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Kolby Fedore

CASPER — By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside the city into a gearhead's paradise.

He had Camaros and Chevelles. Prewar Ford hot rods. Corvettes. A 426 Hemi-powered Plymouth GTX. Monster trucks. Speed boats. Race engines. Shipping containers packed with parts.

[{"type":"text","text":"If it was loud, fast or had the potential to be, Knigge wanted it."}]

The Casper-area oil field worker spent a lifetime hauling home muscle cars, hot rods, vintage trucks, race engines and enough performance parts to fill shelves, sea cans and storage units. 

Nearly every evening after work ended the same way: he'd settle into his chair and spend an hour combing through classifieds, searching for the next great find.

"He was obsessed with it," his wife, Stephanie Knigge, told Cowboy State Daily. "That was probably an hour process every night, just going through all the ads to see if there was anything he was missing out on." 

When Knigge died unexpectedly at 65 on Sept. 10, 2025, he left behind more than memories.

He left a sprawling automotive collection so large it drew bidders from across the country to a massive July 18 estate auction near Evansville for his "Go Fast" collection.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Born To Build"}]

Long before the rows of classic cars filled his property, Knigge was working.

He started driving trucks as a young teenager after his family launched an oilfield water service business. 

Eventually, he and his brother helped build Melco Inc., an oil tank cleaning company that took them across much of the United States. He later became vice president, a role his family said he took great pride in. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Those work trips often turned into treasure hunts."}]

"He got a lot of opportunity to drive around and see what was around and collect stuff," Stephanie said. "So that's how I think it all started." 

By the time she met him in 1989, the collecting bug had already taken hold.

"That's why he started working in the first place — because he wanted parts for cars" she said. 

As the years went on, the collection evolved with whatever captured his imagination.

Some years it was 1930s-era Ford hot rods. Other times it was vintage Jeeps, Broncos or speed boats. If it looked like a bargain, Knigge usually found room for it.

"He would kind of get on a kick every now and then," Stephanie said. "He was always looking." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Twenty Acres "}]

Things really escalated after the family moved to 20 acres outside Casper.

"He really went crazy with it," Stephanie said with a laugh, "because he had the room to park all of it." 

[{"type":"text","text":"Before long, the collection had grown so large the county took notice."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Knigge's solution wasn't to stop buying cars."}]

It was to buy shipping containers, rent storage units and devise an organizational system only he truly understood.

"His brain was pretty intense," Stephanie said. "If I would have had all of that going on in my brain, my mind would explode." 

Eventually, the property held roughly 220 vehicles, along with countless engines, body panels, race parts and automotive memorabilia.

VanDerBrink Auctions dubbed it the "Go Fast" collection. The catalog ranged from 1932-1940 Ford, Dodge, Plymouth and Chevrolet hot rod bodies to Camaros, Chevelles, Corvettes, monster trucks, Humvees, speed boats, racing engines and shelves of vintage speed parts. 

Ironically, Stephanie said her husband rarely had time to enjoy many of his favorite vehicles.

"He didn't even really have the time to enjoy it," she said. "He just worked until he died. He had all these plans." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'You're Burying Me Alive'"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Living with more than 200 vehicles wasn't always easy."}]

About a year before his death, Stephanie finally tried to slow the collection's relentless growth.

"I was like, 'Honey, you are kind of burying me alive with all this,'" she recalled. 

[{"type":"text","text":"It didn't work."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"He just did what he wanted,\" she said with a laugh. "}]

Despite the occasional frustration, she understood exactly why he kept collecting.

[{"type":"text","text":"It made him happy."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"And sometimes, it paid off."}]

Buying and selling cars over the years helped finance construction of the couple's home, she said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Little Things"}]

Knigge died after complications related to diabetes and previously undiagnosed heart disease. What he initially thought was heartburn quickly became a medical emergency, Stephanie said. 

Without a will or trust, the family eventually concluded selling the collection was the only practical option.

"There just wasn't a choice," Stephanie said. "We had to be able to pay the bills, keep this place going." 

Rows of hot rods, muscle cars, speed boats, race engines, body panels and carefully cataloged parts stretched across the property as bidders wandered from lot to lot, loading trailers with pieces of a collection Rick spent decades building. 

By day's end, what had once been one man's automotive playground was dispersing across Wyoming and beyond.

