A visit to the Rock Shop Inn and Triplets

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The Rock Shop Inn, near South Pass City, Wyoming

The Rock Shop Inn.

Gold Rush Days have come and gone and a couple of the State staff are away, so there was no staff meeting today! Gator and I got an early start on taking sarsaparilla over to the Miner’s Exchange Saloon. He went off on various errands and I went into the archives. Today, I photographed invoices from the Smith Sherlock Company Store, a project that is taking a fair bit more time than I expected, but I think I have a system down, at last.

I have seen several invoices from the National Biscuit Company during the year 1906. The company was only about 10-years old at that time and in addition to crackers, cookies, and biscuits, they offered a fairly large substantial line of candies (see invoice below). The company later rebranded itself as Nabisco (the first two letters of each word in the company name) and is no longer so big into candy.

 

Smith Sherlock Company Store, South Pass City, Wyoming, Invoice for Nabisco candy

The candies that come in “pails” presumably are sold by weight, then there are “cases” of stick or piece candy, and “boxes” of 5- and 10-cent candies that likely came in display boxes and were sold by the piece and were likely individually wrapped. The store sold a surprising (to me) variety of candy, there was already a shift towards “branding” of candies, and the cost of some of these is rather dear. These are wholesale prices, so at retail, they would be more expensive and adjusted to 2026 dollars, the 5- and 10-cent candies would cost about $1.70 and $3.40. These were not cheap treats.

I worked in the archives until noon and left to open the Smith Sherlock Company Store. There were a number of visitors early on, then things slowed down for a while and I was able to practice shooting video of cans and labels using my lazy Susan. I’ll start compiling videos of these soon.

“Business” picked up in the afternoon and traffic was steady. In all, 59 people and one dog stopped in. I closed the store at 4:00 and then returned to the archives to photograph labels. I really want this project to start moving a bit faster.

We relaxed a bit and then headed over to the Rock Shop Inn to write and have a drink. There was a band playing, unfortunately, as I was hoping for a bit of quiet. I’ve heard these guys before. Enough said.

On our way back in, we drove around the old highway, our regular wildlife ride. We saw only two pronghorn antelope. Then as we got close to SPC, as it was getting dark, a rabbit ran across the road. I've seen cottontails and jackrabbits around. It had a white tail, but looked a bit large for a cottontail. As we got closer, I got a good look. It was a small pronghorn antelope. Just then, a doe with two more small fawns ran across the road. Triplets! Now, that is a sighting!

Back to the trailer for a bit of writing and reading. 

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