Edgerton: The Wyoming Oil Field Town That Refuses To Die

EDGERTON — Progress that makes people sit up and take notice in this tiny dot on the map of central Wyoming is a reclaimed lot with three newly planted trees and a raised-bed vegetable garden.

Or maybe it’s a new shed where community members can leave clothes and goods to be shared with others in need.

Major progress is the long-shuttered hardware store building recently bought by the mayor and his wife, who plan to make it more presentable, or maybe tear it down.

“We are trying to make it more where people would want to live here,” said Mayor Victor Paul Brow, who was elected in May. Prior to that he served for several years on the town council and has lived either in Edgerton or neighboring Midwest since the early 1980s.

“We as a town have been trying to clean it up,” she said. “I’ve been working hard talking to the community to try and clean up their yards and try to make it look nicer.”

Edgerton sits 45 miles north of Casper at the edge of the famous Salt Creek Field, where the oil boom and bust cycles have washed through the high desert terrain and left plenty of rusted tin roofs, old cars and trucks, and buildings once bustling with activity.

Its current population is about 120.

Beginnings

Salt Creek Museum Curator Everett DeWitt said the community began as a place for all those working in the oil patch who were not directly employed by an oil company.

“In the Salt Creek Field, all the lease holders had camps in their leases, and to live in one of those camps you had to work for that company,” he said. “If you did not work for one of those 53 companies you couldn’t live in the field.”

So, the town of Edgerton sprang up for the carpenters, entrepreneurs and others needed to support the oil industry’s efforts to send its black gold down pipelines and in rail cars to Casper.

DeWitt said his understanding is that the town was named after Edgerton, Illinois, apparently by transplants from there.

While oil boom towns such as Salt Creek are long gone, Edgerton hangs on with images of faded glory such as a bank building overgrown with trees and shrubs and an aluminum scrap pile out front, a restaurant with a “For Sale” sign, and a shuttered motel.

Pat Busskohl, 75, worked for the Wyoming Department of Transportation for more than 42 years and has lived in the community since 1986.

He was checking his mail at the post office when Cowboy State Daily caught up with him this past week. The post office is one of the few buildings still functioning for the community on Second Street.

“Basically, there is just not much here anymore,” Busskohl said, pointing out a lot where the bowling alley building was torn down last year. “A young gal tried to open the cafe, and she really reformed that old building quite a bit on the inside and changed the bathrooms and all that, but she opened up right during COVID.”

Empty Businesses

The owner of the Arcade Bar has passed away, and a second bar down the street with a “Prairie Schooner” sign on its side and a for sale sign in the front window is open occasionally, mostly on weekends.

Busskhol said when he first came to town, there were several businesses operating. The losses are adding up over time.

“It’s just through attrition it seems like,” he said. “People got old, passed away and different things like that.”

Inside the town hall, photos of a young Edgerton show vintage vehicles in the street with signs for Bechtols Billiard Hall, Shoe & Curtain, Sampson Hotel, a Fair Store, and two cafes. There was also a Charles E. Wells Music Co. that sold radios.

DeWitt said Edgerton served as a place for businesses and was family friendly.

There were car dealers, Dave’s Men’s Store and an office for Dr. Wendell Cotton. The saloons, bars and other places that would draw the oil patch wild bunch was in “Little Hollywood,” an area on the south end of town.

Edgerton also had some vices.

When a tornado swept through June 25, 1928, during the Prohibition era, it carried away a shack “used as storeroom for the local brewer … leaving the wet goods visible to the inhabitants. It was quickly removed,” the Casper Daily Tribune reported.

And on March 24, 1930, the Casper Daily Tribune reported that raids on two buildings in Edgerton resulted in huge hauls of illegal booze. The first building yielded 819 gallons of wine, 359 gallons of “alleged moonshine,” 843 pints of beer and two stills. The second raid netted 480 pints of beer, 32 half-gallon jugs of wine and 3 gallons of whiskey.

The Edgerton of 2024 has limited police presence.

Brow said typically if there is an issue, they will call the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office. There is a vacant police officer posting in Midwest, and Edgerton officials have talked with Midwest about potentially sharing police.

Sprucing Up

For Brow, his immediate intentions are to make the town more pleasing to the eyes.

The town acquired a lot owned by a former resident who used to grow thousands of flowers on it. The mayor and his wife have planted three trees on the lot, and Brow said he and the town’s judge built and planted the raised-bed gardens.

“We’re going to put a pergola in here and grow apple trees,” he said. “That’s something we are trying to do is get more trees in our town.”

During his 12 years on the city council, Brow said the council began buying land around Edgerton and removing the old buildings. One of them was the bowling alley where he hung out as a young man.

His personal hope for the lot where the bowling alley stood is a community center that would be available for all town residents to use.

Water infrastructure is something else the community continues to make a priority.

The town is part of a joint powers board with Midwest. The towns get their water supply from Casper. Plans call for an upgrade to 7 miles of water pipe for the communities in 2025. Oil field operator Contango is donating to the effort.

‘Nice’ Town

Brow said there are several residents in Edgerton, including himself, who still work for an oil field operator. He’s seen changes for the good in the surrounding oil field that benefit the community compared to his time as a youth.

“It was not as clean (in 1981), because back in those days we had a lot more gas smell in the community,” he said. “The oil field has done everything they can to clean that up.”

Down the street from the town hall, seven-year resident Alyson Oatts was working in her garden’s pea patch. Her son was splashing in an above-ground pool.

She and her husband own their house. Oatts characterized her town as “nice.”

“I wish we had a general store or a dollar store,” she said. “But it’s peaceful, there are a lot of good people out here in both communities Midwest and Edgerton.”

Oatts said her youngest son attends Midwest schools and, as with most people in the community, she travels to Casper to shop.

For Busskhol, who also heads to Casper for groceries and other staples, and north to Buffalo for his doctor, a peaceful community and home ownership remain key reasons for staying put.

“I own my own house. It’s a pretty decent place,” he said. “My wife and I are pretty independent. So, if you want to be kind of independent … and not be bothered, you probably won’t be bothered much.”

Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.