Rawlins sits on the Red Desert Plateau surrounded by mountains, including the Sierra Madre to the south. It takes its name from General John A. Rawlins, a decorated Civil War veteran. Seems Rawlins was guarding a work detachment in 1882, and sent a scout party for some water. They found a natural spring, and Rawlins declared the water so tasty that he'd be honored to have such a spring named after him, which it promptly was. A tiny town grew around the site.
Today, Rawlins, population 9,300, is more dependent on oil than water. Six miles to the east is the Sinclair Refinery, and there are several pipelines in the Rawlins area, notably Amoco and Conoco. That sounds fairly civilized, but Rawlins was once a raucous outpost of the Wild West, and it lays claim to a bit of bizarre outlaw lore. First there is outlaw George Manuse, a cattle rustler also known as Big Nose George Parrot. Once part of the James Gang, he was caught for his part in an unsuccessful train robbery. A lynch mob in Rawlins hanged him from a telegraph pole on what is now Front Street.
But even stranger events occurred after Big Nose George's demise. A young doctor , J.E. Osborne, took possession of the cadaver and sawed off the top of Big Nose George 's skull to see if the brain differed from the ordinary...and Dr. Lillian Nelson, Wyoming 's first woman doctor, later used the top of the skull as a doorstop. Odder still , Osborne had Big Nose skinned, and sent the hide to Denver to be made into a pair of shoes, which Osborne then wore for special occasions Construction workers discovered Big Nose's other remains in a whiskey barrel in 1950, as they tore down Osborne's house. Today, peculiarly enough, one of Rawlins' top attractions is the Carbon County Museum, which displays the shoes, along with the partial and top of George's skull.
Ferris Mansion
George Ferris was one of those pioneers who stopped along the trail westward to settle a small town. He moved to Rawlins shortly after the Civil War, with a fortune made in livestock and copper mining. When he died, he left his widow with the plans to build an 8,000-square-foot Queen Anne-style brick home, complete with spiraling turret, a wide veranda and gingerbread trim. The grand Victorian was subdivided for apartments in the 1930s, and by the time Janice and David Lubbers bought the mansion in 1979, the place was neglected and had been largely forgotten
Janice invited her sister, Phyllis Lenz, to move from New England and help with the restoration. Lenz ended up staying 20 years. First, the three converted the home back to a single-family dwelling. They tore out walls and refinished the floors, and removed layers of wallpaper and worn out carpet. They started out with local contractors , but soon were doing much of the work themselves, drawing from information available at the local library.
Janice and Phyllis spent years stripping every door and piece of trim to reveal the beautiful, rare woods underneath the paint--including bird's-eye maple in the back parlor. When the Lubbers learned that the original staircase had been disassembled and stored, they bought it back and re-assembled it piece by piece. For three years , the three operated a bed-and-breakfast in addition to continuing restoration chores. Today, they've disbanded the B&B and are almost ready to declare the project done, except for a few exterior touch-ups.
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