On Jan. 22, 1923, a Post Office was established in LaVoye, Wyoming. Wyo.gov says, “LaVoye started as a tent city, but rapidly grew … to two banks, … a Ford garage and other businesses.” That growth, however, was short-lived.

If you love intriguing stories of Wyoming towns that don't exist anymore, this is one. The description of LaVoye as a boom town reads like many places in the Cowboy State that also became ghost towns.

40 minutes north of Casper, LaVoye was named after its first settler, Louis LaVoye. In 2009 The Casper Star Tribune talked to Billie Jean Beaton, whose family owned the Teapot Ranch. Beaton said, "I remember it was pretty wild. There was gambling in the evening." If LaVoye was drinking in the Prohibition era in Wyoming, it wasn't our only wet town.

In 1924, the Ohio Oil Company essentially evicted LaVoye. That was not just Louis. The whole town had to move, from what would be the Salt Creek Oil Flats. Most residents moved to nearby New Lavoye, Wyoming. Sadly, that town would also be lost to ghostdom. The story in wyomingtalesandtrails.com also shows this photo from 1923.

LaVoye, Wyomingtalesand trails.com
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In the 1920s, other towns tried to fight oil companies and lost. In fact, it was about that time our U.S. Supreme Court made a ruling on takeovers. Fair and balanced or not, it is summed up in succinct, folksy words of wyomingtailsandtrails:

If the presence of the town interferes with the ability to drill for oil … the town has to go.”

Ghosttowns.com considers LaVoye a true ghost town, "accessible by road, but a four wheel drive would be handy.”

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