Tubb Town, Wyoming

In the late 1880s, the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad made its way through Wyoming, inspiring the Cambria Fuel Company miners to found Newcastle, Wyoming along the railroad. In the spring of 1889, Tubb Town was built by DeLoss Dewitt Tubbs, a resident of Custer, South Dakota, further down the expected site of the railroad; at first, it was only a store. Around that time, F. R. Curran set up an open-air bar, and by the time he built his house over it, the town was beginning to boom. The bar was used by workers from the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad. Later, oil drilling went on in the area.[3] The residents of Whoop-Up, Wyoming, a nearby railhead town, moved to Tubb Town, expecting it to become a large city.[4] Tubb Town soon gained a reputation for being a very rough place to live; the initiation was to buy drinks for everyone at the saloons.[1] Calamity Jane also visited the town once.[2]

That always lively place, Tubtown, was the scene of unusually stirring times Saturday last. At one time a number of fights were going on in the street, and Deputy Swisher was worn out trying to stop them. No sooner would he quell one of the melees than he would see another fight going on a little ways off. He finally quit in disgust, and told the boys to fight all they wanted, but he would kill the first one who tried to use a gun. The trouble was caused by a fistic rivalry between graders and miners, large numbers of whom were in town that day. From all accounts an officer in a town like tibville couldn't be paid all he earns, as a good many frequenters there want to deal out misery to him in big chunks.[5]

— Unknown, Sundance Gazette, August 1889

However, on September 1, 1889, the railroad announced that it would not pass through Tubb Town.[3] Tubbs did not realize that the Lincoln Land Company, a subsidiary of the railroad, had already plotted the towns to be built along the railroad.[1] On September 10, 1889, the first lots in Newcastle were sold, and the exodus from Tubb Town to Newcastle began. One saloon owner set up shop in the back of his wagon and operated for the town's residents while on the move.[5] The town was officially abandoned by November 1, 1889.[1] Today, the former site is empty.[6]

Tubb Town was located along Salt Creek and the Custer-Belle Fourche Trail, two miles northeast of Newcastle, in Weston County.[5] Its approximate site was the intersection of U.S. routes 16 and 85. Tubb Town was 7.9 miles west of the South Dakota border.[3] There are no remaining buildings. The site is now marked by a memorial commemorating the town's boom and bust.[1]

• Peter J. Kinney (1861–1927), owner of two hotels in Newcastle, founder of Newcastle's electricity, and mayor. Lived in Tubb Town and left on September 10, 1889.[5]