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[{"type":"text","text":"Golfer sends clubhead through neighbor's car window....."}]

Darwin 5 7 25

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Darwin: Wednesday, May 7, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Golfer sends clubhead through neighbor's car window.....

Daily Darwin: Wednesday, May 7, 2025

 Golfer sends clubhead through neighbor's car window.....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Dubois, Wyoming, is a name that, to this day, is 

. It's pronounced “dew-boys” instead of the French “deh-bwah" as a deliberate slight to U.S. senator Fred Dubois, after whom the town was named — by Dubois himself.

The locals wanted their town’s name to be Tibo, the Shoshone word for "stranger" or "white man.” It was an affectionate moniker for Episcopal priest Father John Roberts, one of the first white homesteaders in the area.

There’s another strange name that factors into Dubois' strange naming history: Neversweat.

It’s a relic of Fremont County’s early history of bustling wilderness outposts in the mountains of western Wyoming. But was Dubois almost named something as unsavory as Neversweat?

“It's one of those stories where there's some truth in it and some that's not true,” said historian Steve Banks. “I read a little quip one time that said, ‘If you're going to tell a historical story, you have the truth and the myth, and you want to print the one that gets the most attention.’”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"You’ve Got Mail"}]

While Dubois’ history of human habitation stretches back thousands of years, it didn’t become officially incorporated as a town until 1914. Before then, Dubois was one of several small settlements that stretched from Riverton and Fort Washakie into the mountainous wilderness beyond.

“It started out with the first post office called JK,” Banks said. “That was named for J.K. Moore, a prominent settler in this part of the world at the time. That means he was a guy who owned a nonmilitary store that sold dry goods and things like that.”

The Dubois Post Office was officially established on Aug. 6, 1889. It's first postmaster was Charles C. Smith.

Having a post office was an important mark of distinction for any Western settlement. It gave residents an address where their mail would be delivered.

Back then, post offices were handed out like candy. Banks could recall the line of short-lived post offices that settlers and visitors would find as they moved westward.

“There was Morton, Pavilion, Crowheart, Burris, Lenore, Tipperary, Black Mountain, Leesdale, Duncan, Dunoir, Dubois, Dennison, Neversweat, a second Dunoir, Diamond G, Hamburg, and Bar G,” he said. “That's how many post offices there were.”

Many of these places are long-gone, but can still be found on Google Maps in the 21st Century.

Why so many post offices? Banks said it was because of the primary industry, railroading people to the region.

“It was primarily due to tie hackers,” he said. “Many people who lived up here simply to be a tie hack, cutting down pine trees to use for railroad ties for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. Each of these places was a tie hack village.”

As the tie hackers moved throughout the mountains, new post offices were established every 15 miles or so. That way, mail could be distributed more effectively to the growing population spread along the route.

“There was getting to be quite a population up here,” Banks said. “These were little places where they could collect the mail. Otherwise, they would have to go clear to Lander, which had the connection with the railroad.”

Banks said this scattered system of post offices worked well in the early 1900s. Mail would be picked up by stagecoach in Lander and delivered to each spot along the way to Dubois and beyond once a month.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Never Sweat'"}]

Of all the names of these short-lived post offices, Neversweat stands out.

“Each of these places had their own little stories, but the one that gets the most attention are Neversweat and Dubois,” Banks said.

Neversweat was roughly 15 miles northwest of Dubois, following the post office pattern. It got its post office in 1895, and while the U.S. Postal Service didn’t balk at the name, they did decide to condense it to a single word rather than “Never Sweat” as it appeared on the application.

[{"type":"text","text":"The origin of the name is disputed."}]

Some say it’s because people working in the area never sweat because of the warm, dry winds rushing through the terrain. Others say the small settlement had a lackadaisical atmosphere, thus you “never sweat” while stopping in.

[{"type":"text","text":"Banks heard another story about how Neversweat got its distinct name."}]

“It was a joke on the heating stove,” he said. “Neversweat originally had a little bar where a lot of the tree hackers would hole up, and they had a thing that the only time they put any wood in the fireplace or in the stove was when it got cold enough. 

