100 Fun Facts About Wyoming

Wyoming's capital, Cheyenne, is also its most populous city. Roughly how many people live there?

Casper is second with about 59,000, and the whole state has fewer residents than the city of Denver.

Wyoming joined the Union in 1890 as which numbered state?

It had been a territory since 1868, carved out of Dakota, Idaho and Utah.

Wyoming ranks where among the US states by population?

About 577,000 people live in a state that is tenth-largest by area, so only Alaska is emptier per square mile.

Wyoming's official nickname, the Equality State, comes from what 1869 decision?

Territorial governor John Campbell signed the law on 10 December 1869, and women sat on juries in Laramie the following year.

Who became the first woman to serve as governor of a US state, taking office in Wyoming in January 1925?

She won a special election after her husband died in office, and later spent 20 years as the first female director of the US Mint.

Esther Hobart Morris became the first American woman to hold what office in 1870?

Her statue has stood in the US Capitol's Statuary Hall since 1960 as one of Wyoming's two.

Yellowstone, the world's first national park, was created in which year?

President Grant signed the act on 1 March; about 96 percent of the park lies inside Wyoming.

Roughly what share of Yellowstone National Park lies within Wyoming?

The remaining slivers are in Montana and Idaho, which is why the park's own entrance towns are mostly out of state.

Yellowstone holds what proportion of all the geysers on Earth?

The park has at least 10,000 hydrothermal features in total, powered by the largest volcanic system in North America.

Old Faithful, the first geyser in Yellowstone to be given a name, erupts on average about how often?

It was named by the Washburn expedition of 1870, and its eruptions reach up to 185 feet.

The bison of Yellowstone Park hold what distinction?

Yellowstone Lake, in the same park, is the largest high-elevation lake in North America.

Devils Tower became the first US national monument in 1906 under which president?

The Lakota call it Bear Lodge; climbers are asked to stay off it in June for tribal ceremonies.

Which 1977 film used Devils Tower as the setting for its climactic scenes?

Its hexagonal columns of phonolite formed as magma cooled about 40 million years ago.

What is the highest mountain in Wyoming?

It stands 13,810 feet in the Wind River Range and carries the largest glacier in the American Rockies; the Grand Teton is second.

How tall is the Grand Teton?

Two parties claimed the first ascent, in 1872 and 1898, and historians have never settled which was telling the truth.

Jackson Hole is a valley between the Teton Range and which other range?

'Hole' was mountain-man slang for a big valley, and this one was named for trapper David Jackson.

Which Federal Reserve bank hosts the annual August symposium at Jackson Hole?

Fed chairs have used the speech there to signal policy shifts, which is why markets watch a fishing lodge in Wyoming.

The National Elk Refuge outside Jackson shelters roughly how many elk each winter?

Boy Scouts have collected the shed antlers for auction since 1968; the arches on Jackson's town square are built from them.

Frontier Days, the world's largest outdoor rodeo, has been held in Cheyenne every year since when?

It is nicknamed 'The Daddy of 'em All' and serves more than 100,000 free pancakes in a week.

Wyoming's official state sport is what?

The state also has an official dinosaur, Triceratops, and an official fossil fish, Knightia.

Which animal is Wyoming's official state mammal?

The state bird is the western meadowlark and the state gemstone is jade.

Which dinosaur is Wyoming's official state dinosaur?

Wyoming's fossil beds have produced some of the most complete dinosaur skeletons in the world.

The bucking horse and rider that has appeared on Wyoming licence plates since 1936 is a registered what?

It is thought to be the longest-running licence plate motif in the world, and the horse was probably a famous bronco named Steamboat.

The University of Wyoming's athletic teams go by which name?

The university, founded in 1886, sits in Laramie at 7,200 feet, one of the highest campuses in the country.

The name Wyoming derives from a Munsee word meaning roughly what?

The name was borrowed from the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, some 1,500 miles east.

Wyoming is one of three states bordered entirely by straight lines. Which are the other two?

On a map it looks like a rectangle, but the meridians converge, so the north edge is slightly shorter than the south.

How many states share a border with Wyoming?

Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah and Idaho all touch it.

What was the lowest temperature ever recorded in Wyoming, at Riverside in February 1933?

The state's record high, 114 °F, was set at Basin in July 1900.

How many counties does Wyoming have?

Laramie County, home to Cheyenne, is the most populous with about 100,000 residents.

Wyoming produces more of which fuel than any other state, mostly from the Powder River Basin?

In 2015 it dug 375.8 million short tons, some 42 percent of the national total.

