind kind of starts making up some fancy histories about it.”

Peel said its weathered stone and isolated perch above the tree line remind him of places far from Wyoming — Ireland, old European ruins and the kinds of structures that are much older than the observatory.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Mystery Of The Tower"}]

The site is managed by the Medicine Bow National Forest and was approved in 2024 as a $5-per-vehicle day-use recreation site.

It’s also not ancient. It was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s, according to F.E. Warren Air Force Base.

Aaron Voos, public affairs specialist for the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest and Thunder Basin National Grassland, said U.S. Forest Service maps mark the location as an "observation point" as early as 1956 in its records.

Engineering blueprints from 1959 show plans for a parking area, footpath, restroom and the stone observation tower visitors see today, said Voos. 

The overlook typically opens with the Snowy Range Scenic Byway each spring and remains accessible through the summer and fall before winter snow closes the road.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Where The Stars Take Over"}]

Peel said he has spent countless nights at Libby Flats photographing the Milky Way, auroras, and sunrises.

The high elevation and lack of light pollution create some of the darkest skies in Wyoming for photographers.  

"Up in the Snowies, it's nearly pristine," Peel said, adding that the tower is one of his favorite places to take photos. 

On moonless nights, the Milky Way stretches across the sky with a clarity that's difficult to appreciate until you're standing beneath it, he continued. 

Illuminated by starlight, Peel says the structure resembles a watchtower guarding the edge of the continent. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'The Flats Of Libby' "}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Peel has lived in Laramie for nearly 47 years."}]

He's hiked the Snowies, camped beside alpine lakes and brought his children into the mountains when they were young.

[{"type":"text","text":"The observation tower remains one of the places they always returned to."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"His children thought it looked like a castle."}]

After decades of hiking, camping and photographing the Snowies, Peel found himself writing about them too.

One of his Irish compositions, "The Flats of Libby," borrowed its name from the windswept landscape surrounding the overlook .

More than 60 years after it first appeared on Forest Service maps, and nearly a century since the CCC built it, the overlook remains one of the most recognizable stops in the Snowy Range, drawing everyone from road-trippers and hikers to photographers chasing the stars.

Libby Flats Observation Tower Pat and Chuck Blackley via Alamy 5 30 26

<title>What The Heck … Is That Medieval Castle-Looking Thing On The Snowy Range Byway? | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The observation deck that looks like a Medieval castle ruin has turned heads for decades in the Medicine Bow range. For Laramie photographer David Peel, the 11,000-foot elevation and lack of light pollution make it a great place for astrophotography.

What The Heck … Is That Medieval Castle-Looking Thing On The Snowy Range Byway?

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

In the early 1960s, the stress of being an advertising executive in New York was taking a toll on Paul Newman’s health. 

Calling himself Paul Newman “The Original” — he’s not the Oscar-winning actor — he was on a fishing holiday in Wyoming when he told his wife Georgina (Gina) that instead of dying on the streets of New York, he was going to buy the old Carpenter Hotel in Atlantic City as their new home.

Gina wasn’t ready to give up her career and friends in the East, according to her former employee Lynn Kinter. 

Twenty years younger than Paul, Gina loved her job as executive editor of Living for Young Homemakers, a popular ladies magazine based in New York City. 

“As she described it, Gina sat in a bar in Lander for three days drinking double vodkas and asking herself, 'New York or Paul? New York or Paul?'" Kinter wrote years later for the Atlantic City Historical Society in its book  

“Atlantic City Wyoming, Voices from a Powerful Place.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Ultimately, Gina chose her husband."}]

Then for more than 30 years, their restaurant Miner’s Delight put Atlantic City on the national map with its gourmet meals, colorful proprietors and guests who came from miles around just for dinner.

It was upscale French cuisine in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming with deep Old West roots.

“One patron said it was the only place where she was willing to wear heels through cow manure to get in,” Marjane Ambler, president of the Atlantic City Historical Society, told Cowboy State Daily. 

The Carpenter Hotel Becomes Miner’s Delight

Paul and Gina had taken a fishing vacation to Wyoming in the spring of 1958, and that was when they met brother and sister Jim and Ellen Carpenter of Atlantic City. 

Paul would go fishing on the Sweetwater River with Jim while a friendship developed between Gina and Ellen. 