"When one person got cold enough, he was the one delegated to go get another chunk of wood. That’s where that name got it started.”

The Neversweat Post Office was established on Oct. 31, 1895. It's first postmaster was Laura Pease.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Yellowstone Highway"}]

Even when Neversweat was a happening spot, at least by standards of Wyoming at the time, Dubois was already becoming the true metropolis of the Upper Wind River Valley.

“It eventually became the main post office because it was in a better spot for distributing mail,” Banks said.

Dubois ultimately gained national notoriety as a desirable alternative along “the Yellowstone Highway.”

As stagecoaches and railroads gave way to automobiles, people could choose their own adventure when traveling to Yellowstone National Park. The roads that would become U.S. Highways 26/287/20, stretching from Lander to the Jackson Valley, were what Robert Frost would describe as “the road less traveled.”

“That route was advertised on roadmaps and other media as the Yellowstone Highway,” Banks said. “The people who did all of the tourism of that time period decided that it would be easier and better to find a different way for people coming from the east to go through Wyoming and into Yellowstone.”

The original Yellowstone Highway started with a train ride to Rawlins, followed by a stagecoach to Lander, where people got a dose of civilization before continuing onward to Yellowstone.

By the time cars became the primary mode of tourist transportation, Dubois was already on the map as a key stop along the Yellowstone Highway. The community was already the most developed and populated spot between Lander and Yellowstone when it was incorporated in 1914.

“That was what put Dubois on the map as being a traveling route to get to Yellowstone,” Banks said.

Neversweat never stood a chance. Granted, it never stood a chance, anyway.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Never An Option"}]

There was controversy when Dubois got the name it didn’t want in 1914, but the alternative was never Neversweat. Locals wanted their town to be called Tibo, but their new namesake wouldn’t allow it.

“Fred Dubois was a politician who was given charge of all of the businesses that took place in Fremont County,” Banks said. “When he came here to form the post office, he said, ‘You can't have an Indian name. It's just not right, and it's not the way it ought to be.’ So when he got ready to draw up the papers for the name of the post office in Dubois, he gave it his own name.”

Dubois, allegedly, hated it when people mispronounced his French surname. Wyoming residents have been mispronouncing it, out of spite, ever since.

It wasn’t the first time Dubois named something after himself. He has a namesake town in his home state of Idaho, which Banks noted is exactly 200 miles away from Dubois, Wyoming.

“You have to be careful if you order anything out of Idaho,” he said. “Make sure that they get it to Dubois, Wyoming, and not Dubois, Idaho. I’ve made that mistake before.”

Neversweat was lost to time after another obscure settlement near Dubois, Dunior, asked for a new post office to be placed at the base of Union Pass. That request was granted, wiping Neversweat off the map and Dubois’ brow forever.

The Neversweat Post Office didn't even last that long. It ceased operations on Nov. 30, 1897, just over two years after it was established.

That’s why Banks and many other historians classify this story as pure fiction. Neversweat existed, but it was never almost Dubois.

“It was never a decision between Neversweat and Dubois,” Banks said. “It wasn’t even a choice between Dubois and Tibo. That was the decision of one politician whom we’ve been slamming ever since."

Dubois sign 9 7 23

<title>Wyoming Communities: How Dubois, Wyoming, Got Its Name And Its Pronunciation | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Dubois is a name that, to this day, is spoken out of spite. It's pronounced “dew-boys” instead of the French “deh-bwah" as a slight to U.S. senator Fred Dubois — who named the town after himself — and hated it when people mispronounced his French surname.

Wyoming Communities: How Dubois, Wyoming, Got Its Name And Its Pronunciation

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

Economy

CHEYENNE — Wyoming knows it has a huge housing problem. 

Builders, city and county administrators, state officials, business and community leaders — it doesn’t matter which of them you ask, most will agree the state is short tens of thousands of homes.

Scott Hoversland, who heads up the Wyoming Community Development Authority, puts the number of homes the state needs somewhere between 28,000 to 38,000 by 2030 — roughly 2,070 to 3,680 homes annually to keep up with population growth and aging infrastructure.

On paper, Southeast Wyoming Builders Association’s Joe Killpack acknowledges that sounds like it should be a developer’s dream. 

