Mr. Waugh Hibben ran the Mountain Home Hotel and a blacksmith
shop. Walter Shideler had a barber shop in the hotel. This
log building and the blacksmith shop burned in 1912. Shideler then
built a new home and barber shop on the main street which became the Gray
Inn when Mrs. Lena Gray bought it in 1917.
(Photo courtesy of Jonita Sommers originally from
Arlene Kape)
Mr. and Mrs. Waugh Hibben
(Photo courtesy of Jonita Sommers originally from
Pearl Spencer)
Wah Hibben, John Budd, Lee Smith
Waugh Franklin Hibben was born February 9, 1883, at Popular
Bluff, Missouri. In 1900 he came to Big Piney with his parents, George
and Sarah, and his sisters, Mabel and Stella, in a wagon train bound for
Oregon. They decided to earn some money haying and continue to Oregon
later. When haying was finished, it was too late to go on and they
had come to love the area, so decided to stay. Waugh and his father
opened a blacksmith shop and worked together until 1910. Waugh married
Martha Ann Smith on March 15, 1909. In 1910 they homesteaded in the
Hoback Basin then moved to Arizona in 1916, to Pennsylvania about five
years later, then back to Wyoming at Star Valley four years later.
They finally moved to Daniel in 1927. Through the years Waugh worked
in timber, as a freighter, and delivering mail. At the time of his
death March 24, 1960, he was the caretaker of a lodge and cabins on Half
Moon Lake.
Sources:
Wyoming's Last Frontier, p. 79 They Made Wyoming Their Own, 115 Jonita Sommers
