Thank you for the Historic review. My Grandmother grew up between Torrington and Lingle. She worked a Summer at age 13 for the Fort Laramie Caretaker in 1912, by making beds and fixing meals at Old Bedlam. She talked a lot about Hartville and Sunrise mine area. I would drive by the mines sites when I was inspecting federal minerals mines and gravel pits as Geologist for the BLM, Platte River Resource Area, Casper.
My grandfather and few of my relatives worked in sunrise mine and then later my grandfather was on the skeleton crew that took care of the equipment and later dismantled some of the buildings and homes that ones stood there. I remember some of the wild stories that took place in Heartville that he use to tell. I even went to pre-school in Heartville a year before it closed down. Fun fact, there's a bar in Heartville that's the oldest bar in the state of Wyoming, there's actually a sign out front of the bar that says 1820 (I believe) and inside that bar there's pictures on the walls with photos of the bar dating way back. So I'm not sure what the guy is talking about when he said Heartville was a dry town, maybe at some point it was, but not its whole entire history.
Mining is a horrendous industry. The owners make millions upon millions, the workers are exploited and physically depleted needing major healthcare in later life. Workers paid money into pensions that were not honored. They never clean up the land afterwards. All in all a disgraceful exploitation of man and land.
