Melissa Rader and her husband have operated the Moonlighter Motel in Thermopolis since 2019. Since then, they have hosted a large extended family from out of state for an annual trip to visit the town’s hot springs.
Up to six groups of the same family typically call and make a booking, staying three or four nights, Rader said, and reliably occupying several rooms at the no-frills motel. But when one family unit called this year, Rader said, they inquired about the Star Plunge.
“We informed them that it was currently closed and reopening was unknown at this time, but the Tepee Pool as well as the Fountain of Youth remain open,” she told WyoFile. “The first group opted out of making the reservation at this time since the Star Plunge is their whole reason for visiting our little town.”
Stories like Rader’s are beginning to percolate around Thermopolis, a tiny central Wyoming community built around a network of hot springs known for their therapeutic minerals. Hot Springs State Park is an undeniable draw that fuels tourist dollars, and the Star Plunge is one of the main attractions.
The Plunge was shuttered a month ago — the latest development in a months-long battle over the facility’s future management. The facility’s owner, Roland Luehne, sued the state this summer after it selected a new company as a park concessionaire, and the Star Plunge’s management agreement expired at year’s end. The facility will likely remain closed for several months as the courts resolve the legal battle, according to Wyoming State Parks Bighorn Region District Manager Brooks Jordan.
“We’re kind of at the pleasure of the court right now,” Jordan said. “We’re really hopeful that it can be resolved before spring, but it all depends on the court.”
In Hot Springs County, Star Plunge supporters, businesses and swimmers hope the facility reopens soon. Some wonder why the state can’t keep it open for the benefit of the community while the legal matters get sorted.
Rader thinks other businesses will experience a similar fate of canceled bookings — if they haven’t already.
“I believe this is the case for many of our seasonal visitors, and ultimately the closing of the Star Plunge is far more impactful than one may initially think,” she said.
The state, Jordan said, has already made allowances. It let Luehne operate on a string of short-term management agreements that started in 2008 even though Wyoming State Parks sought a long-term lease. It then granted a two-week extension in January even though the court denied Luehne’s request to continue operating after Dec. 31.
A new vision, and pushback
The controversy over the Star Plunge has triggered many threads of debate. Can the state successfully embrace a tourism economy while retaining the homespun character and small-business ethos many here treasure? Should it opt for an out-of-state concessionaire with visions of more upscale amenities at the risk that he will price out locals? Will visitors be pleased with updates many argue are overdue, or dismayed with changes at a facility they visited as a child?
Those tensions aside, the dispute between Wyoming State Parks and Luehne is most simply understood as a landlord-tenant disagreement.
The Luehne family has been operating the Star Plunge since 1975, when Wolfgang and Christine Luehne bought it and took over a 50-year concessionaire lease. Their son, Roland, bought it from them in 2012.
Guided by a vision for an updated and cohesive park laid out in a 2016 master plan, Wyoming State Parks last spring announced it had selected Wyoming Hot Springs LLC as the next leaseé through its request-for-proposal process. Wyoming Hot Springs LLC’s primary representative, Mark Begich, is a former U.S. senator from Alaska, and the company in late 2023 purchased the park’s other aquatic facility, the Tepee Pools.
The state wants reinvestment in the park’s facilities, it says, in order to ensure safety and fulfill its potential as a destination. The 1,100-acre park on the banks of the Big Horn River includes hiking trails, playgrounds, two hotels and hot springs as well as a hospital, library and other buildings. With roughly 1.5 million annual visits, it’s the most popular state park by far. Despite that, some amenities have changed little in the last 50 years.
Wyoming Hot Springs LLC was scheduled to take over at the end of 2024 when Luehne’s management agreement expired. But Luehne’s company, C&W Enterprises, sued the state, accusing the Wyoming State Parks of exceeding its authority and violating regulations. Luehne and his supporters have been vocal on social media and in public meetings in their opposition to the state’s process.
Luehne argued the state is attempting to dislodge him without fairly compensating him for the improvements he’s put into the Star Plunge. That initiated a flurry of legal filings over the fall in a pair of cases that have yet to be resolved. Until they are, Jordan said, the state expects Star Plunge to remain dark.
It’s not being neglected, Jordan noted, as Luehne has been on site nearly every day ensuring it’s in working order. Luehne’s daughter Taylor Sweeney posted a photo on Facebook of him working, alongside a warning about how the closure will hurt the area.
“While businesses may not immediately feel the repercussions of this decision, come spring and summer, the consequences will be devastating,” Sweeney wrote.
Larger ripples
Visitors can still soak at the park’s other hot springs concessionaire, the Tepee Pools, which also has slides and several pools. The free state-run bath house is another option, though soakers are limited to 20 minutes.
Lara Shook has a season pass to the Tepee and spends her lunches in the park, which has benches and tables. One of her concerns is how busy the remaining pool facility has become since Star Plunge closed.
“I have chosen not to go since the Star Plunge closed, because the crowds have been too big at the Tepee pool,” she said. “It bare-minimum diminishes the experience for everyone, and at worst, creates an unsafe environment where … the lifeguards can’t adequately do their jobs.”
She is also concerned about the larger ripples.
“I’ve read the master plan, and I kind of fail to see how the damage to the area’s reputation for being a destination location … lines up with the master plan,” she said. In the meantime, she said, she hopes the word gets out that there are still many reasons to visit the community.
She is not alone in her concern. The Hot Springs County Commission got an update from Jordan during its January meeting, and Commissioner Paul Galovich questioned the closure and asked whether a handshake deal was possible to keep it open.
“Tourism is a major financial factor to this county, to Thermopolis,” he said. “By shutting it down, it does definitely have an economic impact on our community.”
The state essentially had a handshake deal for more than a decade, Jordan replied, by allowing Star Plunge to continue operating without a long-term lease.
“I think the time came for us to say, ‘we can’t continue to operate that facility on short-term management agreements, and we are going to have to let the court decide what the future looks like,’” he said.
The litigation is also holding up renovations at the Tepee, he told WyoFile.
Wyoming Hot Springs LLC proposed significant renovations to the Tepee in its bid to take over Star Plunge. While those renovations are still expected, Jordan said, “any work at the Tepee has been delayed because of the the issues that we’re having with the Star Plunge, because the new operator kind of wants to have a vision or a better idea of what the future will look like before they start any construction projects.”
During the county commissioner meeting, Star Plunge supporter Steve Voytilla, who drove 500 miles to attend, accused Jordan and the state of not having Thermopolis’ interests in mind.
“It seems a shame that that pool’s sitting there empty,” Voytilla said. “The motels are hurting, the restaurants are hurting. Every business in Thermopolis is going to hurt because of this.”
Jordan defended the state.
“I don’t have any financial interest in this and I can tell you unequivocally that every process was fair and open and transparent to this point,” he said. “We operated and negotiated in good faith with the Star Plunge many, many times to try to get to a long-term agreement. And it just didn’t happen. So here we are.”
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