Can Chugwater’s Historic 109-Year-Old Grant Hotel Be Saved?

Welcome to the Grant Hotel, located downtown in a tiny Wyoming town called Chugwater.

Its roof has collapsed in the back. Walls have been taken down in some places and sinks and doors removed — likely as part of past, now suspended, remodeling efforts.

Some floors in the back area have also collapsed. Chugwater Economic Development board member Josh Hopkins readily admits the hotel, which was built in 1915, is “kind of rough inside.”

But he added, it has good bones. He believes it’s worth the $74,500 asking price and, if it were to be restored, either as a hotel or something else, it would find a vital spot in the ongoing revival of this small Wyoming town

Hopkins has been part of helping create that revival as a relatively new resident and co-owner of the Tri-County Mercantile in Chugwater.

The general store is just across from Wyoming’s oldest continuously operating soda fountain, restored by also relatively new residents Jill Winger and her husband, Chris.

“This is like 19 teens construction, so everything is kind of lower and wider,” Hopkins said. “I think it’s like the Higgins Hotel in Glenrock, or the Occidental (in Buffalo), or the Virginian in Medicine Bow. A lot of those are right around the same, 1910 or so timeframe. Everything was just kind of very stout. Simplistic but strong.”

Part Of The Swan Land And Cattle Co.’s Rise

The Grant Hotel was one of the earliest investments in Chugwater, predating the town, which was once headquarters for the Swan Land and Cattle Company.

Founded by Scottish immigrants, the company once owned more than a million acres in Wyoming and had more than 113,000 head of cattle listed on its books ahead of the devastating winter of 1886-87.

Swan Land and Cattle Company lost half of its herd after that winter, ultimately going bankrupt, but it continued to operate until 1945. It listed a herd of 40,000 cattle in 1893, and by 1904, it had a herd of sheep numbering 112,000 head.

Swan Land and Cattle Company built a general store in Chugwater in 1913, and they also employed a carpenter named Robert Grant, Jr., who built the Grant Hotel.

Historical records are unclear whether he built the hotel for Swan Land and Cattle Company, or just while he was employed by them, but, either way, the hotel still bears his name.

The hotel, along with the soda fountain, bank, and banker’s house were all among the earliest investments in the community, predating the town’s incorporation in 1919, Hopkins said.

“They were all really solid, brick structures that are still around today,” Hopkins said. “And they were not small investments, so they’re really kind of incredible.”

The two-story hotel was placed right across from the railroad depot, so that it was clearly visible to anyone getting off the train.

“The railroad was really its main traffic,” Hopkins said. “And those were people coming to the ranch, either working for the ranch or staying nearby, and this was well before automobile tourists.”

The facade of Hotel Grant is still the same as it was in that timeframe, which is when the Deadwood to Cheyenne stage route was still a thing, and railroads were still relatively new.

The Fall Of A Small Town

The rise of automobiles was, at first, a good thing for Chugwater. The town was along what automobile clubs in Denver and Wyoming promoted as the Yellowstone Highway, running from Denver to Cody.

There were several of these Yellowstone routes, started by various automobile clubs in different locations, that promoted scenic routes that led to Yellowstone.

Yellowstone Trail, for example, started on the east coast, traveled through Nebraska, up into Montana, before dipping down into Yellowstone Park.

Chugwater was the next stop after Cheyenne on the unofficial route that started from Denver.

On the strength of this new automobile traffic, the Grant Hotel’s owners decided to expand in the 1930s, building some more tourist cabins to accommodate more guests.

The number of gas stations swelled, and there were at least six on record through the 1950s.

“It was really a big stopping point from kind of a long leg from Cheyenne,” Hopkins said.

Chugwater continued to have a healthy amount of motorist traffic right up until the early 70s, Hopkins said, when Interstate 25 was completed.

“That’s kind of just the classic, kill the small town, thing,” Hopkins said. “And that’s really what I think happened here, for not only the hotel, but our Main Street businesses as well.”

When the traffic died out, Chugwater began losing many of its buildings, which had been abandoned due to the lack of commerce. Some of the buildings that remain are among the town’s oldest. The Soda Fountain. The bank and the banker’s house. And the hotel.

Their construction was solid. Corners weren’t being cut. The “bones,” as Hopkins mentioned, are strong.

Bringing Back Chugwater

There have been some efforts along the way to save the hotel.

“There were people who wanted to redevelop it,” Hopkins said. “But they wanted to get a liquor license from the town, and there was only one liquor license in the town for pretty much most of its life. That was at the soda fountain.”

The mayor of the time opposed more liquor licenses in town.

“Another company wanted to put in kind of a lounge, and they wanted a liquor license too,” Hopkins said. “The town voted against it and those people moved on. So that’s happened a couple of times where there was an attempt to redevelop it that never came to fruition.”

Twice now, the Grant Hotel has faced demolition.

But what’s sustained it each time is its history, its place in the town. And the hope that its history could somehow find a way to continue.

Chugwater has already been attracting new residents of late, Hopkins being one of them.

“I would call this a missing puzzle piece,” Hopkins said. “We could use a laundromat, we could use a Main Street barbershop, we could really use a Main Street mechanic. But the thing is — and in my bid for mayor, the local economy, rebuilding the local economy, is a big push for me. The hotel is obviously part of that.”

But for Hopkins, a hotel is not just about serving tourists.

Hopkins believes there are more people like himself, who are attracted to smaller towns and want to be part of building something different. Something that he feels is vital to America — small towns.

Those places where people know your name, help you watch out for your kids, and rally around each other when disasters strike.

“A hotel would be a way for people to get a window onto our community, to invest in it and say, ‘I want to be part of that,’” Hopkins said. “It’s kind of that missing piece to connect things together. It would just open new avenues for business, but also build on the strength of the community.”

Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com

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