The youngest building still standing in downtown Gillette in Wyoming was built in 1911.
“The buildings that are there now are second generation buildings,” historian and former tour guide Mary Kelley said. “We've had several fires downtown in that first block where those older buildings were. They were mostly made of wood and most of our old downtown was destroyed.”
The city was founded in 1891, and despite the relative youth of Gillette’s downtown, ghosts are said to inhabit many of the newer buildings in the old business district, according to the workers and patrons who are there after dark.
Voices heard coming from the darkness, objects seen moving on their own and other unexplained occurrences that have chased some people away, never to return.
“The entire first block of Gillette Avenue, from First Street to Second Street is haunted,” Mary Kelley said. “The store owners don't seem to be able to put a name to their ghosts, but every business in that first block has ghost stories to tell.
“The workers believe it because they work there in the evening hours when the ghosts would make themselves known.”
The original settlement of Gillette was a small tent town known as Donkey Town. It was a temporary base camp for survey crews from the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad who were planning to build a line through Northeast Wyoming in the late 1880s.
The original railroad survey was to follow Donkey Creek and move to the south; however, surveyor Edward Gillette mapped out a shorter route that saved the railroad five miles of track and 30 bridges. Grateful for the better route, the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad named the new town after Gillette.
If Gillette’s ghost is among those haunting the historic downtown in his namesake city, Kelley hasn’t met him … or just not yet.
Chased Away
At 122 Gillette Ave., ghosts have been heard roaming about. Kelley said that this particular building was built in 1941 as a café and, in September 2013, reopened as Hands On Pottery.
“When they were redoing the utility lines and the water lines, the whole street was torn up, all the way from First Street to Seventh Street,” Kelley said. “They had some flooding in the basement, and the owner had a crew come in to clean up.”
The cleaning crew expected this to be a routine job but ran into some unexpected issues.
“They were in the back part of the store, and the gals were cleaning, and they heard someone talking next to them,” Kelley said. “There was no one there, but they heard someone talking and they raced out of there. They left their equipment and will not come back to this day.”
Center Bar Ghost Stories
The Center Bar is another hot bed of activity according to Kelley.
“The owner, Julie (McIntosh) was there at night cleaning up, and she was downstairs,” Kelley said. “She heard chairs and trash cans being moved upstairs, and these were being dragged along the floor but no one is there. They've had bottles fall off shelves, and it's been difficult, I believe, for Julie, to get any of her staff to stay after night and be there once the place is locked up and everybody's gone because they just feel a presence there.”
Kelley has not been able to find out who exactly is haunting the Center Bar but the staff has provided her with a general description.
“They say that their ghost is a female, and they believe she's friendly, she doesn't hurt anyone, but she definitely is mischievous,” Kelley said, laughing. “A lot of the people who spend time in the center bar have stories to tell.”
One story in particular that Kelley shared was from a gentleman who had his game of pool interrupted.
“The two guys were playing billiards, and one of them put the eight ball in a pocket, and he walked around the table to get the eight ball out again, and he couldn't find it, and he walked around the table again and saw the eight ball spinning in the air up above the table.”
Montgomery Bar
As a historian, Kelley is fascinated by the early characters that founded Gillette, although she told Cowboy State Daily that she has not been able to tie any ghost stories to any of Gillette’s pioneers.
“We've got our share of early characters like every old west town,” Kelley said. “My favorite character is Roy Montgomery. He was just mischievous, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's haunting the Montgomery Bar. The people that work there and the patrons say they definitely hear noises and hear things moving at night so maybe it’s him.”
Mary Kelley has given many presentations on Roy Montgomery and has included him in her book, “Images of America: Gillette.” He founded the now-haunted Montgomery Bar and made it the political center of Gillette for a time.
“Roy was pretty power hungry, and he wanted to be the mayor of the town, and we already had a mayor, Mark Shields,” Kelley said. “Roy called Mark out into the middle of Gillette Avenue and beat him up and sent Mark to the hospital.
“A crowd gathered around the fight, including the sheriff, and nobody wanted to stop the fight. And then, when the fight was over, Roy said, ‘Now I'm the mayor.’
“Everybody agreed, and he moved the mayor's office into the Montgomery Bar, and Mark's office was at the Bank of Gillette a block or so down the street, but I don't know that that was probably way too civilized for Roy.
“He also owned a brothel here in town. It was called the Pea Green and he would bring girls in to work in his brothel. And finally, about maybe 1911 he was arrested for running a brothel, basically for bringing in women across state lines for immoral purposes. Roy said he wasn't being prosecuted for bringing girls in to work at his brothel. He was being persecuted for being a Democrat in a Republican town.”
Next time you are in downtown Gillette and you hear a bump in the night, it just might be one of their friendly ghosts.
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
