When Dubois was little more than a cluster of ranches with a few lumberjacks working west of town, Dr. Francis Heriter Welty was already a respected physician working at the Ft. Brown (Washakie) Agency hospital with his wife Alice Amoss Welty. The couple had two sons, Frank Amoss Welty, Jr. and Karl Welty. The brothers married sisters, Gladys and Bernice Stevens.
Alice was a bit of an adventurer, breaking horses, and enjoying rides across the Wind River Reservation that surrounded the agency hospital, and later near Dubois.
She had a ranch left to her on Pony Creek near the then tiny hamlet of Dubois.
The familiar log structure on Main Street in Dubois, The Welty General Store, is a legacy to the good doctor and his family.
Welty’s, as locals call the store, remained in the family since the original store opened in 1889.
Frank and Gladys ran the store until after World War II when Frank Amoss Welty, Jr. and his wife Alta took over, and it finally was owned and operated by present owner Frank Welty.
“The store was opened by my grandfather Frank Amoss Welty,” Frank said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: There are four men in this story named Frank or Francis, to differentiate them, Francis Welty will be Dr. Welty, his son Frank, will be referred to as Frank Amoss, his grandson Frank Senior, and his great-grandson, the man interviewed for much of this narrative, Frank.
Frank’s grandfather, Frank Amoss, went away to Maryland for college, graduating from Baltimore City College.
“He worked on chain gang “surveying in preparation for homesteaders,” Frank said. “Being on the chain gang working from each quarter section to the next he learned a lot about the land and got into the ranching business. The store was an aside, the ranch was his main business.”
He eventually owned five ranches around the High Country.
Supplying those ranches, with the nearest railway station in Casper 220 miles distant on the Chicago and Northwestern or Burlington Northern Railroads, or Rawlins on the Union Pacific at nearly the identical distance was a problem.
It was a different time, and time was a commodity that required patience and extensive planning to get much accomplished. There were no railroads in Fremont County until 1906, and one never reached beyond the line from Moneta to Lander. The roads were little more than trails, and the nearest telegraph office to Dubois was at the foot of South Pass in Lander, but they did have a post office and Alice Welty was the postmistress.
“They brought supplies from Lander or ordered them from Chicago on the Burlington Northern to Casper or the Union Pacific if orders were from St. Louis,” Frank said. “Other people in the valley would ask him to get things for him. He established a store next to Dr. Welty’s homestead two miles up Horse Creek.”
The original store was a log cabin on Horse Creek, and it eventually moved to the present-day site in downtown Dubois.
Frank Amoss Welty was fluent in Shoshone and sign language.
“His playmates as a kid were all Native boys,” Frank said. “Chief Washakie came to great-grandfather’s house for Sunday dinner. He always said he would find a nice Shoshone girl to marry his son.”
Frank Amoss operated the store until World War II.
He was a major force in not just the economy of the upper Wind River Valley but across Fremont County and Wyoming.
Frank Amoss Welty started Welty’s General Store in Dubois in 1898. In those early years, supply was the largest problem he faced. The nearest railway station from Dubois was 225 miles away in Casper.
Welty contracted a freight company to haul four wagons of goods from the railhead in Casper at a cost of $400 per trip. The wagons were pulled by 16-horse teams and sometimes took a week to complete the journey.
In 1906, supply and tourist volume increased dramatically as the Chicago Northwestern Railroad reached Riverton and Lander. Lander was already established in 1906 while Riverton was a mass of tents and quickly constructed buildings. Tourists began taking the train to Lander then riding horses or the stage to Dubois and then on to Yellowstone National Park. Dubois was 90 miles from Lander, about halfway to the south entrance to Yellowstone.
“We are four days behind the news of the outside world,” Frank Welty said in an April 17, 1908, interview in the Lander Clipper. “We have neither railroad nor telegraph stations, and it requires two days and a half to stage it from Lander. It takes the Denver Post a day and a half to reach Lander, so it makes four days it takes for news to reach us. “
Despite the delay in getting the news of the world, business was brisk for Welty in Dubois.