During the next several years the Newmans made regular trips to Atlantic City and were grieved when Ellen died in 1961.

When Ellen’s family put the 16-room Carpenter Hotel up for sale, Paul became determined it would be theirs. In 1963, the couple bought the hotel, intending to make it their private residence.

Ambler said that by 1965, they had renovated the hotel and made the pantry into a bar. Ellen had an aversion to alcohol so in deference to her, the Newmans named their new business Miner’s Delight, another name for the nearby ghost town of Hamilton City. 

According to Bob Tipton in the Atlantic Historical Society's book, he met the Newmans as a teenage employee and was impressed by their culinary skills. 

Gina wanted to expand her cooking talents and had talked Paul into taking a six-week cooking course that led to an additional four-week course in France. 

Paul attended Paris’ most famous cooking school, Le Cordon Bleu, where he took a six-week sauce course. 

To further their skills, in 1966 the couple left Atlantic City to work at the Silver King Restaurant in Park City, Utah. They learned to cook steak and lobster and opened the Miner’s Delight for dinner on June 10, 1967. 

Paul and Gina served just two guests on their grand opening night. 

“Their menu was not the normal fare for your typical Wyoming eating establishment as they served meals like crepes stuffed with crabmeat, French onion soup, coq au vin, and a parfait for dessert and coffee,” Tipton wrote.

The serving season for Miner’s Delight started the first weekend in May and was finished by early fall. 

The Newmans served dinner four or five days a week, Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday, depending on their reservations and their own schedules. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Elegance In Atlantic City"}]

Paul and Gina hosted 20 to 40 guests each night they were open and regulars knew better than to request salt and pepper or, worse yet, ketchup. 

Everything was perfectly seasoned and there was no reason to mess with this perfection, according to Gina.  

In the 1970s, Karyn Aarthun Ervin was a repeat guest for four years who would drive up the winding road with her husband and friends to the remote mining town for a night of luxury. 

She said Paul’s gin and tonics were unmatched and he only carried top-shelf liquor. 

“Gina and Paul really introduced us to elegant dining,” Ervin said. “I tasted pate for the first time — delicious — and have been trying for about 50 years to duplicate their Cuban Black Bean Soup.”

Magnus “Max” Helmers of Sweden told Cowboy State Daily that eating at the Miner’s Delight was an experience of a lifetime.

“Sitting in that room in a restaurant in a ghost town in Wyoming and being served these great meals was just unreal,” Helmers said. “Gina had class and she know how to carry herself. You were only allowed to photograph her from one side, just like Clark Gable.”

Cowboy State Daily’s columnist Bill Sniffin was a young journalist when he would take his wife, Nancy, to Miner’s Delight for special occasions. 

He said that a meal would cost an average of $50 or more for a couple, unheard of when a large steak could be purchased for $16. 

“It was pricey, but it was worth it,” Sniffin said. “You'd make that 30-mile drive up the mountain up South Pass and it was a real tradition for everybody all over Wyoming and all over the region.”

Bob Tipton wrote that Gina was often quoted saying, “If it were left up to Wyoming men, they would only eat steak.” 

The Newmans claimed their women customers drove their success as their menus were designed to please women. Once the men got a taste they became hooked.

There were a few exceptions. Atlantic City resident Craig Newman, no relation to the Newmans, recalled taking a date to the Miner’s Delight as a young man. He had made reservations and saved for their special night out. 

Craig was shocked when instead of steak, he was served chicken and cold potato soup. 

“She gave it a fancy name and said it was supposed to be cold,” Craig said. “She was quite fussy.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Go-To Place"}]

Bob Tipton's brother, Harry Tipton Jr., wrote in the Atlantic City book that he was given a front-row seat to the clientele the Newmans served after being hired for a job in 1975. 

Before the summer ended, Harry had served drinks to Gov. Ed Herschler, U.S. Sen. Cliff Hansen, Congressman Teno Roncalio, State Sen. Robert Peck, State Rep. Harry Tipton (his father) and soon-to-be U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson. 

“They all liked to have big fun,” Harry wrote. “I learned much while bartending at the Miner’s Delight, much of which I am sure my mother would have preferred I did not.”

