Broad Streets of Thermopiles

Thermopolis, named for the nearby hot springs by combining the Greek words thermo and polis, arose after the Shoshone and Arapaho sold a ten-mile square at the northeast corner of their reservation in 1896, land that included the hot mineral springs called Bah-gue-wana and the site of the present town. When the treaty was ratified the next year, settlers from Andersonville and Old Thermopolis moved to the new townsite. Because the town was isolated, freight teams carried goods to and from distant railheads, and freighter Henry “Sixteen Mule Team” Johnson asked for a street wide enough to turn his team of sixteen mules around. The founders and surveyors granted the request, laying out Broadway at 150 feet wide. A difficult stage road linked the town to the railhead at Casper by way of Copper Mountain over Birdseye Pass until the first Burlington engine arrived from the north in 1910, ending the freighting era. Historic photos show West Broadway with a landscaped median in the 1920s, a graveled center strip used for parking by the 1930s, and, in the early 1950s, a portion of Broadway again featuring a median with grass and trees. In 1983, the Downtown Thermopolis Historic District on the east side of Sixth Street was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Thermopolis, Wyoming · United States