News

Fire claims feds' million-dollar Sweetwater Lodge

By Carole Cloudwalker

This document was published online on Wednesday, August 06, 2008

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Sweetwater Lodge on the Shoshone Forest burned to the ground in the Gunbarrel Fire on Sunday night.

Forest officials announced earlier this week the total loss of the lodge, a residence and five cabins.

Accessed by a bridge over the North Fork of the Shoshone River at Wapiti Campground, the lodge became the property of the Forest Service after a 2006 court case.

The last private owners of the lodge included Jeff Mummery of Cody.

Mummery and his partners were awarded between $840,000 and $1.3 million for the lodge, Wapiti District Ranger Terry Root said this week.

The award was aimed at compensating the partners for the property and costs they incurred after bridges leading up the drainage were condemned by the USFS, rendering the property inaccessible by vehicles.

That still was the case at the time of the fire, and in fact hampered firefighting, Root said.

He said this spring the last possible crossings of Sweetwater Creek washed out, leaving the lodge accessible only by foot or horseback. It was located about four miles up the drainage from the campground.

Mummery and his partners originally sought about $2.5 million from the government for the Sweetwater property, an amount that included the loss of revenue for the period after the bridges were condemned. The revenue loss issue was discarded by the judge in the case.

The case was heard in Cody in October 2005 by U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge James Merrow. On Aug 25, 2006, Merrow issued his opinion.

The lodge had been owned by the USFS since the case was resolved, and it had been uninhabited. It had not been in public operation for some years.

Information from an earlier Enterprise story by former reporter Retha Miller, provided by the Park County Archives, indicated the lodge was begun as a single cabin built in 1903 by Kid Wilson.

In about 1935, Wilson contracted with Bob and Laura Williams to build a lodge on the Sweetwater site and share in the profits of the operation.

The main lodge was finished with log siding removed from a sawmill on Green Creek, and fireplaces in the building were fashioned from granite blasted from the tunnels then being constructed for the road around Buffalo Bill Dam, the Enterprise article stated.

Flash floods washed out bridges several times in the early years, and eventually caused Williams to give up interest in the business. The lodge apparently reverted back to Wilson's sole ownership.

Access to the property was via a jeep trail until about 1964 when Mel Stonehouse purchased the property and made access improvements. Wayne Maubach was a subsequent owner.

Dave and Nancy Brannon bought the property and operated it during the 1980s as Brannon's Wilderness Lodge, even offering winter sleigh rides up the creek from Wapiti Campground for gourmet dinners and overnight accommodations.

Gunbarrel Fire management officer Mark Giacoletto said extreme fire behavior Sunday evening pushed the blaze more than four miles in three hours. The Sweetwater drainage was filled with flames and smoke so heavy firefighters were not sure of the fate of the lodge until it cleared.

“There was no way we were going to put people in that drainage,” Giacoletto said.

Root said prior to the extreme fire activity, a helicopter had been prepared to take a sling of firefighting supplies and personnel to the lodge and establish a sprinkler system that might have saved the property.

Firefighting resources had been prioritized, with work on “private, operating and functioning structures in the western part of the North Fork corridor” heading the list, however.

Because there was no motorized access to the lodge, helicopters had been used to drop water on and around the buildings Saturday. Plans to place sprinklers near the lodge were not feasible to implement due to hazardous fire conditions.

The Gunbarrel Fire was started by lightning July 26 and has burned 31,000 acres along the North Fork of the Shoshone River.

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