This is your chance to own a rare historical home in Cheyenne. This home has a main floor primary bedroom with a primary bathroom along with a main floor laundry room. The garage was built in 2008 and has an unfinished bonus room that is 36 x 14. So many possibilities for this space. The location is hard to beat. Easily walk to downtown shops and restaurants. You can also walk east to Holliday Park in minutes.
The Dillman House History
The Dillman House was built in 1886 by Joseph and Katherine (Katie) Dillman. Joseph was from Germany and Katie was from Prague. Joseph was a businessman, owning a family restaurant, hotel and laundry. His primary office was located on Eddy St. (currently Carey Ave.) between 16th and 17th St. He would often say that he had to walk across the prairie to get home.
The Dillman’s raised 9 children in this house:
* William, the first, was born Oct. 25, 1876. He was a short man who was forced to put wedges in his shoes when he wanted to enlist. He went to Notre Dame and was said to be the “wild one with an eye for the ladies”.
* George was next on Feb. 22, 1882 and then Fred on Aug. 2, 1889, both went to West Point.
* Robert arrived on May 13, 1892, it was a Friday, and they never let him live that down. Rob went to the University of Michigan and according to his family, in the inventor of Homogenization. Google says different, but... you know, family. He was a mechanical engineer with blond hair and blue eyes, the gentle son. Robert is also Helen Duskins father, the source of all the information and the painter of the sink in the suite bathroom. Her most prominent memory of the house was the fireplace in the dining room. It was her grandfather Joseph’s pride and joy. He sent to Italy for the black marble to complete the project.
* Ernie was born on Oct 27, 1894 and went to the University of Michigan as well.
* Mary Elizabeth Dillman-Buck, nicknamed Mayme, was one of four daughters. The other three names are unknown and the birth dates for all four are also unknown. There was one still born child who’s believed to have a grave site in the Greek section of the cemetery on Seymore Ave. That is also where the graves of Joseph and Katherine are. The house was heated by a pot-bellied stove in what is now the kitchen, and everyone took baths in there to be in front of the stove.
Buffalo Bill was said to have given buffalo head to Joseph for his hotel lobby and that it took three men to lift it up to be mounted on the wall. Nobody knows what happened to it after the hotel was sold.
Shirley Johnson, a former owner and original author of this document, also went to the Wyoming State Museum and found out the following information:
* There has been an address of 601 since 1886, which validated Helen’s date of Joseph Dillman building the house. City and real estate records only go back to 1914.
* In the early 1950s, the house was owned by Sarah Metcalfe, who rented out many rooms to the Union Pacific Railroad workers.
* The house was vacant in 1957 when it was bought by Johnson Earl. He was a carpenter and she was a waitress and they turned the house into apartments in 1964.
* In 1996 Larry Edgar and his mail-order wife from Mexico, purchased the house and began the process of turning the apartments back to a single residence. They didn’t get very far when they divorced.
* Sean and Shirley Johnson purchased the home and moved in with their two babies Shari and Regan. They completed the restoration into a beautiful Victorian single family home and added the “Taj Mahal” of garages.
* In 2016 Jonathan Savelle purchased the house and moved in with his girlfriend Melanie (Mel) and gave the entire house and yard a facelift.
