Dubois, Wyoming, 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 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.’”
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.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
