Main Street, Wyoming; 609; Remember When

Main Street Wyoming is made possible by Kennicott energy company proud to be a part of Wyoming's future in the coal and uranium industries which includes exploration mining and production. And the Wyoming Council for the Humanities enriching the lives of Wyoming people through their study of Wyoming history Bell use and ideas. I remember saving a nickel by writing a sake instead of a model or staying away from the local swimming hole because of the outbreak of polio in town. We're buying that very first car. Join us as we travel down memory lane to visit the drug store and soda fountain and general store and local garage that all used to be on Main Street Wyoming. You'll hear the stories and see the places that make us all remember when we. It doesn't seem that long ago the doctors came to our houses when they were sick and

aerodynamically designed cars look like rockets with fans. I'm Deborah Hammond and on Main Street Wyoming we're taking you with us as we visit the not so very long ago. We'll stop at the general store where you can find anything from games to household items. We'll take you to the drugstore and the soda fountain. And of course we'll stop at the local garage. So sit back and relax so you can remember when. He's opened a one room general store in 1946 by the time the fire marshal forced them to close their doors in 1970 their stores expansion to build an entire block. Well we came down to open the store and one of the farmers who was

here and said we couldn't open. The only trouble was the aisles were 30 inches. And the requirements was 42. So we closed down and that night you know was next closed on a Wednesday and Saturday night. Bar next door caught fire. And come over and come over here and there was no water in town that day it was a strange thing. The water was off for some reason it had been off all day and there was no water at all of the halbert truck had come along and tire store were gone. Yeah right there isn't a. They put the fire out in 15 minutes. But the video after after the Halliburton truck hooked up. So it was so many things that were just so terrible about it you know that we had to stand here and watch it burn and couldn't do anything about it and then they wouldn't let us come in and dragging thing out either and we had to get out of the building would let us you know we knew the valuable things that

we needed to get out but we couldn't even do that. The Humphrey store carried everything from hardware to lumber to appliances to well just about anything their customers needed. We had one fellow from Cody that he had never owned a suit because he was framed he had a long long body a real long body short legs real long arms while he was working with and he was what he said and so he was all delighted we married him up and ordered him a suit suit still hanging in here with these long arms and everything. He never did know how to get a hold of us again. Well the fire in America and so you know we always felt bad because he had counted on having this nice navy blue suit to wear to funerals and weddings and things. And that we did that we would have created the people that had you know a strange valence or something and so that's what made us successful we did Kater so good where we would buy.

Hardware from. We had free trips if you bought so much much and they would take you like to Paris Paris. And we were well into the Caribbean are a true oh yeah it was great. We bought so much stuff and we very carefully did not have any of it put in the paper. HOOVER it we know under no circumstance was it to be anything said about by our help or anything we were on a buying trip when we went on these trips rather than anything else because we knew it was very unpopular to be winning the trips because people in a little town evidently are big and I don't know what was the matter but. It made jealousy. But as long as we could keep it like we were really having a horrible time which we did have a hard time paying for all this why things went along fine when you remember back to what it was like when you're working so hard. What would you say is one your favorite memories about having this. Made me. All the wonderful people. It was just we just loved the

people. So many flying people and so many loyal people you know yeah we've used a really boring everything but you know when you want good ones from whirl and we had good wins from all around by all these special blouses with big arms and. Big or whatever they had you know and it was really paid off. But we cared about the people I did and we just did it then because it was good business. But I realize now as a caring deal for people. Well we look to the U.S. I mean you know people. Well they're our friends anybody you know come and you know give you you know. Come to your store and bring all this business why you couldn't help but love the people who are should be in business you can't like people who are good people who are the most important thing in the world. Some of the things you remember from the general store where the toys especially around Christmas time remember that one toy you really wanted. Well I still have my barbies and boxes of clothes. This particular dress is called a bubble dress. It was the height of

fashion. But my best friend she hit me over the head with this. It's not my favorite my favorite was poor pitiful Pearl. I don't know if we're made up of our memories. What's that say about me but you know for the boys for my brother and my dad and for my husband and his father. Toys man one thing. To me as a member of the service you know you know when the railroads run the wrong passenger trains. I slotted in the big. Tank to collect from fells toy train. At design and layout. And then you've got to build it. And after you build it in you've got to create your scenery mountains or hills or rivers and bridges and of course your structures they come and you can either build them from scratch building or you can and you can buy kits.

