Johann Peter “Bear Paw Pete” & Anna (Schiltz) Guidinger
Johann Peter Guidinger was born in 1849 at Dubuque, Iowa. His father Peter Guidinger was born in Luxembourg in 1807 and emigrated to Iowa with his wife Maria and 4 small children. Son Peter was born in Iowa. According to Nicolas Gonner in an article in the Luxemburger Gazette (translated from German), "In the long row of German settlements, which developed in part of Delaware County and along the western border of Dubuque County, lie sister settlements of Worthington and Cascade. The first German setters were seven Luxemburgish families, who arrived simultaneously in 1846 and settled about half way between both places. Their names were Pet. Guidinger, Th. Loess, Fr. Ternes, M. Leytem, Schneider, Gebr. Trierweiler and John Faber. At that time everything was uncultivated. Herds of wild horses, prairie dogs, and wild pigs wandered through the area, and only four poor log houses were to be found in the entire area between Cascade and Rockville. Many Luxembourgers followed, and settled mostly near Cascade, and comprised four fifths of the over hundred families of this strong community, while near Worthington the settlers came from the Rhine and mingled somewhat with Luxembourgers."
In the fall of 1877 Peter drove a freight train loaded with whiskey from Dubuque to Deadwood, Dakota territory. The men of the freight wagons would steal whiskey at night and add water so the whiskey would not be missed. They thinned it down until by the time Peter arrived in Deadwood the whiskey was frozen! Deadwood was just a few rough shacks at the time. Peter worked in the mines in the Hills area until 1881. I assume he acquired his nickname “Bear Paw Pete during this timeframe, but I don’t know for sure when or what the background story was.
He spent the winter of 1881-82 in a dugout west of the Wyoming line, near Montana Lake fearing an Indian attack. He then returned to Iowa, got married and came back to Wyoming, filing on a homestead one mile east of the South Dakota-Wyoming line, near the timber. According to Charles Guidinger, “It was not much of a ranch…and there was trouble with Indians. At that time there was lots of good land on Sand Creek but the people were afraid of the Indians, as they were camped on the creek. There was a small bunch of white people living in a dugout 100 yards east of where the flour mill stands now. The dugout was in the north bank of Sand Creek. One day the people in the dugout thought it was awful quiet outside, they thought the Indians had left…one of the party stuck his head out and was killed. They got to where they had to do something so one night one of the party stepped into Sand Creek and went down river far enough to get help.”
He had married Anna Shiltz who was born in 1858 in Des Moines, Iowa. Anna was born in Luxembourg in 1855. She was the youngest of the 5 children of Mathias Schiltz and Anna Maria Weydert who worked in the Hotel business there. She immigrated to Exira, Iowa, in 1884 where her sister Elizabeth had settled. She had agreed to marry Peter Guidinger, an Iowan of Luxembourgish descent, who had homesteaded in Beulah, Wyoming if he would pay her passage to America. (According to a family member the birth date for her makes her 3 years older than it appears on her headstone. (I have a copy of her birth certificate) We know that Anna agreed to marry Peter Guidinger if he paid her way over to the US. Since she was actually 29 instead of the 26 she told her soon to be husband, we believe she told this little white lie as 29 was considered an “old lady” back in those days especially if the suitor was wanting children. Nonetheless Anna did not disappoint. Together they raised 6 children to adulthood.)
They lived at the ranch until 1895, when they moved into Beulah. It was the late 80s, and Beulah was really beginning to build. A man by the name of Louis Mizner had a store on the north side of the street. Across on the south side a man by the name of Wheeler ran a hotel and just west of Wheeler there was a feed barn. Across from Wheelers there was a bar and dance hall, just east of Mizner’s store. West of the store, Bart Bissaca had a bar too. On the south side of the street Aikman and Corbett opened up a store. Henry Reinecke bought the Mizner store and ran it for years. Later Joe Belleveau and Fred Howell bought Aikman’s store.
Reinecke built the flour mill just west of Sand Creek, which Frank Andrews ran for many years – there would be a double string of four-horse loads of wheat from the Beulah bridge waiting to unload their wheat. Some of them would have to stay in Beulah for two or three days to get their flour to start back, as some would come as far as 150 miles. There were five barns in Beulah and they would all be full of teams every night when the wheat was coming in fall and winter. They came from Newcastle, Four Corners and the Flying V as well.
Peter and Anna had saved enough money and built Hotel P. Guidinger, which they ran for the rest of their lives. Anna died on her 38th wedding anniversary May 2nd 1922, Peter in 1924.