Harry said that he was shocked when Paul told him that they had repeat customers who would fly down from as far away as Alaska just to eat at the Miner’s Delight. 

Most of these customers would then fly home after dinner. 

Part of the allure was that Paul was well-known in his social circles and knew how to entertain.

“Paul was always dressed up and would make a big show of making drinks,” Sniffin said.  “Paul and Gina were both very elegant and made you feel like a million bucks.”

Everyone was given the red-carpet treatment at Miner’s Delight regardless of their social status. 

Sally Webster, a nurse, and Dave Slovisky who was working for NOLS were married on October 9, 1976. They reserved the Miner’s Delight for their dinner and were treated to a night to remember.

“I didn't know the Newmans’ but Paul was quite effusive,” Webster said. “He greeted us like we were old family members, and he was dressed up with an ascot.” 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Goodbyes"}]

When Paul died in 1986, Gina upheld a pact they had made to be cremated and not embalmed. 

Since the local funeral home would not transport a body to the crematorium in Cheyenne without embalming it, Gina put Paul in the trunk of their car and drove to Cheyenne, sobbing and cursing during the 285-mile drive. 

She was stopped for speeding on the way home but only given a warning when she told the officer her husband was in the urn beside her. 

Paul’s obituary later appeared in The New York Times with a long list of his accomplishments. 

Gina ran Miner’s Delight for a number of years after Paul’s death with the help of her employees. 

Krista Guthridge wrote that Gina would always encourage her not to just talk about what she was going to do, but to do it.

In 1997, Gina fell, broke her hip and covered herself in the barroom’s plush rugs until friends found her three days later, her pooch snuggled at her side. 

After this, Gina moved to the Showboat Assisted Living facility in Lander and died the following year at the age of 78. 

The Miner’s Delight has since been closed, but the legacy of Paul and Gina Newman live on in Atlantic City and in the hearts of all who experienced their gourmet food in remote Wyoming. 

Miners Delight 8 Miners Delight 5 30 26

<title>For Upscale French Cuisine, ‘Miner’s Delight’ in Atlantic City, Wyoming, Was Tops | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For 30 years, the Miner's Delight restaurant in remote Atlantic City, Wyoming, was the place to go in the Cowboy State. Started by an advertising executive from New York, the upscale French cuisine attracted diners from hundreds of miles away.

For Upscale French Cuisine, ‘Miner’s Delight’ in Atlantic City, Wyoming, Was Tops

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Entertainment

EVANSTON — David Biebinger didn’t know what to think when a friend texted him out of the blue asking if his home was the “Clown House” in Evanston.

“I’m like, ‘Clown House? What does that mean, 'Clown House' in Evanston?” Biebinger told Cowboy State Daily. “I had no idea what that was about.”

More texts followed from other people, all asking the same strange question. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Curious, Biebinger finally Googled it. "}]

“That’s when I saw it,” he said. “It came up in a 'Rehab Addict' (search). And then all the comments — there were hundreds of comments.”

The commenters were reacting to images of his home in the background of the subject house in Season 10, Episode 1, particularly a couple of creepy-looking light-up clown faces on his roof during filming. 

he realized the clowns kept photobombing scene after scene, even as cameras stayed trained on the renovation of an 1890 historic home across the street. 

Fans of the show had definitely noticed, and were asking all kinds of questions about Biebinger’s home, dubbing it the “Clown House.” 

That’s because the largest, most noticeable Halloween decoration was a giant clown head on the roof, flapping its jaw in time to the display's Halloween music.

Fans had freeze-framed shots of the clown head reflecting in the rehab home’s windows, zooming in on the glass to see it better. 

Some even tried to hunt his place down online to see it more directly. Others wanted to know why the show had never mentioned the bizarre, glowing “Clown House” during the episode.

The irony of that question, in particular, isn't lost on Biebinger. 

When the crew had been in town filming, he’d offered to let the show film a quick, two-minute display of his lights. They’d turned him down.

“There were more comments about my ‘Clown House' than there was about her rehab,” he said, chuckling a little bit.

Long before Biebinger’s home became a mystery obsession for “Rehab Addict” fans, it was already a Main Street star in Evanston.

Biebinger’s annual Halloween and Christmas light shows started out as big “jungles” of holiday light displays back in 1997 for his children when he lived at a different house.