“We get along pretty well, at that. It is rather expensive to team merchandise over a trail ninety miles long, but on account of our running expenses in the way of light, taxes, and rent being very low, we are enabled to sell goods as cheaply as they are sold in many Denver stores. These goods are transported by ‘string” and four-horse teams. The ‘string’ means three or four wagons hooked together and drawn by a dozen or more horses.”
He went into banking with the son of Eugene Amoretti, one of Lander’s founding fathers, and Ernest Helmer. They formed Helmer, Amoretti, and Welty Bank in Dubois.
The bank was successful, but the economic collapse in the late 1920s that led to the Great Depression hit Wyoming much earlier than it did the East Coast.
“Helmer ran the bank, it went broke in 1927. Helmer took off with all the money,” Frank said. “Both partners had placed all their property in their wives’ names, so grandfather had to pay all shareholders. It almost broke him, he had to liquidate a lot of his holdings but kept the store and the Welty Inn.”
The Welty Inn came about much as the store had, from listening to and offering service where none had been before.
Before the Chicago Northwestern Railroad reached Lander in 1906, travel to Yellowstone National Park was a challenge. The park opened in 1872 but had few visitors. There was a long stage ride from Rawlins after the building of the Union Pacific was completed in 1869, but only the very adventurous used it.
A stage from Lander cut the trip substantially and Dubois was an oasis on the way to Old Faithful.
By the 1920s, bus service began from Lander to Yellowstone. The roads still weren’t great, the road from Dubois to Togwotee wasn’t paved until 1947 and the trip required staying at Brooks Lake Lodge the first night, and then Jackson Lake Lodge the second.
Frank Amoss had a lodge near Lake of the Woods on Union Pass. He often entertained Tim McCoy and his Hollywood co-stars when they were filming silent, black-and-white films on the Wind River Indian Reservation with Chief Goes In Lodge of the Northern Arapaho.
His frequent California visitors enjoyed their stay atop Union Pass and demand for a restaurant on the bus route to Yellowstone increased.
“He turned his home into a dining room,” Frank said. “He built cabins and made it the Welty Inn.”
The long haul for supplies delivered by rail to Casper or Rawlins became much quicker when the Chicago Northwestern opened stations in Moneta, Shoshoni, Riverton, Arapaho, Hudson, and Lander as the rails moved west in 1906.
Frank Amoss purchased a truck in 1913 and started driving to Idaho Falls during the summer months over both Togwotee and Teton Passes and then Salt Lake in the winter through Lander to Rawlins and then West. There wasn’t a passable road over South Pass for a truck in those days, and there wasn’t a road to Utah through the Snake River Valley yet, either.
The extended Welty family had connections from coast to coast. Great-grandmother Alice was a trained nurse, and grandmother Gladys came from the Steven’s family in Los Angeles.
The late 1920s were hard on the Welty family, especially Frank Amoss. He had to close the hotel, the store, and the bank and they moved to Cheyenne, where he drove trucks moving people and material at Fort F.E. Warren.
Frank Sr., Frank’s father, and his mother Alta moved back to Dubois in 1945. Frank Sr. served as a gunner on an aircraft carrier guiding convoys across the North Atlantic.
Frank and Alta reopened the Welty Inn in 1945, along with the store. Tourism wasn’t king in the High Country yet, but the tie hacks were still working and there was enough business to keep the Inn operating and the store did well.
Frank was born in Stewart, Nebraska in 1942 before his father went off to the U.S. Navy.
Before his World War II service, Frank Sr. enrolled at Harvard.
“Father had a scholarship to Harvard, he was terribly homesick,” Frank said. “His friend was a flute player. He sold the flute, took the money and they went to Florida. The money ran out, and Dad (grandfather) didn’t have the money to get him back. Great-grandmother sent money to get him home.”