[{"type":"text","text":"Watching it happen proved more emotional than Stephanie expected."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"It was the little things."}]

Pallets stacked with mirrors, headlights and decades of carefully gathered parts sold off in bulk.

"I'd just be thinking, 'Oh my gosh, he would be rolling over in his grave,'" she said. "He put a lot of time and energy into even the little details." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Cars"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Some moments brought comfort."}]

A family friend bought one of Knigge's Camaros. Her nephew purchased a pair of racing engines she believes Rick would have wanted him to have. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Others marked the end of an era."}]

One longtime auction-goer told the family it was the biggest auction he had ever attended. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Today, much of the collection is gone."}]

A few keepsakes remain, but Stephanie hopes people remember more than the hundreds of cars that once filled their property.

Her husband, she said, was a successful businessman, a devoted husband of 36 years, a father, grandfather and great-grandfather who loved fishing almost as much as fast cars. 

Friends and family remember him as generous, quick with a joke and always willing to lend a hand without expecting anything in return.

Rick and Stephanie Knigge inset 7 26 26

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

<title>Finding New Homes For Casper Oil Field Worker's 220-Car Collection Of Hot Rods | Cowboy State Daily</title>

By the time Rick Knigge died last September, he had spent decades turning 20 acres outside Casper into a gearhead's paradise. The oilfield worker spent a lifetime hauling home muscle cars, hot rods and vintage trucks. Now they are all finding new homes.

Finding New Homes For Casper Oil Field Worker's 220-Car Collection Of Hot Rods

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

Andrew Rossi

Anyone who turns off Wyoming Highway 120 toward Clark will find a paved two-lane road heading all the way to the mouth of the Clarks Fork Canyon. The road extends for 8 miles through some of the most riveting scenery in northwest Wyoming.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then it abruptly ends."}]

The pavement comes to a stop at a bumpy dirt parking lot. The only way to go any farther is by foot, on horseback, or in a sturdy off-road vehicle.

[{"type":"text","text":"It’s officially County Road 8VC. Many locals know it as Canyon Road."}]

It’s also known as “The Road to Nowhere,” “Webster’s Folly,” and “The Road of Death.”

One thing it isn’t is a highway connecting northwest Wyoming to Cooke City, Montana, which is all it was intended to be.

Why the road was never completed is a complicated legacy of the forever unfinished Clarks Fork Road.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It doesn't have a good history,” Cody historian Bob Richard said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Crucial Connection"}]

It was 1962, and the Wyoming Highway Department (WHD) wanted a road to connect Cody and Cooke City, which would become Wyoming Highway 296. That would give local and tourist traffic access to the Northeast Entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

[{"type":"text","text":"Constant Edward “Bud” Webster had a bold vision."}]

Webster was an influential rancher and car dealer from Meeteetse. He ran Cody’s Chevrolet dealership for 65 years, longer than any other individual in the nation to that point.

[{"type":"text","text":"“He was a leader in our community,” Richard said."}]

Webster wanted the new road to run along the bottom of the Clarks Fork Canyon, following the original North Route to Cooke City through the Absaroka Range.

“It was his favorite project,” Richard said. “Bud was the chairman of the Wyoming Highway Department at the time, and it was his idea to put a road up through the canyon. He developed it.”

Webster was so eager and influential that the Clarks Fork Road began construction. 

[{"type":"text","text":"It would never be finished."}]

By 1969, 8 miles of the Clarks Fork Road had been laid out, leveled and paved up to the mouth of the Clarks Fork Canyon.

At the same time, 37 miles away, construction was underway at the west end of the route. A junction was built at U.S. Highway 212, following the south bank of the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River into Sunlight Basin.

That’s when the controversy started to blow, much like the wind in the canyon.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Canyon Vs. Summit"}]

Even when construction began on either end of Wyoming Highway 296, there was controversy about where the middle should go. Should it follow the Clarks Fork through the canyon, or head up and over 8,060-foot Dead Indian Summit?

This was the debate over the “Canyon” and “Summit” routes. Ronald Tabler, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Forest Service, explored both in a 1972 report he prepared for the WHP.

“An obvious advantage of the Canyon route is that it would avoid the blowing and drifting snow conditions that prevail on Dead Indian Pass,” he wrote. “The principal advantage of the Summit route, according to its proponents, is that it would have less esthetic impact and preserve the unspoiled beauty of the canyon.”

