The John D. Conley house is a two story Victorian dwelling of wooden frame construction built in 1888. It is significant for its association with the early development of the University of Wyoming, and the way in which it reflects the changing nature of the community of Laramie. John D. Conley was a member of the first faculty of the University of Wyoming.

The University of Wyoming Circular of General Information for 1887-1888 (the first year of classes), described him as ''Secretary to the University, Instructor in Natural Philosophy, Instructor of Calligraphy, Professor of Geology and Chemistry, Instructor of Drawing, Professor of Agricultural Geology, Chemistry and Farm Accounts, as well as Vice President of the University. He was also the second highest paid officials at the University at that time.

After the dismissal of President Hoyt in December 1890, Conley served as President (acting) until a new president was found in January 1891. Conley remained with the University until 1896. He was nominated as President in 1891, but did not receive the job. Before leaving Laramie, he sold the house to then President of the University of Wyoming, Elmer E. Smiley. The house served as the home of the Kappa Delta Society of the University in 1929 and 1930. Since that time, it has been a boarding house for students and a private residence.

The Keystone Work Center is located in the Little Beaver Creek drainage on the southeastern slopes of the Medicine Bow Range in southern Wyoming. It was originally built as a remote ranger station and converted into a work center when the Keystone Ranger District was discontinued. The USDA Forest Service facility has four contributory historic buildings built from 1937 to 1947. Present at the site are an Office/Dwelling, Dwelling, Shop/Garage, and a Flammable Storage shed.

The property is a good example of a Forest Service ranger station built during the Depression era. With the exception of the Dwelling, it was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and reflects the contribution of this Federal Works program to the expansion of the Forest Service resource management during the 1930s. It also embodies a distinctive style of architecture developed by the Forest Service during the Depression era.

The Laramie Downtown Historic District consists of ten and one half blocks of the original Union Pacific Railroad plat of Laramie. The District is almost exclusively comprised of two story brick commercial structures constructed between circa 1870 and 1938. There are ninety-five buildings and one structure; fifty-nine buildings are considered contributing as is the structure, a railroad pedestrian bridge. Also included are two churches, a 1920s Union Pacific Depot, two fraternal organization headquarters, three government buildings, and a former Carnegie library. Thirty-six buildings are listed as non-contributing or intrusive because they have suffered alterations which compromised their integrity or because they were constructed after 1938.

The district does not demonstrate one specific style, but rather reflects a variety of late 19th century commercial trends in railroad communities. Buildings nearest the depot are oldest and reflect the late 19th century trend toward commercialism and density near the tracks. From the outset hotels, trading and general stores were the dominant types of buildings constructed. Buildings further north and east of the original downtown area were constructed in later years and are more likely to be free standing, such as churches, government buildings, and fraternal organizations.

The Laramie Downtown Historic District is significant for its association with the representation of the arrival and impact of the Transcontinental Railroad in the west. The arrival of the railroad, established in southern Wyoming by the Union Pacific, insured the early growth and prosperity of Laramie and other important communities along the route.

The Lehman-Tunnell house is located at the corner of 7th Street and Grand Avenue in Laramie. The house, constructed in 1891, generally presents a Queen Anne appearance. This two and one half story brick house is architecturally one of the finest late 19th century homes still standing in Laramie. Constructed by Frank Cook, it is associated with the lives of persons significant in local history, especially Edward Lehman, a prominent pioneer merchant, and also embodies the distinctive characteristics of the Queen Anne and late Victorian style widely used in that period.

Mr. Cook also constructed several other important buildings in Laramie such as the Ivinson Mansion, many other stylish homes and some commercial structures. The house is one of a very few remaining to represent the style and flamboyance of Laramie’s early history.

Lincoln School, built in 1924 and expanded in 1939 and 1953, is significant because of its direct association with the growth and importance of education in Laramie, Wyoming. Laramie, which served as a railhead for the Union Pacific Railroad, suffered under the typical lawlessness of a railroad town when it was first settled, but overcame its initial tempestuous beginnings to become a community known not only as the site of the University of Wyoming, but also as the site of one of Wyoming's most outstanding public school systems. T

he block upon which Lincoln School sits was first used as a public school site in the early 1880s and represents the third site used for the public education of Laramie's children. Over the years, the compact, wood-sided building initially constructed on the block, known simply as West Side School, was transformed into Lincoln School, a brick building with its own small gymnasium and stage. Built on Laramie's west side, Lincoln School served a small, blue collar neighborhood, separated from the rest of the community by railroad tracks.

During the period of significance, the Lincoln School was the sole neighborhood public facility located in the West Side neighborhood. It was used for vaccinations and health screenings, plays, dances, dinners, and as a polling site. Modest though Lincoln School was in contrast to Laramie's other grade schools, it became an institution on the town's West Side, the rich cultural and ethnic background of West Side residents reflected in its student body.

