Dubois: Where time still stands still

Don’t get me wrong, North Idaho is still one of the best places to live. I know how lucky we are. But I can’t help but lament some of the changes in the last 20 years.

That’s the Catch-22 of finding that sweet spot between small town feel and a smorgasbord of offerings. Such beauty with enough services, arts and entertainment mean word gets out. People flock. Things change.

But not everywhere.

Dubois, Wyoming is one of those places out of time.

Nestled high up in the “hills” as Granddad used to call them, along the Big Wind River and huddled between the Absaroka and Wind River Mountain ranges, this is not a town you just stumble upon. Population was 913 in 1991 and 959 nearly two decades later, although it picks up in summer with tourists heading to Yellowstone — 83 miles away.

In Dubois (pronounced “dew-boys,” not the French “dew-bwah”), mountain lions — that’s Wyoming for cougar — make regular appearances both in town and the badland backyards, like Grandad’s. Twice I saw one such beautiful beast sprawled in the back of a pickup — its conqueror telling the tale at the local soda fountain.

In Dubois there was an old-fashioned, working soda fountain at “the drugstore,” Andy Griffith style, with a hotchpotch of items for sale from hand-crocheted baby clothes (some by my talented grandmother) to aspirin and garage tools.

In Dubois lies Welty’s General Store, which looks just like it did when Butch Cassidy (actually) hung out there.

In Dubois teepee rings and petroglyphs evidence ghosts of the noble Shoshone People who once lived there.

Time moves slowly in Dubois. Which, aside from that quintessential Western beauty, is its appeal.

My grandparents lived all over Colorado and Wyoming but left their hearts in Dubois, forced to leave after Granddad’s medical scare. The nearest hospital was too far away from this 3.4-square mile town.

They ended up in Post Falls, which is what brought me here. But they never felt quite at home since they left Dubois.

How many stories I heard about “the donut shop”, and how excited they were to show off us grandkids to “the gang” (i.e., four or five people) that first visit. The donut shop-cum-burger joint (what they served depended on what time it was) was the center of social life in Dubois.

And in Dubois, I saw the pony express.

Yes, I’m talking about a real person on a real horse, a woman who rode down main street with a pack saddle. This was probably more reenactment than true enterprise — Grandad was also volunteer director of the small Dubois Museum - but watching her ride confidently astride in her cowboy hat it was like glimpsing history in a time warp.

The real Pony Express delivery service was short-lived, operating from April 1860 to October 1861 with the motto “the mail must go through.” Twice as fast as competitors, riders could cross an often-dangerous frontier in 10 days versus the typical 25 it took for standard mail. Despite this efficiency, the high cost of $5 for a letter even in 1860 meant most couldn’t afford it, and the operation closed at a hefty loss around the time Western Union’s telegraph came on the scene.

But not before the Pony Express delivered its most famous cargo: Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address, delivered to California from Nebraska at breakneck speed in under eight days.

But that wasn’t the end of horseback deliveries. The Pack Horse Library Initiative, part of the Depression-era New Deal, sent equestrian librarians into the Appalachian Mountains with book-stuffed saddlebags for their more isolated patrons, even in treacherous winters.

Why wax nostalgic now? As I listened to heavy morning traffic in bed with my 6 a.m. cup of coffee, in a home whose original selling point was that it backed up onto “the prairie,” it’s nice to remember that someplace exists where things still move at a slow canter.

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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network who needs a Wyoming vacation. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.