SPOTTED HORSE - To one traveling phone repairman, this is the remote bar/café where he almost had to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a putrid old man who'd set his bar stool on his own oxygen hose and ended up passed out on the floor.

To Roy Holdeman and Robbie Montgomery, this is where they took their wedding vows and hung a rose on the antique bicycle on the ceiling.

In the 1920s, Jim Spellman was among the first students at the school house across the lot. The Spellmans, Werners and several other families gathered at the dance hall across the road each summer, and in 1944 a tornado ripped it apart.

Eleven gallons of gas totaled $2.84 here in 1947, and a hamburger lunch for two was $2.50 in 1952.

This is Spotted Horse, located about 37 miles northwest of Gillette on Highway 14-16. You can still get a burger here, but the school is closed and the post office is no longer operated at the bar and café.

Ranchers still gather here for a bite and a drink, but more prevalent are the workers from the coal-bed methane gas fields. And motorcyclists find Spotted Horse a charming place to cool off while touring this corner of Wyoming.

Bill Clark of Huntington, Indiana, rides his motorcycle to Spotted Horse every summer with 14 of his closest friends. They pitch tents, go on day rides and cool off with a few beers in the Spotted Horse bar with owner Jerome Schantz.

A few years ago, a man rode up to the bar on a horse and told Clark that he and his friends might want to move their bikes. The Great American Cattle Drive was heading through.

"We ended up staying here for three days," said Clark. "They taught us how to ride horses and we taught them how to ride motorcycles."

Clark regularly tours from Indiana to Juarez, Mexico, and no place along the way is more fun than Spotted Horse.

"The people are just really nice here," said Clark.

Only two people live at Spotted Horse now, but it used to be a busy place for community business dating as far back as the 1800s. At the turn of the century Solon and George Walker had operated a little store and post office just down the hill from the present location. Then in the early 1920s, A.L. Pringle built a general store and filling station at the present day location on top of the hill.

Many people have come and gone since, and so have some genuine spotted horses. Most famous of all was "Old Spot," a stuffed horse with a real hide. He was frozen in bucking position and mounted on a swivel so tourists could hop on for a picture that was sure to fool their friends at home.

Energy reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 682-3388 or dzeffer@trib.com.