Although the school was closed in 1978, it is now owned by the Lincoln Community Center Corporation, which is rehabilitating the property so that it can once again be a vital neighborhood hub with an education focus.

The Mountain View Hotel is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A. The hotel was an integral part of the settlement of the Centennial Valley in Wyoming. With strong ties to mining, railroad, and early tourism endeavors, the building has remained in service in numerous income-producing capacities for the past 100 years.

Construction of the building was first proposed in 1906 and was to be built by Eastern Capital at a cost of $8,000. The Boston-Wyoming Lumber Company ended up earning the contract, and construction began immediately. The plan called for 20 guest rooms and three baths with “the most improved system of plumbing,” however, the original bathrooms were placed outside in the livery stables for some reason. The hotel’s furniture was shipped from Chicago, and a gentleman by the name of R. Mettler was imported by the railroad to handle its daily operations.

In 1914, Gustav Sundby and his wife, Anna, bought the Mountain View Hotel. Reportedly, trout was served at every meal. For a price of $1.00 to $1.50, one could have accommodations and meals, which included a breakfast of fresh fried trout, toast, pancakes and eggs and a dinner of steak and trout.

County records are sparse, and existing documents show that the Sundbys owned and operated the Mountain View Hotel as it was originally intended until the 1940s. Following the Sundbys, many individuals owned the Mountain View Hotel throughout the 20th century, and an element of its function would change slightly with each new owner. Dorothy Fisher purchased the building and part of it became Fisher’s Gift Shop and the town post office for a short period of time. In the late 1950s, the building was converted into apartments.

Today, the building is in operation as a hotel once more, and a small restaurant inside contributes to the overall experience. The hotel is a survivor both physically and fiscally. It embodies the spirit of the early pioneers, miners, ranchers, railroaders and entrepreneurs of Centennial. Much like the town of Centennial, the hotel retains a sense of the community spirit that welcomes any traveler with open arms.

Built in 1928, the North Albany Clubhouse is significant as the physical symbol of the community of northern Albany County. The simple, solitary structure standing alone on the windswept plains of the Laramie Basin embodies the spirit of the people of northern Albany County and the need for social order, structure, and interaction so necessary to human survival in any environment.

As the only structure in the region built for the express purpose of serving as a center for social and political activities, it is unique. The initial construction of the Clubhouse was the product of a group of individuals united in common purpose and effort. The continued care and maintenance of the building also reflect the spirit of the community. Architectural details on the structure’s interior mirror ties to the land and to each other and the pride of belonging to a community.

The building has been the scene of countless picnics and barbecues, school programs, elections, dances, club meetings, holiday dinners, weddings, and non-denominational services, and has played a vital role in fulfilling the social and spiritual needs of northern Albany County’s residents.

On March 4, 1886, Governor Frances E. Warren of Wyoming Territory signed the act which authorized establishment of the University and appropriated $50,000 for construction of a building. The University of Wyoming’s oldest structure, known today as Old Main, occupied a prominent block in the center of Laramie.

The builders of Old Main established an architectural tradition that others followed as the University grew. Most of the University structures are substantial native sandstone buildings that derive their limited ornamentation from “revival” architectural styles and are typical collegiate buildings. Yet Old Main’s façade expresses an eclectic architectural tradition common to other Wyoming structures built during the late nineteenth century. In an attempt to incorporate popular architectural styles of the day, architect Fred Hale of Denver drew upon the Romanesque Revival style for details such as the rock-faced surface articulation, the original tower, and the semicircular arches, while he also relied upon Chateauesque features as expressed in the steeply pitched roof, dormers with pinnacled gables, and linteled windows.

This combination of styles gives Old Main a truly distinctive appearance within the state. Old Main is the only building on campus constructed during Wyoming’s territorial period, and one of only a handful of territorial institutional buildings left standing. This public building is an impressive structure which communicates the builder’s nineteenth century desire for stability and permanence.

The Parker Ranch is an exceptional example of an early Laramie Plains homestead. The ranch house embodies characteristics of a type period and method of construction that is atypical for Wyoming and is more often associated with southeastern and south central United States rural building styles. It is representative of a later settlement period in the homestead/sheep and cattle ranching frontier which has made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of Wyoming and western history. It is also associated with the locally significant Parker and True families who have made significant contributions to the area’s economic, cultural and political history.

The Parker ranch house, constructed in 1917, was placed amidst rugged terrain within one of Wyoming’s most scenic mountain ranges, the Medicine Bows. Located in the vicinity of Laramie Peak, one of the Medicine Bow’s highest mountains, the Parker ranch house provides an interesting visual contrast to the natural environment’s mountainous scenery. Native materials such as sandstone and cottonwood logs were used in the construction of this unusual log building.

