As noted on this entry, this is a familiar Natrona County landmark.
As also noted in the comments to this video, it may contain some errors. One definite error is the attribution of its decline to the Interstate Highway. That's not the case. In Wyoming, I80 goes on the path of the old Lincoln Highway which, while it does bypass some towns the Lincoln Highway went through, doesn't run anywhere near Power River. Nor does I25 or I90. So whatever the source of the demise may be, that isn't it.
One of the commentors on the video is, moreover, well situated to know the history of the Tumble Inn and if that person feels there are errors, there most probably are.
It's still pretty good, however.
One thing I would note is that the story isn't completed. Rather, the story runs through one of the last owners. After they left it, it did continue on, but it went rapidly downhill. The facility converted into a strip bar, an odd choice for an establishment in a small, unincorporated town some 40 miles away from Casper. As heavy drinking is a factor in any such establishment, the trouble having a distant "boobie bar", as my wife calls them, in the county is obvious. Particularly when the nearest competitor at the time was ten miles out of town and on a divided highway. It doesn't seem like a sound economic choice.
Then the Inn lost its liquor license. The allure of youthful partially clad dancers aside (the one time they were the subject of a news story a dancer looked suspiciously underage), such establishments are apparently too tied to alcohol to do without it, and it closed for good.
I was in the Tumble Inn twice, both well before the strip club era, and most likely during the era that the video closes out with. We stopped in for dinner with in laws. I recall rattlesnake was on the menu, as were Rocky Mountain Oysters, but they were out.
The second time was after that, when my father-in-law and I stopped to buy beer there for some function, although I don't recall what it was. I do recall it was in the winter, as it was good and cold. The bar was crowded, full of locals, and a couple of guys somewhere between 40 and 70 who looked like they lived at the bar.
And that gets to another aspect of its decline and fall. Having a small rural restaurant and bar is hard enough in the Wyoming of our current era. But once you lose the locals, you're done for.
The establishment apparently dates back to the 1920s, although I couldn't find any references to it from that time period. It turns out the name "Tumble Inn" was popular at the time, and there was another bar in the Salt Creek oilfield in the 1920s called that. In addition, somebody's house in Casper was referred to that way, being the property of an oilman who had a lot of social events there. The video says the restaurant/bar in Powder River dates back to the 1920s, and it might, but as noted, the only references from the 20s I could find were to the two other Tumble Inns.
At any rate, in the 1920s Powder River's 40 miles from Casper was a longer distance, in real terms, than it is now. And Power River went through some oil booms, including one about that time, and again in the 1940s. Indeed, at one time the town was on both sides of the highway and was actually an incorporated town, which it isn't now.
For that matter, Natrona County had several locations that were much more viable towns than the are now. Arminto Wyoming, which is off the main highway but not far from Powder River, was a thriving sheep shipping point and railroad town. It had a legendary bar in a hotel located there, and the bar still existed into my adult years, before a fire took the building down. Locals attempted to drag the bar out of the burning building, but failed.
Waltman and Hiland were two other such tiny, but real towns. They're still there, but they're shadows of their former selves. Waltman is really a small oilfield camp south of the highway and south of the old townsite now. Again, into my adult years, its gas station, which is now a residence, was in business, and it had a small café in it. Hiland's gas station still operates as does its store, café, hotel and bar, its business probably saved by the fact that it's on the highway, but so distant from anything, there's nothing else nearby.
The Salt Creek Tumble Inn was in a town called Snyder, I've never even heard of. At some point, Salt Creek itself was a small town, and no longer is. Both would have been in the eastern part of the county.
North of Casper, there's Midwest and Edgerton, which are still there. They were much more substantial towns in their day, and in the 1920s Midwest, a Standard Oil town, very much was. Both towns are still oilfield towns today, but they've likewise declined as oil facilities near them shut down or automated, and the U.S. Navy moved out of the former strategic reserve near there.
Of course, as automobiles and highways improved, the communities around Casper boomed and grew, and today that's where the county's population is.
Still, even as late as the 1950s, it seems that Wyomingites were willing to drive huge distances for a dinner. Driving to Power River from Casper was no big deal to eat, it seems. And I recall people talking about going to the Little Bear Inn near Cheyenne on dinner dates, which means that the drove something like 140 miles to do that. Likewise, people used to drive to El Torro and Svilars in Hudson, in Fremont County, to do the same, which is about the same distance.
Nobody does that now.
