The wrecking ball came in a clawed excavator in October of 2018. Shoshoni’s once proud Main Street businesses were in the final throes of the relentless passage of time after nearly four decades of neglect and abandonment.
Traveling from south to north towards US Highway 20, the Derby Bar, Park Café, Brown’s Grocery, Brown’s Theater, Irelands Store, and Gutru Hardware offered a wide variety of services with the Shawver Hotel, built in 1909 anchoring the north end of the street.
A fire destroyed the Shoshoni downtown in 1907, ironically, another fire, 72 years later, did in the once thriving business district.
“It started next door to the Derby,” Nick Bebout said.
Nick was named after his uncle Nick Svilar, his mother Dessie’s brother, who owned the Derby Bar.
“We lived above the bar from 1960 to 1969,” Nick said. “Dad built the original Boysen Marina in 1953. He sold it to Bud Weaver, and we moved to town. It was rocking upstairs on Friday and Saturday Nights.”
Another thriving business, one that lasted until a final auction sold nearly all the merchandise in 2004, was Gambles, owned by Sid and Ruth Humphreys.
“Gambles was Walmart, before there was a Walmart,” former employee Bart Vroman said. “Working for Sid was an experience. He was a character, easy-going. He would buy quantities of the ungodliest things, but he’d sell them all, Indian bonnets, cowboy boots, appliances.”
Bart worked for Sid after graduating from Shoshoni High School in 1977 until the fire closed the store in 1979.
Bart’s artistic ability brought him a little different work than constructing shelves and stacking merchandise inside the store.
Sid had another artist paint cartoon-style Native Americans around a campfire earlier but thought the store needed a little more impact on passing tourists.
“Sid wanted to sell more Indian head bonnets. He had a painting by Jim Cox that was fading,” Bart said. “He asked if I could touch it up. I said I could completely redo it. It was a cartoon, he did the other Indians lying around the campfire that way too.”
“He paid me $5 an hour, just like I was working for him,” Bart said.
It took him four days to complete a painting of legendary Apache leader Geronimo. Geronimo never traveled to the area from his stronghold in the Southwest Desert, but it was an attractive sight for tourists.
He used standard exterior household paint, with his wife Cindy and friends helping him complete the detailed feathers in Geronimo’s war bonnet.
“I redid the Gambles sign too,” Bart said. “If you wanted something, you could write it down, and he’d take it out of your wages. He didn’t reduce the price of the item, just because you worked for him. I bought some shoes and some other things.”
Gambles was born in 1947 when Sid returned home to Shoshoni after serving in the United States Army in the Pacific as a supply officer.
“When Dad was about 12 years old. He and his brother Virgil were playing with blasting caps. They had an accident. He blew the tips of his fingers off,” son Thad Humphreys said. “He went into bookkeeping, in charge of supply. With the tips of his fingers gone, it made it hard for him to shoot a rifle.”
First Lt. Humphreys and his wife Ruth were married during the war in 1943. They came home to try cattle ranching, purchasing 50 head, on the Humphreys family ranch north of Shoshoni near Copper Mountain in 1945.
Sid’s father Tom, let his son and daughter-in-law run cattle on the ranch, but it was soon underwater with the construction of the new Boysen Dam, replacing the original built by Asmus Boysen in 1908, began to back up, creating Boysen Reservoir.
Instead, they decided to open a General Store in Shoshoni, where Sid had graduated in 1938.
The couple met in 1942 at a USO dance at an Army base in Little Rock, Arkansas where Sid took basic training.
Ruth worked as a carhop at Fisher’s Drive-In in Little Rock, then at an ammunition factory. They were married on July 10, before Sid was called away to war.
Shoshoni was experiencing a second boom with the influx of hundreds of construction workers on the new dam project. It was a great time to open a general store.
With the east side of Main Street already full of business, Sid and Ruth opened Gambles just across the wide street in a 25×50 building near the Silver Spur Bar, formerly the Wagon Wheel.
Sid picked up a franchise from the Gamble Corporation and they named their store, the Gamble General Store.
Shoshoni has always been a crossroads town, since the days of the Chicago Northwestern Railroad and multiple stage lines hauling freight over Birdseye Pass 13 miles north of the little town.
US Highway 20 snaked its way through the Wind River Canyon in 1924, and US Highway 26 was the favorite route west to Yellowstone National Park for GIs returning home from World War II with young families. The location between Casper 100 miles east, Thermopolis 33 miles north, and Riverton 22 miles southwest was perfect for a business like Gambles.
Their opening inventory included plumbing and electrical supplies, farm and ranch hardware, and household goods.
After a couple of years, they knew they had to either expand their inventory or close the store. They doubled the square footage, building an annex to the south of the original location.
They expanded their inventory as well, adding furniture, appliances, more household items and a larger selection of farm and ranch supplies.
They had competition with the housewares at the nearby Yellowstone Drugstore and hardware with Gutru Hardware, but Sid was a salesman, and he kept building his business.
“That’s who they were,” Bart said. “No matter what it took, they were always concerned about meeting the needs of their customers.”