Frank was called “Skip” as a youngster. This was the message Frank Amoss sent to get his son and his family back to Dubois.
“Bring Skip home, we’re reopening the store. That’s how we ended up back here,” Frank said. “He decided if he ever had a son, he’d send him away to school.”
Frank graduated from 8th grade in Dubois but went to high school at the Millbrook School for Boys, outside Millbrook, New York, near the Connecticut border.
“They had a greenhouse there, and I loved plants, so I decided to go there,” Frank said.
He graduated in 1960 and was accepted at Princeton, Haverford and Harvard.
“I wanted to prove to my dad that I could get through there and I did,” Frank said.
He majored in Russian Language and Literature at Harvard.
“I was very interested in the Russian move to the east as opposed to our move to the west,” Frank said. “You had to know Chinese.”
He enrolled at the University of Indiana and earned a pair of master’s degrees, an MA in Russian History and Politics, and an MBA in Finance and International Business.
“I went into banking, Crocker Bank in San Francisco, bought by Midland Bank, it eventually failed,” Frank said. “I already went to work for Sumitomo Bank in New York City. It was a little bit astray from here. When I was studying Chinese in Indiana, I was in the classroom for three or four hours a day in the language lab, I was never going to learn Chinese this way.
So, he joined the Peace Corp, teaching school in a Chinese Middle School,” Frank said. “I ended up living with a housemate that didn’t speak English. A Ph.D. in Chinese is learning classical Chinese, it’s like learning Latin nowadays, I went to the MBA instead.”
His path took him back to Dubois after a career in banking, back to the store his ancestors made into a landmark of the High County.
The original Welty store moved from its 1889 location to Dubois in 1898 when Frank Amoss purchased a store built the year before by George Hays and Huey Yeomans. They moved the original log cabin store next to the new one, also built of logs.
Additions came in 1915, 1922, and in the 1950s, when the modern store began to take shape.
Welty’s sold a little bit of everything, from fishing and hunting gear to John Deere tractors. Dr. Welty’s medical office was in the store, and Alice ran the post office from the same building.
An intriguing expansion to the business came in Frank Amoss hiring local guides for hunters and fishermen. He provided all the equipment, meals, supplies, and even guns and ammunition while supplying riding and pack horses.
They had tourists ride the stage and then buses from Lander, and supplies arrived from Riverton. The Welty livestock were driven to the stockyards in Hudson, the best freight prices came in Shoshoni. Frank Amoss always found the best deal and though it was about 100 miles to Shoshoni, he made the trip several times a year with heavily laden wagons pulled by 16-horse teams, and then later by truck.
The arrival of trucks and then cars changed the look of the store and the lives of the Welty family.
The building was extended in 1922 to include a hand-operated gas pump.
Frank Amoss opened additional gas pumps west of the store, this one a full-service station offering tires, and a mechanic.
It was soon after opening the service station that a bank examiner found evidence of Helmer misappropriating bank funds.
An incident 11 years earlier, coinciding with the first arrival of a vehicle in the High Country made news across the Rocky Mountain Region.
The headline in the Lander Clipper was indicative of similar stories in hundreds of small and not-so-small town newspapers dotting the Rocky Mountains.
FATAL GUNPLAY ON DUBOIS ROAD
Matt Barber Almost Instantly Killed by Young Karl Welty
Jury Find Justifiable Homicide
Barber Shot While Pulling Gun From Shirt Bosom Witnesses Testify at Inquest – Trouble Over Small Pasture Bill
The headline was a mix of shock and an indication of the rapid change that was taking place in the High Country and all over Fremont County.
On September 9, 1911, the first homicide involving an automobile took place five miles south of Dubois at 5 in the afternoon.
Matt Barber, a known gunman, bully, and overall obnoxious character was shot down by Dr. F.H. Welty’s teenage son Karl.