By the time he moved to his home at 533 Main St., his light displays had become more elaborate, and he had invested in a computer-controlled system that could sync his lights to the beat of music.

He estimates he’s put roughly $15,000 into his light shows, including the computer systems, lights and decorations, some of which he makes by hand.

At first, the light shows were just to delight his own children. 

After they grew up, he kept doing it because it had become a community tradition, one that delighted many other parents’ children.

“Now I do it mainly for Evanston,” he said. “My kids loved it, and everybody in town loves it.”

The transformation begins every October. His home goes from an ordinary single-story frame house to a miniature theme park. 

Then there’s a short break in November as he switches everything over to Christmas lights instead for a display in December. 

Cars pack the block to come and see his creations year after year, Biebinger said. He estimates that thousands of people pass by the house each year.

It takes Biebinger three weeks to a month to set up his display. 

Every song is meticulously programmed so that the lights and animated faces will move in perfect sync with the music. 

“Each song takes six to eight hours to program,” he said. “I mean, you have to program every second of what that light is going to do. Each section of those are linked.”

Many of his light props are handmade. He sketches out the idea on paper, then rolls out chicken wire on the driveway to bend it into life-size faces and shapes. Then he wraps the shapes with lights, sculpting a light show to remember.  

When he’s finished, though, it’s worth it. 

For the “Rehab Addict” season that his home photobombed, he had a Nightmare on Elm Street theme.

A huge clown on the roof lip-synced to each song, with eyes flashing in time to the beat. 

That created the eerie, floating image in the windows of the home across the street that fans noticed during the Season 10 premiere of “Rehab Addict.”

Biebinger did take a break the last two years from the full-blown Halloween and Christmas displays after a death in his family. There were some lights, but nothing like it’s been in the past. 

He plans to start things back up again this year.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hollywood Meets Halloween"}]

The first time Biebinger met "Rehab Addict" host Nicole Curtis, she was at his front door with a television crew in tow.

“They showed up with all these cameras and stuff and they were knocking on my door,” he said. “Nicole is like, ‘Hey can you do this’ … And I’m like, ‘Who are you?’”

Curtis told him she and her crew were in Evanston to rehab the historic Gilmore family home directly across the street from him. 

But her problem was timing. Her crew was trying to film a quiet, dramatic makeover show during the same hours that Biebinger was in the middle of prime time for his display. 

Curtis asked him to turn the music down or off more than once during filming. She also asked him to move vehicles out of sight so the filming crew could get clean shots of their truck.

At first, Biebinger was happy to cooperate, but as filming wore on — sometimes late into the night — and the requests kept coming, things started to wear a little thin as filming stretched into November.

“She started to get a little bit ornery, too, so I just left the music on,” Biebinger said. “The neighbors were getting upset, too, because they brought in all this equipment and were taking everybody’s spots.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Flaming Pizza Box"}]

From his side of Main Street, Biebinger had a more behind-the-scenes look at "Rehab Addict," including several spats that erupted between Curtis and her then boyfriend.

The most memorable of these was a flaming pizza box.

“She wanted to heat some pizza up,” Biebinger said. “And she stuck it in the oven without taking the pizza out of the pizza box.”

There was also a dispute involving an old truck the boyfriend told Biebinger was his, which he said Curtis had kept locked up in the garage for a time.

“He lives in Wyoming in the Riverton-Lander area,” Biebinger said he was told. “And I don’t know the whole story, but he finally got his truck back.”

Watching the completed show, Biebinger said he was impressed with the rehab itself. 

“It does look good,” he said. “She did a good job.”

The home, as far as Biebinger knows, is still owned by Curtis, who he says has been seen in the neighborhood from time to time checking on the house. 

As for his own home, Biebinger hopes to bring the full show back this year, giving Evanston kids — and maybe a few “Rehab Addict's” fans passing through — another chance to see his Halloween “Clown House" lit up again.

Clown house 4

<title>Evanston Man’s Clown House’ Photobombs HGTV's "Rehab Addict" TV Show | Cowboy State Daily</title>

When an episode of HGTV’s “Rehab Addict” was being filmed in Evanston, Wyoming, the creepy “Clown House” across the street inadvertently photobombed the shoot and was all its viewers were talking about. Now fans won't leave the house alone.