The world's largest known deposit of trona, used to make soda ash for glass, lies near which Wyoming town?

It sits in layered evaporite beds underground, and mining it is a major industry alongside coal, oil and gas.

Emigrants on the Oregon Trail hoped to reach Independence Rock in Wyoming by which date?

That schedule kept them ahead of the mountain snows; so many carved their names that a priest called it the Register of the Desert.

At roughly what elevation is South Pass, the Continental Divide crossing used by the Oregon Trail?

It is a broad, nearly level saddle of sagebrush 35 miles wide, which is why wagon trains could cross it at all.

Fort William, an 1834 fur post that later hosted two Plains treaties, stands where the North Platte meets which river?

The Army bought it in 1849, and treaties with the Plains tribes were signed there in 1851 and 1868.

Wyoming's capital was founded in 1867 as a junction along which railroad?

It grew so fast it was called the Magic City of the Plains, and its air base is now one of America's three ICBM bases.

What did F. E. Warren Air Force Base, the Air Force's oldest active base, operate in 2025?

It began as Fort D. A. Russell in 1867 and in 2025 was one of only three strategic missile bases in the country, fielding Minuteman III ICBMs.

The Wind River Indian Reservation is shared by the Eastern Shoshone and which other tribe?

It is the seventh-largest reservation in the US, and a grave at Fort Washakie is claimed to be Sacagawea's.

The Johnson County War of 1892 was a range conflict between which two groups?

Wealthy ranchers hired 23 Texas gunmen; President Harrison had to send in the cavalry, and the story became Heaven's Gate.

Butch Cassidy served 18 months in the Wyoming State Prison for what crime?

He was pardoned in January 1896 and went straight back to outlawry, using the Hole-in-the-Wall hideout in Wyoming.

The Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s took its name from an oil field in which Wyoming county?

Interior Secretary Albert Fall leased the Navy's reserve without bids and became the first cabinet member sent to prison.

Which retailer opened its very first store, called the Golden Rule, in Kemmerer, Wyoming, in 1902?

James Cash Penney ran it with his wife and infant son; the town is also famous for its Eocene fossil fish.

Which town in northwestern Wyoming was founded with the help of Buffalo Bill and named after him?

He opened the Irma Hotel there in 1902, named for his daughter, and it still serves drinks at its cherry-wood bar.

Which abstract expressionist painter, famous for his drip technique, was born in Cody, Wyoming, in 1912?

His family left for Arizona and California when he was still an infant, but Cody keeps the claim.

Which future vice president represented Wyoming's single at-large seat in the House from 1979 to 1989?

He grew up in Casper and went on to serve as George W. Bush's vice president from 2001 to 2009.

The Heart Mountain camp, which held over 10,000 Japanese Americans in World War II, briefly ranked as what?

Nearly 14,000 people passed through before it closed in November 1945.

Casper, Wyoming's second-largest city, is officially spelled with an 'e' because of what?

It was meant to honour Lt. Caspar Collins and Fort Caspar; the nickname is The Oil City.

The city that is home to the University of Wyoming is named after Jacques La Ramée, who was what?

The town drew world attention in 1998 after the murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.

The Great Divide Basin in Wyoming's Red Desert is unusual because its rainwater does what?

The Continental Divide runs around it rather than through it, so it is a closed basin in the middle of the Rockies.

What is the Colorado's chief tributary, which rises in Wyoming's Wind River Range and fills Flaming Gorge Reservoir?

Its headwaters are in Sublette County on the west side of the Continental Divide.

The Bighorn Medicine Wheel, a stone circle 80 feet across, has how many spokes?

It sits at 9,642 feet in the Bighorn National Forest and has been a National Historic Landmark since 1970.

Fossil Butte National Monument preserves fossils from an ancient lake of what age?

Fossil Lake was the smallest of three great lakes then covering parts of Wyoming, Utah and Colorado; its fish, bats and even a dog-sized horse survive in the rock.

At what constant temperature does the mineral water flow at Hot Springs State Park in Thermopolis?

The park also keeps a state bison herd of 15 animals on land bought from the Eastern Shoshone in 1896.

Although Brokeback Mountain is set in Wyoming, where was the 2005 film almost entirely shot?

Ang Lee's film adapted Annie Proulx's 1997 short story; Longmire, another Wyoming-set drama, was filmed in New Mexico.

The television series Longmire is set in which fictional Wyoming county?

Sheriff Walt Longmire comes from Craig Johnson's novels; Robert Taylor, who plays him, is Australian.

