Speculation ran high as three converging forces closed in on the Owl Creek Mountains in the early 20th century. A copper boom arrived across the world to build newly designed electric motors and lay millions of miles of telephone and power lines. The railroad finally reached the Wind River Country in 1906 and a dam, delivering electricity opened in the Wind River Canyon.
Wandering around the area today, you would never guess this was once a hotbed of industry, agriculture, and commerce.
Copper Mountain, and the towns of Birdseye, Bonneville, Lost Cabin, Lysite, and even distant Moneta had their day in the sun and the “metropolis” of 1906, that was Shoshoni, remains as a viable little crossroads town. Depass, centered roughly between these other six small settlements rose to prominence, then plummeted out of existence in just five short years.
Depass, Deranch, Glace, and Birdseye were all small communities on Copper Mountain, northwest of Lost Cabin and northeast of Shoshoni.
Depass and Deranch are often confused, but Deranch was there first established in 1880 by English investors.
Deranch was a stage station on the line from Casper to Thermopolis over Birdseye Pass when the only route to the Big Horn Basin from the south was narrow high-altitude trails through the Owl Creek Mountains over Birdseye, Mexican, or Blondie Pass.
Depass had little to do with the freight and stage line running just a few miles away, it was a mining town.
In the early 20th century, multiple economic forces were at work driving the expansion of railroads, freight hauling lines, towns, mines, and a hydroelectric dam on the Wind River. These all coalesced into a boom in Northeast Fremont County, with no boom larger than the copper one at Depass.
The Chicago Northwestern Railroad reached Moneta and then, in quick succession, Shoshoni, Neble, Riverton, Arapaho, Hudson, and finally, in October of 1906, Lander.
The presence of a railroad enhanced mineral speculation in the well-known copper deposits that gave Copper Mountain its name, and the arrival of electricity with the completion of Asmus Boysen’s dam at the mouth of the Wind River Canyon sent that speculation to a much higher level.
The opening of a United States Post Office in a community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is a metric historians use to detail the expansion of a community.
Deranch opened a post office in 1893, Depass, Birdseye, and Glance followed in 1906. The Deranch Post Office served the area from Lost Cabin well when cattle ranching and sheep ranching in the adjacent Nowood Canyon were the only businesses. That all changed when Pueblo “Peb” Williams arrived on the scene.
Williams was a comet across the economic skies of the early days of the 20th century in Fremont County, Wyoming.
Born on April 28, 1875, he began his adult life as a cowboy. He first appeared on a statewide level in a December 27, 1896, issue of the Wyoming Tribune printed in Cheyenne after a friend and fellow cowboy, J.S. Dillinghen was ambushed outside Otto in Big Horn County. Big Horn and Fremont County adjoined in those early days of statehood.
Dillinghen was driving a lumber wagon to Hyattville when a shot from the bushed narrowly missed his chin, a second shot passed a few inches in front of his stomach, obviously the work of a lever action rifle. As Dillinghen jumped from the wagon a third shot passed through his right ankle and then went through his left. Williams and the Big Horn County Sheriff investigated the ambush, but no one was ever arrested.
After working as a wrangler on the renowned Padlock Ranch in the late 1890s, and getting sidelined with measles in 1898, Williams began working on ranches around Deranch. He became enthralled with stories of copper and gold found just a few miles away. The legend of the Lost Cabin Gold was fresh in the 1890s, fueling the young man’s dreams.
Williams was a talented young man. In addition to his skills as a cowboy, he was an accomplished harmonica player and was sought out from Wolton to Birdseye to play for dances.
At 31, Peb found an abandoned claim on Copper Mountain.
The original site of the mining town of Depass was surveyed by M.C. McGrath and William G. Gardner and turned down by Fred Morse in 1898. Peb Williams staked a claim on the site in 1905. His entire life changed.
Soon after Peb Williams had officially staked his claim, copper fever struck the area.
Sheridan Post November 3, 1905 – “That Copper mountain will eventually be one of the greatest mining claims in the state there now seems no doubt and the opening of spring will see a grand rush for most any kind of a claim on this mountain, and renewed activity in the development of present locations.
One of the recent finds is that of the Copper King Mining company, who have eight claims on the mountain and have at a depth of twenty feet, a four-foot vein of $70 copper.
The Peb Williams, Smith, and other claims are continuing to show, as depth is reached, an increased value and enlarged leads from that on the surface. Town sites have been located
in this mining district and several of the companies are already placing stock on the market, the funds from the sale of which will be used in the development of the mines.
