Wyoming’s Tumble Inn Cowboy Suffers Major Damage
An icon of Wyoming's old highway days.
The Tumble Inn cowboy has lost his hat.
Located in what is left of the little back highway town of Powder River Wyoming, on Highway 20/26 between Casper Wyoming, and Shoshoni, population 30.
Out in the open prairie, it can't be missed.
This sign was put up before there was such a thing as interstate highways.
Those old back highways were much slower back then.
The Tumble Inn was a restaurant, and bar, with a few motel rooms for travelers, or those who had too much to drink and did not want to drive home.
The old sign has been falling apart for many decades.
Not long ago it looked like this.
Notice that not only is the hat gone but where is the arrow?
So what was the cause of the damage?
Wyoming Winds are sure to be part of the problem.
I walked the area with Tim Mandese, who was taking the pictures for me.
We could not find the top of the sign.
Did someone from the town scoop up what fell and take it home?
There wasn't any evidence of what happened to it.
They had a sign company take it about two weeks ago. said Lyndon Meade of Wyoming.
It was one thing to see the old sign fading away in the summer sun and winter ice and wind.
But this?
Real hard damage has now been done to the old sign.
So what now?
Will the old sigh just continue to fall apart like the building it's pointing to?
Will a fan of one of Wyoming's most photographed signs start a movement to save it?
At this point, nobody can say.
What we can say for sure is that as soon as pieces start falling, especially of this size, the sign doesn't have much time left.
You can google the Tumble Inn and find T-shirts, hats, and stickers with the likeness of the old sign on them.
From now on any photos of this old sign will not be complete.
They will be of a fat old cowboy who is hatless, and part headless.