Snowy Range history revealed through place names
Often there is a tantalizing bit of history packed into the name of a place. Cheyenne native Mel Duncan (1931-2007), a veteran who served 43 years with the US Air Force, uncovered much of that history with his 1991 booklet “Place Names of the Medicine Bow National Forest.”
Duncan began with research on the October 6, 1955 crash of United Flight 409 on Medicine Bow Peak. Years later the scar on the “diamond” could be seen and may be yet by those who know where to look. Many local mountaineers participated in retrieving bodies and debris from the rugged crash site. Duncan was responsible for the bronze memorial plaque at the Miner’s Camp turnout just west of Libby Flats along Wyoming Highway 130 dedicated to the 66 victims of that crash.
Duncan observed that place names often come from obvious features, such as the high peaks first referred to as the Snowy Range in 1871--which are often snow-covered all summer long. Others are named for their shape or for local animals. More unique are names chosen for specific people--the pioneers and natives associated with a place.
The Medicine Bow Mountains were overlooked on an 1867 map by cartographer Thomas Mitchell. Though he showed the town and creek named Medicine Bow. The name probably originated with trappers of the early 1800s. It is likely that they conflated two simultaneous activities of Native Americans who collected herbs for medicine and wood for bows. There is disagreement as to just which herbs and the kind of wood species they collected, but the name has stuck.
Except where noted, information on names discussed below comes from Duncan’s research.
LIBBY
M.D. Libby was a US Deputy Surveyor who completed maps of the short-lived gold mining district near Jelm in the late 1800s. He might have been a relative of George Libby, a prospector active in 1867 who is probably the one who gave his name to local features. Libby Lake is the headwater of Libby Creek, and Libby Flats with its Civilian Conservation Corps-built “castle” is a popular scenic stop on WH 130. In 1919 the Snowy Range Resort Company commissioned Wilbur Hitchcock of Laramie to design Libby Lodge on the original road over the Snowy Range.
The lodge was completed in 1924. Old timers say it was known as the Medicine Bow Lodge when they grew up in the 1950s; now its name is Snowy Range Lodge. Around 1942 the Libby Creek ski area was built, the Lodge and cabins saw some use for skiers and special award ceremonies for ski completions, as the late Paul Rechard of Laramie recalled.
Until the 1960s the resort could host 80 people overnight. In 1976 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The US Forest Service almost demolished it, but new local owners Jamie Egolf and her then-husband David Egolf were allowed to bring it back from a dilapidated state when they purchased it in 1977 and spent nine years restoring it. Now it is a private residence and event venue though no longer offers overnight accommodations.
BROOKLYN LODGE
This lodge at 10,526 feet was named for Brooklyn Mine, which Duncan said was nearby; he mentioned that mine in his 2002 book “The Medicine Bow Mining Camps.” Duncan says that Brooklyn Mine was being worked in 1891 but whoever chose the name is not known now. Brooklyn Lake was first called Trout Lake and is a popular fishery.
The developer of Brooklyn Lodge was Harry “Hoot” Jones, who was a rodeo cowboy when he picked up work on the crew building the Snowy Range Road in 1923. The next year he chose the scenic spot to build a lodge and cabins. Brooklyn Lodge history was described by Scott Thybony, Robert G. Rosenberg and Elizabeth Rosenberg in their 1985 book “The Medicine Bows”: “Wyoming’s Mountain Country.”
They report that the original opening of the lodge was marked by a dance and celebration “that lasted until morning.” They also found a 1937 Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) brochure for tourists mentioning that among other amenities, Brooklyn Lodge had “a registered nurse in residence, and no snakes.” The Lodge is also on the National Register of Historic Places. The first automobile reached Brooklyn Lake in 1909; the improved auto road over the top was formally opened in 1926, though it had been passable for horse-drawn vehicles since the late 1890s, according to Hollis Marriott in her story “Celebrating the ‘Great Skyroad,’ ” available on the website wyoachs.com.
KEYSTONE
A “keystone” is a wedge-shaped stone at the top of an arch that holds all the rest of the stones in place--an apt name for a mine that was to become the center of a mining district in the Snowy Range. It was named in 1876 by Fletcher Dunham, who was the original discoverer of the vein of gold in association with pyrite and pyrrhotite found there.
The Keystone Mining District of the 1880s was abandoned by the early 20th century. Starting in 1886, Keystone had a post office where all miners in the district got their mail. Production ceased in 1893 and the post office closed. There were 375 people living there at the time of the 1930 census, during a heyday for logging; now it is a small unincorporated community. Dismantling and sealing the mines occurred in the 1950s, according Thybony et al.
