LARAMIE - Home to a thriving coffee shop owned by the mayor, a bakery whose roots date back more than a century and a custom gun business catering to the upper crust, historic downtown Laramie could be viewed as a bastion of the old and new West.

Come September, this district flanked by the Union Pacific Railroad will be swarming with hundreds of college students who pour into the eateries and classic watering holes such as the Buckhorn Bar. At their disposal is a hodgepodge of locally owned small businesses selling everything from eyeglasses to antique oak furniture to Hemingway novels.

Nevertheless, Laramie's epicenter of commerce is teeming with vacancies, prompting a local association to discern how to fill the gaps. Jane Daniels, executive director of the Laramie Main Street Program, said there are nearly 15 storefront vacancies downtown.

"I think it's OK and healthy to have a few vacancies, but more than that is something we need to look closer at," Daniels said.

With help this month from incoming law students at the University of Wyoming, the Main Street Program is conducting an inventory of businesses and buildings downtown. Having received a grant of $10,500 from the Wyoming Business Council, the Main Street Program plans to retain a consultant by September to perform a market analysis based on the data disclosed in the survey.

Daniels said her group is seeking to retain businesses downtown and decipher the problems merchants face while ascertaining their needs.

In another initiative, the Main Street Program is sending seven businesses to a "boot camp" this September in Longmont, Colo., where merchants will learn "how to create a consumer destination out of their small business," Daniels said. Big Hoss Mountain Sports, The Copper Kettle and Coal Creek Coffee Co., which is owned by Laramie Mayor Jodi Guerin and her husband John, are among the businesses that plan to attend the 2 1/2-day camp run by marketing consultant Jon Schallert.

Small businesses downtown boost roots dating back to the 1970s and 1980s. They have faced their fair share of challenges over the years - despite the fact that the closest mall is a 45-minute drive to Cheyenne.

Steve Grabowski, a certified optician and professional photographer who owns Optical Fashions, a downtown retailer of eyeglasses, sunglasses and nature photographs, said his biggest challenge "is the perception that there will be no selection and it's going to be overpriced, whether it is or not."

Grabowski is not new on the scene. He opened Optical Fashions in 1977, following what he dubs the "April Foul Blizzard," a storm that featured ferocious winds and left behind a pile of snow. Grabowski, then 25, had received some seed money from his parents and a former partner named Jarvis Windom, an accountant from Wheatland.

Starting the business required Grabowski to make big sacrifices that are still evident today.

With an 8-month-old baby to care for, Steve and his wife Ada slept in the back of the store, subsisting partly on beans and ground-up wheat, living for a year on $2,000 earned through the sale of fish bait to sporting goods stores.

"It was 10 years before we made a living wage," said Grabowski, who just finished 15 years of mortgage payments this spring on his building. Optical Fashions is located across the street from a consumer electronics store (Music Box), a bakery (Home Bakery) and a real estate agency (Advantage Real Estate). All the businesses are owned by locals.

Grabowski, who drives a 1989 Volkswagen Jetta with more than 212,000 miles, characterizes 2006 as a good year for his business. Nonetheless, he still reports working close to 70 hours a week, despite hiring help. As Grabowski reminiscences over a now-extinct diner downtown that served a burger called The Hubcap - "that atmosphere was unbelievable" - his deep affinity for locally owned businesses shines.

Saunter into Nathan Heineke's custom sporting firearms shop on the corner of Second Street and Ivinson Avenue, and it's hard not to appreciate the downtown's charm. Heineke is a native of Gillette who left Wyoming for five years to work for New Jersey-based Griffin and Howe, an 83-year-old firearms manufacturer. Now, Heineke builds and showcases his own firearms inside a lavish building that he said used to house the First State Bank of Laramie.

Upstairs, an old bank counter stands in the middle of a spacious room, and divots in refinished hardwood floors mark the spots where the tellers stood. Now, Wicket, a male Brittany dog, mans the joint, predominantly lounging near a leather couch.

The room upstairs is flush with home decor. Near the entrance sits a 1915 vintage Monarch Peninsular coal stove and a dining room table and wood chairs. On display further back is a painting by local artist Gail Shive featuring clouds culminating over a Wyoming countryside.

Heineke, a 32-year-old who opened N.L. Heineke Inc. last September, said his shop must look "more like a reading room," presumably to make his well-heeled clients feel comfortable. When a customer asks him to manufacture a firearm, "there's a history and a rapport that's already built with the client," he said.

Heineke said many of his clients hail from the East Coast, and his shop isn't suited for rifle aficionados on a lean budget: the base price for a rife is $13,600. For Heineke to flourish, establishing a small but loyal base of clients may prove adequate. But many other local businesses feed off a much larger group of customers, and there has been talk that more "anchor tenants" could help function as a magnet for the district.

Lois Chickering of Chickering Books points out that a J.C. Penney department store used to be in the area.

"That kind of a shopping anchor is useful," said Chickering, who has owned the bookstore downtown for 25 years.

Heineke contends that the restaurants downtown serve as anchors, driving people with full bellies to other businesses. Daniels of the Main Street Program said such established businesses as Coal Creek Coffee, Maurices, the national clothing chain, Big Hoss Mountain Sports and Cross Country Connection serve those roles, partly in light of Laramie's proximity to such outdoor recreation as the Snowy Range. Still, she agrees that attracting more businesses to the district certainly wouldn't hurt.

"I know we could use more anchors," Daniels said. "We may try to actively recruit" businesses after the market analysis is completed.