Forged from the fire of westward expansion, set back by a fire and ultimately destroyed by fire, the story of the Derby Bar in Shoshoni is the story of the town itself in microcosm.
Shoshoni was a classic western “boom town” beginning in the summer of 1905 and growing exponentially to an estimated 10,000 people by late summer the following year.
Settlers, merchants, and the railroad were all headed west from Casper to the little spot on Poison Creek.
There was no Shoshoni before the news of the Chicago and North Western Railroad building a line west from Casper to Lander reached the eager ears of speculators and dreamers beginning in 1904.
The biggest speculator was Charles H. King, a man who made an empire in sheep, along with banks, lumberyards, general stores, and shipping from Chadron, Nebraska, to all points west.
In 1906, a business district grew almost overnight out of the sagebrush-covered plains three miles east of the Wind River.
Main Street boasted restaurants, hotels, general stores, two banks, and was dotted with saloons. Only the First National Bank, on the northwest corner of Main Street, was built of substantial stone. The rest of the buildings were wood.
Catastrophe struck the east side of Main Street in 1908.
RIVERTON REPUBLIC
Riverton, Wyoming, Mar. 21, 1908
SHOSHONI FIRE
Neighboring Town Loses Half of Her Main Business Section.
Postoffice, Telephone Building, Wind River Bank and Others Consumed by Flames that Broke Out Early Monday Morning.
“The entire east side of Main Street of Shoshoni, between First and Second streets, was destroyed by fire Monday morning. Valiant work was done by the volunteer fire department and all was done by the citizens that it was possible to do under the circumstances.
A majority of the buildings destroyed were among the largest in town, among them being the post office, the telephone building, Marie Hotel, Wind River Bank, Davidson building, Williams Saloon, Hargrave Pool room, Ed. Burk saloon, the Famous Clothing Store, the Ryan building and many others.
The cause of the fire is unknown but it is presumed to have started in the rear of Ed. Burk’s saloon at about four o’clock that morning. With the exception of this place of business and the Marie Hotel all the merchants managed to save most of their fixtures and goods. The federal employees managed, by heroic work, to save all the mail and post office fixtures.
The total loss suffered by the Shoshoni merchants and property owners amounts to about $95,000 with about $11,000 insurance to cover the amount.”
As is often the case in business, one man’s tragedy is another man’s opportunity.
Mort Williams, Lewis Andrew Shawver, Arnold O. Heyer, and Charles Berger all had big plans once the ashes of the previous east side of Main Street were removed.
Shawver built a hotel and drugstore on the northeast corner of Main Street; Heyer and Berger built a retail store on an adjoining wall with the Shawver Hotel; and Williams built the Derby Building on the far southeast corner of the rapidly rising business district.
All three buildings were two stories high, made of stone and carefully constructed to resist fire.
Williams sold the Derby Building to Frank Matteson in January 1916.
Matteson operated a restaurant and the Derby Saloon on the first floor of his building and rented the rooms above to tenants.
Walter Drouillard saw a thriving operation and purchased it from Matteson.
It had been a thriving operation for a decade. Then Prohibition arrived, and the Derby Saloon officially closed. Officially is the operative term. The Derby became a ‘speakeasy,’ an illegal bar, the kind that proliferated in the United States during the 14 years that the 18th Amendment made alcohol consumption illegal. It was repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933.
In the interim, Drouillard held on with his restaurant. He eventually began renting space on the ground floor for other businesses.
Two separate fires on Main Street changed the layout of the downtown business district.
Wyoming State Journal – December 28, 1923
“The old Derby Saloon building at Shoshoni, recently occupied by E. T. Thoren as a meat market, was burned on Wednesday evening of last week. Though the building was flooded with water, it burned fiercely for several hours. The fire broke out in the basement and much of the stock was saved.”
The damage was repairable and Drouillard brought the building back to standard. Two years later, another fire broke out in a single building on the west side of Main Street.
It was owned by N. P. Nelson.
Shoshoni Enterprise – April 26, 1929
DERBY BUILDING PURCHASED FROM
WALTER DROUILLARD
N. P. Nelson the New Owner of Substantial Business Block
“One of Shoshoni’s modern and substantial business blocks became the property of N. F. Nelson, prominently known cafe owner of the city, who recently purchased the property known as the Derby building from the owner, Walter Drouillard, who expects to move away from Shoshoni in the near future. The terms of the transaction are not being made known other than the building lot across the street from the Derby building, a site of a building formerly owned by Mr. Nelson, which burned in the fire of 1925, was considered in the deal and became the property of Mr. Drouillard.
The property acquired by Mr. Nelson is a substantial structure of brick and stone two stories high and centrally located in the first main street block leading north from the Northwestern depot. The facing is of a red pressed brick, topped with metal cornice and the walls and foundation of brick and stone. It was erected a year or two following the fire that had destroyed the entire block of business buildings. The building is equipped with modern conveniences with finished, furnished living apartments in the upper story and six main floor divided into business and office rooms.”
