Historic One-Of-A-Kind Property For Sale Near Sunrise Once Home To Early Pioneer

It’s almost a mansion, but not quite. A five-bedroom, four-bath house with just over 3,000 square feet near the abandoned company mining town of Sunrise, Wyoming, has hit the market for $809,000.

It sits on an 11.81-acre lot that’s a magnet for wildlife and is chock-full of archaeological artifacts of days gone by, from stone arrowheads to mining implements.

There are some great features to this historic property almost mansion that once served as the home for superintendents of the no-longer-operating Sunrise School District.

For one, the stonework for the patio and outdoor kitchen, as well as the rock retaining walls, are top-notch, authentic Italian. The stonework was built alongside the home in the 1940s by immigrant workers who were employed by Colorado Fuel & Iron Co., more commonly referred to as CF&I, who lived in the nearby company town.

One thing that makes this home really special, though, isn’t the comfortably sized rooms, the warm wooden floors or the beautiful stonework. It’s the historical secrets hiding in its walls, as well as the one-of-a-kind history that’s part of the listing. 

The property includes the original homestead cabin of one Charles A. Guernsey, the New Yorker who named the town of Guernsey, Wyoming, after purchasing the land in 1880. The cabin came along in later years, and served for a time as a store, just outside of Sunrise.

Guernsey History

In the 1840s, there was no Guernsey at all. The area was better known as the “emigrant’s wash tub” along the Oregon Trail, so-called because it was where pioneers headed West would stop to shake off the dust of the trail. They would wash their clothes, water their stock, and take baths. 

Charles A. Guernsey was among those early pioneers, moving West from New York in 1880. He bought some land in what was then Laramie County, but later became the town of Guernsey,  in present-day Platte County.

Guernsey would become an influential legislator, rancher and miner, and was instrumental in building Guernsey Dam. He also, at one time, owned and helped develop the mine at Sunrise, though it was ultimately sold to CF&I.

Register Cliff, where Guernsey built his cabin, served as a spot where pioneers would often carve their names into the stone, letting others who might be following behind them know that they had made it this far. Those names are still visible today. 

Living History 

Guernsey’s cabin, according to the home’s owners, Kevin and Kayla Gross, is still in great condition.

“It’s a beautiful log cabin, and to get the logs where they wanted to build, they had to float the logs one by one down the North Platte River,” Kayla told Cowboy State Daily. “And that’s where it was also later taken apart, to bring it up here (to Sunrise) and piece it back together.”

The cabin was purchased from Guernsey by an ancestor of the Frederick brothers, who eventually sold off the historic cabin near Register Cliffs to build themselves a nicer home. 

“They actually have all the books and all the documents that went with this cabin,” Kayla said. “And my husband previously had a store in the cabin, so when we had the store, they lent us those documents to have there for people to see.”

Doug and Chuck Frederick, who are still living, also told stories about their memories of living in the cabin as well.

“There are so many stories,” Kayla said. “There’s like the blizzard of 1969 and the Frederick brothers, there’s two boys, and they remember that,” she said. “And they said the blizzard was as high as the roof, so they could slide off the roof into the snow.”

The documents are available for buyers to inspect, Kayla said, but will be returned to the Frederick brothers once the sale is complete.

Hidden Notes And Other Secrets

The Frederick brothers’ stories about the cabin aren’t the only stories the Grosses have been told. There are also stories about the main house, which once housed the superintendent of Sunrise School District. 

“Bill McCannon, who was a son of one of the superintendents, told us that he was just an elementary kid when he lived here before they moved out,” Kayla said. “And he told us that he put some notes in the wall.”

These notes were placed on the main level behind the wall of the vanity, as well as down in the laundry room. 

“Both of those mirrors are still original to the house,” Kayla said. “And so, they would be back there.”

These secret notes, however, are not so easy to get to, Kevin added.

“That’s lathe and plaster behind the walls, and it’s super thick,” he said. “It’s hard to get a nail or a screw or anything through. And so, if something falls down in there, you’re not getting it out.”

The notes have been behind the wall for 80 years now, Kevin added.

“It’s weird how near and dear this little town, or what was a little town, was to a lot of people’s hearts,” Kevin said. “If you get on the Sunrise, Wyoming historic page on Facebook, there’s just tons of followers on there, and they’re all sharing pictures of their relatives and almost ancestors at this point and sharing stories for growing up in Sunrise.”

Those folks also show up in person from time to time to tell fascinating stories about the place where they or their ancestors once lived. 

“One of the guys we know, who is very elderly, told us about a really funny story,” Kevin said. “And I don’t know the exact time frame, but forever ago. And the white people and the Hispanics or Mexicans, weren’t really allowed to be associated with each other. So this guy, he’s elderly and Hispanic and he had a thing for the superintendent’s daughter, who was a white family. That was a big no-no, but he told us about losing his virginity on the hill behind our house, and how he thought he was going to get killed.”

That hill is also where children from the town of Sunrise would have walked to get to school. 

Comfortable Living

History is not the only thing the Grosses have appreciated about their home near the abandoned mining town once called Sunrise. 

The home has larger than usual closets for the timeframe when it was built, and plenty of space for a family to spread out.

It would also make a great bed and breakfast, Kevin suggested, since it has so many rooms, as well as the cabin, where guests could stay.

Guests would also appreciate the beauty of the area, which has plenty of wildlife to watch, and it is common to find arrowheads and the like just laying on the surface of the grounds. 

The beauty of the landscape, he feels, is only enhanced by the beauty of the natural stonework.

“There’s probably at least a half mile of wall that’s anywhere from 3- to 7-feet high,” Kevin said. “It’s a ton of stone. And it’s not red rock from the mine, so I’m not sure where it came from, but it is beautiful stone.”

The fact there’s no mortar holding the stonework together, and yet it still stands after all these years, is a further marvel.

“It’s like completely free-standing,” Kevin said. “It’s these mismatched stones from big to pebble size and for them to just fit perfectly, it’s amazing. It was all done by Italian stone masons, just like many places in Italy still are, and they just have original stone-built structures that just perfectly fit together somehow.”

There are also interior signs of olden times, like the ancient coal chute that’s still in place, and the family has some of the home’s original documents, including one that shows the sale price of the home for $10,000, as well as the home’s original blueprints.

“They’re all even stamped with CF&I,” Kevin added.

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