{"id":3540,"slug":"dubois-dubois-wyoming","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Dubois is the tie hack town — the Wyoming settlement that became the nation's largest railroad-tie producer, the Scandinavian loggers who hand-hewed ten million ties in the Wind River mountains. The Wyoming Tie and Timber Company ran it from 1914 — the flumes that fed the logs to the river, the spring floods that floated them to Riverton, the villages in the Dunoir Valley that are ruins now.","The name is the protest — the residents wanted Tibo, the Shoshone word for the missionary Roberts they loved; the Postal Service gave them the Idaho senator instead. They pronounce it Du-bois to spite the French — the town that wouldn't take the name's pronunciation. Butch Cassidy shopped at Welty's; the CM Ranch was one of the first dude ranches. The tie hack memorial and the museum keep the logging — the town that built the railroads' foundation.","The file keeps Dubois: the tie hack industry, the Tibo rejection, the flume ruins, and the museum.","Dubois is the archive's tie-hack file — the town that cut the railroad's ties."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Dubois is the archive's tie-hack file — the logging town that named itself wrong.","A town keeps its spite — the file's suggestion being that Dubois's hold is the pronunciation: the Tibo they wanted, the senator they got, and the ties that built the rails anyway."]}],"name":"Dubois","aliases":[],"type":"TOWN","type_label":"Town","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","FRONTIER","TIMBER"],"groups":["hauntings","legends"],"desc":"The tie-hack town—where the badlands meet the mountains.","full_desc":"Dubois is a town in Dubois, Wyoming. The tie-hack town—where the badlands meet the mountains. Its accounts name only a collective — the dubois dead. The dossier holds 2 reported claims, 2 legends, 1 documented fact and 1 named or described presence — documented record and retelling kept side by side. It is a living community — be a respectful visitor.","address":null,"city":"Dubois","county":null,"state":"Wyoming","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":43.545964,"lon":-109.647628,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"MTWY batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":3888,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported figures in the town. A Wyoming town's lore is municipal property; Dubois keeps this account in its unofficial archive. It circulates as local folklore — the kind communities keep rather than verify. Sources including 'Dubois' keep the claim in circulation. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Dubois","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]},{"id":3889,"type":"NAMED_GHOST_LEGEND","description":"The dead are reportedly seen. The accounts name only a collective — the Dubois dead. A Wyoming town's lore is municipal property; Dubois keeps this account in its unofficial archive. The story is documented as legend — recorded and retold, never verified as fact. The report is preserved in sources like 'Dubois'. The name gives the haunting a face, and the sightings give the name a job.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"The Dubois dead","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Dubois","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The town’s history is documented. A Wyoming community's documented history gives the file real ground underneath the local lore. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. Sources including 'Dubois' carry the record. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Dubois","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Reported figures in the town. Dubois, Wyoming is a living community with a dead file — the reports are the town's other history. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. 'Dubois' carries the account. Legends accrue where records go silent; this one filled the gap and stayed.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Dubois","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}},{"name":null,"summary":"The dead are reportedly seen. A Wyoming town's lore is municipal property; Dubois keeps this account in its unofficial archive. It's a documented legend: the telling is real, the contents remain folklore. The legend does what legends do — it explains the place in a way the records can't. The file stays open on it.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Dubois","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[{"name":"The Dubois dead","claimed_identity":"The Dubois dead","verified":null,"summary":"The dead are reportedly seen. The lore files them collectively as the Dubois dead. A Wyoming town's lore is municipal property; Dubois keeps this account in its unofficial archive. Sources including 'Dubois' keep the claim in circulation. The file keeps The Dubois dead on the roster; the sightings keep the name alive.","behavior":"The dead are reportedly seen.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Dubois","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Public townsite; walkable areas are generally accessible year-round.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Dubois","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubois,_Wyoming","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":2,"history":1,"legends":2,"entities":1,"sources":1}}