Tubb Town, Wyoming facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Tubb Town
Field City
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Ghost town
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Historical marker off U.S. 16
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 Tubb Town
Location in Wyoming
Tubb Town
Location in the United States
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| Country | United States of America |
| State | Wyoming |
| County | Weston |
| Established | spring 1889 |
| Abandoned | September 1889 |
| Founded by | DeLoss Dewitt Tubbs |
| Named for | founder |
| Time zone | UTC-7 (MST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-6 (MDT) |
Tubb Town, also known as Field City, is a ghost town in Weston County, Wyoming, United States. It was initially intended as a railroad town but quickly gained a reputation as a rough place to live, as saloons, ...s, and similar establishments became the main draw. Settled and abandoned within months during 1889, it is an early example of a boom and bust town in the Black Hills.
Naming
Originally, founder DeLoss Dewitt Tubbs chose the name Field City for the new settlement. However, all residents except Tubbs called it Tubb Town in his honor, and most sources refer to it as such. Other sources refer to it as Tubtown or Tibville.
History
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. The residents of Whoop-Up, Wyoming, a nearby railhead town, moved to Tubb Town, expecting it to become a large city. 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. Calamity Jane also visited the town once.
However, on September 1, 1889, the railroad announced that it would not pass through Tubb Town. 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. 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. The town was officially abandoned by November 1, 1889. Today, the former site is empty.
Geography
Tubb Town was located along Salt Creek and the Custer-Belle Fourche Trail, two miles northeast of Newcastle, in Weston County, Wyoming. It is around where U.S. Highway 85 intersects U.S. Highway 16. It is 7.9 miles west of the South Dakota border. There are no remaining buildings. The site is now marked by a memorial commemorating the town's boom and bust.
