Thermopolis Locals Fear New Hot Springs State Park Operators Will Price Them Out

THERMOPOLIS — Hot Springs State Park has been a favorite destination for Catherine McIntyre and her family. She’s an Oklahoma transplant who’s lived in Riverton the last 15 years.

“You’ve got a cool park here,” she told Big Horn District Manager Brooks Jordan during a question-and-answer session in Thermopolis about proposed improvements to the park. “It’s a great place for me to bring my kids, and the great-nieces and nephews. It’s working. It’s cheap.”

But McIntyre wonders how long it will remain cheap after Wyoming LLC, the state’s newly selected partner for businesses that operate at Hot Springs State Park, finishes improving the facilities.

Websites for Wyoming LLC properties show much higher prices than what people pay to use Hot Springs Park’s facilities, said a woman in the back who did not identify herself. The prices she saw were upward of $120 per “teepee hut-looking things.”

Those are exactly the kinds of prices that concern McIntyre and other residents of Thermopolis and surrounding areas. They fear the park they love will soon be out of reach for locals.

“I don’t want to see that here,” McIntyre said. “It’s a great family community center for us to bring our children. So why are we asking for something to change?”

Jordan told McIntyre and the group of 30 to 40 people who gathered for the session that keeping the park affordable is one of his highest priorities.

“It’s maybe the highest priority for us, but certainly up near the top,” he said. “We want this to remain a place where you can bring your kids and your grandkids. The changes here that we’re looking at are improvements to facilities. Taking a facility that’s 50 years old and bringing it up to today’s standards. We’re not talking about Disneyland.”

Star Plunge Questions

McIntyre’s question was among dozens lobbed at Jordan on Monday afternoon, ranging from park affordability to questions about fairness for current owners of businesses in the park, like the Star Plunge.

The latter was the subject of several pointed questions.

Kathy Gregory wanted to know why the owner of the Star Plunge wasn’t allowed to sell his buildings the way the Teepee Pools did.

Part of the issue there stems from the contract Roland Luehne’s family signed for the Star Plunge, Jordan said.

“When the contract expired or was terminated for any reason, they were required to remove their property, and they weren’t entitled to any future compensation,” he said. “So they were essentially allowed to construct and operate a facility, but when their lease expired, it was over with, and they were supposed to return the property to a natural condition.”

The Luehne family’s agreement expired in 2008, Jordan said. Thereafter, the facility was operated on short-term leases while the state tried to negotiate a new long-term lease.

In 2019, the state Legislature directed Wyoming State Parks to use a request for proposals (RFP) system on any long-term concession leases of more than 20 years.

That meant the agency could not sign a long-term lease with the Star Plunge or Hot Springs Hotel without starting an RFP first.

“We negotiated with them and we couldn’t come to terms on a long-term deal,” Jordan said. “It was very close.”

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, which Jordan said threw a “monkey wrench” into everything.

“We went back to the drawing board and we issued an RFI, a request for information, which is like a step down from an RFP,” Jordan said. “It just says, ‘Hey, anyone who is interested, what are some ideas for future concession operations here at Hot Springs State Park?’”

That netted some ideas, which were then incorporated into a new RFP that kicked off in November 2023 and closed March 2024. That ended with the selection of Wyoming LLC as the Hot Springs State Park’s new partner going forward.

About Mark Begich

Several people wanted to know why the state had chosen someone from out of state to work with on improving Hot Springs State Park.

Mark Begich, who owns Wyoming LLC, is a former U.S. senator from Alaska and was mayor of Anchorage, where he was a lifelong resident.

Part of that was the plan Wyoming LLC put together, Brooks has previously told Cowboy State Daily.

“(Wyoming LLC) owns and operates a couple of hot springs facilities,” Brooks told the crowd. “One in New Mexico and one in Colorado. And they have some other interests that relate to hospitality, like hotels and things like that. So they have experience in the realm of what we were looking for here, right, aquatics facilities, hotels, that sort of thing, and working in parks.”

Jordan added that the state is now in a negotiation phase with Wyoming LLC to work out all the specifics of what will be taking place at the park.

“I should be talking to them again this week,” he said. “And we’re making a little bit of progress there. There’s not a lot that’s coming out of that right now that we’re able to present to you. What I do know is that it’s going to fit into what’s here, to the park and to the community. It’s not going to be an overwhelming change. It’s going to be improvements.”

Diminishing Resource

Hot Springs State Park has long laid claim to being the world’s largest mineral hot springs, and it is Wyoming’s most popular state park.

The state reports between 1.2 million and 1.9 million visitors a year, though several at the forum questioned those numbers.

Jordan told Cowboy State Daily after the forum that the visitation statistics are calculated by counting only the cars that enter the park and then assigning a percentage of actual park visitors to those figures. The counter does not count people exiting the park, as some had contended during the forum.

The flow of hot springs water has been diminishing over time, something that Thermopolis residents have noticed.

“I was born and raised here,” Thermopolis resident Gene Moody told Jordan. “And that water used to just gush off of the terraces.”

His concern is that the proposed improvements seem bigger, like they might take even more water than what’s being used now.

“How’s that going to work?” Moody wondered.

Jordan said the resources would not necessarily be larger facilities, and that the state would look at ways to use water more “efficiently.”

By that Jordan said he didn’t mean chlorine would be added to the water or that previously warm water pools would suddenly become cold fresh-water pools.

“We don’t control what comes out of the spring,” he said. “But we can control what we do with it afterward and try to be better users of that resource for sure. And that’s absolutely in the plan.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.