The revolving door of ownership came to a brief stop in 1929. Prohibition had ruined the plans of previous saloon and bar owners. The impending Great Depression was looming with the New York Stock Exchange collapse in October 1929, but businessmen still saw opportunities in the solid brick structure of the original Derby Building.
Shoshoni Enterprise -December 6, 1929
PARK CAFE ON MAIN STREET BEING REMODELED
“The ground floor of the former Drouillard building on Main Street, owned by Councilman N. P. Nelson, is undergoing remodeling for occupancy by the Park Cafe, heretofore operated on the highway street under the name of Nelly’s place. Mr. Nelson is supervising extensive remodeling preparations for occupancy as soon as the work is completed and will have an ideal location with large and adaptably arranged rooms for restaurant service.”
With the repeal of Prohibition, the Derby Saloon, now the Derby Bar, was back in action. It was an ideal location for a bar and restaurant. Passengers from the nearby Chicago and North Western depot had to walk just a few dozen yards to the dining room or bar, and then just another 75 or so to the Shawver Hotel. The Shawver Hotel followed the “European Plan,” meaning it had no dining room, so the Derby offered three meals a day to their guests.
The Derby Bar and restaurant became a popular stopping place for highway travelers as U.S. 20/26 was improved from gravel to asphalt. Passengers on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy in nearby Bonneville were shuttled three miles to Shoshoni by a bus operated by the Shawver Hotel, and they dined at the Derby as well.
Switching crews on both the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, and the Chicago and North Western had regular tabs they paid weekly at the Derby.
World War II arrived in December 1941, and with it an eventual change in ownership to the premier family in the restaurant business in Fremont County.
Dan and Bessie Svilar opened Svilar’s in the tiny town of Hudson in 1941. It remains one of the premier steakhouses in the entire West 85 years later.
Dan and Bessie had a big family. Bessie was widowed with her oldest son Nick when she married Dan. Dan adopted Nick, and in quick succession came Ruby in 1917, Sophia in 1919, Dessie in 1920, Eli in 1921, Rade “Red” in 1923, Kathryn in 1924 and Dan “Mike” in 1929.
Nick, Eli, Red, and Dessie all served in the military during World War II.
Nick was a sailor, Red and his future brother-in-law Hugh Bebout were in the Army Air Corps, and Dessie was a WAVE in the United States Naval Reserve.
“Uncle Red and Dad were stationed in the Aleutians,” Eli Bebout said. “They were in a chow line, dad turned around and there was Uncle Red. Dad was eating C-rations, and Red was eating T-bone steaks.”
Red worked in supply at the base mess. Hugh began having his meals with Red.
Eli Svilar, Eli Bebout’s namesake, flew C-46s over ‘The Hump’ from India to China, and Hugh’s brother Charles Robert “Bob” Bebout was also in the Army Air Force.
The connection between the Bebout and Svilar families came in 1943 when Hugh married Dessie.
After the war, the Svilar Family Corporation purchased the Derby. Nick leased it from the family corporation.
“He never owned it,” niece Ruby Calvert (Bebout) said.
With Nick leasing the bar, Hugh and Dessie, along with their growing family of Eli, Ruby, and then Nick, moved upstairs in 1960.
Dessie also had a long tenure as Shoshoni postmaster.
“We lived above the bar in the apartment upstairs. Back then life wasn’t easy. Mom waited tables, dad tended bar, and Nick was the cook,” Eli said. “It was a tough time. They worked hard just to get by.”
Hugh had his young family living in a makeshift railroad car in Bairoil. Eli was two, Ruby was only a year old, and Nick hadn’t arrived yet.
“It was really tough out there,” Eli said. “Mom told Dad she was leaving and he could come if he wanted.”
Hugh did. They moved to Shoshoni in 1949. The second Boysen Dam was creating Boysen Reservoir, and Hugh and Dessie saw an opportunity, building the Boysen Marina in 1953 and 1954. They operated it until 1960.
There aren’t many trees growing on the east side of Boysen Reservoir but there are some established at the Marina.
“Eli and I watered those trees with five-gallon buckets, one in each hand, carrying water up the hill from the lake,” youngest son Nick Bebout said.
“We had a great childhood. I can remember right next door was Nellies Café, a walk-in movie theater, a grocery store, a Gambles store, a Golden Rule store and a drugstore, all just a few steps away,” Eli said. “It was real small-town America.”
Eli and Nick were stellar athletes at Shoshoni High School.
“Uncle Nick would always cook me a nice steak before the game,” Eli said. “Uncle Nick was the nicest guy.”
Nick lived across the street from the Derby in an apartment above the Golden Rule.
“We lived above the bar. Mom and dad were working downstairs. Everyone was friends with everybody,” Eli said. “One of the shepherds walked upstairs into my bedroom and crawled over the top of the bed and went to sleep. It scared the dickens out of me. It was great to be in Shoshoni. The Wranglers were doing pretty well too.”
The Bebout kids often spent their evenings playing cards or visiting with friends.
