Collin Townsend has been on a mission: to collect two Weston County license plates from every year they've been issued, 1914 to present day.
Twelve years into it, Townsend finally acquired one of the “Holy Grails” of his niche collecting quest: A 1945 County 21 plate with the original wrapper.
“It was one of the last three plates I needed,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “In the whole state of Wyoming, there's probably no more than a handful out there, let alone with the original wrapper. It’s by far the rarest license plate I have.”
Trade Ya For It
Townsend is part of an active community of Wyoming license plate collectors. He’s lost track of how many he currently possesses but believes it could be close to, if not more than, 1,000 plates.
While he now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, Townsend grew up in Osage and still has family in the small Weston County community. That’s what inspired the primary focus of his license plate collection.
“Everybody has their own run of what they're collecting, whether it's birth year or whatever,” he said. “I'm trying to collect one car and truck license plate from every year for Weston County and Wyoming. Now, I have every car and truck license plate for County 21, except for two, which is by far the most extensive run there is.”
Townsend acquired his 1945 County 21 plate from one of his collecting connections. Rather than buy the plate, he made a trade.
“I know a guy doing a run of prison sample plates, and I had some super rare ones,” he said. “I told him that in order to get them, he needed to find me a 1945 Weston County. And he did.”
While many of Townsend’s license plates adorn his walls, the 1945 County 21 plate resides in a shadow box. It’s that rare and unique.
“Anything from the Second World War is a holy grail,” he said. “I don't know if there's how many exist from County 21, especially with the wrapper. This might be the only one.”
War Stories
Everyone in the United States was tightening their belts during World War II. Wyoming issued new license plates every year during the global conflict but had a wartime policy that makes wartime plates extremely rare today.
“You got a new license plate every year in Wyoming during the war, but they stopped making front and back plates,” Townsend said. “They only made back plates, and at the end of the year, the state asked everyone to turn their license plates back in.”
The metal from Wyoming’s license plates was recycled to make ammunition for the U.S. military as they moved across Europe and the Pacific. Finding any license plates that survived the war is extremely rare.
Then there’s Weston County, which had less than 5,000 residents according to the 1940 U.S. Census. Only a small number of license plates were needed in Weston County during the war, adding to their scarcity. It made Townsend’s quest especially difficult to find a car and truck plate from each year extremely difficult.
“You start getting into how many license plates were there to start with, how many survive, which people didn’t turn them in, and then finding the ones still out there,” he said. “It gets rarer and rarer as you start looking into it.”
The Plate
Townsend’s 1945 plate is numbered 21-91. It includes the year, “Wyoming” and the iconic image of Steamboat that’s been on every Wyoming license plate.
The number means the plate was the 91st issued for Weston County in 1945. Townsend isn’t sure how the plate survived and wants to know more about its history.
“One of the reasons I do this for Weston County is trying to find out who had that number,” he said. “What were they doing in Weston County? Why were they here? Do they still have family here? I'm really into it for the history.”
Townsend has only had the rare license plate for a few months, so the investigation into its history has just started.
“I’m trying to work my way backward to discover who may have had it, their family, and the story behind it.”
Wartime Wrapper
As exciting as his latest acquisition is, Townsend is more excited about the wrapper that came with it. Rather than a simple manilla envelope, the wrapper was a unique piece of education and propaganda.
The wrapper includes several statistics compiled by William “Scotty” Jack, Wyoming’s secretary of state from 1944 to 1947. It was “Wyoming’s War Effort.”
They include:
• 30,000 men and women in service.
• $152 million in war bonds purchased.
• 200,000 tons of salvage metals, fats and paper.
• 9,361,476 tons of agricultural and livestock products from Wyoming ranchers and farmers.
• 140 million barrels of crude oil and 177 million feet of natural gas.
• Specialized training for more than 8,000 soldiers via the University of Wyoming.
The wrapper is fascinating,” Townsend said. “I don’t think people realize what every person in the country had to sacrifice for that war. The wrapper shows what Wyoming did — what we did — to contribute as a whole.”
These wrappers would have been placed on every license plate Wyoming issued in 1945. Townsend’s is one of the few known to exist.
“It’s just awesome,” he said.
A rare 1945 Wyoming license plate with its original wrapper is part of Collin Townsend's collection of plates from nearly every year. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily) 
Collin Townsend with a portion of his Weston County license plate run. He has a car and truck license plate from nearly every year between 1914 and 2024. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily) 
Plates in Collin Townsend's collection from 1914-1935. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily) 
Plates in Collin Townsend's collection from 1936 through today. (Andrew Rossi, Cowboy State Daily)
Beans And Board
The two plates Townsend is still seeking are the rarest of the rare for Weston County.
“A 1945 truck plate and a 1944 truck plate,” he said. “Both wartime plates.”
Townsend’s 1945 plate was issued to a car, so he’s hoping to find one issued the same year to a truck. There were fewer trucks than cars in Wyoming in 1945, decreasing the already slim chances of finding rare wartime plates.
However, Townsend is somewhat resolved that he’ll never find a 1944 truck plate. That was an interesting year for license plates in Wyoming, given the materials used to make them.
“1944 plates were made using soybean and cardboard,” he said. “The metal was being used for bullets.”
Since license plates were exchanged every year, soybean and cardboard were acceptable as a temporary solution. Very few of these plates lasted through that year, let alone into the 21st Century.
“The weather in Wyoming is terrible, and animals loved these plates,” Townsend said. “Goats ate them. Deer ate them. And what are the odds those plates survive a wild winter? They’re super rare.”
Townsend found at least one that still exists – he has a 1944 County 21 car plate in his collection. He’s never seen a County 21 truck plate.
“I'm not sure there’s any that exist, but you never know,” he said.
License To Care
Townsend recalled a time when he visited the Weston County Courthouse and saw a license plate run displayed on the wall. He noticed several years were missing, so he resolved to change that.
“I ended up buying a couple of collections in northeast Wyoming with hundreds of license plates and was able to complete every missing license plate on that wall at the county courthouse,” he said. “That's where I started, and it was pretty cool to finish that wall.”
Meanwhile, the search continues. Townsend still networks with other license plate collectors on the mission to finish his Weston County run, still enjoying the “incredible hobby” he’s taken up.
“We have two meets-ups a year, in spring and fall,” he said. “We meet in different towns around Wyoming to trade, buy, and sell license plates, trying to fill out each other's runs and see what's out there. It's an incredible hobby.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
