During Prohibition, “Rum Runner” Joe Carey partnered with the First National Bank in Greybull to make sure the residents of Greybull, Wyoming — including the local cops, Elk’s Club and pharmacist — still got their liquor. He did so well that he was able to buy the bank building in April 1927 when it failed leading up to the Great Depression.
Carey converted the bank into a bar serving nonalcoholic drinks upstairs. Hidden downstairs in the basement, he had a speakeasy that served up his illegal scotch, using the old bank vaults for his liquor storage. Upstairs, he had a hotel with one block of rooms, according to local legend, reserved as a brothel.
Today, Carey’s Greybull Hotel is still open. New owners Myles Foley and Lori Davis say they host guests from this century and those from 100 years ago when this small Wyoming town was at its heyday. Laughter has been heard and voices from the past still greet patrons of today.
“They're very happy spirits,” Foley said. “We have never had anything like ‘The Shining ‘or ‘Psycho.’ It's always been good feelings.”
Rum Runner
On July 1, 1919, liquor had been made illegal in the United States with the passage of the 18th Amendment. For the next 13 years, drinking of spirits went “underground” and the citizens of Greybull became creative in their drinking habits until prohibition ended.
Canadian liquor dealers had purchased millions of gallons of bonded U.S. spirits, and running rum across the border back into America, became a lucrative career for Carey, a young veteran of World War I.
He had decided that delivering booze instead of groceries would be a great career change and, to finance his business venture to run rum from Canada, he approached the First National Bank in Greybull. Well-aware of Carey’s intentions, Banker George Hinman gave him the loan and a partnership was formed according to Carey himself nearly 50 years later.
Carey had many customers in Greybull, including the local doctors who were allowed to prescribe scotch for colds and the cops who would gladly accept a case of liquor in exchange for “looking the other way.”
In fall 1979, Carey’s niece, Jean Godden interviewed her uncle about his “imported liquors,” and he told her candidly about his rum-running days that helped build his finances. This interview of Carey’s exploits are preserved in “Glimpses of Greybull's Past” by Tom Davis.
“I carried a Colt 45 automatic Army gun,” Carey told his niece. It was the standard service pistol of the U.S. Army and he would also wear his uniform.
“I’d a used it too, if I had to. If they’d pulled a gun on me, I’d used it. You can’t just give up because, in the first place, it was not a crime. It’s just a misdemeanor, is all it was.”
When asked if he ever had shot anyone, Carey paused and finally answered that he didn’t think so. He did say that he didn’t hide what he was doing and would have told his own mother how he was making his money.
A photo of the "non-alcoholic” bar upstairs, hiding the Speakeasy beneath. (Courtesy Photo) 
The hallways of the Historic Greybull Hotel have been restored to their former grander after water damage closed down most of the rooms. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
The new owners, Myles Foley and Lisa Davis, embrace the Greybull Hotel’s past as a Speakeasy and have converted the former illegal social club into a restaurant where families are welcome. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
The view from Joe Carey’s apartment window. It is now a hotel room available for rent at the Historic Greybull Hotel in Greybull, Wyoming. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
Remnants of the past remain from nearly 100 years ago at the Greybull Hotel such as the old mail slots. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
The Speakeasy in the Historic Greybull Hotel in Greybull, Wyoming. During Prohibition, this was a member only social club and had a secret entrance that led below the non-alcoholic bar. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
Rumors of a brothel in the back of the hotel place the rooms in Room 333 and 332. Laughter have been reported and sounds of jovial fun. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
The bank vault which, after the bank failed, became a convenient place to store illegal liquor. (Courtesy Myles Foley) 
The former bank was converted into a legal non-alcoholic bar and illegal Speakeasy during Prohibition in Greybull, Wyoming. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
The Greybull Hotel during the end of Prohibition. (Courtesy Greybull Museum) 
This hotel room was once Joe Carey’s apartment over the bar and speakeasy in Greybull, Wyoming. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
Greybull Hotel in the 1930s looking east toward north side of Greybull Avenue. (Photo by William P. Sanborn)
Speakeasy
After buying the Speakeasy in 1927, Carey left the rum running to others and used his car dealership to bring in the liquor to his secret social club.
“They would have a truck come in, back into the old Packer Nash dealership, unload it, and they had a freight elevator where they would take the alcohol down the freight elevator and to the speakeasy and then put it in the lower vault,” Foley said, explaining that he has remodeled the building to retain much of its 1920s charm.
Today, the Speakeasy is more accessible for diners and ghost hunters. Foley and Davis had built a new opening down into the once hidden club and opened it as the Speakeasy Restaurant.
“When we bought it, I had to open it up and put the railings in,” Foley said. “The stairs were there, but they had put a floor over the top of it, and the only way downstairs was if you were in the lobby. To the left of the bank vault door, there was a white door, and that used to be a metal walking door because it was a bank. You would unlock that and let people down to the Speakeasy. They had gaming tables down there and illegal liquor.”
Underground tunnels also led from the Speakeasy to the druggist across the street, one of Carey’s many customers.
Voices From The Past
Foley said that hotel guests, especially those in Room 332 and 333, have complained of men and women laughing when no one is there.
EVP have also picked up names such as Delores, Toby, Lottie, Molly and Eve. Words such as girls, slave, calling, love and drink have also been picked up. Among the general giggling, there were some “hopeless” and “nightmare” words that appeared.
This is the section of the hotel that was believed to have been a brothel during Prohibition and possibly even before. The Speakeasy is believed to be one of the more active sections of the hotel where previous guests remain, drinking and gambling in secret.
Foley enjoys having the past visit and reiterates that they mean no harm to his present-day visitors.
One family having dinner at the speakeasy could not explain why a straw began dancing at their table. The son had placed a straw in his can of Sunkist and watched in amazement as it spun in circles. His Dad tried to scientifically explain it away by saying it was the carbonation, but when they took the can out of the speakeasy – it stopped spinning.
When Wyoming’s ghost hunters, a group called WASP (Wyoming Area Spirit Posse) visited, they caught a recording of a man’s voice in the Speakeasy and several orbs in the brothel. They told Foley that their investigation proved that the hotel did have paranormal activity.
“We've had six people say that there's a girl named Alice sitting in that chair when nobody was there,” Foley said. “This is really odd to me that they all had the same name.”
Staff members have also had encounters they can’t explain.
“We had a cook downstairs named Rita, and she saw a full apparition,” he said. “There was a girl running through the restaurant kitchen and she thought it was a person and told her to slow down. She realized it wasn’t a young girl but that it was a ghost.”
Foley and Davis have helped place the Historic Greybull Hotel on the historic record to preserve both the building and the spirits that still roam the halls.
“You know how you go to some places and they just don’t feel right? Well, this this place isn’t like that at all,” Foley said. “It really does feel good.”
The Historic Greybull Hotel remains open for business, for both guests of today and yesterday.
Contact Jackie Dorothy at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