Well when people start they you know they they're fraid of it when they start out because they see layouts and they can't conceive themself of. Building layouts with the scenery and all that but over the years I've told people that you know I can do it anybody can do it. Well the most popular size is H O that's Which is one eighty seven scale model is what it is. That means that. If you take a natural size the actual train size engine it be one 87 scale size of that replica. That's probably the size that I'm familiar with are there. What are the other sizes that they have. You have a you have a Z scale which is a small one and that's what they call it. You can put it in a briefcase. It's so small you can put a layout in a briefcase. Now you may hook me I may want that sounds really neat. Do you have some of those.

Yeah you you've heard of you've seen Sally Jesse Raphael haven't you gone talk to be OK she's got one in a briefcase that she hauls around with her when she's on the airlines and she plays with it and she saw her the other day when I was laid up and she was making a comment that she gets so much conversation over that because she'd set that with her in her lap and she'd have it running on the airline in the briefcase and it's got the landscaping and everything right in there. And she'd run it and people come up and watch it and talk to her and have conversation about it live. Lionel is is a big collector's items and they have their collectible. It was easy if they were die cast abetter said See back then they saw it for about 50. Think about fifty dollars if I remember I mean worth from forty to fifty dollars for back in the fifties that was a lot of money for a train set. But those are the sets that are now very collectible.

And then there's American flyers another one which American flyers got Gilbert company on that they've gone out of business. So they're very collectible. I really don't have I really don't have a favorite I like I'm all the toys we have or the toys we wanted can be some of the very best memories. But being sick that was a whole different story. The pharmacist at the corner drugstore would open his doors any time of night and doctors may have come to our houses. But mothers gave doses of cod liver oil Animas baking soda and other remedies. But. There were some other memories that fortunately our children will never have. Scarlet fever unusual quarantines and one of the most heartbreaking the polio epidemic. Right toman has been a physical therapist for over 20 years and he shared his

knowledge and memories or I remember reading. A particular billboard that they would put on a street that said that there are lots of patients with polio on the street. Therefore stay off do not enter. So they really quarantine folks a lot and I think it was a real big scare. I don't know that we right now can really appreciate what it was like to be a parent in those times because it was. Polio was the was the plague of the century and everybody everybody had someone in their family someone that they knew closely that had polio. My polio primarily affects my lower. Extremity my right leg with a little bit of paralysis in my left foot. And in essence I have since I was two walked with a long leg brace. I had four surgeries at the Shriner's and and the tones of the Shriner's because of all of the good work they did not only with me but with. Thousands of kids

around kids around the country. One one memory that's that I can fondly recall was there was a pretty apparently a marshmallow company and. In Salt Lake they forgot to put the flowering around the marshmallows and so instead of coming out as individual marshmallows they came out as globs. So they gave they gave. Hundreds of cases of this globby marshmallow stuff to the Shriners Hospital and every night if you wanted you'd have your glob of marshmallow that you could eat and I'm sure that has some real therapeutic value but. Remember that is about a third grader so. Active in school. Craig participated in sports by serving as the team trainer and was elected president of the high school Letterman's club his senior year. I don't remember my parents ever going to the school and saying you need to modify your European program so our son can participate. You need to modify the school so we can get. Or or the buses so we can get on and off easier. I don't remember that happening. And not to say that that's all bad. But at the same time it's kind of an interesting thread that that

apparently a lot of the polio folks had in that they just seem to get along. And do whatever needed to be done at the time. In retrospect I don't ever remember really being handicapped I room I can remember when I was in sixth grade the first time a kid called me a handicapped kid. And I never thought about it I can also say I never thought about it up until that time. I knew I didn't run as fast as everybody obviously there was a big difference between us. Sometimes I use that to my advantage. Sometimes I was real disappointed in the fact that I couldn't do that but I never really thought about myself as being handicapped any more than a kid with curly hair or one with big teeth or one with big feet or one that happened to live in town and was the banker's son. I was just different just kind of like everybody else was different and that had it's it's insulating affects because I think it helps serve me very well and kept me insulated from from hurt feelings and and feelings that I shouldn't be participating or that I couldn't be participating.

