Sussex Post Office and Store

About this property

The Sussex Post Office and Store, also known as Sussex Community Hall, is located on the north bank of the Powder River in southeast Johnson County about twenty miles east of Kaycee, Wyoming. The store was built in 1914, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. The Bozeman Trail crossed the Powder River at several points in the area around Sussex, Wyoming. Because of the river crossing, Fort Reno and Cantonment Reno were established in the 1800s near Sussex. Fort Reno, located eight miles downstream (northeast) from Sussex on the Powder River, was built in 1865 as one in a series of military posts to protect travelers on the Bozeman Trail. The fort was abandoned in 1868 and burned, reportedly by Indians. In 1877, Cantonment Reno, five miles downstream from Sussex, was established as a supply depot for the Powder River Campaign of 1876. In 1878, the cantonment was closed, and the soldiers relocated to Fort McKinney near Buffalo, Wyoming. After the soldiers left, a few civilians remained across the Power River from the cantonment, and they established a settlement known as Powder River Station-Powder River Crossing. By 1880, this community of 49 people included a stage station, a hotel, a general store, and a post office. In the early 1880s, Henry Winter ("Hard Winter") Davis, established the Spectacle Ranch near the present site of Sussex. The post office at Powder River Station-Powder River Crossing moved to the Davis ranch in 1893 or 1894. The active freight route along the Bozeman Trail that connected the military outposts between Cheyenne and Buffalo developed into roads, and Sussex became a stop along the way. Morris Leitner, known as the "Sage of Sussex", came to Sussex around 1900. He built his home at the Sussex river crossing, and became postmaster, and ran a store from his home. Leitner also taught school, served as justice of the peace, notary public, and county assessor. After some years, he was appointed to the State Board of Equalization, and he moved to Cheyenne in 1938. A steel bridge, the EDZ Irigary Bridge, was built over the Powder River at Sussex in 1914. From 1912 to about 1920, Sussex was on the route of the Black and Yellow Trail which went from Chicago to the Black Hills and Yellowstone National Park. In 1914, the same year the bridge was completed, Leitner erected a new building to house the post office, store, and dance hall. This building became known as the Sussex Community Hall. The Sussex Community Hall is a one-story, wood-framed building that measures 86 feet long and 26 feet wide. It rests on a concrete foundation and has an unfinished basement. The original siding remains, and corrugated sheet metal covers the asphalt-shingled roof. A stove pipe protrudes through the roof on the southeast slope. The long rectangular building is unadorned except for simple knee braces and brackets under the wide overhanging eaves, corner boards, and plain window surrounds.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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