HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Wyoming's oldest bar, its back bar hand-carved in Germany in 1862, where staff say the piano still plays on its own.
608 Main Street, Hartville, WY 82215
Research updated August 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$$
Steakhouse pricing; reservations recommended by phone. Children under 5 are not seated in the dining room.
Access
Limited Access
Historic single-story building on Hartville's Main Street
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1862 · 1862 back bar, hand-carved in Germany, moved from Fort Laramie · Oldest continuously operating business in Wyoming · Hartville incorporated 1901 to keep gambling out of county reach
The centerpiece of Miners and Stockmen's Steakhouse and Spirits is its back bar, a cherrywood piece carved by the Brunswick Brothers' brewmasters in Germany in 1862, its posts worked into the faces of five brothers. The bar crossed the Atlantic to New York, rode the rails to Cheyenne, and finished its journey by wagon to Fort Laramie, where it served the fort's officers' club into the 1880s.
When Fort Laramie's post closed, the bar moved to the Hartville Opera House, where it stayed in service until 1941. According to Scott Harmon, the restaurant's current co-owner, an elderly patron once told him he remembered the bar's final move, in 1942 or 1943, watching it rolled up the street to the building it occupies today.
Hartville itself grew up around mining and cattle money, and its Main Street saw prospectors, cattle rustlers, and shootouts in its early decades. The town incorporated on its own in 1901 specifically to keep gambling and its saloons out of the reach of county authorities based in distant Cheyenne. A jail cell still stands at the back of the building, and local stories describe rowdy patrons handcuffed to poles until they sobered up. During Prohibition, regulars are said to have gathered in the basement to drink out of sight.
Scott and Christine Harmon have owned and operated the restaurant since 2014, running it as a steakhouse built around the historic bar and the building's long run as one of the oldest continuously operating businesses in Wyoming.
Sources
The building's paranormal reputation, as reported by Travel Wyoming and other regional coverage, is diffuse rather than centered on one story or one name. The recurring account is a piano that is heard to play on its own; other reports describe the sound of boots shuffling behind patrons when no one is there and lights flickering with no apparent electrical cause.
Given the building's run through shootouts, cattle-rustling days, and Prohibition-era drinking in the basement, staff and regulars tend to treat the activity as generic old-building mischief rather than attribute it to any specific historical figure. The restaurant does not market itself primarily as a haunted attraction, and the ghost stories circulate mostly through regional Wyoming travel and haunted-places coverage rather than the restaurant's own promotion.
Reserve a table by phone at Wyoming's oldest operating bar and steakhouse. The back bar was hand-carved by German brewmasters in 1862 and traveled from Fort Laramie's officers' club to the Hartville Opera House before reaching its current building around 1942. Ask staff about the piano that plays with no one at the keys.
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