MIDWEST — The richest 80 acres in the nation can be found just north of this central Wyoming town east of Interstate 25 between Casper and Buffalo.
It’s part of the 9-mile-long by 5-mile-wide Salt Creek Oil Field that during its boom days in the 1920s drew 17,000 people to Midwest alone. Add to that the other company-owned camps around it where people lived and worked, the area rivaled the size of today’s Casper.
The field during its peak produced more light crude oil than any other field in the world, earning millions of dollars for mineral rights holders and investors. It continues to send oil down its pipelines at a rate of 8,500 barrels a day.
Salt Creek Oil Field historian and Contango Oil and Gas Co. engineer tech Everett DeWitt has spent more than 40 years working in the field. Over a nine-year period starting in 2006, his role was to find every oil well that had ever been drilled in it. Digging into old Oil and Gas Commission records and BLM files has made him the expert on this oil field.
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He recently hosted Cowboy State Daily for a visit at the Salt Creek Museum on C Street in Midwest, and was quick to point to a photograph of one of the many characters that make up the field’s history.
Cy Iba And The ‘Iba 80’
“Cy Iba was the first one to make authentic claims out here,” DeWitt said.
Iba staked his claims next to oil seeps in the late 1890s. Some historical accounts say Iba, who originated from Pennsylvania, had sought gold in California and Idaho prior to settling in Wyoming.
A Dec. 1, 1898, story in the Natrona County Tribune newspaper reported that Iba “went to Cheyenne last week to have a hearing in the United States term of court, regarding some oil land in Natrona County, returned home Friday evening, the case being put off until the next term of court.”
To make a claim, one had to dig a hole 6 feet square and 10 feet deep with a mineral in it, DeWitt said.
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“He would dig a hole next to an active seep and, of course, he would have an oil claim,” he said. “The main ‘seep’ that he claimed was called Jackass Springs, and it is just northwest of town here. Jackass Springs was a spring of oil.”
Historical accounts say $100 worth of improvements had to be done to maintain the claim.
The Sept. 12, 1901, edition of the Natrona County Tribune reports that, “Cy Iba left last Saturday morning for the Salt creek oil country, where he intends to fix up the roads and do some other assessment work on his land.”
DeWitt said that in addition to other claims, Iba laid claim to 80 acres of land with title and deed, which has become known as the “Iba 80.”
“More money has been made off of that 80 acres than any other 80 acres in the United States,” DeWitt said.
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Visitors to Midwest can find a lot of artifacts from its storied past at the Salt Creek Museum. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
A photo at the Salt Creek Museum in Midwest shows a view of Midwest during its heyday. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
A photo at the Salt Creek Museum shows a North South train making its way with oil cars. The railroad brought a big boost to the oil field’s efforts from 1923-1935. (Cowboy State Daily Staff)
Legal Fights
Iba died in 1907 before he saw any great wealth from the claims because of legal wrangling after the Dutch Company hit a discovery well in the field in 1908. That well triggered a flood of oil seekers and companies to the region.
The potential for wealth led to claim jumping, legal fights and literal fights — sometimes armed.
A newspaper account from 1909 relates that Mary G. Iba, “executrix of the estate of Cy Iba,” was allowed to put a monument on her husband’s grave and could not spend more than $350. Other legal notices show her as a defendant in court property disputes with oil companies.
“The U.S. government withdrew this field from homesteading for a period of time and there were legal battles continuously,” DeWitt said.
The nation’s Homestead Act of 1862 allowed for homesteaders at least 21 years old to file for 160 acres of federal land. After five years, if the filer improved the land, he could claim ownership.
Eventually, claims were ironed out. Mary Iba had been able to hold onto the 80 acres, and when she died July 12, 1951, at the age of 99, she left an estate worth $500,000.
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An article in the Dec. 9, 1951, Casper Tribune-Herald attributed her wealth to the “Iba eighty in the Salt Creek field” and stated that “in 1911, when the oil royalties began pouring in, Mrs. Iba built her home at 604 South David, and she and her family resided there.”
One well, called Iba Six, initially came in at several thousand barrels a day, DeWitt said. When the well died back, operators would shoot it with nitroglycerin and it would ramp up back up. He said it is still producing 100 barrels a day.
The Roaring ’20s
DeWitt said that during its heyday in the 1920s, the Salt Creek Field had more than 50 operators with leases on acreage, some with 160-acre quarter sections or entire sections of the field. Each operator created his own camp where employees would live and work. Photos of the camps at the museum show derricks sprinkled between rows of homes.
