Background: Business man Casper Harry ‘the man in the barrel’ Yesness is a showman at heart

CASPER, Wyo Harry Yesness is not a person who is afraid of attention.

In fact, the man who was the powerhouse of downtown business during Casper’s heyday made some of his earliest paychecks catching the attention of audiences in nightclubs and on the vaudeville stage.

For decades, the Harry Yesness clothing store was a landmark on the Casper retail scene, and its shameless advertising amused, or perhaps disturbed, generations of locals.

“Harry’s pants are always going down…the price,” shouted the advertisements on billboards, vehicles, and newspaper advertisements. “Look for the Man in the Barrel” became his most enduring catchphrase, along with an illustration of a tall man curled up in a barrel. It’s well known that Harry has a statue made of the image, with water gushing from his head that greets customers at his flagship downtown location for decades.

Harry’s driving work ethic developed from the desperation of his youth. His parents immigrated from Europe with only their luggage, settling in Detroit, where Harry was born.

According to a 1982 Casper Star-Tribune article, Harry’s father died after the family moved to Denver. Young Harry immediately went to work selling paper on the street, only to be mercilessly harassed by the older kids protecting their territory. His younger sister, Tillie, would collect coal from the railroad tracks to heat their little house. He later worked as Harry’s shop manager in his business.

Harry eventually begins to do a routine of singing, dancing, and comedy at the club before entering the vaudeville circuit. He arrived in Casper in 1919 to perform and decided to stay.

Harry raised enough money to buy a battered suit pressing business, and was soon selling men’s suits from a rented apartment on West Midwest Ave. Since the apartment had no display windows, he built a wagon with large windows which he used as a rolling display. case for her clothes.

His natural ability for showmanship and almost shameless promotion quickly paid off.

In the early 1920s he sold clothes from a shop on West Second Street, where at Christmas he would throw piles of coins off the roof for the children below. He was also a philanthropist, handing out hundreds of meal tickets to people who were starving when Casper’s economy exploded and slumped in the late 1920s.

By 1933 he had moved his shop to 139 South Center, and then moved to 133 South Center after he bought the building. It is now home to the Sierra West. A Harry Yesness store opened in Eastridge Mall in 1982 when shoppers were drawn from downtown to the new district.

Harry invested in Casper’s land and development, becoming a major landowner along the way, some of which he donated back to town.

Harry sold his clothing store in 1959, and died the following year at the age of 70. The following year, Harry Yesness Park at 4100 SW Wyoming Blvd. baptized in the land he donated, which is located near the Harry Yesness Reservoir. The park was built on land that was part of the CY Ranch, which Harry purchased in 1940. Yesness intended to keep the land as a working ranch, but as Casper quickly became a crew after World War II, he sold most of the ranch’s land. in pieces for the housing subdivision.

During the park’s opening ceremony, Yesness’ sister Tillie said, “I pray that there will always be great happiness in this land, for that is the spirit it gives.”

The Harry Yesness store was eventually consolidated at Eastridge Mall and continued into the early 1990s.

The fate of the Harry barrel statue was unknown for years until it finally entered the collection of the Fort Caspar Museum earlier this year.

Harry Yesness, a struggling showman who grew up with nothing, comes to Casper at the right time and uses his skills to become one of the most successful city entrepreneurs of his era. While the shop hasn’t been around for a long time, anyone who goes fishing or on a picnic at Yesness Pond should thank “the man in the barrel.”

Related Stories from Oil City News: