Hartville was named for Colonel Verling Hart, who was stationed at old Fort Laramie in the late 1870's when Wyoming was still a territory. Its 200-acre town site was purchased from the federal government for $250.00, and President Theodore Roosevelt signed the deed in 1907. Hartville was incorporated in 1911, and the town, originally in Laramie County, became part of Platte County that same year. It is regarded as the oldest small town still inhabited in Wyoming. Copper ore was discovered nearby in the late 1800s, and soon afterward a large deposit of hematite iron ore led to the founding of the company town of Sunrise one mile away. The mine produced iron ore until the 1980's, when mining ceased and Sunrise closed, although much of the iron body remains. High-grade limestone is now quarried in the area for processing sugar beets and reducing emissions from coal-fired power plants. Hartville was a true Old West town with thirteen saloons and gambling halls, numerous bordellos, two newspapers, an opera house with live vaudeville productions, and many mercantile businesses, and council records show liquor licenses costing as much as $1000.00 per quarter or year. During Prohibition, the saloons became coffee houses and later ice cream parlors. Hartville also developed a diverse ethnic population, including Italian, Greek, Lebanese, Irish, Mexican, and Spanish immigrants who came to work in the Sunrise iron ore mine and the limestone quarries.