Dubois, Tie Hacks of the Wind River

For decades the defining sound of Dubois was axes on timber. Beginning in nineteen fourteen, the Wyoming Tie and Timber Company hired workers, mostly Scandinavian immigrants, to hand-hew railroad ties from the forests of the upper Wind River. They were known as tie hacks.

Each man was assigned his own strip of timber, and the finished ties were floated down the Wind River to Riverton, where they were loaded for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. Over the years, tie hacks cut millions of ties out of these mountains. A monument at the edge of town honors the Scandinavian woodsmen who shaped the place.