Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
The Big Horn Mountain Stage Company, located in the historic Ten Sleep Mercantile.
TEN SLEEP – The veritable center of town and only remaining, original two-story building in Ten Sleep, the Ten Sleep Mercantile building has served as a variety of businesses, and remains a standard after 115 years.
Built in 1903 by Bonanza mill owner H.G. Church, the building features 3,500 square feet of pine flooring, pressed tin ceilings from St. Louis Tin Works, display windows and recessed doors and transom windows.
Church built the building as a wedding present for his daughter, who promptly sold the building in 1904 and moved to San Francisco.
The building was then taken over by the general dry goods firm of Brakaw & McCarty. It was during this tenure, in 1909, when the store became famous for being the location of meetings and supplier and ammunition for the infamous Ten Sleep Raiders, who perpetrated the "Spring Creek Raid."
On the night of April 2, 1909, seven Ten Sleep area ranchers bushwacked a sheep camp near Spring Creek, south of the town of Ten Sleep, killing three men and an untold number of sheep. It was to be the last altercation in the West's "sheep versus cattle" wars. The ensuing trial of the raiders rivaled any modern drama, and for years after, stories were told of the "Spring Creek Raid," books were written on the event, and eventually, a state historic marker was placed at the location of the crime.
In 1918 the building was purchased by Ten Sleep's first mayor and historian, Paul Frison, and continued to run as a general store.
The "Merc" stayed with Frison until 1941 when it was purchased by Leo Rhodes, the proprietor of Ten Sleep Hardware. Rhodes would run the business for the next 45 years, with the upstairs serving as the Ten Sleep Rodeo office.
Of all the stories of the building being haunted, Rhodes plays probably largest in the legend. In the 1950s, a group of children allegedly dug up a Native American grave outside of Ten Sleep and sold the skeleton to Rhodes, who displayed it in the store window. After some complaints, Rhodes removed the gruesome oddity and disposed of it.
It is rumored that Rhodes buried the skeleton in the dirt basement of the building, and past business owners and residents of the upstairs apartment have often shared stories of strange happenings in the dwelling.
In 1984, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places, specifically for its role in the Spring Creek Raid, and for exhibiting classic "general store" architecture.
As listed with the National Register, "previously known as the Ten Sleep Mercantile, this two-story commercial structure embodies the vernacular architecture of the frontier era and has acted as a community focal point since the turn of the century. The Ten Sleep Mercantile is located within the main downtown business district in Ten Sleep, Washakie County, Wyoming. The building sits on the northeastern corner of the Second and Pine Street intersection within block 9 in the Ten Sleep townsite plat map. The Ten Sleep Mercantile is representative of the detached retail store featuring tall, narrow and deep interior shop space that can be found throughout rural American towns and is a style of architecture particularly associated with frontier communities."
The building hosted a variety of businesses after the hardware years, including restaurants and shops, until it eventually became empty in 2004. In 2005, it was purchased by Marcus and Lori Huff and, after a two-year restoration, reopened as the Big Horn Mountain Stage Company, a general store and concert hall.
After an economic downturn in 2010, the business was closed and the building sat empty. After more restoration in 2017, the mercantile will reopen on June 28 of this year.
