"If He's Lopen, We're Open": Manville’s 3 Sisters Truck Stop Is True Wyoming

MANVILLE — The sign gets them every time.

There’s a cowboy perpetually riding a galloping horse, but it’s the actual movement of those legs on a weary stretch of lonely highway that catches the eye.

Is it wind moving those legs?

It’s a fair question. It can be a windy corner and, while it’s an all-electric sign, there are no lights on it to make that readily apparent.

“If he’s lopen, we’re open,” the sign explains in huge letters beneath the cowboy and horse, before going on to advertise three simple things that most weary travelers find useful — food, fuel, bar.

By then, a motorist has already slowed down enough to think about it. And, while food in such an out-of-the-way place might seem like a question mark, travelers who do decide to stop will find fare that’s better than average. The 3 Sisters offers large, hand-pattied burgers, homemade potato salad, fresh and crisp salads and several varieties of homemade pies.

The pies, by the way, are perfect. Just like grandma would make. In fact, they’re made by an 80-year-old woman named Darlene, who clearly knows her way around the kitchen.

There’s juicy fried chicken and steak, too, along with a variety of other home-style dishes, all served in generous portions.

Not Nuns

The sisters who own the truck stop get asked often if they are nuns.

That’s a question that draws a few laughs.

Lori Carpenter, Shirley Bullock and Kim Olson opened the 3 Sisters Truck Stop in 1998 in their young and wild days. Olson did sell out not long after, but still comes back to help during busy times like hunting season.

“Because we all started together, we just wanted to keep the name,” Carpenter told Cowboy State Daily. “And there’s actually seven girls and one boy in our family, so there’s way more than three sisters in all.”

A picture of the three sisters on the wall of the bar, taken in Deadwood in 2003, shows three flirty, smiling women, who are definitely not nuns, clearly out to take on the world.

The picture is one of few survivors from the old days. A flood wiped out most of the establishment’s photos of patrons that adorned either a Hall of Fame or the Hall of Shame, depending on what was in the photo.

“People loved coming in here and saying, ‘Oh that was me, remember back when,’” Carpenter said. “But when the water came through we lost all of those, and a lot of our paperwork, and that’s really the only photo we have left.”

Butt Darts

It’s too bad more photos did not survive. They would have shown how much fun the three not-nuns were having at the bar in their younger days.

“We used to have like, a lingerie show for the truck drivers,” Carpenter said, smiling at the memories. “It was a truck driver appreciation night.”

At one point, some of the truck drivers suggested the sisters should bring in some strippers.

But it turned out, that wasn’t really what the truck drivers wanted after all.

“We brought some strippers here from the Green Door in Cheyenne, Carpenter said. “And they were terrible. So, the truckers were like, ‘Kick those girls out. We want to party with the three sisters.’”

After that, there was live music, but no more strippers.

But there were plenty of funny games like butt darts, Bullock told Cowboy State Daily.

“You had to put a quarter between the cheeks of your butt, and then you had to drop it in a shot glass,” she said.

That’s fully clothed, mind you. Which makes it no easy task to hold onto a quarter long enough to drop it in the tiny shot glass. Don’t believe it, then just try it and see.

“I was the world champion at that,” Bullock said, laughing. “Yeah, I think we can make up whatever titles we want to for that game.”

World champion it is.

Where Everyone Knows Your Name

In the beginning, the sisters felt like outsiders, Carpenter said.

“Even though we only came from down the road, you know by Douglas,” she said. “The local people did not want us here at first.”

In fact, none of the ladies’ husbands wanted them to have their own truck stop either, Carpenter added — even though running a truck stop is exactly what they’d been doing at Orin Junction.

“So, we’re all divorced and remarried,” Carpenter said with a shrug. “We’re all on our second husbands.”

That first year, the three sisters leased the truck stop, just to be certain before going all in.

They needn’t have worried. Word quickly spread that there was good food and good times at 3 Sisters Truck Stop, and they were busy from 6 a.m. to midnight every day.

“That’s when we were younger,” Carpenter said. “Yeah, way younger.”

As their business grew stronger, the community came along as well. Today, 3 Sisters is a vital part of the tiny town of Manville, which has just 92 people.

People stop in after work to for a beer or soda and some chit-chat, a rural version of Cheers, the bar where everyone knows your name. If there’s a funeral, the 3 Sisters will open up the doors and turn on the “lopen” sign, so people know they have a place to gather.

The Power Of The Sign

“A lot of people do stop just because of the sign,” Bullock said.

In fact, singer songwriter Rachel Baiman, born and raised in Chicago, recently released a song that opens with the sign. She called the song “Shit Town,” and it was released July 30.

“If it’s lopen, we’re open said a roadside sign for a diner in Manville, Wyoming,” she sings. “There’s a cowboy cutout on top of the horse and the wind is the source of his roamin’.”

Carpenter isn’t sure when Baiman would have stopped by. But the singer highlights the pie the diner serves, as well as a waitress who is a diesel mechanic. Olson’s daughter is a diesel mechanic and sometimes works weekends at the restaurant.

The sign that caught Baiman’s attention was Bullock’s son, Clint Phillip’s, idea.

“When I had (the truck stop at) Orin Junction and he was just a little kid, they had a plywood horse there,” Bullock said. “And when it would get cold, it wouldn’t take off, so we’d have to take a stick and put it up the horse’s butt.”

The sign Phillips built works better, Bullock said. No stick required.

These days, the sign is “lopen” a lot less often, Bullock said. Many of the friends she’s made at 3 Sisters have died or retired, and she and her sisters are about ready to retire as well, as soon as they can find an appropriate buyer.

“We’ve been here a long time,” Bullock said. “And what’s funny is these little kids that we knew when they were like 2 years old, now they’re bringing their 2-year-olds in.”

Just as she says that, Bullock’s daughter Avy walks in carrying her grandson. A big smile spreads across her face as she takes the blue-eyed toddler in her arms, and he smiles right back.

Whatever Baiman might think of the tiny town of Manville, Bullock sees it as pure gold.

“I have no regrets,” Bullock says. “I met a lot of good people. I taught my kids how to work. It’s been a good life.”

Contact Renée Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com

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