Johann Peter Guidinger was born in 1849 at Dubuque, Iowa. His father Peter Guidinger was born in Luxembourg in 1807 and emigrated to Iowa with his wife Maria and 4 small children. Son Peter was born in Iowa. According to Nicolas Gonner in an article in the Luxemburger Gazette (translated from German), "In the long row of German settlements, which developed in part of Delaware County and along the western border of Dubuque County, lie sister settlements of Worthington and Cascade. The first German setters were seven Luxemburgish families, who arrived simultaneously in 1846 and settled about half way between both places. Their names were Pet. Guidinger, Th. Loess, Fr. Ternes, M. Leytem, Schneider, Gebr. Trierweiler and John Faber. At that time everything was uncultivated. Herds of wild horses, prairie dogs, and wild pigs wandered through the area, and only four poor log houses were to be found in the entire area between Cascade and Rockville. Many Luxembourgers followed, and settled mostly near Cascade, and comprised four fifths of the over hundred families of this strong community, while near Worthington the settlers came from the Rhine and mingled somewhat with Luxembourgers."
In the fall of 1877 Peter drove a freight train loaded with whiskey from Dubuque to Deadwood, Dakota territory. The men of the freight wagons would steal whiskey at night and add water so the whiskey would not be missed. They thinned it down until by the time Peter arrived in Deadwood the whiskey was frozen! Deadwood was just a few rough shacks at the time. Peter worked in the mines in the Hills area until 1881. I assume he acquired his nickname “Bear Paw Pete during this timeframe, but I don’t know for sure when or what the background story was.
He spent the winter of 1881-82 in a dugout west of the Wyoming line, near Montana Lake fearing an Indian attack. He then returned to Iowa, got married and came back to Wyoming, filing on a homestead one mile east of the South Dakota-Wyoming line, near the timber. According to Charles Guidinger, “It was not much of a ranch…and there was trouble with Indians. At that time there was lots of good land on Sand Creek but the people were afraid of the Indians, as they were camped on the creek. There was a small bunch of white people living in a dugout 100 yards east of where the flour mill stands now. The dugout was in the north bank of Sand Creek. One day the people in the dugout thought it was awful quiet outside, they thought the Indians had left…one of the party stuck his head out and was killed. They got to where they had to do something so one night one of the party stepped into Sand Creek and went down river far enough to get help.”
He had married Anna Shiltz who was born in 1858 in Des Moines, Iowa. Anna was born in Luxembourg in 1855. She was the youngest of the 5 children of Mathias Schiltz and Anna Maria Weydert who worked in the Hotel business there. She immigrated to Exira, Iowa, in 1884 where her sister Elizabeth had settled. She had agreed to marry Peter Guidinger, an Iowan of Luxembourgish descent, who had homesteaded in Beulah, Wyoming if he would pay her passage to America. (According to a family member the birth date for her makes her 3 years older than it appears on her headstone. (I have a copy of her birth certificate) We know that Anna agreed to marry Peter Guidinger if he paid her way over to the US. Since she was actually 29 instead of the 26 she told her soon to be husband, we believe she told this little white lie as 29 was considered an “old lady” back in those days especially if the suitor was wanting children. Nonetheless Anna did not disappoint. Together they raised 6 children to adulthood.)
They lived at the ranch until 1895, when they moved into Beulah. It was the late 80s, and Beulah was really beginning to build. A man by the name of Louis Mizner had a store on the north side of the street. Across on the south side a man by the name of Wheeler ran a hotel and just west of Wheeler there was a feed barn. Across from Wheelers there was a bar and dance hall, just east of Mizner’s store. West of the store, Bart Bissaca had a bar too. On the south side of the street Aikman and Corbett opened up a store. Henry Reinecke bought the Mizner store and ran it for years. Later Joe Belleveau and Fred Howell bought Aikman’s store.
Reinecke built the flour mill just west of Sand Creek, which Frank Andrews ran for many years – there would be a double string of four-horse loads of wheat from the Beulah bridge waiting to unload their wheat. Some of them would have to stay in Beulah for two or three days to get their flour to start back, as some would come as far as 150 miles. There were five barns in Beulah and they would all be full of teams every night when the wheat was coming in fall and winter. They came from Newcastle, Four Corners and the Flying V as well.
Peter and Anna had saved enough money and built Hotel P. Guidinger, which they ran for the rest of their lives. Anna died on her 38th wedding anniversary May 2nd 1922, Peter in 1924.