McWhinnie House

The McWhinnie House was built for a British immigrant of Scottish descent, Campbell Holt McWhinnie. After serving aboard a sailing ship in England’s merchant marine, he came to America, and thence to the Wyoming Territory, eventually homesteading along the North Platte River. In 1906, he moved his young family into the newly-constructed 4th Street house, where they lived for the next 17 years, until 1923, when McWhinnie was appointed State Land Commissioner and the family relocated to Cheyenne. The house is distinctive for the canted main entryway, and for the central tower, crowned with a pyramidal roof, that emerges from the junction of the gable-roofed projections at the second floor. These two features lend the building a subtle Victorian air, consonant with McWhinnie’s heritage. One other detail attracts the eye: the roof above the projecting bay window on the west facade is a level surface surmounted by a low railing—the whole assemblage looking, in its own quaint way, not unlike the deck of a merchant marine sailing ship. The house has undergone no fundamental outward changes since its construction, apart from replacement of roofing, siding, and window frames. A large cottonwood tree that dominates the front yard might be by McWhinnie’s hand; anyway, a multitude of the same also grace the Douglas State Fairground, thanks in large part to the program of planting initiated by the ex-merchant marine during his four-year tenure on the Fair’s managing board, beginning in 1908.