CASPER — While some people seek to move a mountain, Julie York keeps letting the mountain move her. For more than six decades, Casper Mountain has been her home, and she would have it no other way.
Now she’s coming to the conclusion of a family mission started by her father and inspired by her grandfather to compile a history of the 10-mile stretch of rock and the people who have perched on it, 8,000 feet above sea level.
Now in her mid-60s, York believes she has been on the mountain longer than anyone now living there.
“I have always loved living here,” she said. “My grandparents homesteaded up here probably around 1932, that was my dad’s parents. He was born in 1926 and spent most of his life up here.
“He met my mom in 1950, and they got married and built their home up here.”
York now lives in her parents’ former home on the north central part of the mountain and has gathered information about the history of the area that was first collected by her parent and added it to reams of other information she has conducted through research, interviews and other residents’ photos and stories.
The goal is to put together a book that will include photos and information that digs into the geology, anthropology, history of mountain mining, early pioneers, Civilian Conservation Corps projects, summer camps, artists, snowmobilers, sled dog enthusiasts and personal stories.
“I don’t want to leave anybody out,” she said.
York said her grandfather Claude Russell “Jack” Cummings was born in 1889 and married her grandmother, Jewell.
They homesteaded on the mountain and ran the Wa-Wa Lodge.
Her father, Roy Street, returned to the mountain after serving the U.S. Marines as a sergeant in the military police during World War II. He became a Natrona County deputy sheriff assigned to the mountain.
A Dad’s Request
York’s father asked her mother to help him write a history of the mountain, but died of cancer at 51 before the project could happen.
York’s mother wanted to complete the project, but she, too, never was able to dedicate time to it before she died.
“She always felt she should complete what they started, but then she got busy,” York said. “She took pictures of everything. She was a wonderful photographer, and she collected information along the way.”
Now, York plans to carry out the family mission.
A freelance photographer, she got a video camera in 2000 and started interviewing mountain residents, many who have since passed away. She has about 30 on-camera interviews that plans to edit and include as a DVD or video resource with the book.
Homesteaders on the mountain, such as her grandparents, had to deal with isolation.
The road up and down the mountain was initially only wide enough for one vehicle. Days of the week were assigned to go up the mountain or down the mountain until turnouts were created.
“For the homesteaders, I don’t know how they did it with all the physical difficulties,” she said. “Most of them, like my grandparents, kept their place open because of the ski club. It was just Nordic skiing. They would carry their skis up the mountain to ski down it.”
Among the history she plans to include in the book is information on two ghost towns on the mountain that were next to each other, Eadesville and Copperopolis.
“They were up by the archery range on the west side of the mountain,” she said.
Both towns only lasted a decade or so. Eadesville was started by Charles Eades in 1891. She characterizes Eades as a kind of “shyster.” Eades was also one of the founders of Casper. Later in life he would be arrested and sent to prison for stealing horses.
Casper Mountain rises above Casper. (Getty Images) 
Living at the top of Casper Mountain is something Julie York has done all of her life. Now she wants to fulfill her dad’s desire and publish a history of Casper Mountain. (Courtesy Julie York) 
(Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
Julie York’s grandfather homesteaded on Casper Mountain in the 1930s. Right, her grandmother outside the Wa-Wa Lodge. (Courtesy Julie York) 
A Casper newspaper clipping of Casper Mountain’s all-important fire truck. (Courtesy Julie York) 
Left, Julie (Street) York building her log cabin on Casper Mountain. Right, Roy Street, Julie York’s father, asked her mother to help him write a book about the mountain. With Street is York’s sister, Laura. (Courtesy Julie York) 
The Casper Daily Tribune in October 1920 chronicled the attack by Davy Crockett on a man at his asbestos mining site. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
Roy Street, standing by the truck, with his brother on the porch at the Wa-Wa Lodge in the 1940s. (Courtesy Julie York) 
Casper Mountain road is paved and wide, but decades ago was only wide enough for one car at a time, prompting local residents to have scheduled days when they could rive into town. (Photo by Milonica via Wikipedia)
Of Mines And Men
Mining on the mountain, whether copper, asbestos or silver never really boomed. There was not the quantity or the quality that would make investments worthwhile.
“Most of the money made on mining up here was selling shares to gullible people,” she said. “And in Eadesville they had at one time about a dozen cabins. They had three babies born up there and two of them died.”
York said a feldspar mine succeeded for several years and another minor success was asbestos. But unfortunately, it was low grade.
One of the people who pursued the asbestos was David Burt Crockett, great-nephew of the famed Tennessean Davy Crockett who gave his life at the Alamo. York said he moved to the area in the 1890s to work in the oil fields and then turned his interests to Casper Mountain minerals.
In 1920, Crockett made the news when a man named Fred Patee, who York characterizes as another “shyster,” visited Crockett on the mountain. Crockett was at his cabin and claim and greeted Patee with a hoe to the head. There had been an ongoing dispute about asbestos claims.
“Crockett entered his cabin and reappeared with a revolver, whereupon Patee called to a friend to bring him a gun from his car. Crockett is said to have fired twice,” the Casper Daily Tribune reported on Oct. 6, 1920.
He was charged with assault with intent to kill. York said the charge was eventually dismissed.
Crockett died in 1937 after leaving Casper, moving to California and then Colorado. He asked that his body be buried on Casper Mountain at his old mine claim site. Although the property no longer belonged to him, it was.
“They had to remove him out of the casket to be able to fit him in the crevice,” York said. The unmarked grave site is on private property.
In addition to mining, the history of the mountain includes artists who started the Casper Artists Association. Those include Ruth Joy and Lin Hopkins who specialized in western and Mexican paintings. One story from the art scene involves a Chicago artist who gave a class on the mountain and ended up choosing to return to the mountain to live.
And newspaper articles can be found where York’s grandmother hosted art shows at the Wa-Wa Lodge.
York said her father helped start the volunteer fire department on the mountain with the superintendent of parks and there was a man who she knew as a teen as the mechanic for the fire truck. Turned out he was the richest man on the mountain.
A People Story
And that is what has impressed her about the mountain living. People from all incomes and interests who came together to live in a community that could be isolated by winter blizzards or hazarded by summer forest fires.
Her history of the mountain will touch on the ski resort, that has been the focus of other local histories as well. York said her grandfather was good friends with local skiing pioneer Nils Fougstedt. Her grandfather was involved in helping create the ski hill called Nursery that is now a popular sledding hill.
York said the Civilian Conservation Corps also played an important role in building structures on the mountain.
As someone who at 18 bought 40 acres of land from her grandmother and worked to build a log cabin on it, York learned quickly that living in it year around would be nearly impossible due to road access. York said she appreciates the handful of pioneers like her grandparents and parents who chose to stay on top of the rock year around.
“They were mostly World War II and Korean War veterans, and I think that it was like the first ‘back to land’ movement very healing for them after the experiences of the war.”
She can cite the times when she’s been snowed in for days and has written about a forest fire that forced her to flee her beloved home.
York expects her book to be available in the fall. Her greatest takeaway from her years of interviews and research remains the sense of “family” that people who lived on top of the mountain had for so many years.
“The most cohesive thread is the camaraderie, the connection between people,” she said. “Totally different economic classes and professions became so close to each other. Those divisions that exist in towns just never existed up here. It’s the community itself that is the biggest story.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
