Morton Mansion

The old residential area along the east edge of the Douglas business district includes several stately homes built by some of the more ambitious and successful business owners of early Douglas. One of these homes, located within the downtown area, is the mansion built by John Morton. A German immigrant, Morton made his fortune in sheep-ranching, owning and operating what was once the largest ranch in Converse County. Although Morton died in 1916, his wife Sarah assumed management of the Morton holdings, and resided in the mansion until her own death in 1952. Converse County acquired the building in 1980, and operated it as a youth home until the late 1990’s, when it passed again into private hands, was meticulously restored, and operated for a time as a “bed and breakfast” inn. The three-story wood-frame mansion includes an expansive, fully-roofed, wraparound porch, attesting to Morton’s love of the outdoors, and two chimneys of red brick—attesting to Morton’s respect for Wyoming winters. The prominent, varied roof line, asymmetrical floor plan, and projecting window bay on the east wall of the structure are all characteristic of the “Queen Anne” style, a mode of design that was most popular in the 1880’s and 1890’s, and is manifest, usually in residential architecture, in almost every city of both the United States and Great Britain. The interior included ornate woodwork, hardwood floors, pocket doors, and a dazzling variety of intricate wallpapers. At the exterior, to demarcate the extent of his property, Morton installed an ornate, cast-iron fence, which encompasses an adjoining lot he owned to the immediate west. (A subsequent owner relocated Morton’s wood-frame carriage house onto the north portion of this adjoining lot, and fortified its façades with masonry sheathing.) Morton’s residence was the creation of William Dubois, a prolific, early 20th century Wyoming architect who designed many other Douglas structures (most since razed). In Douglas, surviving Dubois works include the Ashlar Lodge, and two other mansions, for John T. Williams and J. DeForest Richards.