In addition to Midwest Oil Co., which was formed by Colorado Springs man Verner C. Reed around 1909, there were Sinclair camps, Continental Camp, Consolidated Camp, Staley Syndicate the Scotch Camp, and more.
In Midwest, as in other camps, operators tried to lure married men with families to work the fields, which at the time were little more than derricks and desert. Houses in Midwest were built at a clip of five a day and the company poured money into giving families something to do.
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“Those producing companies knew that a married man with a family was more stable than a young buck who would come in and work three days and get a paycheck and go drink it,” DeWitt said.
When the North South Railroad arrived in 1923, it helped transform the community by bringing building materials in and shipping oil out. It also helped transform Midwest into a place that became livable for wives and children.
There was a hospital, schools, electric plant, theaters, commissary, shops, bowling alley, shooting range and seven golf courses in the area, DeWitt said.
“Anything that you could get in New York or San Francisco, even down to fresh seafood, you could get in Midwest then,” he said.
DeWitt said by 1925, there were 1,980 wells sending oil to Casper down the first welded pipeline in the world. The pipeline was completed in 1922.
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A drilling rig south of Midwest is doing repair work on one of the Salt Creek Oil Field wells. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Today, the Salt Creek Oil Field continues to produce oil at a rate of 8,500 barrels per day. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Dangerous Work
Working in the oil field brought its dangers.
Light oil is extremely flammable, and during his research, DeWitt has found original accident reports related to oil rig fires and explosions. One particularly deadly one happened in 1927 when the men had tried the nitroglycerin technique to stimulate production of the well.
“The hill where this well sits right now is called Dead Man’s Hill,” DeWitt said. “They shot it with nitro and they were trying to get a control valve on it. Well, something happened and it exploded. It caught fire shooting more than 100 feet into the air. Three men died immediately and two more died getting off the location. About a week later, another guy succumbed … (and) there were several others who were injured pretty bad.”
In 1932 as field operations matured, DeWitt said Midwest Oil Co. consolidated the field through agreements and buyouts. The field would be run by a single operator from then until today.
As the Great Depression arrived, the Salt Creek Field experienced a fall in demand and financial issues, just like the rest of the country. The railroad stopped running in 1935. DeWitt said oil was pumped, but if things broke there was no money to fix the equipment.
World War II changed everything and brought new life as the nation needed oil to fuel its war efforts.
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In the 1960s there was another boom brought by the use of water-injection into the field to get wells flowing again. DeWitt said when he arrived in 1980, it was difficult to find housing. By the late 1990s, Wyoming’s familiar boom-bust cycle had busted again.
New Technique
When Anadarko Petroleum bought the field in the early 2000s for $265 million, a boom returned as it changed the field from water injection to CO2-injected fracking wells. When the company arrived, the field was producing about 3,500 barrels a day. The CO2 technique took it up to 15,000.
Two years ago, Contango Oil and Gas Co. bought the history Wyoming oil field and about 80 employees continue to keep its 2,000 producing wells operating.
DeWitt said the field continues the CO2 injection using a five-die pattern where the middle well is the injector and there are four corner producers. He said his research discovering the nearly 5,000 wells that have been drilled in the field during its history continues to pay off.
“The interesting thing about that is some of these wells that were drilled in 1918 and plugged in 1934, we have been able to go back in and make those a well again if they fit our five-spot pattern,” he said. “We can go back in and reactivate those wells, and that costs us about $400,000 whereas drilling a new well would be about $1.5 million.”
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The Midwest that was the company town became incorporated in 1978. DeWitt said he didn’t like the place he moved to in 1980, but he has come to enjoy living in a community that boasts such a rich past.
“In Midwest, we’re stable. Some of the people who live here work in the field, and some in Casper,” he said. “I love it here. I am one hour away from anything I want to do. Prior to moving here, I was an over-the-road trucker and I thought, ‘Who would want to live in a place like this?’ Now you couldn’t drive me out with a big old stick.”
Only one of the four two-story block building that contained stores, entertainment and more during Midwest’s boom time in the 1920s remains. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
GLENROCK, Wyo. — A 55-year-old Wyoming man died Monday night after his vehicle went over a bridge rail and caught fire on Interstate 25 near Glenrock.
Gavin Stanek was traveling north in a Cadillac Escalade around 9:13 p.m. when the vehicle drifted into the median near milepost 156, according to a Wyoming Highway Patrol report. The vehicle continued through the median until it struck a bridge retaining wall.
