Google “Wyoming,” and Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley often muscles its way into the results.
Soon those results may also have an authentic piece of Wyoming to show off from back East.
That’s because Casper native Casey Gillum, a longtime antique dealer who now lives in Ashley, Pennsylvania, has found the original Hell’s Half Acre restaurant sign — bullet hole in the devil’s head and all.
The restaurant and hotel were closed in 2005 when the previous owner decided to retire. Those structures were torn down, and barbed wire was put on top of the fence to keep people out of the location.
He plans to restore the sign and give it a new home on his own half-acre lot, where he is restoring a century-plus-year-old bank. His property just so happens to be at exactly 666 feet of elevation.
“I had chased this sign for a while and never had the opportunity to get it,” Gillum told Cowboy State Daily. “And then I got a call one day and the caller said, ‘Hey, I know you’ve been after this. What do you want to do?”
Gillum didn’t think twice about snapping up the sign he’d been after for so long, though it took a few years before he was ready to do something special with it.
“I just love Casper and I love Wyoming history,” he said.
The Devil Went Down To Pennsylvania
Getting the sign from Wyoming was something of a feat.
It's 33 feet long and 7 feet tall, but is also crowned by a grinning devil with its feet dangling over the edge.
With his trailer only 24 feet long, that meant Gillum had to break the sign down a little to move it safely.
He built some scaffolding for the roof of his trailer, then disassembled the sign into 6-foot sections.
“It’s just that big,” he said. “And it’s still just strapped to the roof of my trailer, because that’s the safest place for it right now.”
Gillum plans what he calls a “sympathetic” restoration for the sign, meaning that the sign won’t look new once he’s done.
“I’m not going to replace all the paint that is lost,” he said. “You’ll know exactly what it is, but it’s not going to look new. It’s going to look like it’s been up for a long time, because I don’t like bringing things back to exactly what they were.”
The sign’s age tells a certain story, Gillum believes, and so he plans to keep that history intact.
That includes the real bullet hole through the devil’s forehead.
“That’s one of the coolest things about the sign,” he said. “And I actually had a girl reach out to me and say that her dad was the one who did that, which is pretty interesting.”
Gillum hopes more of those kinds of stories will come out as a result of giving the sign new life.
A Place That Inspired Sci-Fi Fame
Hell’s Half Acre gained global exposure as the setting of the 1997 cult classic movie “Starship Troopers,” which cast the alien-looking terrain as the planet Klendathu.
That fame has attracted lots of visitors over the years, VisitCasper CEO Annette Pitts has told Cowboy State Daily.
Because of that, VisitCasper has been working to make the attraction more visitor-friendly, with grants from Wyoming Office of Tourism, Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources, and Natrona County Joint Powers Board.
There’s a new observation deck now, the better to see the striking landscape carved by wind and weather over millions of years, along with new picnic tables and a pit toilet.
Interpretive signs are also being placed there to explain the area's unique geology, as well as its history.
Hell’s Half Acre was not always the arid desert it now appears. Once, it was part of a tropical hothouse with rivers that left behind soft mudstones and silt.
Eventually, the weather changed, and all those riverbeds dried up, leaving behind the perfect material for wind and rain to sculpt over time into an otherworldly landscape that looks a lot like a slice of Mars has somehow been dropped onto Wyoming.
Gillum has heard about that project and is thrilled about it, noting that he remembers visiting it in his youth.
“It’s a beautiful place and a really interesting site,” he said.
For The Love Of Wyoming
Gillum, meanwhile, has already created a digital rendering of how the restored sign is going to look in his yard.
His plan is for it to sit against a brick wall overlooking a small grass courtyard where his dogs like to run and play.
“I don’t want it up really high,” he said. “I want it to be, like, a few feet off the ground at most. I want it to be so everyone can enjoy it and it’s not obnoxious, it’s not something that keeps people from sleeping.”
For now, Gillum’s energy is focused on restoring the 120-year-old bank building he bought in Ashley.
The old bank building is the perfect place for displaying his growing collection of historic signs and industrial artifacts.
But he’s always thinking about and planning the future.
For the other side of the bank building, he’s considering a mural, one that might highlight some other aspects of the real Wyoming, if the homeowners association will allow it.
“They have a lot of great mural programs out here,” he said. “They typically want a tie to local history or something, but I thought about doing an ode to Wyoming, you know, Devils Tower, or something like that.”
That will be pretty far down the road, though, Gillum added, as he has a “million projects” to do first.
“I’m still trying to work on the main part of the building, which has gobbled up my last 18 months and every dollar I have,” he said. “So the sign and the mural are on the list, but I’ll need some money to do it right.”
Other Wyoming Relics Set The Stage
Gillum has spent a lifetime collecting great relics and, at one time, helped the Sanford Restaurant in Casper acquire most of the vehicles it has inside and outside.
Thanks to that, he already has some great antique billboard lights, which came from his Casper shop.
Somehow, they never sold. But that’s a good thing, because they are just perfect for illuminating the Hell’s Half Acre sign.
Gillum has already installed a massive, double-sided, neon star on the Hell’s Half Acre side of the bank.
Overlooking the whole display, there’s also a magnificent cast-iron light pole that came from Seminoe Dam in Wyoming.
It and all the other lights are on timers to ensure nothing blazes into the night to disrupt sleep.
“My grandpa was up there in the Bureau of Reclamation,” he said. “And he retired in the ’70s or ’80s, and he got one of the cast-iron light poles and took it to South Dakota and had it at his house.”
After his grandfather died, the 1,200-pound light pole traveled back to Casper for a time, then Gillum got restless and decided he wanted to be closer to the antique shops he so often frequented.
A lot of Wyoming things made the trip with him. The pole was among the must-have.
“It’s got a really great globe on the top of it, and it’s front and center, right in my yard,” Gillum said. “Everyone gets to see it and it’s a really beautiful piece. Just some more Wyoming stuff.”
There will be more Wyoming stuff that will get integrated into his outdoor display, which he has discovered makes a great conversation starter in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania.
Neighbors have become quite interested in the treasures he’s saving and putting on display from the real Wyoming, for which there can be no substitute.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