But the reality is a lot more complicated, Killpack told Cowboy State Daily. It’s a tangled knot of economics and investment risk, criss-crossed with infrastructure costs and policy decisions that make houses more costly and time-consuming to build.

“This is a macro problem, not a micro problem,” Killpack added. “It’s not like we’re going to be able to pinpoint one issue. There are several issues. We’re talking about labor costs. We’re talking about commodity costs. We’re talking about development costs.”

Those make homes too expensive for Wyoming’s middle class to afford.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Middle Class Squeeze"}]

If Wyoming’s housing crisis has a face, it’s the middle-class worker earning median wages. 

Once, that would have signaled a solid, respectable income. Today, it increasingly falls short as wages continue to lose ground against persistent inflation. 

 was $75,500 in 2024, 7.4% below the U.S. median. 

Year over year, incomes rose just 1.3% while inflation climbed 2.9% — a clear decline in real purchasing power for the typical Wyoming family. 

Over the long term, the trend remains problematic. 

Wages have stayed relatively flat since at least 2010, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. For much of that time, inflation was modest, hovering between 1% and 2%. But that changed in 2021, when it surged 4.2%, before peaking at 9.1% in June 2022 — the highest level since 1981.

The result has been a widening gap between what workers earn and what it costs to live. 

Regardless of the causes, the stark reality is wages have not kept pace with living expenses for most Wyomingites. 

That marks a fundamental shift for the state’s middle class. 

Median incomes that once reliably supported homeownership — a cornerstone of financial stability for many families — no longer stretch as far. Increasingly, the workers who power local economies are priced out of the communities they serve. 

The strain shows up in everyday decisions. Longer commutes. Delayed home purchases. And, in some cases, leaving the state altogether.

Wyoming loses roughly 70% of its residents by the time they reach age 30, state officials have said. Housing costs are frequently cited as a key factor in that outmigration, which has led to 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Math Problem"}]

The problem, as Killpack sees it, isn’t that developers can’t see the demand. It’s that the basic math of putting up homes, especially ones that regular families can afford, no longer works. 

On the cost side, labor, commodities, tariffs and fuel have all climbed, pushing construction budgets higher even before projects hit city hall for approval.

After that, fees and regulations are adding as much as $10,000 to the cost of homes, along with code changes like thicker exterior walls or new sprinkler requirements.

“Every time a new code is adopted the costs go up,” he said. “We’re doing these new codes to protect the health and the safety of our people who are living in these homes, which, hey, I can’t disagree with. But that doesn’t mean that costs go down. They only go up.”

Codes requiring particular types of insulation, for example, have meant using two-by-six-inch lumber in exterior walls, which adds to the cost versus a two-by-four.

“In Laramie, we have to do a draft stop in the basement,” he said. “So most are doing sprinkler systems and everybody thinks that’s wonderful, right? Because it truly is. If there’s a fire, it’s great. It’ll stop a fire. But the costs still go up, every single time.”

Meanwhile, waiting times for permit approvals stretch to as long as 18 months or more. In some cases, during which time interest rates, prices, and demand are all shifting.

“I’m involved in a project right now where we were going to build some apartments,” he said. “And this project originally started three years ago. They have had to stop, because the market changed.”

What The Median Buys V. What Developers Can Build

The gap comes into sharp focus when median income is translated into buying power. 

A median salary of $75,500 supports up to $2,097 for a monthly mortgage, assuming a borrower with minimal debt and strong credit. On a 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 6.47%, that maximum mortgage payment tracks back to a maximum loan amount of $332,842. 

Homes in the low $300,000 range no longer pencil out for developers, Killpack said.

“A single-family home under $400,000 is almost impossible,” he said. 

Builder margins, he added, are much lower than people think.

“Most people think it’s like 15, 20%,” he said. “It’s actually very minimal. I mean, you’re anywhere between 3-6% and that’s it.”

Which means developers themselves don’t have much wiggle room when it comes to their budgets. 

Given that kind of margin, when you look at a city like Cheyenne where 5,000 homes are needed, the kind of investment it takes doesn’t feel like it’s worth the risk, Killpack said.

