Like many southern Wyoming communities, Rawlins dates back to the year 1868, when the tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad were being laid across the virgin Wyoming landscape. By 1870, Rawlins had become an important "jumping off place" for stagecoaches and wagon trains for the new gold fields around South Pass City to the northwest. Through the 1870s, it was a wild, hard town with outlaw activity a normal part of daily life. By the end of the decade, however, the town's established citizens had taken things into their own hands in vigilante action that climaxed with the lynching and skinning of the region's most notorious outlaw - "Big Nose" George Parrott.
Photo by WTT
Today, Rawlins is the center of a thriving sheep and cattle industry and still is a major "station" on the Union Pacific. Coal, uranium, oil and gas are found in the area. Rawlins is also a full-facility tourism center and is the point where US 287 branches off to the northwest to serve both Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. It roughly follows the original route of the Rawlins-Lander-Fort Washakie stagecoach road.
Powwow is the steady thump of beaters on a hide-covered drum, a cadence of mixed voices singing in Arapaho, Shoshone, Crow, or Lakota, and the sweep and swirl of men and boys wearing brightly colored regalia, of young girls with fringed shawls, older women dressed in buckskin, even tiny tots in beaded moccasins and creamy white buckskin outfits. Begun as a ritual gathering of spiritual leaders and medicine men, powwow is now a social event. read more
Nearly 100 courses are scattered throughout the state. The high altitudes of Wyoming allows the shots stay aloft almost 10 percent longer than the same shot made at sea level. Now that's something to drive for. read more
