Cody residents Greg and Tammy Poley are trying to find a new home for a cabin sitting on their property along the Southfork Highway near Cody. The ramshackle structure might be a relic from a community submerged over a century ago, but its history is a mystery.
Even while the Poleys hope to find a new home for this old home, they’d like to learn more about its history and hope the person who acquires it cares about it, too.
“It is a very cool cabin that needs some TLC,” Tammy Poley told Cowboy State Daily. “We'd love to see it restored, but we don't have the time to do it ourselves.”
Wyoming’s Atlantis
The Poleys acquired the property and the cabin two years ago. The only thing they were told about the historic cabin was where it might have come from.
“We were told that it was the post office from Marquette, but we have been unable to verify that,” Tammy said.
Marquette was a small community 15 miles west of the City of Cody. It was located at the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Shoshone River along the road that leads to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park.
While it’s been called a “ghost town,” a more accurate descriptor of Marquette would be “Wyoming’s Atlantis.” The town site was submerged in 1910 after the completion of the Buffalo Bill Dam, which flooded the area to irrigate northwest Wyoming.
At its peak, Marquette had all the fixtures of a Western town: a general store, post office, schoolhouse and saloon, in addition to several other less permanent structures. The town site is now submerged at the bottom of the Buffalo Bill Reservoir.
The Poleys’ property is only a few miles away from the town site of Marquette, which increases the possibility that the cabin might have once stood in the small community. But it takes more than proximity and oral history to confirm a structure’s actual history.
Unverified Address
Old Trail Town in Cody is a trailblazer for preserving the structures from the earliest permanent settlements in northwest Wyoming. That’s where the Poleys went to determine if their mysterious cabin had any actual connection to Marquette.
“The Poleys believe that the building originally came from Marquette, and it may very well have,” said Sylvia Huber, Old Trail Town's office and collection manager. “We did check with the Park County Archives and learned that as far as their research goes, Marquette did not have a separate Post Office building.”
Huber said the historical records show that Marquette’s post office was located in the same structure as the Irrigation District Office in Marquette, which stood next to the Payne & MacGlashan General Store. That doesn’t quite match the description of the Poleys’ cabin.
For that reason, Old Trail Town decided not to add the cabin to its collection of historic structures. There are 28 structures preserved at the outdoor museum, many of them dismantled and relocated to Cody because of their significance to the region’s history.
Old Trail Town’s main entrance is one of the cabins salvaged from Marquette before it was submerged. Because the provenance of the Poleys’ cabin couldn’t be verified, Huber said it would be difficult to justify the effort and expense it would take to preserve it at Old Trail Town.
“It costs a great deal of time and money to deconstruct, move, and reconstruct log buildings,” she said. “We don't just take them down and put them back up. The buildings generally need to be reroofed and always need to be rechinked. We lay concrete and replace glass as necessary.”
The last structure added to Old Trail Town was Rose Williams’ Roadhouse and Brothel, a 134-year-old structure that once stood in Arland, eight miles northwest of Meeteetse. Huber said it took five years to relocate, rebuild, restore, and research the structure for its official “reopening” in Summer 2024.
While there are certain historic buildings the staff at Old Trail Town would be eager to find and relocate to Cody, there’s only so much space for additional structures on the six-acre site. Huber said they confirm every structure’s provenance before investing in its preservation and giving it some of the limited space they have.
“We welcome all offers and research the buildings carefully before coming to a decision to accept or decline,” she said. “That, along with the fact that we only have a small open area left on the Old Trail Town property, ensures that we have to be very selective in what we can accept. That doesn't mean the Poleys’ cabin wasn’t a post office in Marquette. There’s just no solid evidence found as yet.”
Cabin Fever
While the historical details of the cabin remain unknown, it’s important enough to the Poleys that they want to ensure it goes to someone who will keep it intact. Old Trail Town might have passed on it, but there’s been plenty of interest in the cabin since the Poleys posted about it on social media.
“There’s been quite a bit of interest,” Tammy said. “We'd love to see it go to a craftsman that could do it justice.”
The buyer will probably have to disassemble the cabin to get it wherever they want it to go. That’s why it’s important to the Poleys that they find the right person willing to keep the history intact once it’s disassembled.
“We will only sell it to someone we feel will do the right thing and respect its history - whatever that may be,” Tammy said.
Contact Andrew Rossi at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