Evanston Man’s Clown House’ Photobombs HGTV's "Rehab Addict" TV Show

EVANSTON — One of the first times Jim Davis walked into the city’s historic Roundhouse and Railyards decades ago, it was like a scene from a movie. 

There was the crumbling railroad roundhouse, with its broken windows and pigeon feathers floating on the air, spinning as his footsteps stirred little puffs of dirt.

The rusted tracks disappeared into darkness. The roof was leaking, and the smell of that decay was everywhere. 

But there were rays of sunlight shining down into that darkness, and he had the sudden sense that all was not lost here. 

This was something special, something worth saving. 

Saving Evanston’s roundhouse has taken $28 million in private money and grants, as well as decades of volunteer time and effort, Davis said. 

But that’s given Evanston something few communities in America have — a completely functioning, fully intact roundhouse that he believes could be a tourism powerhouse, if Evanston ever decides to lean into promoting it. 

Everyone he has ever taken to see the building, without fail, has the same reaction, Davis told Cowboy State Daily. 

“Every single time I open the doors and walk into the roundhouse …. the first words out of their mouth are, ‘Oh my God,’” Davis said. “Their reaction was it was so phenomenal to see that space the way we were able to fix it up.”

 is a 63,000-square-foot, 96-foot-deep curved brick-and-mortar behemoth built around a post-and-beam interior.

The walls are lined with huge banks of wood-framed windows to provide natural light. It has a two-level terraced roof, and the face of the terrace is covered with windows to provide additional natural light. 

Davis likes to go up to the mezzanine level, where there’s a small kitchen area and space for parties.

“It’s just a beautiful space,” he said. “And I really enjoy taking people up there. It’s really well-thought of and the architects were so good to work with.”

Keeping it a roundhouse, Davis believes, is key to its intrigue. 

To think that inside that cavernous, multistory space lit by sunlight still that huge train cars were driven inside on tracks and then rotated by the gigantic round wheel inside to one of 28 stalls is awe-inspiring. 

All the historical photos, meanwhile, help tell a timeless legend of how America was built.

A Roundhouse Corridor That Built Southern Wyoming

Once upon a time, there were dozens of roundhouses like Evanston’s in towns across Wyoming and the West, Davis said. 

They were positioned all along the tracks, about every 100 miles. That’s about how long trains could go in the beginning without having to stop to refuel and repair. 

Over time, they became more and more efficient and roundhouses began to close. Evanston’s was slated for closure in 1926, putting at least 100 people out of work.

“We were the first roundhouse in the state to close,” Davis said. “Engines had become more efficient and they could run from Green River to Ogden without stopping in Evanston.”

It seemed unfortunate at the time, but it set off a series of events that would ultimately help save the facility.

“The city leaders thought we need those jobs now,” Davis said. “So they got on a train to Omaha, which is the headquarters, and begged them to keep the buildings open.”

Union Pacific ultimately did listen, and reopened the roundhouse and rail yard the following year as a reclamation plant, which added 200 jobs to the former 100, making for a total of 300.

“That saved those buildings,” Davis said. “They fixed all kinds of equipment for Union Pacific.”

Other roundhouses in Wyoming shut down: Laramie, Rock Springs, Rawlins, and even Cheyenne.

But Evanston’s, as a reclamation facility, kept going until 1971, after which Union Tank leased the facility from Union Pacific, and then Union Pacific quit-claimed the 21-acre property — depot, roundhouse, machine shop, yard, and related buildings — to Evanston in 1973.

For decades after that, almost nothing was done to maintain it. 

Windows broke and stayed that way. Boards were put up to block most of the rain, but roofs leaked and kept on leaking. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"First Came The Depot"}]

Saving the roundhouse from decades of neglect wasn’t a straightforward process.

What came first was actually saving an entirely different structure, the depot.

Davis had been hired as executive director of Evanston’s Urban Renewal Agency in 1987, charged with revitalizing the town’s central business district. That included not just Evanston’s great historic downtown, but Depot Square as well.

A century after Union Pacific stopped using it, decades of work has saved and restored Evanston’s historic Roundhouse and Railyards. The $28 million spent so far has made it one of the rare roundhouses in the U.S. that’s still completely operational. 

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