The driver’s side of the Escalade scraped along the rail before the vehicle went over the edge toward the river. The Cadillac rolled toward the passenger side and landed on its roof on the river embankment, where it was engulfed in flames, the report states.
The Wyoming Highway Patrol identified driver fatigue or the driver falling asleep as a possible contributing factor in the crash. Road conditions were dry and the weather was clear at the time of the incident.
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This story contains preliminary information as provided by the Wyoming Highway Patrol via the Wyoming Department of Transportation Fatal Crash Summary map. The agency advises that information may be subject to change.
As a plaintiff in the 2022 lawsuit that kicked off years of legal sparring over Wyoming abortion rights, Dr. Giovannina Anthony had waited a long time for Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision on the state’s abortion bans.
“It has been a long road,” she said. One with ups and downs, drawbacks and delays. And even though the high court ruled against the state’s abortion bans, she’s not under the illusion that the fight for abortion access is over.
“But at least today, we can claim a victory and say, it was really worth it,” said Anthony, a Jackson obstetrician. “It was worth it to go four years and keep it up and keep raising money and keep the awareness going. I’m really proud of our team. I’m really proud of what we accomplished.”
In reading the Supreme Court’s decision siding with plaintiffs, Anthony said, “Clearly, this is a court that holds a lot of respect for our constitution.”
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That’s because much of the decision hinged on constitutional language.
Anthony and other plaintiffs argued that abortion is enshrined in the “right of health care access” in Article 1, Section 38 of the Wyoming Constitution. The clause states, “Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions.”
The state’s attorneys, meanwhile, countered that abortion isn’t health care.
But in deciding what that language means in this case, “all five Wyoming Supreme Court justices agreed that the decision whether to terminate or continue a pregnancy is a woman’s own health care decision protected by Article 1, Section 38,” the court’s summary stated.
As abortion rights activists in Wyoming and beyond celebrated the decision, the anti-abortion camp decried it and called for legislative action.
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“This ruling is profoundly unfortunate and sadly serves to only prolong the ultimate proper resolution of this issue,” Gov. Mark Gordon said in a statement. While the ruling may settle a legal question for the time being, Gordon said, “it does not settle the moral one, nor does it reflect where many Wyoming citizens stand, including myself.”
Anti-abortion activists in the silent March for Life in Cheyenne in January 2020. (Nadav Soroker, Wyoming Tribune Eagle/Wyoming News Exchange)
Gordon asked the Attorney General’s office to file a petition for rehearing the decision, which it will file within 15 days.
The voters of Wyoming should settle the matter once and for all, Gordon argued. “A constitutional amendment taken to the people of Wyoming would trump any and all judicial decisions.”
He called on the Legislature to pass such an amendment during the upcoming session and deliver it to his desk. A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate to appear on the ballot in the following general election.
Gordon may get his wish during the Legislature’s 2026 budget session, which convenes Feb. 9.
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State lawmakers are already preparing a bill to modify the Wyoming Constitution and clear a path for another attempted abortion ban. Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, a Republican from Hulett, said that he’s been workshopping language with Torrington Republican Sen. Cheri Steinmetz.
“I’ve got to run it by a lot of other people,” Neiman said.
Reps. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams and Chip Neiman listen during a 2023 hearing on their request to defend Wyoming’s abortion ban. (Brad Boner/Jackson Hole News&Guide/Pool)
Ideally, he added, a single constitutional amendment would be considered, although the legislative strategy is still up for discussion.
“We’ve got a little over a month before we have to be in session,” Neiman said. “That’ll give us time to kind of see which is maybe the best plan of action.”
A constitutional amendment would have to navigate the legislative process in a 20-day session geared toward passing Wyoming’s budget. Then, in the 2026 general election, more than half of Wyoming voters who cast a ballot would have to agree to the constitutional change.
Neiman struck an optimistic tone about an amendment’s prospects of passing the first hurdle during the session in Cheyenne.
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“I can’t speak for the other chamber,” he said, “but in my chamber I’ve got a lot of phone calls and a lot of texts from a lot of my legislators who are just beside themselves at what happened.”
Senate President Bo Biteman did not return a phone call before this story published.
Victorious
Chelsea’s Fund, an organization that helps pay for abortion services, was another of the plaintiffs that challenged Wyoming’s abortion bans. Executive Director Janean Forsyth said Tuesday’s decision affirms what her organization has long known: “that abortion is essential health care, and Wyoming women have a constitutional right and the freedom to make their own health care decisions, and that should be without government interference.”