Sid had a couple of well-known phrases to both family and employees.
“If we don’t have it, you probably don’t need it!” and “If we don’t have it, it might not be in existence.”
Sid began his day well before dawn. He did the books in the early morning, and the ordering of supplies.
“He was meticulous with his bookkeeping and could tell you where every item in the store was located,” Bart said.
That grew more difficult as inventory increased, but store space remained stagnant.
People who feared the demise of Shoshoni once the new Boysen Dam was completed were surprised by the business district that remained in 1964.
Brown’s IGA Supermarket across the street, Cleave’s Grocery and Varah’s Grocery Store just down the highway a few blocks, and a thriving Golden Rule Store in what would become the Yellowstone Drugstore’s final location were all doing well. The Shoshoni Lumber Yard next door, the Derby and theater across the street, and the Yellowstone Drugstore selling malts and filling prescriptions on the first floor of the Shawver Hotel weren’t supposed to survive and thrive, but they did.
The first chink in the business armor of Shoshoni came with Brown’s Grocery offered the business to Sid. Brown owned the theater too, so Sid purchased both.
In 1964, these businesses were already a half-century old, and badly in need of repair.
Sid hired carpenter Ralph Jones and his son Thad to bring the buildings up to usable condition.
They used railroad ties and bridge timbers to shore up the walls and began the process of building shelves for the merchandise, a process that never ended.
By September 1964, the work was complete, and Sid moved the operation to the east side of the street, announcing his newly expanded business with a hand-painted sign on a dam canvas that read, “Gambles General Store and Ranch Ware.”
Walking into the new store found hardware and merchandise on the left, with clothing on the right.
The Golden Rule Store was on the corner, in the old Yellowstone Drugstore. It featured fashionable women’s clothing with a line of children’s and men’s apparel, but the store closed.
Sid was always looking for opportunities and began selling clothes.
“The first thing they did, they got the Buster Brown line for kid’s clothes,” Thad said. “Then dad started with work boots, and work clothes for the farmers and ranchers. He was proud of his Justin boots. He had the biggest variety of boots I’ve ever seen. He carried Justin boots made from ostrich hide, with holes where the feathers stuck in the hide. He even carried alligator boots.”
Blue jeans, jackets, and boots were the fashion of the day for ranch hands, railroad workers, dam construction crews, and a growing number of oilfield workers. These guys didn’t buy many clothes at size 5, 7, and 9 shops.
Sid began to carry bigger sizes, shirts with 20-inch or larger necks, coats and jackets over 50 inches, and blue jeans with waist sizes up to 60 inches. Big men flocked to the store from across the state.
“It used to be just a plain Gambles store, all they dealt in was hardware,” Thad said. “When the Golden Rule went out of business, Dad and Mom decided that the people in Shoshoni wouldn’t have to go to Riverton.”
Sid carried a wide variety of sizes in men’s shirts, jeans, and boots.
“Mom and Dad catered to the people, he catered to odd sizes. If you needed big jeans, they would order them,” Thad said.
Thad recalled two well-known men in Shoshoni who epitomized the size differences that Gambles made available to customers directly off the rack.
Scotty Gordon and Art Shanely each purchased their jeans at Gambles.
“Scotty came in and bought 38×29 jeans, Art had the longest legs in town and bought 36×42 jeans,” Thad said.
Sometimes entire families would come to the store before Christmas to buy gifts.
“The Shakespears would come over and we would wrap presents for hours. They would come in for every Christmas,” Thad said. “They would spend $1000 just for Christmas gifts for the whole family.”
People from Fremont County, and across the state came to Gambles to buy clothes since they could find sizes for everyone in the family.
“The Riverton stores never carried bigger clothes,” Thad said. “When we played football with Wind River, they had some big Indian kids, that’s the kind of people Mom and Dad catered too.”
Brown’s Grocery went out of business, with the closed movie theater attached. Sid purchased both and began expanding his business to the north.
Sid did the buying for most of the men’s ware, with Ruth searching markets in Denver in the late winter for women’s and children’s clothes.
They purchased a new station wagon, a full-sized 1964 Chevy. With the middle seats down, they packed the car with clothes from seasonal sales and going-out-of-business events in Denver. Buying at a discount paid for their trip and their customers enjoyed lower prices.
Shoshoni Lumber closed across the street, and Sid went into the lumber business.
” Dad started selling lumber 2×4’s, 1x6s and 1x12s,” Thad said. “He needed them to build shelves when we started expanding.”
Thad was one of four children adopted by Sid and Mary. Bart was the oldest, followed by Thad, Jeff, and then Susan in 1962.
“Bart, Jeff, and I were adopted before we were born, Mom and Dad couldn’t have kids, so they adopted us,” Thad said. “They adopted Susan when she was four years old.”
Longtime Shoshoni resident, and local historian David Manchester has memories of Gambles, and the Humphreys family dating back to the days when the store was on the west side of Main Street.