Barber worked as a ranch hand for Dr. Welty. While working for Welty he pastured a pair of horses at the Rocking Chair Ranch, owned by Clarence Grant.
Barber worked for a month, drew his wages, and headed west over Togwottee Pass in his buckboard.
The teenaged Karl Welty acted as Grant’s agent and had neglected to collect the dime-a-day pasture rent for the two horses.
The six-dollar rent was worth substantially more than it is today, and Grant told Karl to collect it the next time Barber was in Dubois.
About two weeks later, Barber drove his wagon back over the pass and into Dubois.
Around 2 pm on Saturday, Karl stopped him in town and asked for the six-dollar boarding fee.
Barber refused to pay, telling everyone within earshot that he would never pay that bill.
He then boarded his wagon and drove his team south towards Lander.
Karl rode two miles to the Rocking Chair Ranch and informed Grant about what Barber had said about not paying his bill.
Things got a little exciting after that. Grant and Karl galloped to Dubois, rounded up Dr. Welty, Dean Stalnaker, and Stalnaker’s young son, and the four men and the boy loaded up in Dr. Welty’s car to catch Barber.
Five miles from Dubois, they caught up with Barber. Barber would hear the car coming and turned his team around to face the vehicle as it approached.
As the car pulled within a few dozen feet, Barber reached inside his coat to draw a pistol from a shoulder holster.
Karl picked up a .44 revolver that was lying on the floor of the passenger seat and pointed it at Barber while shouting, “Drop it! Drop it! Drop!”
The warning did nothing, Barber continued to draw his gun and Karl fired, striking him in the jaw. The team bolted at the sound of the gunshot and the heavy black powder smoke. Grant ran up to the frightened horses, grabbed one by the halter, and stopped the wagon. He then got into the wagon with the dead Barber.
The bullet struck Barber in the lower right jaw and exited under the left ear. Barber was dead in a few seconds.
Grant drove the buggy with the dead man aboard back to Dubois, followed by the car.
Later investigations revealed that Grant intended to demand his money from Barber one more time, and if he wasn’t paid to take the case to a justice of the peace about eight miles from Dubois.
Dubois Justice Green, the town’s justice of the peace was called, and discussion ensued on getting the Fremont County Coroner from Lander to conduct a post-mortem examination.
In the frontier west, embalming wasn’t always available so in the need for haste, a coroner’s jury was called that included William Tinsley, Francis Nichols, and Steve Grandy.
The tribunal heard testimony, examined the body, and ruled a verdict of justifiable homicide at 8:30 pm, just three-and-a-half hours after the incident.
Dr. Welty conducted an autopsy and discovered that no vital arteries or veins had been damaged by the gunshot. Welty determined it was the shock of the heavy caliber bullet at close range that killed Barber.
Justice Green ordered the body buried the next afternoon.
Barber’s reputation was tarnished long before he attempted to pull a gun. A man of stocky build, about five feet seven inches tall and 45 years old. A few years before he invaded the house of State Senator Madden of Riverton when Madden was away. Barber drove the women out of the house and in a drunken frenzy shot up dishes and furniture before shooting out several windows.
When his body was searched a .32 caliber revolver and a .32 caliber pistol were found along with 80 dollars, more than enough to pay the bill he owed.
While he was a shrewd businessman, Frank Amoss had a great sense of humor as well. This story ran in the Crook County Monitor, published in Sundance, on December 25, 1913.
“Because Frank Welty, who conducts a general store at Dubois, 100 miles from the railroad, figured it out that it would be cheaper for him to ship beans by parcel post than to pay railroad and overland freight on the Bybee and Beard, who have the contract to carry mail between Lander and Ft. Washakie, which is but a 12-mile portion of the 100-mile star route to Dubois, wish somebody else had their contract. Recently Welty had 1,200 pounds of beans shipped from Powell to Dubois by parcel post, the shipment consisting of 60 packages of 20 pounds weight each. After hiring a freight outfit to deliver this mail at Ft. Washakie, Bybee and Beard addressed a letter of protest to Welty and the postmaster general. Last Monday they received the following reply:
Dubois, Wyoming November 28, 1913
“Bybee & Beard”
“Lander, Wyoming”
“Gentlemen: –
“Cheer up- the worst is yet to come. I have five tons more of beans coming from Basin by parcel post. You should worry.”