Like hundreds of others struck by polio. Craig Coleman and his remarkable resilience continues to inspire us today. In the past every main street my own adult corner drugstore. Prescriptions were mixed by home. Pharmacists and physicians were treated like family friends. We visited the doctor down there as emergency room physician at Riverton Memorial Hospital who has practiced medicine in Wyoming for 25 years. I made house calls. The first two or three years that I was in practice we all did routinely. When I came to town all we had was family practitioners six of us and we all made house calls. I don't want you to get that this vision of the kind of the doctor with a horse driven Kerridge making house calls because it I don't date that far back. But we made house calls and the public was upset only phase those out but in reality it was just a disservice to the patient at that point.

Technology advanced to the point where we couldn't. Adequately take care of a patient at home. It beat him out of the X-ray and laboratory animals things that we had at the hospital. And of course during the daytime why one house call would keep 10 patients that were sitting from the office at me in the office from being seen. In those days if they decided that you were their doctor they wouldn't see anyone else especially the obstetrical patients. I can remember trying to leave town for two days and getting paged at a university ball game and and learning because one of my patients was in labor and trying to explain to this place his mother on the telephone that I had another doctor covering my obstetrical practice while I was gone and she said no that won't do. And I had numerous times like that and then there was a big turnover we had a lot of docs come and go quickly because in the metropolitan areas it was generally accepted that if your doctor wasn't there well you'd see someone else but it wasn't that way for years and

now the public has accepted it. We have groups of physicians that see each other's patients and so they get some time off and I think a lot easier life than it is for me I just practice emergency medicine. I'm outta here I'm outta here and somebody else is in those patients and all of us have that now that we didn't have it all then. There was no sleep. There were times when I didn't get home for three or four days at a time maybe three or four hours sleep over that period of time. We did all of our own surgery our own obstetrics our own emerge. Can see we can have an anesthesiologist read to give our own anaesthetics would have life flight to get the bad cases out of here and we didn't get much sleep. Obviously there are rewards What would you say are your best memories of being a small town doctor. All the deliveries the little children and then being able to take care of the whole family and I think the new doctors that are specializing isn't even a family practice doctors don't do obstetrics anymore and to be able to take care of the whole family and deliver the little kids and watch them grow up

and take care of their whole lives and even now I have people come in young mothers come in and say remember me you delivered me every downtown used to have its general store a drug store and often combined with a drugstore or a soda fountain and just in case you want to remember a taste of a real old fashioned mouth. You can still order one. That's our next stop. We're going to the Yellowstone drugstore and she's shown one two three four. Ra. Ra. Ra Ra. Ra. Right. You. Told us about one of Miami's favorite places to do business. I know to my knowledge is it started in the early 1900s when it originated across the street in the hotel. And was moved here in 1964 65 into this building.

How long have you been running the business. About 11 years now. Now why do you think a business like this has been able to stay around for that long what is it that people like about it so much. I think the history of the building and the things in it and the way we make our malt and shakes him. It's all here for everybody to look at. I enjoy that. How do the tourists react when they come in and they see something like this still in existence. All they have to look at everything and they take pictures and they spend a lot of time with cameras in here. They love it. Wright was one of your busiest times that you ever had. Well in about 1984 85 86 somewhere around in there we had a memorial weekend then on Memorial Day itself we made approximately we didn't have an accurate count at that time but approximately five hundred forty four mile to nine hours. Were you tired at the end of Barry. When I locked the door I was over it.