“In the evening we’d get together, laugh and talk and go to the drugstore and get a cherry coke,” Eli said. “I was lucky, I was the oldest and I had four big brothers.”
He meant Red, Nick, Eli, and Mike Svilar.
Ruby, named after her aunt Ruby Svilar, has fond memories as well.
“Nick and I would raid the bar for ice and Pepsi,” Ruby said. “Nick would say, ‘Go get me some ice and Pepsi.’ I’d go downstairs with mom’s aluminum bowl and raid the ice machine. Nick and I would play cards and drink Pepsi.”
One evening it was far from business as usual when Ruby walked down the stairs to the bar.
“I opened the door and there was a guy with his hands in the till,” Ruby said. “I went back upstairs and told Nick we better call Kenny Hood.”
Kenny Hood was the Shoshoni police officer with the reputation that he never slept.
“I went back downstairs 10 minutes later. Kenny had the guy laid out on the floor with handcuffs,” Ruby said. “Another time a guy was stuck in the drive-through window and his partner took off. Kenny arrested him too. They always thought there was money there, but there was never much.”
Originally, there were two apartments above the bar. The Bebout family lived on the east side and another couple had the front apartment.
Nick was about six months old.
Before they moved in 1960, the Bebout family stayed in the apartment while Hugh and Dessie were building the Marina.
“Nick cried all the time. The lady in the front apartment stuffed Nick with mashed potatoes and he slept all night,” Ruby said. “The couple left and mom and dad took over the front part.”
They lived above the Derby until October 1978, when they moved to a home in Shoshoni.
The following August, kids playing with matches under the back steps of the Derby started an old mattress on fire, and the flames quickly spread. August 6, 1979, was the end of the Derby and all the businesses on the east side of Main Street.
“It was lucky mom and dad had moved just months before,” Ruby said. “At that point Nick had retired from the restaurant.”
Fire crews from Riverton, Lander, Hudson, Midvale and Pavillion joined the crew from Shoshoni to fight the blaze but it was too much. The entire business district was condemned.
Nick went off to play football at the University of Wyoming, and Eli and Ruby were already well into their careers.
“I can remember the jukebox going off every night, and all the guys playing downstairs,” Nick said. “They’d play Tony Orlando. It was a big hit down in the bar, I’ll bet they wore out five or six records in those years.”
As with Ruby and Eli, Nick was named after his uncle Nick.
“I’d practice playing my saxophone. Uncle Nick would call upstairs and say, ‘Stop playing that sax. It’s bothering people down here,’” Nick said.
Living above a busy restaurant meant that sometimes you’d get called down to help in the kitchen.
“Uncle Nick would call and say, I’m a little shorthanded.’ I’d say, What do you need? I need a hundred pounds of potatoes peeled,” Nick said. “They went through a lot of potatoes. An hour or two later, I’d be finished and he’d say, ‘Good job,’ and fix me a plate of French fries and I’d spoon them down. At least one night a week for six or eight years.”
A longtime bartender was Elmer Wayne Wallage. Nick and the customers called him “Wally.”
Wally was a local, graduating from Shoshoni High School in 1943, then enlisting in the United States Navy.
Wally worked at the Shoshoni Garage as a mechanic and wrecker driver first for Curt Kaiser and then for John and Jane Adamson, but he spent his evenings behind the bar at the Derby.
He owned his own service station for a while, “Wally’s Standard.”
“It was down the stairs or up the stairs every time. It was inconvenient,” Nick said. “I got used to it, but as Mom and Dad got older, it was harder for them.”
The Derby was famous for seafood, especially fried shrimp. It was one of the first Mexican restaurants in west central Wyoming and the steaks were legendary. Many people called ahead for takeout orders of Nick’s famous onion rings.
It was all delivered with a friendly hometown atmosphere.
“John Herbst would come into the bar once in a while,” Nick said. “Uncle Nick had these shadow boxes made of 1x8s on the ceiling. John would jump up, grab the boxes and walk the shadow box the length of the bar.”
Nick later owned the Left Tackle, a bar and restaurant on the east end of Shoshoni named after his position as a left tackle in the NFL.
“When they were building the gas plant at Lysite, Dad would take $50,000 or $60,000, sometimes $70,000 to the Left Tackle,” Nick said. “The hands would come in, and Dad would cash the checks. He said they’d spend $50 of it at the bar.”
Nick was married twice. He married Bessie Beatrice Harry in 1947, but they were soon divorced. In 1950, he married Thelma M. Guttensohn Hayes.
She passed on January 9, 1984, and Nick passed on January 2, 1986.
Hugh passed on January 18, 2002; he was 85. Dessie lived to 102, passing on May 12, 2023.
The entire block was razed in October 2018 after sitting idle for four decades on the east side of Shoshoni’s once prosperous business district.
A playground, basketball court and picnic area now sit where the Derby once served customers.
“It operated from the late 40s until 1979,” Nick said. “He had a 30-year run.”
Only the northwest wind remains, the wind that for three generations had patrons and staff both yelling to “close the door.”