SUNRISE – People from all over Platte County and Goshen County came to participate in the inaugural Sunrise Street Dance that was held to raise funds for the further refurbishing of the Sunrise YMCA along with the 1927 Graham Brothers Fire Truck that was used through seven decades to fight fires in Sunrise.

The dance is going to be traditionally held on the Saturday of the Labor Day weekend and this year John Voight, owner of the town of Sunrise said that he was very pleased with the turnout for the event and with the money that was raised for the restoration of the firetruck and the further restoration of the YMCA.

There were an estimated 150 people who showed up to the street dance where they found Voight performing his one-man show and providing all the music for the dance that was going on in the street to the north of the YMCA. Scott Harmon, owner of Miners and Stockmen’s Steakhouse provided the meat and manned the grill cooking up gourmet hamburgers for the large crowd. Harmon also had volunteers from his establishment selling and serving up drinks.

The dance began formally at 6 p.m. Sept. 3 and lasted well beyond its supposed closing time of 9 p.m. Many volunteers came to help with security, parking, luminaries, lighting, food and fundraising.

Voight has found many interesting items left behind by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company when the once mega-giant pulled all of its mining operations from the town in the early ‘80s. Voight has donated the existing YMCA building, built in 1917 by John D. Rockefeller to former state of Wyoming lead archaeologist George Zeimens’ nonprofit corporation the Western Plains Historic Preservation Association.

Another interesting find was the firetruck that the mine was going to originally haul to the junkyard. It was spared and saved and repurchased by the town of Sunrise where it will be an integral part of the museum that the YMCA is morphing into.

“I think it’s so amazing that John would be willing to preserve history on a place he wouldn’t have to, but he’s choosing to do that and keeping the integrity,” Platte County 4th District Representative Haroldson said. “This is a diamond in the rough that needs to definitely be grabbed and polished. I am a “high functioner” and I would be overwhelmed by what John has taken on. I think there is so much potential. I think we have a place that people would drive from many states to come see.”

The Sunrise YMCA, originally built in 1917 by John D. Rockefeller Jr. is undergoing some renovations that will help to restore and repurpose the old building as a museum for the thousands of artifacts that have been discovered in a four-year archaeological excavation at the now defunct Sunrise iron mine.

Voight came with a very special vision came to the rescue. Now, some people will rescue dogs, others horses and even people. The town, north of the metropolis of Hartville which has 62 people living in it. That is 61 people more than the town of Sunrise.

There have been renovations here and there as Voight took on the project not knowing exactly what to do with it. He did know that he just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. It was almost as if the echoes of the past were calling his name and crying not to be forgotten.

The land began to yield up its treasures in the form of thousands of Clovis artifacts. Today, it is not a ghost town, although it is said to be inhabited by one ghost.

The long-forgotten town is beginning to be recognized as a major community of current vision, ancient history and dedicated research.

The entire town was purchased and is currently owned by Voight.

“So, it all began by the fact that I knew the prior owner,” Voight said. “It was in the 1990s and I was working a historic property downtown Cheyenne. I had several buildings down there and having good luck working some old projects, and I loved it because it gave me the chance to work old buildings, update them a little bit and get them productive again.”

It was there that Voight who was born in Wheatland and raised on a ranch in Chugwater, met the man who inherited not only some old buildings in Cheyenne, but also the entire town of Sunrise from his father.

“Having grown up in this area, 60 miles south of here, not knowing about Sunrise; that intrigued me,” he said. “So, I came up and visited the place in the late 1990s for the first time in my life. It still amazes me to this day why we never talked about Sunrise. In fact, I can never remember it coming up in history class or social studies class. And here was this very large consequential mine; one of the largest iron mines west of the Mississippi, so close by and we didn’t know about it.”

At one point, Voight evaluated his age and began to wonder if perhaps his vision would outlive him. There was only so much one man could do with limited funding. Especially in the restoration of an entire town.