So Wyoming is the ninth largest state but is the least populated state with a population of around half a million. Why is this state so desolate of people? Any Dopers who have lived there how was it? Any fun stuff there? It kind of sounds like a nice place to retire.
See for yourself - http://wyoming.gov/
Look at it this way. There needs to be a place where the deer and antelope play.
Like most of the western states, Wyoming’s eastern areas are somewhat arid and hot in the summer, and buried in snow in the winter. But there are some pretty areas such as Jackson Hole, Grand Teton Park, Yellowstone, etc.
I once drove the entire length of southern Wyoming: Cheyenne through Rock Springs (we missed the pretty parts). Overall, the place looked like an enormous sand and gravel pit. Cheyenne looked like it was straight out of the 1890’s=saloons with drunken cowboys fighting it out. The people were a mixed bag-the man who pumped the gas for me in Rock Springs looked like he was desperate to get away from the place. Overall, a hard place to live: few well-paying jobs, and a harsh climate (summers are hot and dusty, winters are cold and windy). A guy I shared a drink with told me that the last big boom in Wyoming was the oil and gas boom in the late 1970’s-there was a minor "boomlet"in uranium shortlyafter that. From then on, people have been leaving the state-there just isn’t all that much there. Of course,if you like the wide open spaces, maybe Wyoming is for you.
Interestingly enough, the word “Wyoming” comes from the Delaware Indian tribe-how it got applied to this far-west stae is something I don’t understand.
Montana had farmland, cattle, and mining–and still has fewer than 1 million people.
Idaho had farmland, cattle, and mining–and has only 1 1/3 million people.
North Dakota (had it existed) had farming and cattle–and has only slightly more people.
South Dakota had farmland, cattle, and mining–and has only slightly more people.
Nebraska had farming and cattle.
Colorado had farmland, cattle, and mining.
New Mexico had farming and cattle and over 100 more years of European settlement–and still has only 1 1/2 million people.
Arizona had cattle and mining, then after air conditioning was invented, picked up several communities of people who hated winter.
Nevada had mining, then after air conditioning was invented, picked up communities of people who hated winter along with developing a tourist industry around gambling.
Utah had farming and cattle (with a strong push for development by the Mormons).
Oregon had farming and timber and a coast.
Washington had farming and timber and a coast.
Wyoming had cattle and mountains.
This is not to say that no farming occurs there, but among the other states in the region, Wyoming had the least water of any state that did not also have mining to encourage people to immigrate and the cattle industry got a heavy start dominating the state (and killing farmers when necessary) so that the farming that occurs tends to be aimed at hay for feeding the livestock and not for producing saleable crops. Were it not for air conditioning, I suspect that Nevada and Arizona (despite some mining) might seriously challenge Wyoming for the record of least populous. No one moves to Wyoming for their mild winters.
Additional factor: by the 1880s, multiple railroads had linked up across the country. Only South Dakota (none) and Idaho had fewer miles of track running through them, but South Dakota still had the Missouri River and Idaho still acquired mining and farming. New Mexico, (also a candidate for tiny population before air conditioning), was a major railroad state, providing the central North-South line linking Texas and Mexico with Denver as well as a junction between that line and the the lines running from the East to Los Angeles.
Pretty much the same way that “New” York and “New” Hampshire were named: some traveller used a name that they had brought from home, in this case the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania.
I lived in Wyoming for three years. It’s a pretty extreme place. I agree with ralph124… Johnny Carson used to talk about “Wyoming moonscapes” and he was pretty much right.
It’s rough, libertarian, cold, and, in places, beautiful. It does have the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and Jackson Hole in the northwest, the Bighorns in the north, and the Medicine Bows in the south. I lived about 8 miles due east of here in a log cabin which backed up to the national forest.
I actually enjoyed living there. Moving from Wyoming to Washington D.C. was an enormous culture shock. I’d live there again, but it’s too cold for my wife so that’s out of the question.
I also believe (correct me if I’m wrong) that Wyoming had a very small native American population. Few if any Indians lived there-they mostly crossed it while following the buffalo herds. There are no rivers that are navigatible, and most of the state is at fairly high altitude (over 4000 feet). So , it’s arid, and a short growing season= not a good place to be a farmer. I suspect that most of the pioneers who tried to settle Wyoming stayed for a while, and then moved on to easier places.Of course, if we decide to extract the billions of barrels of oil locked in the GREEN RIVER OIL Shales, Wyoming might well experiecne a boom.
