Settling Laramie’s West Side
Some railroad towns have a “right” side of the tracks and a “wrong” side. Laramie doesn’t–much of Laramie is on what might have been called the wrong side.
“Don’t let anyone tell you that you come from the wrong side of the tracks,” said West Side resident William Metzler, a Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) engineer, to his children. “We live on the right side because the wind blows all the cinders and factory smoke to the east,“ recalls his daughter Cheryl Metzler Green, a 71-year resident of Laramie’s West Side.
The steam locomotives and factories are gone from the West Side now, and a mostly residential neighborhood remains, a strip about 4 blocks wide and 17 blocks long, about 360 acres. The Laramie River forms its western boundary; the UPRR tracks are on the east.
In May of 1868, when Laramie was founded, the railroad had already laid track through town and was headed northwest. Laramie is unique among Wyoming UPRR towns in that the tracks go almost straight north and south, not east and west.
The name “West Side” (capitalized) was used in the Laramie Sentinel in 1877, so the name has been around for a long time. This neighborhood should not be confused with “West Laramie,” another neighborhood west of I–80 that was platted in 1886 but not annexed until 1969.
Irish families first
Michael Carroll (1834–1907) was a civilian employee of Col. Henry R. Mizner in 1866 and came with Mizner to what became Wyoming Territory that year as a guide and wagon master. Mizner testified in an 1891 court case that Carroll had charge of all 40 teams, mules, and wagons needed for Mizner’s assignment to build Fort Buford, which was renamed within a year to Fort Sanders, just south of what became Laramie City.
Carroll himself testified in that lawsuit brought by the UPRR against him in 1889. He said although the railroad was constructed in 1868 adjacent to his ranch, “I got permission to settle on that land before the railroad ever came to the country.”
The U.S. Land Office decided the lawsuit in 1891 in favor of Carroll, declaring that he had absolute qualification as a citizen and settler on the land in question. It did not, however, give him the patent deed to most of the West Side land he had claimed, as that had been granted by the government to another person in 1875. Details about Carroll have been provided by West Side historian Dicksie Knight May who points out that patent deeds are the earliest solid evidence of land ownership.
An 1878 obituary for Jackson Brown, one of the first settlers within what became the city limits of Laramie, states that in 1868 he bought ranch land from Michael Carroll along Spring Creek. No one questioned him later as the legitimate owner–his widow inherited it. Brown obtained his patent deed in 1875 for the land he “bought” from Carroll–an indication that Carroll’s original land claim was much larger than just the West Side.
Henry D. Hodgeman (1832-1914) arrived in Laramie in 1868 from New York state, two years after Carroll. He was the engineer for a locomotive being delivered to the UPRR. He noticed that two West Side settlers from Ireland, rancher Michael Carroll (1834–1907), along with the brothers Thomas Fee (approx. 1830-1873) and John (1838–1922), occupied land on the West Side that Hodgeman coveted, some of which had been given by Congress to the UPRR. (Pre-1875 records show the family name spelled “Hodgman.”)
Since neither Carroll nor Fee had yet received the patent deed for land they had settled upon, Hodgeman filed a competing claim for their lands, most of which was the ranch Carroll was developing. Hodgeman also contacted the UPRR to get the company to vacate and acknowledge him as the rightful landowner, even though Carroll and Thomas Fee may have applied for ownership first.
The UPRR settled with Hodgeman, whose land patent application was granted in 1875. Hodgeman platted the land into small lots and began selling. East side Laramie buyers purchased lots from the UPRR, but on the West Side, buyers purchased from patent deed holders Fee or Hodgeman, thanks to the latter’s settlement with the UPRR.
The Fee’s patent deed was received in 1876 to West Side land mostly above what is now Bradley St. The farm remained for a while, but Fees Addition was platted in 1886 and was just two city blocks in size. Starting in 1888 the rest was platted as Fees 2nd Addition. Both were annexed to the city and developed by Lawrence Fee, inherited by him at the death of the patent deed holder– his mother, Elizabeth, widow of Thomas Fee.
The Fee lots were offered for sale in 1886. An 1885 Laramie map shows some houses in that area occupied by persons named Fisher, Ryan and Bishop. They were probably squatting there in hopes of being able to buy the lots when the land was platted. Squatters were common on both sides of the tracks in 1868 and later as people built permanent homes and businesses before the UPRR land agents arrived to begin selling lots.
Carroll protested in 1875 about Hodgeman’s deed to “his” land but to no avail. Perhaps intentionally Hodgeman retaliated by putting Carroll’s house in the middle of W. Kearney St. when he delivered the plat map to the courthouse.
There is a startling anecdote in an 1875 Laramie Sun newspaper stating that Hodgeman moved a house with an armed occupant, City Clerk Ira Pease, onto land that Carroll was still claiming. Carroll waited until dark and then with several mules, pulled the house, back to where it had been, presumably with Pease still in it. (Laramie Sun, May 1, 1875, page 3) There’s no further mention of that kerfuffle in the newspaper; seven months later Hodgeman received the patent deed.
The post office gave Carroll’s house the address 468 W. Kearney St., but at the courthouse it is identified by township and range, an indication that it was there before the land was owned or platted by Hodgeman. It was probably built in 1870. If so, it is the oldest house still standing on the West Side.
The Wyoming Weekly Leader of Cheyenne asserted in December of 1875 that Carroll had been swindled out of his land by both the UPRR and Hodgeman. But it is Hodgeman’s name that is now on a West Side street, on land settled on and claimed by both the Carroll and Fee families.
Dicksie May reports that in the 1880s Carroll received Homestead deed #421 to 40 acres on the West Side, mainly for his house in the middle of Kearney St. and adjacent land to the west along the Laramie River with his barn and pastures. Apparently, he never platted this land.
Thus, two names, Hodgeman and Fee, are associated with West Side house lots, but Carroll's name is not. About 10 acres of land with Carroll’s barn (now gone) and pasture became Optimist Park. Some of the Fee family farm was sold to the Laramie Hahn’s Peak and Pacific Railroad by Lawrence Fee after 1901.
By Judy Knight, collection manager at the Laramie Plains Museum.
Caption: A 2023 photo of the original December 20, 1875, plat map for “Henry Hodgeman’s Addition” to Laramie’s West Side, from Park St (“G St.”), north to Lewis St (“C St.”). “Centre” is now University and “Front” is Pine. There may have been some older buildings already present that are not shown, such as Michael Carroll’s 1870 house. The map was drawn by the County Surveyor, William O. Downey in May 1875. The plat map collection is available to the public in the County Clerk’s Real Estate Office, Albany County Courthouse.