“(Let’s) talk about building 1,250 homes in a year in Cheyenne just to meet the minimum of what we’re projecting,” he said. “And let’s just say $400,000 homes … you’d need a $500 million investment annually.”

For that kind of money, Killpack said developers look at what’s known as the absorption rate, which measures how fast homes sell in a given market. They’re asking themselves where they can get the fastest return on investment. 

Wyoming’s absorption rate needs to be higher to attract investment, Killpack said. 

Now, developers can find many markets with both less risk and faster absorption rates, like those in Texas, Utah, and the Denver metro area, all of which have larger populations to spread risk around. 

Wyoming’s lack of population, Killpack added, has many investors turning up their noses at Wyoming projects, deeming them too risky. 

That doesn’t mean no one wants to invest in Wyoming, Killpack added. 

“But it takes more than just people in Wyoming to make Wyoming grow,” he said. “Capital that’s being infused into our economy doesn’t only come from our local regional banks. It comes from other people, too, and they have to be willing to invest in Wyoming.”

On paper, the city of Douglas seems like the classic Wyoming success story. 

Oil and gas jobs form the bedrock of its economy, but more than 300 businesses in health care, education and retail round things out. Hotels are packed with energy workers — the kind of activity that ought to be pumping money into every cash register in town. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"But there’s a catch."}]

“Our population is 6,512 based on our community snapshot, and 50% of our workers live in the city,” Interim City Administrator Michele Carter told Cowboy State Daily. “About 42% live in Casper. So, we have about half our workforce living in Douglas, just under half.”

The rest are headed to Casper or other areas around Douglas, like Glenrock. 

The reason, Carter said, is directly related to a lack of affordable housing.

“A lot of our housing that has been built over the last few years is in that $400,000 to $500,000 range,” she said. “Which doesn’t fit your local businesses, your teachers, your nurses who are coming in to fill those spots in our school district and our hospital here.”

Many of the oil and gas workers who do live in Douglas, meanwhile, are staying in campers and at the fairgrounds because of a lack of rental properties. 

Fixing that has proven difficult, Carter said. 

Development costs, which include building out new sewer and water services, exceed what most people can afford to pay.

It’s taken a $5.7 million grant for water and sewer lines to help get things moving on a 30-acre site on the edge of town that will include a 94-apartment complex, plus several acres of single-family housing and new commercial space. 

“The grant is really to put the infrastructure in,” Carter said. “Developers couldn’t make the numbers work if they have to eat all of those water, sewer and utility costs on top of everything else.”

Even with a grant, no one is pretending this is a silver bullet that will fix everything. 

The apartments and homes the development unlocks will also take years to build, and the demand from mid-level workers is already far ahead of what’s on the drawing board.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Douglas isn’t Alone"}]

Infrastructure is a significant barrier for communities across the Cowboy State, Hoversland told Cowboy State Daily, but it’s particularly acute for communities with fewer than 5,000 people. 

Water lines, sewer, roads and power are required before even a single house can be built in a new area. For small towns with a thin tax base, fronting the money for that is typically next to impossible.

“Some of the bigger cities, Casper and Cheyenne especially, have more items they can do and have infrastructure built out,” he said. “But our cities under 5,000 population in Wyoming, that doesn’t give the numbers to draw developers in. 

“So, infrastructure funding is another one of those things that I think is a big holdup. It really restricts a lot of developers coming in, because they have to pay for the infrastructure to say 25-to-50-home development, and that’s a lot of upfront cost and a lot of risk on the developer.”

Wyoming isn’t alone in facing such problems. 

Nationally, the Harvard University State of the Nation's Housing 

 released Thursday shows that construction is down across the nation amid rising costs and an ever-widening gap between what median households can afford and what median homes cost. 

There’s a growing wave of state and local experiments on the ground — ranging from tax abatements, zoning changes, and new financing tools — all aimed at getting more units on the ground across the nation.

Wyoming is part of the melting pot of state ideas. 

Hoversland points to a statewide housing strategic action plan that has 27 items that may help, including fast-track permitting, infrastructure funding tools, and support for manufactured and prefabricated homes, as well as tweaks to how federal housing dollars are used to stretch them further.