I got the pleasure of driving through Wyoming on my way to Washington last summer. All the way from southeast Kansas, yes it was a very long drive. Anyway, the only thing I remember about Wyoming was the total lack of, well, anything. I think I saw two people there the whole time we were driving through and they were both on horses.
But I went back to Wyoming a couple months ago for a school related function and I got a totally different idea of what it was like. We actually visited CITIES! And Wyoming does have some pretty amazingly awesome colleges. I would consider transferring to Wyoming but it’s hellaciously cold in the winter and I don’t do cold. Plus the scenery is beautiful in a desolate and eerie sort of way. It’s just totally different than what most people are used to.
This thread reminds me of the old Garfield cartoons they used to show on TV. Garfield was trying to convince someone that Wyoming doesn’t really exist by asking “Well have you ever BEEN to Wyoming? Do you know anyone thats FROM Wyoming?”
The Bighorn mountains in north Wyoming are one of the prettiest places on the planet. They are a great place to vacation because in addition to their beauty, almost no one but locals go there.
Buffalo Wyoming, at the base of the Bighorns, is where I want to retire.
I lived in Wyoming for 20 years, Green River and Laramie. It’s the most wonderful place on earth - if you like to do the things it offers. Otherwise it’s a hard row to hoe.
You can get away from people there. Once out of sight of the cities there’s thousands of square miles of open land in south west Wyoming. You can do pretty much anything you want. Friends and I would go out with a case or two of beer and just drive around the sage brush, we’d see the most amazing things.
The hunting and fishing is great. I spent hours wading in the Green River catching and releasing 3 to 7 pound brown trout. One day I was fishing and I heard this hammering sound and a herd of wild horses came stampeding over the bank and down to the river to get a drink. They weren’t more than 50 feet away.
We could be elk hunting in a couple hours from leaving the house. I did a lot of that on the spur of the moment. I’d be home and someone would come by and ask if I wanted to go, so we’d take off for the weekend. One day I realized that the best thing about going hunting was the going and I could do that whenever I wanted. So I mostly quit hunting.
For a long time there was a mountain lion that would pass through town every spring and fall.
There is a major bird fly way there. I don’t know how many hundreds of hours I spent watching them. There were three major mountain ranges within 2 hours of the house. I spent weeks walking around in them. The only time in my life I’ve ever been lost was in the Uintas. One summer a friend and I walked the length of the Wind River mountains. South of Green River is a large bad-land type of place where you can find all sorts of fossils.
But work can be a problem to find.
It’s cold in the winter, I’ve seen -52 in Green River on the thermometer. I don’t think I ever saw a winter that didn’t have at least some -40. I went winter camping in the Wind Rivers one February. I don’t know how cold it was in the mountains but in Pinedale, some 3,500 feet lower it was -45. I frost bit my toes but when we came back because of the cold we decided to go to Salt Lake and go skiing.
It was a good time and I don’t regret a minute of it. But it was a hard place sometimes.
Because when you get there you get out of the car, look around, and think “Why???” 
Seriously though…I hear Grand Teton National Park is amazing. I want to try and get up to see it this summer.
This is the place I keep threatening to move to every winter. I think there’s a lot of truth to this. It’s the only place that is somewhat tolerable heat-wise, and it’s not California.
My wife lived in Arizona for a while before we were married. The main reason they don’t go on Daylight Savings Time with the rest of the country is that they already have plenty of daylight during the summer. She tells me that Little League baseball games were routinely scheduled for 10:00 pm because the heat was too unbearable to play during the daytime.
SandyHook and Kilvert’s Pagan pretty much describe the impression I’ve received of Wyoming over the 30-odd years I’ve lived here in Colorado.
**SandyHook,**I love your description of the wild horses.
I’ve only ever driven through or spent the day there, but have done that many, many a time. When we were kids we used to drive up there from Ft Collins because the drinking age was only 19.
Frontier Days was fun.
