The Rock Shop Inn: A Spectacular Spot In the Heart Of Nowhere, Wyoming

South Pass City State Historic Site and its sister town, Atlantic City, lie in one of the most remote areas of Wyoming, a place that has few people and few options for food and lodging for the tourists who arrive each summer to try their luck panning for gold.

The area is about to get one more option, and the venue is spectacular.

The Rock Shop Inn, which partially reopened with restored cabins in 2019, has been a work in progress the past four to five years by a father-son team. They aim to have their newly refurbished saloon open to the public sometime this summer.

“This place has had a lot of storied history,” Rock Shop Inn owner Anthony Prate told Cowboy State Daily. “So, it’s not like I’m creating something new here. We’re just trying to bring The Rock Shop back to a wonderful place for, you know, not only the Lander community, but all of Fremont County.”

Life-Changing Road Trip

Prate bought The Rock Shop Inn as a diamond in the rough with his father in 2017 after an 18-hour road trip from Illinois to Wyoming.

“I was just getting out of the military,” Prate recalled. “And so, of course, any time with my father, I’ll take it, whether he wanted to go to Florida, Alaska, or just down the road. I always enjoy spending time with my father.”

The road trip to check out The Rock Shop Inn was his dad’s idea.

Before heading there though, the two stopped in Lander for groceries and gasoline. And that’s when Prate first got a gleam in his eye for Wyoming.

Here was this too-charming little community at the foothills of one of the most remote mountain ranges in the Lower 48. He could just see the possibilities for adventure are endless.

“I just fell in love with that,” Prate said. “It’s an outdoor enthusiast’s dream. And everybody’s so nice.”

It didn’t hurt at all that the trip from Lander to South Pass City is a scenic drive.

The Rock Shop Inn “sneaks up on you when you’re driving from Lander,” Prate said. “It’s in a valley.”

From that first glimpse, Prate could tell the structures were pretty beat up. But he could also see they had enormous potential.

“That next couple of days getting to know the property, seeing the further potential of it, you know, we ended up going for it,” Prate said. “I decided to dedicate the rest of my life to this place. Like two weeks later, I packed up my life in Illinois and moved out to Wyoming, and I haven’t looked back since.”

History Of The Rock Shop Inn

Not much is known about the history of The Rock Shop Inn, and Prate is still filling in the blanks with stories people have told him here and photos he’s found there.

“I’ve heard this started out as a rock shop and I forget the gentleman’s name, but he sold rocks out of here,” Prate said. “And then I guess he started dabbling in some food and it became like a little restaurant. Then it was known as the Willow Creek Inn. The Buffalo Chips, a band, used to play here, and it was a good, good place for everybody to come.”

The location was a popular nexus for the snowmobiling crowd, a destination between adventures where travelers could stop for a hearty meal.

“They would ride from Lander up Sinks Canyon and down the Loop Road and come into The Rock Shop the back way during the wintertime to get some burgers and beers, and then ride back to Lander,” Prate said. “I’ve had lots of people come by telling me stories of when they used to do that with their dads or their grandparents. And they’re so excited to hear me bringing the place back so they can do it with their kids.”

At some point, Willow Creek was damaged by a fire. New owners — the Reeds — came along and tore down the single-story inn, building the current two-story lodge and some cabins.

“(The Reeds) had it running as a restaurant for a couple of years,” Prate said. “It had a great reputation, and I’ve got their old menus hanging on the walls in some of my buildings. People get a kick out of seeing what the prices used to be, before inflation.”

After the Reeds, the property was bought by someone else, and the cabins and lodge were no longer available to the public. The new owners didn’t use the site often, though, and the place fell into disrepair from lack of use.

“Then we, the Prate family bought it, and we’re turning it into a legacy for Lander,” Prate said. “Myself and my father, we are building this place to pass down through the generations.

“We’re not just upgrading this Rock Shop to sell it as a business to make money. We are very much invested in this place as a family legacy.”

Never Finished, Always Improving

Prate’s first order of business in saving The Rock Shop Inn was to renovate the cabins. That would be the easiest lift at the location and would provide some initial income to help feed the overall restoration of the property’s saloon and eventually its restaurant.

The cabins opened in 2019, and have been helping with the saloon’s renovation, which is next on the list to open, sometime this summer, after a soft opening sometime in the spring.

Finished, though, is not really a word in Prate’s vocabulary.

“I’ll never be finished, I’ll always be improving,” Prate said. “That’s kind of the joke around town. For the past two or three years now, I’ve told people I’ll be open soon. But now I’m going to be open very soon.”

Prate’s cabins are a great preview into what to expect from the saloon.

The pine log walls shine as if polished. Even the beds are made of polished wood, punctuated with bedding that sports the brown, gold and canyon red colors of the region.

Most of the cabins have kitchenettes, as well as cute little tables in unique shapes, fashioned out of natural wood. With such nice kitchenettes, guests can stay a little or a little longer — as their hearts’ desire.

Some cabins have little porches with fences crafted to look like interwoven tree limbs. Rustic furniture awaits there, from which to view the mountainscapes and their promise of adventures beyond.

A lot of this carpentry and woodwork has been done by Prate and his father, but it is too big a job for just two men.

“I grew up in a contractor family,” Prate said. “And I was very close to my mother’s father, who was a lifetime carpenter. So, I learned a lot from him growing up and working with him.”

Prate also worked with his dad on roofing and other such jobs.

“So, I’m very capable in my own skills,” Prate said. “But just for the amount of work out here and some of the stuff I don’t know how to do, I do have a good group of guys who have been helping me get this Rock Shop going as well for the last couple of years. And they’re all local guys. I like to support local contractors whenever I can.”

Where The Wild Things Are

When Prate was a child, nature was always what he loved.

“I have had this travel ‘Atlas of the World’ since I was 9, 10 years old,” Prate told Cowboy State Daily. “Growing up over the years, I would always put Post-It notes on states and parks and trails, campgrounds, and things I wanted to see across the United States.”

Somehow, Wyoming never got many of those notes.

But now it has a big bullseye over it.

Being near the Wind River Mountains, which Prate describes as the most remote mountain range in the Lower 48, and having access to hundreds of miles of trails is a dream come true.

It’s a dream he’s willing to share with a few guests at his five cabins.

“This property is only 5 acres, but what makes it amazing is that we’re bordered by BLM public land and the Shoshone National Forest,” he said. “You can see the Milky Way galaxy every night when you look up to the stars and, when you wake up from the cabins, as soon as you step out my back gate, you’re on hundreds and hundreds of miles of trails. You can hike from my back gate all the way up to Jackson Hole if you want to.”

Also in the shadows of the Wind River Range is a little bouldering hotspot known as the Rock Shop.

Bouldering refers to climbing boulders without the use of ropes or harnesses at heights not usually great enough to cause serious injuries.

Despite the lack of height, the climbing itself can still be very complex and challenging, with some boulders offering steep, backward pitched surfaces that require both ingenuity and strength to scale.

“Eventually, we’ll do guided hunting tours, we’ll do guided fishing trips and backpack excursions and camping trips,” Prate said. “Right now, I’m more focused on the actual property itself, getting the cabins going, maintaining the property, getting the bar going, getting the restaurant going. Once we have it all running, and the demand allows it, the possibilities up here are endless.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.