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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Cartoon 2: Wednesday, March 5, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon 2: Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

Economy

CHEYENNE — Wyoming knows it has a huge housing problem. 

Builders, city and county administrators, state officials, business and community leaders — it doesn’t matter which of them you ask, most will agree the state is short tens of thousands of homes.

Scott Hoversland, who heads up the Wyoming Community Development Authority, puts the number of homes the state needs somewhere between 28,000 to 38,000 by 2030 — roughly 2,070 to 3,680 homes annually to keep up with population growth and aging infrastructure.

On paper, Southeast Wyoming Builders Association’s Joe Killpack acknowledges that sounds like it should be a developer’s dream. 

But the reality is a lot more complicated, Killpack told Cowboy State Daily. It’s a tangled knot of economics and investment risk, criss-crossed with infrastructure costs and policy decisions that make houses more costly and time-consuming to build.

“This is a macro problem, not a micro problem,” Killpack added. “It’s not like we’re going to be able to pinpoint one issue. There are several issues. We’re talking about labor costs. We’re talking about commodity costs. We’re talking about development costs.”

Those make homes too expensive for Wyoming’s middle class to afford.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Middle Class Squeeze"}]

If Wyoming’s housing crisis has a face, it’s the middle-class worker earning median wages. 

Once, that would have signaled a solid, respectable income. Today, it increasingly falls short as wages continue to lose ground against persistent inflation. 

 was $75,500 in 2024, 7.4% below the U.S. median. 

Year over year, incomes rose just 1.3% while inflation climbed 2.9% — a clear decline in real purchasing power for the typical Wyoming family. 

Over the long term, the trend remains problematic. 

Wages have stayed relatively flat since at least 2010, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. For much of that time, inflation was modest, hovering between 1% and 2%. But that changed in 2021, when it surged 4.2%, before peaking at 9.1% in June 2022 — the highest level since 1981.

The result has been a widening gap between what workers earn and what it costs to live. 

Regardless of the causes, the stark reality is wages have not kept pace with living expenses for most Wyomingites. 

That marks a fundamental shift for the state’s middle class. 

Median incomes that once reliably supported homeownership — a cornerstone of financial stability for many families — no longer stretch as far. Increasingly, the workers who power local economies are priced out of the communities they serve. 

The strain shows up in everyday decisions. Longer commutes. Delayed home purchases. And, in some cases, leaving the state altogether.

Wyoming loses roughly 70% of its residents by the time they reach age 30, state officials have said. Housing costs are frequently cited as a key factor in that outmigration, which has led to 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Math Problem"}]

The problem, as Killpack sees it, isn’t that developers can’t see the demand. It’s that the basic math of putting up homes, especially ones that regular families can afford, no longer works. 

On the cost side, labor, commodities, tariffs and fuel have all climbed, pushing construction budgets higher even before projects hit city hall for approval.

After that, fees and regulations are adding as much as $10,000 to the cost of homes, along with code changes like thicker exterior walls or new sprinkler requirements.

“Every time a new code is adopted the costs go up,” he said. “We’re doing these new codes to protect the health and the safety of our people who are living in these homes, which, hey, I can’t disagree with. But that doesn’t mean that costs go down. They only go up.”

Codes requiring particular types of insulation, for example, have meant using two-by-six-inch lumber in exterior walls, which adds to the cost versus a two-by-four.

“In Laramie, we have to do a draft stop in the basement,” he said. “So most are doing sprinkler systems and everybody thinks that’s wonderful, right? Because it truly is. If there’s a fire, it’s great. It’ll stop a fire. But the costs still go up, every single time.”

Meanwhile, waiting times for permit approvals stretch to as long as 18 months or more. In some cases, during which time interest rates, prices, and demand are all shifting.

“I’m involved in a project right now where we were going to build some apartments,” he said. “And this project originally started three years ago. They have had to stop, because the market changed.”

What The Median Buys V. What Developers Can Build

The gap comes into sharp focus when median income is translated into buying power. 

A median salary of $75,500 supports up to $2,097 for a monthly mortgage, assuming a borrower with minimal debt and strong credit. On a 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 6.47%, that maximum mortgage payment tracks back to a maximum loan amount of $332,842. 

Homes in the low $300,000 range no longer pencil out for developers, Killpack said.

“A single-family home under $400,000 is almost impossible,” he said. 

Builder margins, he added, are much lower than people think.

“Most people think it’s like 15, 20%,” he said. “It’s actually very minimal. I mean, you’re anywhere between 3-6% and that’s it.”

Which means developers themselves don’t have much wiggle room when it comes to their budgets. 

Given that kind of margin, when you look at a city like Cheyenne where 5,000 homes are needed, the kind of investment it takes doesn’t feel like it’s worth the risk, Killpack said.

“(Let’s) talk about building 1,250 homes in a year in Cheyenne just to meet the minimum of what we’re projecting,” he said. “And let’s just say $400,000 homes … you’d need a $500 million investment annually.”

