More notables in the cemetery

As a boy, I always wondered about the source of the street names in my town, and about the men after whom they were named. My recent investigation into the Worland cemetery has provided me with interesting new information.

One of the longer streets in Worland is Howell Avenue. This street, running mostly parallel to Big Horn Avenue for some 20 blocks, was named for J. Ashby Howell, who died and was buried in our cemetery in 1940. Howell was a popular fellow in Worland, with a wide range of friends (including Sadie and Charlie Worland). He arrived here early, and was promptly placed on Worland’s first town council.

Howell was very active: He was a baseball player, a fisherman, started a dry goods store, sold real estate, and searched for oil. In 1940 Ashby Howell was killed in a car accident near Emblem, and his funeral was held at the Worland Community Hall. It was said to have been attended by more than a thousand people.

Two short streets in the northwestern part of our town were named after Worland men who are buried in the cemetery. They are Conant and Bonine Avenues. Conant Avenue was named after Edwin J. “Eddie” Conant, who became Worland’s first town clerk in 1906, and, then, in 1913, when Washakie County began operation, the first Washakie County clerk of court. He served in that office for 46 years, retiring in 1959. Mr. Conant lived a long life, dying at 89 in 1966. The second street is Bonine, named after Harry L. Bonine, who was, like Ashby Howell, on the first town council. Mr. Bonine also lived a long life, dying at 75 in 1945.

There is still a third street named after one of the first town councilman (though a man not buried in the cemetery), a street sitting just north of Bonine and Conant Avenues. That is Lawson Avenue, named after J. H. Lawson.

My final example of a street named after a local person is Rupp Avenue, which was named after Wellington Rupp, a man who was a flyer during World War I.

I mention Mr. Rupp, although he is not buried in the Worland cemetery, because the use of his name for a street is of special interest to me: it was probably due to my father. My dad told me that in the 1950s he wanted to purchase some land in the far southwestern corner of Worland. The land was owned by Wellington Rupp, whose name had already been used to designate a place. Before Worland was created in 1906, another town in our area had been established, more or less, in 1903. It was located 20 miles north of what would become Worland, on the west side of the Big Horn River, and this town was just west of the German settlement where Elizabeth George was born. A stage driver named Arthur George (“A. G.”) Rupp started a store at this location and applied for a post office using the name “Wellington,” the name of Arthur’s youngest son. The United States Post Office approved this application, but shortened the name to “Welling.” The location proved to be problematic and A. G. soon moved his store to “Dad” Worland’s stage stop at Fifteen Mile Creek, and when the community moved to the east side of the river, Rupp built a store there. When Rupp moved to Worland, Welling died.

When, many years later, in the 1950s, my dad, C. O. Davis, dealt with Wellington Rupp, all this was far behind Mr. Rupp, but perhaps he considered it when my father approached him with an offer to purchase the Worland land Rupp owned. As my dad told the story two other parties were also interested in purchasing Rupp’s land. But my dad’s proposal had a feature that he thought Mr. Rupp would find attractive. C. O. proposed a subdivision that would establish a new three-block, winding street needing a name. My father told Rupp that as part of the deal, the new land would be named the Rupp Subdivision, and the new street would be named Rupp Avenue. Rupp agreed to my dad’s purchase proposal, and my dad got the land and spent the next several years developing it. Whether or not this “Rupp” feature persuaded Mr. Rupp, a Rupp Addition and Rupp Avenue were, in fact, created by my father.

John Davis was raised in Worland, graduating from W. H. S. in 1961. John began practicing law here in 1973 and is mostly retired.