Forsyth was flooded with messages and calls Tuesday, she said, especially from the community of reproductive rights organizations.
“I think that [the news is] a beacon of hope for, not only Wyoming communities and families, but also nationwide,” she said.
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Christine Lichtenfels was Chelsea’s Fund executive director when the original suit was filed and throughout much of the legal battle. Relief wasn’t quite the word to describe how she felt Tuesday, she said.
“In reading the decision, there is just a sense that, ‘Oh, there is reason in the world,” she said. “It makes me think that, yes, Wyoming is the Equality State. We can say that now without cringing.”
(Disclosure: Lichtenfels is currently working with WyoFile on an unrelated legal matter.)
The Wellspring Health Access clinic in Casper is pictured in December 2022, and shows signs of May 2022 arson, including boarded up windows. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile)
Wyoming’s only abortion clinic, Wellspring Health Access in Casper, was also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Knowing the decision would directly impact the facility’s fate, Clinic President Julie Burkhart was nervous when she opened it. Reading quickly dispelled her fears, she said, as it dawned on her that the justices sided with the plaintiffs’ legal team.
“We are delighted,” she told WyoFile.
Many people questioned her 2021 decision to open an abortion clinic in such a conservative state, she said. The court decision solidifies an intuition she felt back then about Wyoming residents’ sense of what’s fair and right.
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Burkhart and colleagues expect future challenges to arise, however.
“While we celebrate today’s ruling, we know that anti-abortion politicians will continue their push to restrict access to health care in Wyoming with new, harmful proposals in the state legislature,” Burkart said in a statement. “Patients should not have to live in fear that their health care decisions will be suddenly upended at the whim of a judge or lawmaker.”
Across the state in Jackson, Dr. Anthony anticipates the Wyoming Freedom Caucus will attempt to pass laws that impose targeted restrictions against abortion providers — such as forcing patients to hear a fetal heartbeat or wait a certain time period before the procedure.
“Unfortunately, the fight’s not over,” Anthony said, “but this is a great moment for us.”
Heartache
Abortion opponents expressed sadness Tuesday and vehemently disagreed with the court’s opinion.
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State Rep. Rachel Rodriguez Williams was lead sponsor of one of the abortion bans. The Cody Republican and chair of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus did not respond to a request for comment, but posted about the decision on X.
“My heart aches for Wyoming today,” Rodriguez Williams posted. “Thanks to the decision of four unelected, unchecked attorneys, it’s open season in Wyoming for innocent, preborn babies. Make no mistake: courts can get things wrong, and they sure did get this wrong. I’ll never stop fighting to protect life.”
Anti-abortion billboards can be seen along some Wyoming highways. (Tennessee Watson/WyoFile)
Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray also protested the decision, which he called “outrageously wrong” and “a leftwing activist decision totally out of touch with the Wyoming Constitution.”
Natrona County anti-abortion activist Bob Brechtel, a former Wyoming House member, also expressed frustration with the courts, criticizing the nearly two-year-long wait for a decision and saying he was “ashamed” of the outcome from the high court.
In 2011, Brechtel co-sponsored the bill authorizing a later-successful constitutional amendment ballot measure that now protects individuals’ rights to make their own health care decisions. Born out of opposition to the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, what became Article 1, Section 38 caused some lawmakers to worry about potential unintended consequences.
Fifteen years later, one unintended consequence came to fruition. Reached Tuesday, Brechtel confirmed that he did not intend to protect women’s right to have an abortion in Wyoming.
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“There was nothing in the legislation about killing innocent human beings,” he said. “This whole thing has been completely regenerated into something that it was never intended to be.”
It is Week 4 in the 2026 Wyoming High School boys’ swimming and diving season. It features several medium-sized competitions. After a dual in Douglas on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday are packed with meets. Jackson hosts its two-day invitational with four teams heading to Teton County. There are three-team events in Casper, Gillette, and Sheridan on Friday, plus two five-team meets at Cody and Rock Springs.
WYOPREPS BOYS SWIMMING AND DIVING WEEK 4 SCHEDULE 2026
Saturday also has swim invites at Evanston, Powell, and Sheridan. The schedule for Week 4 of the prep boys’ swimming and diving season in the Cowboy State is below. The schedule is subject to change.
RAWLINS AT DOUGLAS – dual
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CASPER TRI at NCHS – Cheyenne East, Kelly Walsh, Natrona County.