Tabler said he prepared his report “in response to public concern about the corridor location.” There was plenty of that to go around.

Based on existing historical records, public opinion was highly against the Canyon route.

In 1972, lifelong Wyomingite and “heavy tax-payer” John Bugas submitted an opinion piece to The Cody Enterprise. In it, he laid out his argument against the Canyon plan.

“It would make as much sense as cutting a highway up the Grand Canyon of the Colorado or the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,” he wrote. “A highway up the canyon not only is undesirable, (but) it is unnecessary for the needs of the traveling public.”

Bugas’ other reasons to oppose the Canyon route were excessive costs, “desecration” of the canyon’s beauty, and the frequency of landslides and rockfalls.

“I have seen three instances of rock and landslides on both sides of the river that would wipe out any – repeat, any – manmade structure except one of the nuclear bomb shelter type.”

W. Lyle Whiting published his own op-ed in 1972 calling the Canyon route “undesirable,” even after WHD finished the first 8-mile stretch from Clark to the canyon.

“The first section … seems practical until you get near the mouth of the canyon,” he said. “The wind has made the last part of (the road) unusable. The top has actually blown off the road.”

When the Cody Chamber of Commerce did a public opinion poll that same year, only 21% of participants supported the Canyon route. The remaining 79% preferred the Summit.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Chief Joseph’s Highway"}]

After years of debate, the Canyon route was abandoned. Between 1977 and 1992, the existing road over Dead Indian Summit was graded and surfaced into the highway as it exists today.

Wyoming Highway 296, the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway, was dedicated Sept. 12, 1995. The 47-mile highway took 27 years to complete and cost nearly $30 million.

The road over Dead Indian Summit, connecting Cody and Cooke City, had existed for decades.

It was famously used by Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Tribe in 1877 as they fled eastward from northeastern Oregon to avoid being captured and sent to a reservation by the U.S. Cavalry.

Ironically, Chief Joseph and his tribe eluded capture by following the route Webster wanted for the highway.

Gen. Samuel Sturgis, who intended to intercept and capture the fleeing tribe with 600 cavalry, found that “no trail could possibly lead through” the Clarks Fork Canyon. The tribe saw the unguarded opening, cleverly tricked Sturgis to reposition near the Shoshone River, and used the canyon to escape into Montana.

Richard remembers the old road well. It was functional, but far from glamorous.

“It used to take me a full day to get to Cooke City when I was in high school,” he said. “You didn't travel it when it rained because of the 6 or 8 inches of mud, and it was closed during the wintertime. You only traveled when it was dry.”

However, even developing that route was controversial. Richard remembers many people opposing any permanent road between Cody and Cooke City.

“Everybody that lived in the Sunlight Basin fought it,” he said. “They didn’t want it paved because they felt it would increase the traffic, and I don’t think it did that much.”

Webster was at the 1995 dedication, but by then the abandoned 8-mile stretch of pavement near Clark was already known as “Webster’s Folly.” He didn’t seem to mind and is still credited with spearheading the effort that eventually led to Highway 296.

What little existed of the Clarks Fork Highway remained a curiously well-designed road to nowhere 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Tragic End"}]

Around 2 a.m. on May 5, 2002, five people left the Edelweiss Riverhouse in Clark and drove onto Canyon Road.

When the pavement ended, the 1999 Mercury Cougar they were riding in went off the road and through a barbed wire fence. The vehicle was airborne for 90 feet before landing, rolling several times, and stopping in a boulder field 15 feet below the road.

“The only way I knew it was a Cougar was because I saw the emblem at the side of the road,” David Doyle, then the Park County undersheriff, told The Cody Enterprise the day after the wreck. “The car is totaled.”

The victims weren’t able to get assistance until 8:08 a.m. One of them followed the road back to Clark so they could reach Park County Dispatch.

By the time first responders got to the scene, three people were dead: Amanda Kay Deberg, 20, of Cody, and Justin Mark Anderson, 25, and Michael Lee Sponsel, 18, both from Clark.

[{"type":"text","text":"The other two victims were seriously injured but survived."}]

Lt. Len DeClerq said the vehicle was traveling at 66 mph when the crash occurred. It’s believed that whoever was driving didn’t know how abruptly the road ended, and couldn’t stop.