“As I recall, their merchandise was only Gambles stuff, like appliances, tires, paint, hardware, etc. The inventory soon included clothing, boots, kitchen appliances, bedding, and knickknacks. Over time, there were more and more shelves added, making the aisles quite narrow and it was not unusual for the shelves to be six feet high,” David said. “Sid and Ruth used to make “buying” trips around the country to purchase new items for the store. 
All purchases were written down in the receipt book and the customer was given a copy when they paid. All purchases were either cash or check, no credit cards were ever taken. Sid would take checks from just about anyone, if he deemed you trustworthy, he would take the check.”
Sid carried purchases for people he knew on his ledger.
“One other thing that stands out is that Sid would establish a “charge account” for most everyone too. The purchases were written in the “customer’s receipt book” and at the end of the month, Ruth would tally them up and send a bill to the customer. I remember having a charge account and being able to make payments for whatever I was comfortable with,” David said. “I even got the bills when I was stationed overseas in Okinawa. I recall a note/comment Ruth made on my bill when I paid it in full. She wrote something like “we need to get you home, so you can buy more stuff!” I remember thinking it was funny and the next time I was home I took advantage of what Gambles had to offer.”
Until the store closed, college students used to stop at Gambles on the way to Casper, Cheyenne, or the University of Wyoming to buy new clothes, and fixtures for their first apartments.
“When I got stationed in Cheyenne and had my own apartment, I came home to Shoshoni to get stuff to set up my apartment, from kitchen appliances, to dishes, pots and pans, bedding, and I think maybe a TV. Lots of stuff,” David said. “I remember working with Sid to get a new couch and chair for my mom. He had to order it for me, after I picked one out of the catalog.
The painting of Geronimo on the front wall of the store was more than an advertisement.
“One of the more “unusual” items Sid stocked were the “Indian Statues” made of resin. Some of them were close to six feet. Many of them were sold to tourists from all over. They rarely stayed in stock for very long,” David said. “Sid had a huge selection of Levi’s and made sure to have some of the bigger sizes, like 50” waists. And he had larger size western shirts too. He had customers that came from all over Wyoming (and maybe beyond) to buy the Levi’s in particular, because they couldn’t find them anywhere else. He also had a huge selection of work and western boots.”
Gradually Sid and Ruth owned all the buildings between the Shawver Hotel and the Derby Bar. Each of those buildings had full basements, which became storage for Gambles. Most customers had access to the storage areas with an employee, but a few, like David, were allowed to shop on their own.
Long-term employees included Bonnie Keever, Edith Norton, Jewell Asmus, and Audrea Manchester. Later the Humphreys boys began to work in their parents’ store.
Sid was an easy-going man but hated shoplifters.
“I can remember a story related to me,” David said. “Sid seemed to have a knack for identifying shoplifters. Of course, everyone had to come and go through the “one entrance” to the store and that was typically where Sid was. It is also where the check-out counter/cash registers were. He had seen a woman stuff some clothing in her pants. The story goes that Sid stopped her and reached in and pulled out the stolen item, then made her leave the store. He never called the cops on anyone that I can remember. This just goes to show how gutsy Sid was.”
Thad concurred with his dad’s disgust with shoplifters as did Bart Vroman, “Sid was easy to get along with, he shook hands and checked everybody on the way out but he had sharp eye for shoplifters,” Bart said.
It was something that eventually led to the closing of the store after a visit from the Fire Marshall.
There was never enough space for the incredible variety and volume of inventory that Gambles offered. Shelves extended to the ceiling in some areas and were very narrow.
“Dad kept 10-foot ladders around the store so we could reach the merchandise on the top,” Thad said.
The back doors to the store, facing the alley to the east were originally left open, but thieves would open the doors, toss out boots or merchandise into the alley, then walk around and pick it up.
Sid padlocked the back doors, leaving just the front entrance open. The Fire Marshall cited them for having an unsafe business.
“They wanted to leave the back doors open, we locked them because people would throw out a pair of boots, then go back around the building to get them,” Thad said. “He couldn’t afford the fire doors. He was getting old, and finally said the hell with it.”
On August 4, 1979, the Fire Marshall closed the building.
Two days later, on the evening of August 6, a fire broke out upstairs next door.
Tremendous amounts of merchandise remained inside the condemned store.
“There was still a lot of stuff in the store when the ceiling started falling in,” Bart said.
“For years after closing, some folks were able to get Sid to open up and let them buy some of the merchandise that was still on the shelves. Boots and Western ware were particularly popular. Nothing was ever sold at auction until after Sid’s passing,” David said. “Then his son Bart would gather stuff out front and auction stuff off.”
Ruth passed away on April 9, 2005, at 85. She is remembered fondly by many Shoshoni people.
“Ruth was my Sunday school teacher,” Bart said. “She would turn around and give things to you, rather than sell it to you. She was a great lady.”
After the store closed, Sid continued in Shoshoni managing many houses that he rented. He never got over being forced to close his business.
Sid passed away at 91, on October 20, 2011.
He was one of the movers and shakers in Shoshoni during the mid-20th century and his memory is also vivid in the little desert town.
“I remember Sid and his larger-than-life personality,” David said.