Wyoming Territory was created in 1868 from lands taken from which three territories?

President Andrew Johnson signed the Organic Act on 25 July 1868; statehood came 22 years later.

The Wind River Range in west-central Wyoming has how many peaks above 13,000 feet?

Gannett Peak is the tallest of them and carries the largest glacier in the American Rockies.

Roughly how much of Wyoming's land is owned by the federal government?

That puts it sixth among the states; the parks, forests and BLM range make up most of it.

Which Lewis and Clark veteran first described the Wyoming region in English, in 1807?

His tales of boiling springs and geysers were dismissed as 'Colter's Hell' until later parties saw Yellowstone for themselves.

What was Wyoming's population in the 2020 census?

That is fewer people than the city of Denver, spread across nearly 98,000 square miles.

Which evaporite mineral, mined in southwestern Wyoming, is used to produce soda ash?

Wyoming's economy is largely built on tourism plus coal, natural gas, oil and trona.

What is Wyoming's official state motto?

It nods to the same 1869 suffrage law that earned the Equality State nickname; Nellie Tayloe Ross later became the first woman to govern a US state.

Which plant is Wyoming's official state flower?

The species is Castilleja linariifolia, whose scarlet 'petals' are actually coloured bracts; the real flowers are small and green.

Which species is Wyoming's official state fish?

The name comes from the red slash under the lower jaw; several native subspecies swim in Wyoming's rivers on both sides of the Continental Divide.

Which animal is Wyoming's official state reptile?

Often called a horned toad, it is a spiny lizard of the sagebrush flats that can squirt blood from its eyes to startle predators.

Where is Wyoming's lowest point, at about 3,125 feet above sea level?

That low point sits in the state's northeast corner, which means even Wyoming's bottom is higher than the highest point in 18 other states.

Unlike most states, Wyoming does not levy which tax?

There is no corporate version either; the state runs largely on a 4 percent sales tax and severance taxes on coal, oil and gas.

How many votes does Wyoming cast in the Electoral College?

That is the constitutional minimum: two senators plus a single at-large House seat, which gives each Wyoming voter outsized weight per capita.

When did Wyoming last vote for a Democratic presidential candidate?

Lyndon Johnson's landslide was one of only eight Democratic wins there since statehood; George W. Bush later took 69 percent in 2004.

What is the single telephone area code that covers the whole of Wyoming?

It was one of the 86 original area codes AT&T created in 1947 and is not projected to run out of numbers until around 2050.

Which group ran the 1916 contest that produced Wyoming's bison state flag?

The $20 prize went to Verna Keays, an Art Institute of Chicago graduate who said the design came to her in a dream; the flag became law in January 1917.

Which painter joined the 1871 Hayden survey whose images helped make Yellowstone a park?

He travelled as a guest of financier Jay Cooke alongside photographer William Henry Jackson, who took the first known pictures of the Yellowstone falls.

Buford, an I-80 hamlet with one resident, was auctioned in 2012 to buyers from where?

The $900,000 winning bid came from Pham Dinh Nguyen, who rebranded the trading post PhinDeli Town Buford and sold imported coffee there.

The Ames Monument near Laramie, honouring two Union Pacific financiers, takes what form?

H. H. Richardson designed it with Saint-Gaudens portraits of the Ames brothers; the railroad later moved its tracks, leaving the monument alone on the prairie.

The 1885 Rock Springs massacre targeted immigrant coal miners from which country?

At least 28 miners were killed and 78 homes burned; no one was ever prosecuted, and it remains the deadliest mass shooting in the state's history.

Tom Horn, hanged in Cheyenne in 1903, had earlier worked for which detective agency?

He was convicted of shooting 14-year-old Willie Nickell and died the day before his 42nd birthday; whether he really did it is still argued.

Governor John Osborne wore inaugural shoes made from what part of outlaw Big Nose George?

The outlaw was lynched in Rawlins in 1881; the shoes are still on display at the Carbon County Museum, and his skull cap served as an ashtray.

Outlaw Harry Longabaugh took his nickname from which Wyoming town, where he was jailed?

He served 18 months for stealing a gun, horse and saddle in 1887, then teamed up with Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch.

'Gillette syndrome', named for the Wyoming city, describes social problems caused by what?

The term covers rising crime, strained services and frayed community bonds in towns that swell overnight around coal or gas extraction.

Hell's Half Acre, a badland near Casper, played which planet in 1997's Starship Troopers?