What are the secrets do you think of making a really good mom to shake. It's just hard ice cream and the amount of milk and the amount of syrup you put into it if you put too much for up it's going to be too Randi and I think that's 90 percent of it and the quality of ice cream to choose well instead of talking about it let me see how it happens I want to see the secret you want me to make what I know how can I try a shake. OK what color what you said you have some new flavors. How about. Tropical very. OK. Laurie's a heart. You give. Her up. See I can I can order what I really have I have been. Sure you can that's one of the most popular flavors out right what it what are your popular clay chocolate vanilla and strawberry and that's really all the most popular you know. Probably will be forever. Will.

Look at that. So that's delicious. Tonight ravers got a look at his food. See that's the test. How many of these did you make last year. Well last year we made and this is an accurate figure. Last year we made thirty four thousand six hundred twenty four. And as of this yesterday's day we have thirty one thousand three hundred ninety two. So we're a little behind last year. We need everybody to come in and help us capture that total. Here's something I bet you remember. As much as we enjoyed the soda fountain. There was something even better. Yes. There gas was higher something to dream about. Every September the new year's models were unveiled. America waited to see the future on wheels. Our next stop the local garage. I just like. The fact that when you're driving down the street the people are just waving and

smiling and everything you know you see it you go driving down the road never then you see these poor people you know they're got these frowns on their face you know and everything but you see this go by and everybody's kind of cheerful for a while to get the point. Look at that you know it's just great to sit there behind the wheel and enjoy all of that. The markets by Sounds great stores and drives. Right now I think I have about nine. And it varies from 1933 to 1955. This is a 1930 straight the first year that they made their straight and this was also the first year for the depression in one thousand twenty nine. They were the number three auto manufacturer. They were ahead of Chrysler was just starting up at that time they were there was Chevrolet and Ford and then it was Hudson. And in the 1929 stock market crash and the subsequent years they just about didn't survive at all.

And the production of this particular model was one third of what there were. Back in 1990. Now you restart this when you see. How long it take you to come first. It took me 10 years. 10 years to do it we had to take the car entirely apart and scrape the frame off I come out here in the shop and and scrape off a little section about like this. I was too cold and doing it in the winter and going house to warm up now I think and I intimately know every nut bolt and cotter pin on this car. Bell shared why these vented cars appealed to so many people. Oh I think it's you know nostalgia some people have never seen I mean I think wow that's kind of neat you know and some people that are you know older than I am they grew up with these cars and lived with these cars and drove them when they were younger and everything and it brings back memories to them you know maybe they took their girlfriend or the boyfriend out in a.

While. This is the car that I had when I was in high school. And. Always swore that I was going to get one when I had the chance and so we finally got this one here and it's big and it's roomy and comfortable and we can take and put the three kids in it. And go on a vacation where I want to go on and be comfortable and it's not like these little compact cars that you have when you have a jam everybody in like sardines and I think you can enjoy this thing. And 1951 in 52 and 53 and 54 they were the NASCAR stock car champion. And they were also fourth Triple-A Triple-A had not sanctioned racetrack or races at that time too they don't do it anymore. And they want just the champion because they came in first you know on to several races new they came in first and second and third and fourth fifth and sixth It was monotonous. The Press writers for the sports just got tired of writing about them and everything.

Too bad it didn't translate you know win on Sunday and sell on Monday because they they're great cars. This one here is got the twin h power which means it's got two carburetors on it so a big three hundred eight cubical at six. And it's a monster engine. This this particular one develops one hundred forty five horsepower. It's got four speed high dramatic and. And radio and heater and that's about all of it. They had back then for his options. Well I used to drag race it is matter of fact I got some trophies for it and also I was racing somebody from wall and potentially you know maybe I shouldn't say this but. And he was in his brand new javelin I beat him in at that course and blew it up that night. Two. Memories tell us who we were. Those things we cared about and how much and how little

we've changed. But as much as objects and places may bring back memories it's the family and friends that shared those times with us which means the very most and bring the fondest memories. Thanks to all of our guests and thanks to you for joining us on Main Street Wyoming. Your Main

Street Wyoming is made possible by Kennicott energy company proud to be a part of Wyoming's future in the coal and uranium industries which includes exploration mining and production. And the Wyoming Council for the Humanities enriching the lives of Wyoming people through the study of Wyoming history values and ideas.