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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.
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