LAKE OWEN
William Octavius Owen was a 7-year-old who reached Laramie with his mother and two sisters in 1868. His parents, William and Sarah Owen, had joined a Mormon community in England; they emigrated with a baby daughter to Utah Territory in 1854. Sarah and William had two more children in Utah, her youngest was William (1860-1947).
Sarah did not join the church and after her husband died, married again briefly and, as a single woman named Sarah Montgomery, joined a wagon train headed east with her children. In Laramie she learned that an expected inheritance was not going to materialize. She supported herself with a boarding house and restaurant and enabled her three children to get an education. William apprenticed himself to a surveying crew, and in 1878 the crew gave his name to a prominent mountain lake.
Owen continued as an independent surveyor and produced several important early maps of the Snowy Range and Albany County. He was an avid bicyclist and mountaineer and was elected Wyoming State Auditor in 1895.
Lake Owen has been increased in size with a dam, and now serves as a partial supply of water for the city of Cheyenne 45 miles east of Laramie through a pipeline to Middle Crow Creek near Vedauwoo.
LAKE MARIE
Charles Bellamy (1851-1934) became the first professional engineer licensed in Wyoming (in 1907). He continued much of the surveying work that William Owen and others had started, and around 1888 he named one of the most scenic lakes in the Snowy Range for his wife, Marie “Mary” Godat Bellamy (1861-1954). They were married in 1886. The 40’ deep lake is stocked with fish; in the 1930s a crew from the CCC built the rustic restroom still in use there. In 1910 Mary Bellamy was elected as the first woman to serve in the Wyoming Legislature.
SWASTIKA LAKE
No one seems to know how this obscure lake in the Snowy Range at 10,062 feet got its name, certainly not from its shape. Due to objections, a new name, “Knight Lake,” has been proposed. The requested change was approved by the Albany County Commissioners in the summer of 2023, and will be forwarded to the US Board on Geographic Names soon, if it is passed by a similar agency under the Wyoming State Engineer’s Office, scheduled to meet November 1, 2023.
The US Board was created in 1890 to maintain uniform domestic geographic names. But then military map makers and others realized that there was a need for internationally recognized names, so most countries have similar naming agencies and usually honor whoever named a feature first.
The word “swastika” describes one of the oldest artistic motifs known to man. A British Broadcasting Company’s program titled “How the World Loved the Swastika--Until Hitler Stole It” traces the history of the motif back 15,000 years.
The motif was found across Europe 9,000 years ago. Examples survive that are molded in pottery, woven into textiles, and made into jewelry. Simultaneously, it emerged in Asia--the name means “well-being” in Sanskrit, according to the BBC. It was known as the “Whirling Log” motif to Native Americans. However, it became “the most hated symbol of the 20th Century, inextricably linked to the atrocities committed under the Third Reich,” as the BBC story author M.J. Campion wrote.
In the early 20th century, the swastika motif enjoyed a world-wide popularity. In 1914 Laramie had “Campbell’s Swastika Store” at 116 Ivinson Avenue (now the site is occupied by Big Dipper Ice Cream Shop). There also was a Swastika Ranch in Albany County (though it was nowhere near the lake in the Snowy Range), and a swastika stock brand.
As for the Snowy Range lake, Duncan says it was “Named prior to 1935 when the swastika became the symbol of Nazi Germany.” A shallow lake at 4 feet in depth, it has no fish--it can freeze solid during winter. It does have leeches. The trail from the Green Rock picnic area on WH 130 is now overgrown.
The “Knight” who is to be honored with its new name is Samuel Howell Knight, prominent University of Wyoming geologist whose students helped build the nearby Science Camp in 1925 which was named for him in 1966. It has been sold by UW and is now the Snowy Mountain Lodge. Newly restored, it was purchased in 2011 by the Laramie Valley Chapel and is used as a lodge for guests and “a retreat center for ministries throughout the region” according to the organization’s website.
By Judy Knight
Editor’s Note: Judy Knight is collection manager at the Laramie Plains Museum. Mel Duncan’s books are available at the UW Coe Library and the Albany County Public Library. She invites readers with information on origins to let her know the history of other local place names
Caption: Swastika Lake in the Snowy Range, summer 2023. There is a proposal to change the name to “Knight Lake.”
Photo Credit: Ann and Richard Boelter