Also known as the Big Laramie Stage Station, the Richardson’s Overland Trail Ranch is located southwest of Laramie, Wyoming on the Big Laramie River. Situated on the open plains of the windswept Laramie Basin, the district includes seven buildings and one structure. These include six contributing ranch buildings and a corduroy road segment of the Overland Trail which marks the trail’s crossing of the Big Laramie River. Architecturally, the Richardson Ranch is best understood as a working ranch which has continually adapted to the changing necessities of ranch life.

Old buildings have been altered or torn down and new ones built; this is the rule of any working ranch. Western ranches traditionally re-use materials, or use scrap materials, quite extensively. This is well-illustrated on the Richardson Ranch by the moving of abandoned log buildings onto the ranch from other areas (a practice common throughout the west), and by the use of slabs (left over from sawing logs into boards at local saw mills) to construct fences and several out-buildings. The ranch exhibits a variety of different forms and construction techniques, representing the historical periods during which the ranch has existed since 1862.

The ranch is significant by virtue of its association with the exploration and settlement of Albany County and the State of Wyoming and the development of the agriculture industry. Serving as a home station on the Overland Trail, the Big Laramie Stage Station was one of the first permanent Euro-American settlements in the region. It became one of the first cattle ranches in the region and continues as a modern working ranch.

Railroad Heritage Park’s Snow Train Rolling Stock is a static display illustrating the arrangement and typical components of snow trains that operated in Wyoming during the 1950s. Used to clear the tracks and keep trains moving, snow trains generally included the type of rolling stock comprising the Laramie train: a plow (wedge or rotary) to move the snow from the tracks; a locomotive to power the train; a tender to provide fuel for the locomotive; a bunk car to transport and support the crew involved in snow-clearing operations; and a caboose to serve as the command center for the train. All of the nominated rolling stock were manufactured for the Union Pacific Railroad or its subsidiaries and served on its lines.

Also known as Libby Lodge, the Snowy Range Lodge is located within the Medicine Bow Range, a northern prong of that part of the Rocky Mountains extending north into southern Wyoming from Colorado. The lodge is situated on National Forest property three miles west of Centennial, Wyoming. Construction of the lodge was completed in 1925.

The building is significant because of its architecture and because of its history. Its size and design call attention to this unique log structure, few of which remain in the Medicine Bow National Forest, or elsewhere in Wyoming. The lodge has been a focal point for recreationists in the region since 1925.

St. Matthew’s Cathedral Close, constructed from 1892 to 1925, is named from the early custom of securing the privacy of the cathedral precincts by enclosing them within a wall, and comprises a square block in the center of downtown Laramie. The Close contains St. Matthew’s Cathedral, a massive stone Gothic Revival church; the Deanery, a two-story Victorian brick structure; Hunter Hall (Formerly Sherwood Hall); and the First World War Memorial Cross.

The Close is a religious property deriving its primary significance from historic and architectural importance. It embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, and method of construction representative of a 19th century trend for buildings to reflect their use and the intentional influence of a group of English Ecclesiologists determined to promote construction of accurate Gothic parish churches as the only suitable structures for Christian worship. It is possibly Wyoming’ best example of Gothic Revival church architecture.

Additionally, St. Matthew’s is associated with the powerful 19th century Episcopalian drive to exert a civilizing effect on the frontier through active missionary work in the west, where religion became a social thing and encouraged the development of well-ordered, civic-minded communities, nurtured strong community spirit, and accelerated social cohesion by providing a variety of family and community oriented social activities.

In July of 1885, members of Laramie’s German community, which numbered about four hundred persons, met to discuss the possibility of forming a congregation, and securing the services of a minister to preach to them in their own language. The services of a minister, Rev. Johann Frank, were engaged, and the congregation took the name “St. Paulus Deutsche Evangelische Lutherische Kirche.” Laramie’s Presbyterian Church was used as a meeting place until 1890, Wyoming’s year of statehood, when the cornerstone was laid for a new German church.

The building was designed and constructed by a member of the congregation, George Berner. Completed a year later, at a cost of $5,000, St. Paul’s was the seventh church erected in Laramie, and the first German church in the state of Wyoming. St. Paul’s Church is the oldest remaining church in Laramie and is representative of the conservative influences exerted by religious groups in isolated western communities which made significant contributions to a trend toward permanent well ordered civic minded communities in temporary boom towns.

St. Paul’s is associated with German immigrants who made significant contributions to patterns of settlement and growth by providing technical skills, business ability and cultural traditions. St. Paul’s was important within the community as a social and emotional outlet by providing members with a means of maintaining traditions and language well into the 20th century.

The building itself embodies the distinctive characteristics of type period and method of construction as a substantial representation of Lutheran Church architecture adapted to one community’s needs and wants.