Alcohol was another contributing factor. Mike Sponsel, who lost his son and stepson in the crash, admitted some of them had been drinking at Edelweiss before the fatal crash.

[{"type":"text","text":"Richard remembers the tragedy well."}]

“The kids got drunk at Edelweiss, were going way too fast, and hit the end of the road,” he said. “They were drunk, and they died there.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Nowhere, No Chance"}]

What killed “The Road to Nowhere?” There are multiple factors to consider, but the idea was borne on ill-fated winds from the beginning.

While public opinion was strongly against the Canyon route, Richard said he thinks the canyon itself dissuaded the WHD from pursuing it further.

“It’s too windy,” he said. “I don’t know how high the winds get up there, but that’s probably what ended it.”

Many people who opposed the Canyon route cited wind as enough of a reason not to pursue it. Because the topography of the Clarks Fork Canyon makes it 

The Canyon route stayed alive for as long as it did because of Webster. However, even his influence and enthusiasm couldn't overcome the significant obstacles.

“He was on the WHD board when those decisions were made, but too many people opposed it,” Richard said. “After a while I think the WHD said 'no more'.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Always At The End Of The Road"}]

Ultimately, the route to build a highway through the Clarks Fork Canyon was deemed too expensive, treacherous and controversial.

[{"type":"text","text":"Nevertheless, the same stretch that was finished is still there."}]

“The Road to Nowhere” is still paved and maintained, offering easy access to the mouth of the canyon and what lies beyond. The dirt parking lot is the staging ground for the Morrison Jeep Trail, a 22-mile trek into the mountains considered a difficult “must-do” for off-road enthusiasts, and it's a great spot to see bighorn sheep and mountain goats.

The route Webster intended also remains intact as a hiking and riding trail. It runs along the northern edge the Clarks Fork to the Hunter Peak Ranch and Campground, south of the U.S. 212 junction where construction started in 1968.

Twenty miles of the Clarks Fork River were added to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System in 1990. That has ensured it will remain free-flowing, devoid of any development, to preserve its natural beauty.

Richard understands why “Webster’s Folly” was doomed, but he regularly takes tours to the end of the 8-mile road. 

To him, the attempted Clarks Fork Highway is a fascinating piece of Wyoming’s history that will forever remain unfinished.

Road to Nowhere IMG 0997 7 26 26

<title>The Story Behind Wyoming's Ill-Fated And Tragic "Road To Nowhere" | Cowboy State Daily</title>

In an attempt to connect Cody and Cooke City, the Wyoming Department of Transportation built 8 miles of road in 1969 and then stopped. The "Road To Nowhere" became known as "The Road of Death" after a car with 5 people drove through the road's end.

The Story Behind Wyoming's Ill-Fated And Tragic "Road To Nowhere"

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

Renée Jean

LANDER — Sophal Thompson put her Fourth of July flags out early this year. By early May, she had one on each of her handmade tables, because she was that excited to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.

She hasn’t taken them down yet, and she’s thinking she might just leave them there. They tell a quiet story, one she loves to tell.  

“I just love America,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “I appreciate everything here.”

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not taken lightly by Thompson. 

She grew up in Cambodia and remembers hiding underground when bombs came. This was during the years of conflict after the Khmer Rouge era, when fighting between factions made daily life dangerous.

Villages across western and northern Cambodia were caught in the crossfire. Families routinely dug subterranean dirt bunkers beneath or next to their thatched homes so they could dive underground at a moment’s notice. They might have to stay there for mere hours or days to survive the shrapnel.

Thompson is not sure her exact age. She might have been 5, 6 or 7. But she does remember how terrified she was that she or someone she loved might die. 

She’d already lost her mother when she was 2.

“My mom didn’t make it,” she said in a soft voice. “My real, real mom who gave me a birthday. She passed away because we had no medication. There was no medication, no doctors, because they killed all of them. The Khmer Rouge killed all the smart doctors. Killed all the teachers.”

With no money, no medicine, no doctors or nurses, there was no one left to help her mother survive. 

“My uncle, my dad’s brother, was killed. They killed him because he was a famous boxer,” she said. “He was smart, very successful. They killed all the famous, the smartest, all the rich people.”

Thompson said she first heard about America she was 7 or 8 years old.

Her grandfather had managed to escape the nightmare sometime in the 1970s, before she was born. He finally managed to find her dad. 