The 320-acre scarp of ravines and caves doubled as the bug homeworld; it sits beside US 20/26 about 40 miles from town.

Jackson Hole Airport is the only US commercial airport located inside what kind of place?

It was folded into Grand Teton National Park in 1950, which is why jets louder than stage III are banned and sage grouse nest beside the runway.

When it opened in 1910, Buffalo Bill Dam near Cody held what global distinction?

The concrete arch on the Shoshone River stood 325 feet and was raised another 25 feet in 1992; the reservoir is now Buffalo Bill State Park.

The Old Faithful Inn, opened in 1904, is the world's largest building of what kind?

Architect Robert Reamer was 29 when he designed it; the entrance porch was rotated so arriving guests see the geyser framed in front of them.

Which Yellowstone feature is the tallest active one of its kind in the world?

Its major eruptions can top 300 feet, but they are wildly unpredictable: it sat dormant from 1911 to 1961, then fired more than 40 times a year in 2019 and 2020.

Where does Grand Prismatic Spring rank among the world's hot springs by size?

Only Frying Pan Lake in New Zealand and Boiling Lake in Dominica are bigger; its rainbow rings come from heat-loving microbes at different temperatures.

Roughly what share of Yellowstone burned in the great fires of 1988?

Nearly 794,000 acres burned, and on 8 September the whole park closed for the first time ever; only autumn snow finally put the fires out.

In which year were gray wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone's Lamar Valley?

The park's last native wolves had been killed in 1926 under a government predator-control programme, leaving elk herds unchecked for seven decades.

The 1927 failure of the Gros Ventre landslide dam wiped out which small Wyoming town?

The 1925 slide had sent 50 million cubic yards of Sheep Mountain across the river, creating Lower Slide Lake; the flood two years later killed six people.

The 1866 Fetterman Fight near Fort Phil Kearny, costing 81 soldiers, was part of what?

Ten decoy warriors, among them Crazy Horse, lured the column into an ambush; it was then the worst defeat the US Army had suffered on the Plains.

The 1854 Grattan fight near Fort Laramie, start of the First Sioux War, began over what?

The animal belonged to a Mormon emigrant; a soldier shot Chief Conquering Bear during the arrest attempt, and all 29 men of the detachment died.

Which group took over Fort Bridger in 1855, claiming to have bought it for $8,000 in gold?

Jim Bridger always denied selling; a militia had tried to arrest him two years earlier for trading guns and alcohol to Native Americans.

Owen Wister's 1902 novel The Virginian, the first true Western, is set around which town?

The line 'When you call me that, smile!' comes from its opening card game, and the book contains fiction's first gun showdown.

Who cast the first vote by an American woman in a general election, in Laramie in 1870?

Legend says the 69-year-old Quaker was out buying yeast with a tin pail; 92 other Wyoming women voted the same day, 6 September 1870.

Which NFL quarterback went seventh overall in the 2018 draft after playing for Wyoming?

Only two schools offered the junior-college transfer a scholarship, and the other withdrew; he now holds the NFL record for quarterback rushing touchdowns.

Afton-born wrestler Rulon Gardner won 2000 Olympic gold by beating which unbeaten Russian?

His opponent had three straight Olympic titles and had not lost internationally in 13 years; Gardner credits his strength to the family dairy farm.

Singer Chris LeDoux won the 1976 world championship in which rodeo event?

He retired to a ranch at Kaycee in 1980 and sold 250,000 self-released albums from his truck before Garth Brooks name-checked him in a hit.

In 1969 Wyoming's coach cut 14 Black players for planning a protest against which rival?

The 'Black 14' wanted to wear armbands over the LDS Church's exclusion of Black men from its priesthood; the team was unbeaten when coach Lloyd Eaton dismissed them.

Fort Washakie on the Wind River Reservation was the only US military post named for what?

The post was renamed in 1878 for the Eastern Shoshone leader, who in 1900 became the only known Native American given a full military funeral.

In 1920 the town of Jackson made national news for electing what?

The mayor and council then appointed women as town marshal, clerk and treasurer, fifty years after Wyoming women first voted.

Kemmerer is the site of TerraPower's Natrium nuclear plant, a company founded by whom?

The sodium-cooled reactor was sited beside a retiring coal plant partly to re-employ its workers, and received the first US construction permit for a non-light-water commercial reactor in 2026.

One theory says French trappers named the Teton Range les trois tétons, meaning what?

A rival theory credits the Teton Sioux; the Shoshone likely called the whole range Teewinot, 'many pinnacles', which is now the name of one peak.