F.A. Welty
That shipment contained 500, 20-pound bags of beans, and was delivered to the store by the anguished mail contractors.
The activities of the Welty family made popular reading in newspapers across Wyoming. Here are a few examples.
Lander Clipper July 25, 1902 – Dr. F.H. Welty Agency physician at Ft. Washakie is taking a well-earned vacation and has gone up into “God’s Country” at Dubois. The genial doctor has a fine ranch on Horse Creek near the junction with the Big Wind River.
The March 6, 1903, edition of the Lander Clipper gave a little insight into life in Dubois at the turn of the century. The story told a tale of Frank Amoss as a young man.
Frank spotted a wolf while riding a pair of horses with a friend. Frank had only three cartridges in his .32 caliber revolver and missed all three times. He headed back to the house for more ammunition and spotted another wolf, a large female dragging a trap. Frank ropes the wolf by the hind legs, dismounts, and tries to kill it with his knife. As he approaches the wolf turns and attacks. Frank is bitten deep on both arms, leaving deep cuts. He kills the wolf with his knife, skins it, and takes the hide home.
His father treats his injuries and Frank tans the wolf hide, a big one nearly six feet long.
Wolf encounters were common in the High Country in the early days of the 20th century.
Competition arrived in Dubois in 1912 when the Dubois Mercantile opened. Financed by several local businessmen, it was in a large building on Main Street, surrounded by storage sheds, houses, and outbuildings.
1916 was a big year for the Welty family.
Riverton Review April 26, 1916. “Bernice E. Stevens of Los Angeles married Karl F. Welty. She arrived by train at Bonneville, then motored to Riverton. The wedding was at the Episcopal Rectory in Riverton.
The story reveals how difficult travel to Wyoming was in those days. The train left Los Angeles, heading north to connect with the Burlington Northern in Washington, then the party road east to Laurel, Montana, and dropped down through the Wind River Canyon before reaching the passenger station at Bonneville.
Famous as a physician, with a son who was a natural at business, the Welty family were also prominent cattle ranchers.
Drovers Journal-Stockman November 17, 1916 – “F.A. Welty of the Wind River Country, Wyoming was in this week with a train load of cattle belonging to himself and neighbors which sold at very satisfactory prices. Mr. Welty had some horned Hereford steers weighing 1,010 that sold at $7.75, horned feeders weighing 870 pounds at $7.45, and cows weighing 1030 that sold at $6.75.
Mr. Welty is not only a prominent cattleman with extensive interests in the Wind River Country, but he operates a large store in addition to being interested in the banking business.
One story stood out above the rest and appeared in every Wyoming Newspaper and appeared throughout Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Montana, and Nebraska.
An example appeared on the front page of the Sheridan Enterprise August 12, 1919 edition.
Flood in Dubois on August 9 Claims Five Victims.
Terrific hailstorm with drifts of hail five feet deep
Wind River flash flood swept Dr. F.H. Welty, mayor Dubois away. His body was found after the flood receded in a pile of driftwood and debris near his house.
August hailstorms are common on long, hot summer days, but usually arrive in daylight. This one was different. Clouds formed after sunset, and winds howled from the west before softball-sized hail began to pound the upper Wind River Valley. The resulting flash flood hit around 10:30 pm.
Dr. Welty’s house was just a few feet above the normal level of Horse Creek, substantially lower than the homes of family members nearby.
Dr. Welty’s home, valued at $7,500 was completely destroyed as he was swept away inside it. His wife Alice was able to leave quickly, wading through the flood waters as they rose and walked to Frank Amoss’ home.