Jason Mincer, executive director of Wyoming Neighbors for Housing, is pushing public-private partnerships, community land trusts, and even a state-level investment fund to help shoulder upfront risk for workforce housing, along with streamlined approvals to cut months off project timelines. 

Communities like Cheyenne, meanwhile, are rewriting their own rule books, streamlining zoning codes and getting rid of standards that may have been nice to have once upon a time, but don’t really impact safety and add significantly to costs. 

Cheyenne has even created a “cottage lot” development option that lets builders cluster very small homes closer together with shared open space, which has already attracted some developers.

All of those ideas help at the margins. But Wyoming has to find ways to make it routine, rather than remarkable, to build homes in the price ranges that teachers, nurses, and sheriff’s deputies can afford.

Otherwise, nothing changes with the overriding trend where a large number of Wyoming households are maxed out in the low $300,000 range, and builders can’t drop below $400,000. 

Until that gap can be routinely bridged, builders will remain cautious, and the state will continue to lose many of its young people to areas where the wages are a better match to prevailing home prices.

Cheyenne Housing Main IMG 6742 6 21 26

<title>Why A Shortfall Of More Than 20,000 Homes Isn’t Enough To Get Wyoming Building | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming needs tens of thousands of new homes, but only a fraction of the need is under construction because builders say the math doesn’t work. Middle-class wages aren’t high enough to afford to buy houses while home-building costs just continue to rise.

Why A Shortfall Of More Than 20,000 Homes Isn’t Enough To Get Wyoming Building

Entertainment

Fifty years ago, the highlight of the Cody Stampede Parade marking America’s bicentennial celebration was a 30-foot-long .30-30 Winchester rifle, dominating a float that also carried legendary Western actor John Wayne.

[{"type":"text","text":"That rifle has been sitting atop a storefront in downtown Cody since. "}]

Everyone loves the giant Winchester, so they might have noticed when it recently suddenly disappeared from the roof where it had been prominently displayed since its trip down Sheridan Avenue decades earlier.

Like John Wayne himself, Cody’s giant Winchester rifle is coming back, better than ever, for another 50 years dominating Cody’s historic downtown.

“We're putting it back to what it was in 1976, as best we can,” said Mike Darby, owner of the Irma Hotel and the giant Winchester. “I can’t confirm or deny what we’re going to do with it, but we’re hoping to have it done by July 3.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Fully Loaded"}]

It’s 1976, and the United States is starting down the barrel of its 200th anniversary. The Buffalo Bill Museum, now the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, decided to add its own ammunition to an already-loaded celebration.

July 4 was selected for the opening of the lavish Cody Firearms Museum. The addition of a massive Winchester collection, on loan from the Olin Corp., made it the world's largest firearms museum at the time.

Adding to the excitement, the museum would be dedicated by the grand marshal of that year’s Cody Stampede Parade: “The Duke” himself, John Wayne.

The Husky Oil Co., founded in Cody in 1938, decided to make its own big contribution to the festivities.

What better to celebrate the bicentennial, Wayne, and the Cody Firearms Museum than with a giant replica of one of the American West’s most iconic firearms?

Denny Shore was the head of Husky Oil’s activities committee at the time. His wife, Sue, remembers it well.

“The theme for the parade that year was ‘Celebrating Winchester: The Gun That Won the West,’” she said. “Denny decided to call the people who make parade floats and asked if they could do a giant Winchester. They said yes, so they did.”

Shore doesn’t remember what company built the humongous rifle, but she remembers when it arrived on a flatbed trailer and was parked in front of her house.

“I loved it,” she said. “I'm a gun nut, and I have a .30-30 Winchester that I always hunted with. I feel like it was my own, and we were sharing it.”

Cody resident and photographer Dewey Vanderhoff was hired by the Olin Corp. to get photos of the parade, Wayne, and the rifle.

“Katy Brown's ‘Buffalo Bill Dollies’ can-can girls danced in front of the big Winchester rifle at its public debut at the airport,” he said. “Everyone was there waiting for John Wayne's ceremonial arrival on a Boeing 727 jet with his entourage and family.”

