The Ten Sleep Saloon

The last round of reporting for my project took me and Kerry north to the Big Horn Mountains. We spent the night in Ten Sleep (pop: 304), a town I was excited to see after learning about it in a few of the Wyoming books I’ve read. The town got its name because it was “ten sleeps” or 10 nights travel between Indian camps in Casper and Bridger, MT.

Ten Sleep is a ranching community west of the Big Horn National Forest, which we drove through at sunset. Ten Sleep has two restaurants and two bars — two more than in Dayton where we had lunch.

The Crazy Woman Cafe looked dark, so we wandered into the Ten Sleep Saloon. We sat at the bar, which surprised us with its excellent beer selection. We looked at the menu for a few minutes before the bartender told us that they only serve pizza on Mondays and Tuesdays. So pizza it was.

While we waited, we made friends with George, an older guy sitting next to Kerry, smoking Marlboro reds. We never found out what George does for a living, but he spends most nights playing pool at the Ten Sleep Saloon. He lost three of four games that night, zipped up his pool cue case and ordered a pizza.

After dinner, George offered to buy us a drink. We said we were thinking about checking out the other bar and he told us we were at the best one in town. He then excused himself and stepped outside. He returned a few minutes later: “There’s no one at the other bar.”

We stayed and I met Rita, the woman sitting next to me. Rita and her husband Pete moved to Ten Sleep four years ago because he liked to hunt. They bought the Ten Sleep Saloon and renovated the place, put in plasma TVs and Dish TV. They revamped the menu and added pizza.

People didn’t like Rita, Pete or their bar. They thought the people from the city would bring crime and trouble to town. Rita said she cried for two years straight. She’s liking it better now. They got out of Chicago before the recession. There’s no Walgreens to wander into and drop $100, so money stays around longer. We both agreed that the Wyoming bar dress code can’t be beat: jeans and a hooded sweatshirt.

Rita bought us another round and stuck around, even though she had talked about leaving after her last glass of wine. She got called out to see a friend’s newly finished home remodeling project down the street. We thanked her and walked back to our home for the night, a 10-room motel with red shag carpeting. We were the only guests, and the owner brewed coffee for us in the morning. We visited the school and watched part of their Veterans Day presentation.

“You can see it’s a really big deal around here,” the superintendent told us.

In addition to the 100 students and 20 veterans, there were maybe 20 parents and community members in the stands.