Cities, Towns & Counties

William H. Zindel took a gamble on Wyoming when he moved to the territory six years before statehood. He boosted two Wyoming towns, earning a reputation for his cleanliness, opulence, and shrewd business sense. Read more about Zindel and his enormous diamond ring in Nancy Tabb’s "William H. Zindel: Wyoming’s Immaculate Pioneer."

Sam Gebo, a brilliant capitalist and con man, developed coal mines in Montana, Alberta and Wyoming in the early 1900s. But his methods were fraudulent; he and seven of his partners were charged with crimes. But a new system of leasing federal coal grew out of the controversy—a system still in place today.

Marching through 60 years of diligent practice, winning prize after prize and generating civic pride, the Casper Troopers grew from a local operation to one that attracts young musicians from across the United States—and performs nationwide.

Attracting tens of thousands of visitors annually, the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center opened in Casper in August 2002. Keeping history and memory alive, the center also serves school groups and offers interpretive exhibits, guest speakers, re-enactors and special events targeting people of all ages and interests.

The Historic Elk Mountain Hotel, built in 1905 by John Evans, is located beside the Medicine Bow River, a place where Overland Trail travelers made crossings during their journeys west. In the 1940s and 1950s, the hotel’s Garden Spot Pavilion became well-known for its springy dance floor and for the many big-name musicians like Hank Thompson and Louis Armstrong who played there. The hotel underwent extensive renovation in the early years of this century, and the pavilion was demolished. Guests today enjoy modern conveniences, private baths and a dining room.

A ford, ferry and stage station made up bustling little Green River Station, where the Oregon/California/Mormon Trail crossed the Green River—part of Green River County, Utah until Wyoming became a territory. Serving emigrants, passengers, freighters and the Pony Express, the station died after the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869.

Lifelong criminal James Costin forged checks, passed them, stole money from his employers and coyote pelts from a ranch. In April 1933, though he only drove the getaway car, he masterminded a bank robbery in Green River. Later, he sued the men who tried to shake him down for the loot.

Black strikebreakers were imported to the company coal town of Dana on the Union Pacific line in February 1890, but may instead have joined a strike there against unfair pay. Their presence made Dana the only coal town ever in Wyoming with a Black majority. Later, many settled in Hanna and Rock Springs.

The Americans with Disabilities Act was far in the future when a group of Lusk, Wyo. residents first met to propose statewide legislation to make buildings, sidewalks and other public areas accessible for disabled people.

Freight, mail and stagecoach passengers endured the rough, dangerous road from Rawlins on the Union Pacific through Lander to the Shoshone reservation for 27 years. “God bless the old stage line; she is doomed,” one postmaster wrote in 1906, when a railroad first reached Lander, “but it beat walking.”