Eventually my Wyoming visits changed into soccer tournaments with my kids.
I think Laramie might be a nice place to go to school. But yeah, you can drive and drive and see absolutely nothing. For me this is simultaneously eerie and comforting.
I know this can’t always be the case, but it often seems so windy in Wyoming.
But, on the bright side, with the federal system your vote is proportionally more powerful in Wyoming than any other state in the nation.
While California has one member of Congress (thus, one electoral college vote) for every ~630,000 people, Wyoming has one for every 166,000 people.
Having spent most of the past 45 years in Laramie and Casper, I’m qualified to make some comments.
The quality of hunting and fishing has been seriously degraded lately because of all the weekenders from Colorado. Much public land is impossible to get to these days because land (ranches) which must be crossed to access it has been bought by ass-hole Walmart executives and their ilk.
Unless you are a Republican, your presidential vote will not count. I can’t recall the last time Wyoming’s electoral votes went to a Demorat.
Boomtimes are here again, thanx to high oil prices and a new natural gas pipeline to California.
There is no state income tax. Mineral royalties pay the bills and then some. Last year the state government had a truly massive budget surplus.
Living here definitely ain’t for the faint of heart. But if you like outdoor-type fun of any kind, please come and spend some money! Rock climbers and mountain bikers take note- I can tell where the best places are.
Make that “I can tell you where the best places are in the southeat part of the state,”
I have live in Wyoming all but 5 years of my life, and live their now. I have also lived pretty much everywhere in the state - Green River, Fort Bridger, Laramie, Cody, Afton, and Gillette. I’ve lived in Ohio, Texas and NYC, and I never plan to live anywhere but Wyoming again, despite taking a massive paycut to do so. That’s not to say that there are not challenges to living here, but in my mind, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
THe tourists tend to flock to the big named spots like Yellowstone, Jackson Hole and the Tetons, but one great thing about Wyoming is some of the breathtaking scenery that few outsiders know about. I can visit Lake Marie, the Triangle mountains, etc, and view unbelievable scenery with, literally, no one else around in about a ten mile radius. Its a very different experience from visiting Yellowstone or Jackson with its crowds.
I see wildlife more than once a day, and I live now in one of the largest towns in the state. When I go running after work, I often get just yards away from deer and antelope. I drive by bison (domesticated - if you can call it that) a few times a week. The hunting and fishing are hampered by out-of-staters, but most of them won’t get out of their trucks long enough, or go into the back woods far enough to see the real great areas.
The people are wonderful as a whole, with some serious exceptions. One great thing is that the small town feel is almost state wide. My job takes me into court accross the state, and I can walk into a diner or a courthouse and run into people I know. On Friday I was in a town 150 miles away and ran into a friend who lives 300 miles away, and we sat down and talked like it was no big deal. A special plug to the legal community here, very few unethical or needlessly combative attorneys - their negative reputations just travel too fast.
Of course, most people would find Wyoming a difficult place to live. The economy, especially for the educated, is stagnant. (Skilled mining and oil workers have it good, though.) If you need to keep up on the latest hot thing, Wyoming is not for you - we only get the most popular movies a few weeks later than everyone else, for example. Few really good shopping or dining places. And the small-townness has major downsides, your reputation, deserved or not, follows you everywhere.
The weather is harsh in the winter - cold and windy. Many people who retire here in the summer generally only last around a year - they leave after the winter. Driving is hazardous, and driving very long distances is common around here.
In sum - I love it, but I’m probably in the minority.
I bet you lived in the same area as my friend’s cabin. My boyfriend and I go up to Wyoming every summer with a group of friends, one of whom is part of a family that owns land that backs up against Medicine Bow National Forest. It’s an amazing place and one of the only places I’ve gone since I moved to Colorado where I feel like I can get away from EVERYTHING and all signs of humans for days at a time. There’s a swimming hole, there are wildflowers and sagebrush, the cabin has all the amenities (AND a two-seater outhouse!), and it’s a short 45 minute jaunt to Douglas.
That part of Wyoming is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever spent time in (and I’ve seen a lot of places) and I get a jones to go to the cabin all through the parts of the year that it isn’t accessible. I don’t think I’d want to live there, but man, I love the time I get to spend there.