Livery Stable Vital to Town

An advertisement in the March 12, 1902 “Saratoga Record” reads:

For New Carriages

and Best Stock

for a long or short drive go to

D.S. Richmond’s

Feed, Sale and Livery

Stable

Courteous Service.  Careful Drivers.

First Street, Saratoga 

In the beginning of most Wyoming settlements, a good livery stable was a necessity. In the 1880s, 1890s and early 1900s, several livery stables existed in the tiny berg of Warm Springs, renamed Saratoga in 1884, with the most famous being D. S. Richmond’s.

In a story related by the first white child, a girl born in the Upper North Platte River Valley, “The stable was erected on the west side of the river about 1890 and operated as such until the late 1890s by a man named Ferguson. She believes the property was then sold to Dave Richmond, who operated a livery stable and feed store there for many years.”

According to an item in the May 3, 1900 Saratoga Sun, “Dave Richmond has commenced the erection of a story and a half addition, 40 by 60 feet, to his livery stable on First Street. There will be a front on First Street and will be divided into stables, carriage house, office with sleeping rooms above and a place for washing buggies. The building will be of frame construction and will be joined on the south end of the Masonic hall.”

A 1902 Saratoga Record noted, “D.S. Richmond is the proprietor of the fine large livery stable . . .  He is a native of New York, has been in this section for about nine years and has been in the livery business for three years past. His feed, sale and livery stable are first-class in every respect and nothing but first-class rigs can be secured from the place.

“Anyone wishing to trade anything in the shape of a horse can always be accommodated by ‘calling on Dave,’ who probably does more in that line than anyone else in the country. Mr. Richmond is quite an extensive real estate owner and is a respected and progressive citizen.”

As trucks and cars replaced horses and buggies in the 1910s, the building housed the Morgan-Gross Truck Line, which later became Saratoga Truck Line. The property was purchased by Clarence Shaw in 1936 from the Gross estate. Shaw came to Saratoga from Rawlins in 1935 and worked for the Morgan-Gross firm for a short time prior to purchasing the business and renaming it “Saratoga Truck Line.”

In December of 1964 a headline in the local newspaper reads, “$50,000 Fire Levels Truck Line Buildings,” . . . but, then that’s fuel for another “Postcard.”