As the Cody Stampede Parade cruised down Sheridan Avenue, the Winchester was the center of attention. If that wasn’t enough, Wayne was riding on the same float.

Most parade floats quickly disappear when they reach the end of the route, but there was a brighter future for the giant Winchester.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Everything Under The Gun'"}]

After its centerpiece moment in the parade, the giant Winchester was stored at the Husky Oil Refinery in Cody.

A few years later, Cody business owner Jack Skates opened Jack's Sports & OK Hardware at 1137 12th St. right next to the Irma. The store came with the giant Winchester on the roof, where it had ended up after leaving Husky Oil.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Their motto was ‘Everything Under The Gun,’” Shore said."}]

While the storefront changed hands multiple times in the next four decades, the rifle stayed right where it was. However, even the gun was under the gun.

Bob Carter owned one of the businesses, The Gunrunner, that occupied the space. He shared some details on the unique rooftop sculpture with 

“It was only constructed for temporary display,” he said. “Some parts were made from cardboard. It held up for many years, but eventually required renovation and replacement with more permanent materials.”

Carter added that the giant Winchester was a replica of a 1968 Winchester 94 Buffalo Bill .30-30 rifle, making all the more appropriate for Cody’s bicentennial celebration.

Any knowledgeable gun owner knows firearms need regular care and upkeep. Even with more permanent parts, 50 years of exposure on a Cody rooftop made the larger-than-life Winchester a little worse for wear.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Giant Gun Restoration"}]

In May, the giant Winchester disappeared from the rooftop of 1137 12th St. It’s now getting some much-needed refurbishment.

Darby said the rifle was acquired by the Irma Hotel when it bought the building it was sitting on in the 1990s.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It came at no extra charge,” he said."}]

Darby said the giant Winchester was in especially sorry shape going into this summer. If it was going to survive, it needed some help.

“The recent windstorms were hard on it, plus 50 years of weather damage,” he said. “It was about to fall off the building, so we got a crane to lift it up and put it on a trailer.”

The giant Winchester has since been dismantled and, essentially, rebuilt. Darby said everything that can be replaced is being replaced and reenforced.

“The barrel and the levels are made of wood, so we’re replacing what’s needed and putting better supports on the inside,” he said. “After dismantling it, we felt we could repair and improve it.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Is dismantling a 30-foot Winchester rifle anything like the real thing?"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“Not at all,” Darby said."}]

While they were working on the giant Winchester, Darby started looking at photos from the 1976 parade. He realized that there had been noticeable changes in the 50 years since its construction.

Since they had already dismantled it, Darby and his crew decided to restore it to its glory days (or “day”) in July 1976.

“The action on the gun was sort of a goldish bronze as it sat on the roof, but it was black in the photos from 1976,” he said, and there were several bands that went around the barrel to the stock that were bronze. "We're going to paint those back to their original colors, or at least as close as we can get.”

If it’s already off the roof and being refurbished, why not take it for another slow spin through town?

The Cody Stampede Parade will kick off at 9:30 a.m. on July 3, so the giant Winchester will be ready for a glorious return on the 50th anniversary of its arrival.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I can neither admit nor deny that rumor,” Darby said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Reloaded For Another Century"}]

Between June 30 and July 4, there will be a cavalcade of patriotic events and celebrations in Cody. The Cody Stampede Rodeo runs from July 1-4, and there will be three parades.

Darby encouraged patriotic parade fans to stick around for a day or two after the 250th celebration. The giant Winchester will cap off the festivities with another triumphant return.

“We’re putting right back on the building on July 5 or 6,” he said. “Hopefully, it’ll be there for the next 50 years.”

Giant Winchester Doug and Tebbie Heny Picture3

<title>What The Heck … Is That 30-Foot-Long Winchester On Top Of A Building In Cody? | Cowboy State Daily</title>

On July 4, 1976, John Wayne paraded through Cody with a 30-foot-long Winchester rifle. 50 years later, that rifle was still sitting on a rooftop next to the Irma Hotel until it was temporarily taken down but it will make its glorious return by July 4.

Daily Darwin: Wednesday, May 7, 2025

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