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Iconic Wyoming ice cream parlor is a Frankenstein mashup of historic buildings

Vaseline

DOUGLAS – History is literally melting out of the Plains Old Fashion Ice Cream Parlor at the Plains Motel and Trading Post on the city’s east side at 628 E. Richards St.

It is a beautiful conclusion to a rich past that stems from the buildings that make up the rest of the complex.

Wanda Hegglund opened the unique complex of historic buildings from the region in 1979 to create the combination motel, restaurant, lounge and ice cream parlor. A local architect helped make the vision a reality.

Current co-owner Ed Hegglund, Wanda’s son, said the ice cream building was used for apartments in the 1970s and then condemned before the family bought it and moved it south on Fifth Street to house the ice cream parlor and to make it into a museum. Today.

“That was the first part of everything we opened here: the ice cream shop,” he said.

But before the salon existed and before the building housed apartments, it had other uses. It started as a country barn built in 1880 and moved to 138 N. 5th St. in Douglas in the early 1900s.

The barn

Mark Dorr of Gillette said the barn was part of his great-grandfather’s historic Dorr Ranch, northeast of what is now Bill, Wyoming, where the remaining buildings are part of the National Registry of Historical Places.

“One major building was removed from the ranch, and that was their barn,” Dorr said. “The barn was moved to Douglas and initially converted into a birth house, and my father was actually born there.”

Turns out the barn-turned-birthplace was also where the future owner of the Plains Motel and Trading Post would be born in 1932: Wanda Hegglund.

On the wall of the museum on the second floor of the ice cream parlor is a history book: “There used to be a wood stove in the middle of the building with newspaper on the walls. … In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Mrs. Smith operated this as a maternity home and boarding house. Mrs. Smith was the midwife for many Wyoming ladies and delivered their babies.”

Today, little is known about the barn. However, the late Douglas architect Neil Goodrich incorporated remnants of other former Douglas buildings and one of Casper into its appearance.

For example, the plinth blocks used for the cladding came from various homes in Douglas. The parlor’s ceiling and ice cream parlor were made from doors from the Henning Hotel in Casper. Marble came from the old Converse County Courthouse. The stairs and railing leading to a museum on the second floor came from the former Douglas Elementary School to the south.

  • The Plains Ice Cream Parlor counter was also built with doors from the Henning Hotel in Casper.
    The Plains Ice Cream Parlor counter was also built with doors from the Henning Hotel in Casper. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
  • A huge ice cream sundae with three scoops.
    A huge ice cream sundae with three scoops. (Plains Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor)
  • The ceiling in the Plains Ice Cream Parlor came from doors from the Henning Hotel in Casper.
    The ceiling in the Plains Ice Cream Parlor came from doors from the Henning Hotel in Casper. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
  • Nothing refreshes on a hot day like a cool cone.
    Nothing refreshes on a hot day like a cool cone. (Plains Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor)
  • The Plains Ice Cream Parlor in Douglas offers ice cream, sundaes, shakes and more, as well as a taste of historic Douglas-area structures woven into the building.
    The Plains Ice Cream Parlor in Douglas offers ice cream, sundaes, shakes and more, as well as a taste of historic Douglas-area structures woven into the building. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
  • The second floor of the Plains Ice Cream Parlor houses a museum with many antique and historical artifacts that represent life in the past.
    The second floor of the Plains Ice Cream Parlor houses a museum with many antique and historical artifacts that represent life in the past. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
  • The stairs to the museum above the Plains Ice Cream Parlor in Douglas come from a former elementary school in Douglas.
    The stairs to the museum above the Plains Ice Cream Parlor in Douglas come from a former elementary school in Douglas. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
  • A room in the museum above the Plains Ice Cream Parlor features some taxidermied animals, as well as a display of model cars and a train.
    A room in the museum above the Plains Ice Cream Parlor features some taxidermied animals, as well as a display of model cars and a train. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
  • The three upstairs rooms include a dining room with items that came from families in the Douglas area.
    The three upstairs rooms include a dining room with items that came from families in the Douglas area. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
  • The Plains Trading Post in Douglas contains several historic structures that have been architecturally combined into an ice cream parlor, restaurant, lounge and motel.
    The Plains Trading Post in Douglas contains several historic structures that have been architecturally combined into an ice cream parlor, restaurant, lounge and motel. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)

A museum

In the upstairs museum, visitors can view an old 5-cent jackpot machine, as well as vintage artifacts and antiques on display in three rooms where mothers and babies lived decades ago. One room offers a display case with antique model cars and a train. There is also taxidermy from the West on display: a lynx, fox and coyote.

In another room there is a dining table with various plates, bottles and other trinkets. A third room shows a kitchen with antique stoves, cupboards and utensils.

Ed Hegglund’s wife, Valerie, said that while spring is typically a slower season, the ice cream parlor gets busy in the summer.

“When it gets warm, they come for ice cream,” she said.

The store features four booths, six stools and a lounge with the original sofa cage from the first bank in Douglas.

The menu offers ice cream cones, shakes, malts, floats, sundaes and banana splits with a variety of ice cream flavors and syrups to choose from.

The complex includes the 47-room motel that incorporates a Douglas camp building built in the early 1940s for Italian and German prisoners. Valerie Hegglund said the Plains complex had been on the rise in recent years when it served as a local bus stop in Douglas.

When the project started in the 1970s, Valerie Hegglund said Goodrich told Wanda Hegglund that the area would grow and workers would need meals and housing.

“He told my mother-in-law in the 1970s that coal, uranium and oil are going to boom, and we need to build a place where people can come in and eat 24 hours a day,” she said. “And there’s only one day we’re closed, and that’s when the architect died. We had his funeral and we closed things down. But when my mother-in-law died, she said, “If you don’t keep the doors open after I die, I’ll come and haunt you.”

The ice cream parlour, restaurant and lounge are open 24 hours a day all year round.

Valley Killingbeck can be reached at [email protected].

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