Also known as the Quadra Dangle Square Dance Clubhouse, the Union Pacific Athletic Club or Gray’s Gables, as it was named in its origin, is located in the northeast section of Laramie, Wyoming. The style of architecture is rustic log design. The logs are lodgepole and ponderosa pine hewn in the Medicine Bow range west of Laramie and brought into Laramie on rail cars in 1928.

The historical significance of the Union Pacific Athletic Club relates directly to the activities of persons connected with the Union Pacific Railroad. In 1926, a group of Union Pacific employees formed a group known as the Union Pacific Athletic Club whose purpose was to further the athletic ability and physical welfare of the employees, both young and old. There were athletic clubs in nearly every town of any size along the entire Union Pacific routes from Omaha to Los Angeles and Portland.

There was much competition between these clubs in basketball, track, rifle team matches and golf tournaments. The club members designed the building among themselves. The planned hall was to house an area for dancing, roller-skating rink, dining and assembly hall, card rooms, billiard rooms, an indoor small-bore rifle range in an adjacent building, a large-bore rifle range, archery range, tennis courts, a trap shoot, croquet lawns and golf course, and children’s playground.

The dedication of the building took place on May 20, 1929 and this event also emphasizes the historic significance of the structure for it was named Gray’s Gables after the President of the Union Pacific Railroad, Carl R. Gray, who was the main speaker at the ceremonies along with the President of the University of Wyoming, A.G. Crane. Begun as a Union Pacific facility for its employees, the club grew to become a Laramie institution due to the wide and varied activities which centered in and around the building.

The Vee Bar Ranch served as ranch headquarters for Lionel C. G. Sartoris, a cattle baron, and Luther Filmore, a stockgrower and division superintendent for the Union Pacific Railroad. The Wright family also raised stock, ran a stage and freight station, and entertained dudes at the ranch. Their daughter Agnes Wright Spring became a noted regional historian. 

The ranch is directly associated with the ranch, rail, freight, and tourism industries, all important components of the area’s economic history. It is a typical but exceptionally well preserved example of the evolution of such operations. The Vee Bar Lodge was built as a home for Lionel Sartoris in 1891.

Sartoris was an English cattle baron, representative of the heyday of the cattle industry in the West. He was a partner in the Douglas William Sartoris Cattle Company, worth an estimated $2 million in 1885. The Vee Bar Ranch district is composed of five contributing buildings, the original corral system, and stock shute. The buildings and corral structures are excellent representatives of the rough vernacular traditions of Wyoming’s early settlement architecture.

The William Goodale House is significant as an excellent example of the Tudor Revival Style in Laramie. The house is the only existing Tudor Revival house in Laramie constructed of brick or stucco. This solid stone masonry house was built in 1931.

William Goodale contracted with the well-known Wyoming architects William Dubois and F. W. Ambrose to design his house. William Dubois was one of the leading architects in Wyoming during the early 1900s. He designed many prominent commercial buildings in Cheyenne including the Supreme Court Building and the wings of the Wyoming State Capitol. In Laramie, he also designed many commercial buildings, including the Half-Acre Gym, the Student Union and the Arts and Sciences building at the University of Wyoming.

The Woods Landing Dance Hall, constructed in 1932, is important for its association with a locally significant individual named Mayme Lewellen Lestum, who owned and operated the property. It is significant as a local gathering place not only for dances, but smorgasbord, blood drives, fund raisers, weddings and other important occasions. It is also a stopping place for tourists.

It is associated with the tie hack industry which boomed in response to the railroad’s need for lumber, and brought large numbers of Swedish immigrants into the area. The Dance Hall also embodies distinctive characteristics of type, period, and method of construction which exemplify the unusual architectural contributions of the Swedish immigrants. The dance hall features a dance floor mounted on 24 box car springs, the only one known of in the state.

The Wyoming Territorial Penitentiary at one time stood alone in the open plain on the west side of the Big Laramie River, separated from the nearby city of Laramie by its forbidding outward appearance and by the prison preserve that covered hundreds of acres. A dirt road from the east led up to the gabled front entrance centered on the east side of the main prison building.

A twelve-foot-high wooden plank fence, flanked at intervals by guard towers, enclosed the prison yard to the west of the main building. Outside the enclosure to the south stood the warden’s residence, a stark building stationed on a treeless yard. Several ancillary structures—hen house, hog pen, etc.—also stood outside the walls, and the prison garden was situated to the northeast of the main building. The original prison building, built in 1872, is now the north wing of the prison. A brick addition was added to the west of the original building.

The large central section and the south wing were built in 1889. The Warden’s Residence was built in 1875 by convict labor. The Wyoming Territorial Penitentiary is historically and architecturally unique in Wyoming. It is the only federal penitentiary ever to have been built in Wyoming and the only facility which was used to house territorial convicts within the territory. It is one of the oldest buildings still standing in the state, and one of the few remaining from the 1870s.