Fight club and ghosts: Former first kids remember historic governor’s mansion

In 1958, the Wyoming Governor’s Mansion in Cheyenne hosted an underground fight club. The ring was makeshift and all fights were open-weight. It was by invite only, and the club’s promoter was also a frequent contender — he weighed in at 67.5 pounds. That promoter was Paul Hickey, then 8 years old and the son of Wyoming’s 24th governor, John Joseph Hickey.

Paul and his brother John had been inspired by the Gillette Cavalcade Friday Night Fights. Their fight club was a hit with the neighborhood’s rowdier kids, until the authorities found out and shut it down. “My mother got a belly full of it and finally she said, ‘That’s the end of this. We’re not going to have fights in the basement,'” said Paul Hickey, now 76. “That’s when the boxing ring had to come down.”

Hickey is one of the few remaining former tenants of the Historic Governor’s Mansion at 300 E. 21st St. He and other former residents offer a rare view into what it meant to raise a family inside a public building that was also a private residence. It was a life that could feel joyously open with banquet dinners, impromptu gatherings, and intimate interactions with staff, but also a place where the line between public and private could be blurred.

Hickey remembers the mansion not as a symbol of power but as a place with plenty of room to play. He unfurled his baseball cards in the library and tucked away with comic books in the den. He and his brother formed a kids club in the loft above the carriage house called the “Hangman’s Hideout.” Not a lot of kids his age, however, hung around with presidential candidates. He remembers a warm summer night when he joined his father and then-presidential contender Lyndon Johnson on the mansion porch. “We just sat around and shared from the sidelines the fact that dad was hanging out with Lyndon Johnson,” he said.

For young boys with room to roam, the public house expanded childhood. For teenage girls, however, the home could feel far more confining. Susan Garrett, daughter of former Gov. Stanley Hathaway, was 14 when she left behind a quieter life in Torrington for the mansion in Cheyenne. Coming home from school, Garrett and her younger sister would follow the scent of fresh-baked cookies into the kitchen, where staff were already gathered. “They probably knew more about our everyday and what was going on at school than anybody else did,” said Garrett.

Garrett negotiated to have her and her sister’s bedrooms moved to the third floor, away from the prying eyes and foot traffic of the second. The move brought autonomy, but it came with its own peculiarities, like teeth-chattering drafts — and ghosts. “There was a rocking chair outside our rooms, and we always swore that it would start rocking on its own!” she said. There were also suspicious figures among the living. One day, a stranger knocked asking for money for food. The girls later speculated the man had been squatting in the home’s detached garage.

Pete Simpson, son of Wyoming’s 23rd governor, Milward Simpson, moved into the home after graduating from the University of Wyoming. His body, tall as a colonial pillar, was another matter. “My feet dangled off the beds. They were cold, and I had to get an extra blanket down there,” he said. Simpson remembers how the mansion doubled as a workplace. Secretaries worked nearby. Guests came and went. State dinners filled the formal rooms. Sometimes his duty involved entertainment. “The dinners were formal, but really delightful. And after every darn one of them, I was asked to sing a couple songs,” he said.

As a 24-year-old bachelor, Simpson gravitated toward one of his father’s secretaries, a woman named Amy Davis. They became romantically involved. “Dad had a very nice secretary. … I dated her,” he said. It illustrates how life at the Governor’s Mansion could blur boundaries between family, work and social life. “There’s a deep sense of appreciation for public service that comes from seeing a mother and a father who really did have distinguished public service careers,” said Paul Hickey. “I have much appreciation for those years, and a very deep appreciation for what our family’s service and legacy has been.”