(PHOTOS) Troublesome Casper residences near NCHS cleared by growing small business

CASPER, Wyo. – It took only a few hours for a single-family house that stood more than a century to be turned into an unrecognizable pile of rubble on Thursday.

The demolition pile was topped with a worn, stained mattress while the backhoe finished organizing the debris. Next door, Casper Fire-EMS firefighters sawed and chopped on a row of small apartments that were serving as a training ground before they too become piles of rubble.

David Starcevich, who owns Copper Cup Coffee Company with his wife, Ariel, watched the progress unfold next door to their business, where they also live with their young children. When the properties came up for sale recently, he immediately pounced.

“For a long time they’ve been an unmaintained and dilapidated couple of buildings,” he said. David and Ariel purchased a former veterinarian’s building some years back, spending months converting it into a coffee shop and roastery that opened in early 2023. Since settling there, the business has thrived, but he said the neighboring buildings were longtime magnets for drug use and sex workers. Even more concerning is the fact that they’re a short walking distance from Park Elementary and NCHS.

“The property was held under a trust for a long, long time,” he said. “I believe the head of the trust had passed away recently, so the trustees wanted to sell it. [Realtor] Jim Edgeworth came to us before he put it on the market and made us an offer, so we bought it.”

David said the house at 639 South Ash, and the neighboring apartment strip at 226 to 244 West Seventh Street, were likely built from 1917 to 1920, when Casper’s first oil boom ushered in rapid growth and an insatiable demand for quick housing.

The apartment strip were pretty typical in the area. They featured a small, narrow living room, galley kitchen next to a tiny bathroom, and a bedroom in the back. Numerous similar setups around Natrona County High School have been razed over the years.

David called the apartments “semi-occupied.” Most of the apartment units were eerily quiet on Thursday afternoon, and filled with belongings abandoned by the tenants. Rotting food in fridges, beds, cooking stoves, TVs, appliances and children’s toys littered the rooms and lot. An old Pepsi vending machine sat in front one of the apartments.

During their training, firefighting crews sawed out window sills for rescue operations known as “window-to-door conversions,” and wielded axes on the roof to make holes that would ventilate smoke during a real fire.

The building gave firefighters the kind of on-site training that has become more rare over the years, according to Fire Captain Dane Andersen.

“Sometimes demo crews will give us a call and give us the opportunity to get in here before their scheduled work, so that’s a huge advantage to us and we’re massively grateful,” he said.

“Every building is different here in Casper,” he said. “Being exposed and around different types of building construction is helpful. The training facility doesn’t change, but to put ourselves in a real situation like we very well might find any day of the week is nothing but advantageous, and it makes our firefighters better at what we do.”

Demolition on the apartment will start next, and the land will eventually be used for Copper Cup’s growing business. It gives him a chance to widen the drive-up lane, and build a bit of parking. The electric lines underneath gives them an opportunity to make hookups for possible food trucks, and there’s also the options of future expansions.

“It’s a beautiful neighborhood,” said David. “You’ve got two schools, the State Building, you’re right on the edge of downtown with David Street Station over there, it really is the center of a lot of cool activities.”