As regards the minerals being brought down from the mountain, those who have been in the greatest mining districts of the United States claim that they far excel anything that they have ever seen. Copper at Glance running as high as $150 per ton has been assayed and quartz containing free gold, in almost any amount has been exhibited. Almost every citizen of our sister town has in his pocket or at his place of business a rich simple of one or the other of the metals.”
Peb partnered with William Brown of Hyattville in their Copper Mountain Mine. They dug several shafts into the mountain and found high-quality deposits of copper with silver and traces of gold in the surrounding quartz.
In a story in the Worland Grit, the duo profited $60,000 in copper production and from the sale of the mine in 1906.
Basin Republican March 22, 1906 “Peb Williams went to Denver a few days ago with a large amount of ore from his Copper Mountain mines, and will have a test run made of it. If the result is satisfactory, his company will commence shipping ore as soon as the Northwest reaches Shoshoni.”
By August, the Chicago Northwestern had reached Shoshoni and was nearing Riverton. Peb sent his first full train car of ore to Denver.
Natrona County Tribune – August 9, 1906 –
The first carload of copper ore by Peb Williams to Denver
“From Shoshoni 15 tons returned a net profit of $896.92”
That first carload of ore, equivalent to $31,000 in value today, was sold to a smelter in Omaha, Nebraska. Copper fever soon engulfed the Badwater Country with miners and prospectors arriving on horseback, stage, and on the advancing Chicago Northwestern Railroad to Moneta and Shoshoni.
A post office brought legitimacy to the little copper boom town. United States Post Offices must have a name approved by the Postmaster General in Washington, D.C. On July 12, the application for “Depass” was approved. Peb Williams was named the first postmaster and the naming of the post office gave the previously unnamed community an identity.
Cheyenne Daily Leader – October 4, 1906
TO BUILD A TOWN AT DEPASS POSTOFFICE
Special to The Leader.
Shoshoni, Wyo., Oct. 3 – “Material is being secured for the erection at Depass, the mining center of the new Copper Mountain mining district, of a large hotel, a general store building, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, and other structures. A Buffalo syndicate has purchased a half-interest in the Peb Williams mine at Depass, paying $50,000, and will build the town of Depass.”
The Buffalo syndicate was Thomas G. Smith of Hazelton and William J. Thom of Buffalo.
Williams was on his way financially and copper fever hit the Owl Creeks with hurricane force. With that much value in copper, claim jumping was guaranteed. Williams had his claim jumped by W.D. Foster of Buffalo the year before.
Williams took the issue to court and retained his ownership of the mine in December 1905. Foster died just three months later of typhoid fever in Buffalo.
Wind River Mountaineer – March 9, 1906 – Copper Mountain District – “George Wimsey, who lives in the center of the present discovered mineral belt on Copper Mountain, was in Lander this week and thinks that there will be a great rush of prospectors to that locality and that future prospecting will show this section to have some of the richest ore in the west.
Mr. Wimsey says that there are at least 200 men working there this winter prospecting, and there are a number of tunnels in from fifty to two hundred feet Those that are in over one hundred feet are Morton, Hanks and Boots, Reed Bros , Bill Gardiner, Lost Cabin Mining Company, Gus Earl and Gremlee.
Bod Hale, on the head of Bird’s Eye, has good ore running $110 to the ton, Peb Williams in De Pass has ore running $167 in copper and $42 in gold. Many of the claims run as high as 52 percent copper. There are also a number of good claims on Tough Creek.
John Cunningham has a good lead 120 feet wide, and Geo. Williams several good claims.
Experts say they never saw a better formation, and in that section there is at least 100 claims now being worked.
They are figuring on shipping 100 carloads this spring from either Shoshoni or Kansons.
The Copper Mountain Mining District was recently organized, with Geo. Wolf, of Lost Cabin as recorder. The district is about 20×40 miles in size. Bridger Creek forms the east line, Badwater the south line, the Reservation the west line and the north line of Fremont County the north line.”
Williams had $50,000 in the bank, equivalent to 1.75 million dollars today. On March 22, 1907, he sold his final 25% of the mine to the Williams-Luman Company of Buffalo for another $50,000.
Flush with almost $3.5 million in 2024 value, Peb began to explore other pursuits.
He resigned as Depass postmaster in 1908. His interests had already moved further north to Thermopolis, Worland, and Basin.
By 1907 Williams had a large ranch at Winchester, and an impressive home on Mondell Street in Thermopolis. During his final days in Depass, he rode horseback or drove a coach from Depass to Thermopolis several times a week.
He eventually moved to Thermopolis permanently and began buying up all the property on Mondell Street between 5th and 6th Streets.
Thermopolis Independent – March 15, 1907 – “Peb Williams constructing several buildings downtown – bricks made by Ben Badger of Spearfish, S.D. with new process and a cement brick press brought to Thermopolis.”
He began building two-story, frame cottages on both sides of Mondell Street. If you travel through Thermopolis today from the south, Mondell is the last street before the big curve that leads US Highway 789 east towards Hot Springs State Park. Many of the houses on that street were built under William’s orders.
The industriousness and drive of Peb Williams were indicative of the age. In his short life, he rivaled the work of Noble, Amoretti, Delfelder, King, Welty, and Boysen in Lander, Riverton, Shoshoni, Dubois, and on the dammed Big Horn River.
Williams was an economic force throughout the Southern Big Horn Basin as described by area newspapers of the day.
Basin Republican – May 24, 1907 – “Peb Williams building a stucco plant using the gypsum in the mines nearby to produce 35 tons a day.”
Thermopolis Independent – July 5, 1907 – “The foundation of the Peb Williams stone building on Broadway, adjoining the Thermopolis Drug Company, was being laid this week. It will be two stories, the lower story being used for commercial purposes and the upper one for offices and rooms.”
Thermopolis Independent June 7, 1907 – “Peb Williams while in Worland last week made all necessary arrangements to erect a 50×80, two story business building in the fast growing town. We understand that as soon as the building is completed it will be let to a mercantile firm on a five year lease.
Peb is a hustler and is putting his money in the various enterprises that will surely pay him well in the end.
Basin Republican April 3, 1908 – “Peb Williams has bought out the Thermopolis Hardware company and will remove the stock and fixtures to his fined new building next to the Thermopolis Pharmacy. J.C. Garrison will have charge of the business.”
During the building spree, Peb briefly returned to his roots as a cowboy, purchasing a second ranch above Worland near Manderson
Peb Williams was on top of the world. He married Suzie Hawkins. Suzie delivered a baby girl, Irene Ruth, in February 1906 at their ranch near Hyattville. He was a respected businessman riding the crest of the Industrial Revolution on the Wyoming frontier.
Three years later in 1909, he purchased a 60 horsepower Thomas Touring Car, one of the most powerful automobiles of its day, and cruised between his ranches and businesses from Basin to Thermopolis.
His star fell from the sky on October 9, 1910, while on a hunting trip in the western Owl Creek Mountains. Peb felt sick and his hunting partners took him to Dubois. Dr. Padget of Lander was sent to Dubois to treat Williams, but he died of a burst appendix. He was 35 years old. He left his wife Suzie with four children.
The mine he began fell on hard times that same year, with the owners killed in an underground accident. The plethora of copper being discovered across the globe in Africa, Asia, South America, Australia, and the American West, created a glut with sale prices dropping below production costs.
Casper Daily Tribune – November 1, 1927 – A Once Famous Mine. – “Mining talk Is rampant In Casper, possibly elsewhere In the state, since the big conference here last week. R. M. Steffen tells of an exploration he once made of the old
Williams-Luman copper mine at the abandoned town of DePass, In Copper Mountain, active about twenty years ago. This is really a mine and is inactive only because of the oversupply of copper in other regions, and the depression of the copper market.
Mr. Steffen says he followed a tunnel into the mountain for more than a mile and descended In a shaft to six different levels, about 100 feet apart. One room In the mine was about forty feet long. Its walls and ceiling gleamed green and glistening in the light of the electric torch, the copper being mixed with a soluble substance that could be washed out, leaving the light metal in a spongy form. The ore on the dump at the mine entrance was estimated at hundreds of thousands of tons, valuable at one time, but leaching away In neglect. The hotel that has burned had forty rooms, and the mill, power plant, and other works were operated by three 500 horsepower boilers. The wealth spent at DePass helped to sustain the busy times of Shoshoni some years ago, and only came to a stop at the accidental death of the owners of the mine.”
The demise of the mine owners was a fanciful answer to the collapse of copper mining in Fremont County. The reality was a fickle, unstable market and a high cost of transporting the ore to the smelter. Copper mining was a losing proposition worldwide. In 1908 the price for a pound of pure copper dropped from 20 to just 13 cents. That’s a drop of $2.50 per pound in 2024 terms.
When copper prices did surge during World War I and World War II, the federal government stepped in and set prices at 23 cents for the First World War, and just 12 cents for World War II. They added substantial subsidies to major copper mines from 1942 to 1946.
During the Great Depression, the price plummeted to just 11 cents.
The current price of $4.29 per pound would have been just 12 cents in 1906, so prices haven’t changed much in relation to the value of a dollar.
If copper ever jumps in price, the ore lies waiting silently on Copper Mountain for the inevitable next boom.