The Stalnaker house was nearby. It floated off its foundation, drifting about 150 feet until it lodged in the bank. Visiting the Stalnaker family was Walter Keefe, a Casper florist, his wife, and three young children. They were on their way to Yellowstone on a family vacation.
Keefe and his family took refuge on a large upright piano. They floated down Horse Creek clinging to the piano until the water receded, a harrowing float trip that lasted from 11:30 pm until the piano came to rest on a sand bar at 3 am.
Not everyone was that lucky, W. Shaffer and Russell Higdon drowned in the flood. A ranch hand sleeping in the bunkhouse was swept away, drowned, and never found. Don Long a boy in the ranch house grabbed a barbed wire fence and held on for over an hour until the water receded. He was initially reported dead but walked back to the ranch later.
A new car owned by business partner E. H. Helmer of Lander was swept away and destroyed at an estimated cost of $3000.
Two unconnected stories were reported in rival newspapers in Riverton and Lander just a few days apart.
Riverton Review – January 14, 1920, “$1700 in furs stolen from the back of the store – Owned by Welty and Jack Morton – marten, fox, mink, bobcat.”
Wyoming State Journal – January 16, 1920 – “Welty ends credit at store – Cash only with lower prices by eliminating some bookkeeping.”
Society pages listing the activities of prominent people were all the rage in early 20th-century newspapers, the Welty family was the focus of many of these.
Lander Evening Post: July 12, 1922 – “F.A. and Mrs. A.A. Welty and two boys drive to Lander. Mr. Welty is taking care of the bus tourists for luncheon every day at his home in Dubois. They returned home today.”
Wyoming State Journal May 27, 1925 – “Welty Inn, garage, service station, general store, bank – stables for guest riding at Welty Inn – trails by guides from Welty Inn – both hunting and fishing in season.”
Wind River Mountaineer October 2, 1925 – F.A. Welty vs. J.E. McCormack and F.L. Van Horn – Promissory note of $203 not paid + $50.75 legal expenses – Filed in Fremont County District Court – Second petition against Van Horn – with Eugene Amoretti, Welty, Ernest Helmer and George Pennoyer (Dubois State Bank) for $200 plus $40 expenses.
Wyoming State Journal September 8, 1926 – Donald Lord to Moneta to bring back sheep for Welty purchased from William Merriam of Moneta – Welty and his brother Karl drove to Moneta to buy the sheep previously.”
If you’ve ever driven through Dubois on your way west, you’ve probably noticed a wooden stairway with a landing on the north side of the road. Teenagers claimed it was a mine, a jail, or something else for generations, but it was none of those.
Frank Amoss dug a room inside the hillside and used it as a cold storage facility in the summer, and a warm place to keep perishables cool, but not frozen in winter.
He had chunks of ice cut from Torrey Lake in the depth of subzero winter and hauled them inside the manmade cave where they were covered in sawdust gathered from nearby sawmills. The ice kept milk, meat, cheese, and vegetables cool during the hottest days of summer, and in winter, the same items were stored with the doors shut. The air never reached the freezing point.
Frank and Alta ran the store through the 1980s, before turning it over to Frank. Frank Sr. died in 1994. The store closed in 1986.
“It reopened briefly in 1996 from September to December,” Frank said.
The store is now open seasonally.
“We’re open in summer, we try to be open in early June, then play it by ear until September or October,” Frank said. “Business is mostly people going to the park, when Yellowstone closes there is nothing for me.”
Welty’s was once known for its wide variety of firearms, but that has stopped.
“No firearm sales now,” Frank said. “My dad was the biggest gun dealer in the state at one time.”
The ranch is gone, the Inn is owned by someone else, and the guide service, horses, and gas station are all gone, but the store remains.
The Welty General Store is on the National Register of Historic Places and remains an anchor on the street lined by iconic wooden sidewalks in the little mountain town.