“Somehow, he escaped to a camp where Americans try to save us,” she said. “They could put many people in the plane so my grandpa, he just escaped with his family and came to America. Otherwise, they would have all been killed.”

It took him 25 years to find his surviving relatives in Cambodia. 

“When we finally connected, that’s when I heard about America,” Thompson said. “I wanted to go to America. I wanted to be with my grandpa. He is my second grandpa.”

Thompson saved every penny she could from raising livestock on her family’s rice farm. English lessons were $1 an hour. That was a lot of money for a child, especially in a country where $10 could buy a month of food for her whole family.

“My dad told me, like, if you don’t learn English, you can’t speak to people,” she said. “You can’t work. So you have to learn English.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Arriving With Just $10"}]

When Thompson finally boarded a plane to the United States, she had just $10. 

“Just to make sure, just in case you might be hungry on the way,” he told her. “So you can buy a snack at the airport.”

In Cambodia, that was still a lot of money. 

But in America, as she soon discovered, it didn’t go far.

“I applied for work right away,” she said. “I’m not going to waste my breath sitting around. I have to work.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"That’s been her attitude ever since. "}]

When she was a young mother, she opened a day care so she could watch others’ children alongside her own. 

Childcare, she quickly saw, was so expensive it took half her paycheck. A day care seemed only logical.

It didn’t take long for word to spread. She was licensed for up to 10 children — and quickly filled all those spots. Before long, she was juggling two daycares at once.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Dreaming Of A Laundromat"}]

After her children grew older, Thompson decided to try a new kind of business altogether. For years, she ran the Antler Steak House — a restaurant in a gas station. 

“I was cooking seven days a week and training people every other day,” she said. “That was tiring, and I never got to see people.”

So she sold the restaurant and started dreaming up a new business idea, something she’d felt the town always needed when she was a young mother.

That something was a laundromat. But not the boring place she remembered going to with her children.

“I had a baby and my apartment didn’t have laundry,” she said. “So I would pack my baby back and forth in the car. And I always wished that the laundry had a welcome sitting area — like a place to hang out and play with my baby, watch television or listen to music, and get an ice cream or a smoothie for the kids.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Coffee And Conversation"}]

That’s how On-Site Laundry was born, and that’s why it doesn’t look like a traditional laundromat. 

The first thing you notice is a set of barstools and a menu listing several flavors of boba tea, as well as other drinks ranging from beer or cocktails to Thompson’s own favorite, Cambodian coffee.

That menu item is a creamy and sweet conversation starter. 

“I had a gentleman come in who didn’t know where I’m from and look at my menu,” Thompson said with a chuckle. “He was like, ‘Cambodia … why are you serving Cambodian coffee?’”

The man had such a look of perplexity, Thompson wasn’t sure what to think. Was this the start of a compliment, or a complaint?

“Then I found out his wife came from Cambodia,” Thompson said. “So I told him I’m from Cambodia and I want to introduce Americans to Cambodian coffee. It’s really dark and strong and a little sweet.”

Before too long, her new friend had brought his wife to the laundromat for Cambodian coffee and conversation.

“That’s what I really like about being here,” Thompson said, beaming. “I get to meet a lot of different travelers. Different states, different countries. I like to visit with them.”

On-Site Laundry has been in business for a year, but it’s already become a popular gathering place for hikers and bikers doing the Continental Divide Trail or the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.

“Oasis is a good word for it,” Haleigh Swabowicz said, munching on a plate of chicken fingers and French fries. “Like you never see anything like this. It’s such a cool concept.”

“It’s an oasis,” walking trail friend Willie Hammond agreed. “We’re going to be here for a while.”

The duo found the business listed on an app for Divide Trail hikers that highlights useful and interesting places, complete with ratings and recommendations.

The rating for Lander’s laundromat is high — and well-deserved, Swabowicz said. 

“To have a shower laundry place is spectacular,” she said. “And food? Like, I don’t even need to leave here.”

Air conditioning doesn’t hurt at all either, Hammond said. 

Sophal Thompson grew up in Cambodia and remembers hiding underground when bombs came. She saved every penny to take English lessons and had $10 when she arrived in the U.S. Now, a successful business owner in Lander, she says: “I really, really love America."

Mary Helen Ahlbrandt, 100