For that kind of money, Killpack said developers look at what’s known as the absorption rate, which measures how fast homes sell in a given market. They’re asking themselves where they can get the fastest return on investment. 

Wyoming’s absorption rate needs to be higher to attract investment, Killpack said. 

Now, developers can find many markets with both less risk and faster absorption rates, like those in Texas, Utah, and the Denver metro area, all of which have larger populations to spread risk around. 

Wyoming’s lack of population, Killpack added, has many investors turning up their noses at Wyoming projects, deeming them too risky. 

That doesn’t mean no one wants to invest in Wyoming, Killpack added. 

“But it takes more than just people in Wyoming to make Wyoming grow,” he said. “Capital that’s being infused into our economy doesn’t only come from our local regional banks. It comes from other people, too, and they have to be willing to invest in Wyoming.”

On paper, the city of Douglas seems like the classic Wyoming success story. 

Oil and gas jobs form the bedrock of its economy, but more than 300 businesses in health care, education and retail round things out. Hotels are packed with energy workers — the kind of activity that ought to be pumping money into every cash register in town. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"But there’s a catch."}]

“Our population is 6,512 based on our community snapshot, and 50% of our workers live in the city,” Interim City Administrator Michele Carter told Cowboy State Daily. “About 42% live in Casper. So, we have about half our workforce living in Douglas, just under half.”

The rest are headed to Casper or other areas around Douglas, like Glenrock. 

The reason, Carter said, is directly related to a lack of affordable housing.

“A lot of our housing that has been built over the last few years is in that $400,000 to $500,000 range,” she said. “Which doesn’t fit your local businesses, your teachers, your nurses who are coming in to fill those spots in our school district and our hospital here.”

Many of the oil and gas workers who do live in Douglas, meanwhile, are staying in campers and at the fairgrounds because of a lack of rental properties. 

Fixing that has proven difficult, Carter said. 

Development costs, which include building out new sewer and water services, exceed what most people can afford to pay.

It’s taken a $5.7 million grant for water and sewer lines to help get things moving on a 30-acre site on the edge of town that will include a 94-apartment complex, plus several acres of single-family housing and new commercial space. 

“The grant is really to put the infrastructure in,” Carter said. “Developers couldn’t make the numbers work if they have to eat all of those water, sewer and utility costs on top of everything else.”

Even with a grant, no one is pretending this is a silver bullet that will fix everything. 

The apartments and homes the development unlocks will also take years to build, and the demand from mid-level workers is already far ahead of what’s on the drawing board.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Douglas isn’t Alone"}]

Infrastructure is a significant barrier for communities across the Cowboy State, Hoversland told Cowboy State Daily, but it’s particularly acute for communities with fewer than 5,000 people. 

Water lines, sewer, roads and power are required before even a single house can be built in a new area. For small towns with a thin tax base, fronting the money for that is typically next to impossible.

“Some of the bigger cities, Casper and Cheyenne especially, have more items they can do and have infrastructure built out,” he said. “But our cities under 5,000 population in Wyoming, that doesn’t give the numbers to draw developers in. 

“So, infrastructure funding is another one of those things that I think is a big holdup. It really restricts a lot of developers coming in, because they have to pay for the infrastructure to say 25-to-50-home development, and that’s a lot of upfront cost and a lot of risk on the developer.”

Wyoming isn’t alone in facing such problems. 

Nationally, the Harvard University State of the Nation's Housing 

 released Thursday shows that construction is down across the nation amid rising costs and an ever-widening gap between what median households can afford and what median homes cost. 

There’s a growing wave of state and local experiments on the ground — ranging from tax abatements, zoning changes, and new financing tools — all aimed at getting more units on the ground across the nation.

Wyoming is part of the melting pot of state ideas. 

Hoversland points to a statewide housing strategic action plan that has 27 items that may help, including fast-track permitting, infrastructure funding tools, and support for manufactured and prefabricated homes, as well as tweaks to how federal housing dollars are used to stretch them further.

Jason Mincer, executive director of Wyoming Neighbors for Housing, is pushing public-private partnerships, community land trusts, and even a state-level investment fund to help shoulder upfront risk for workforce housing, along with streamlined approvals to cut months off project timelines. 

Communities like Cheyenne, meanwhile, are rewriting their own rule books, streamlining zoning codes and getting rid of standards that may have been nice to have once upon a time, but don’t really impact safety and add significantly to costs. 

Cheyenne has even created a “cottage lot” development option that lets builders cluster very small homes closer together with shared open space, which has already attracted some developers.

All of those ideas help at the margins. But Wyoming has to find ways to make it routine, rather than remarkable, to build homes in the price ranges that teachers, nurses, and sheriff’s deputies can afford.

Otherwise, nothing changes with the overriding trend where a large number of Wyoming households are maxed out in the low $300,000 range, and builders can’t drop below $400,000. 

Until that gap can be routinely bridged, builders will remain cautious, and the state will continue to lose many of its young people to areas where the wages are a better match to prevailing home prices.

Cheyenne Housing Main IMG 6742 6 21 26

<title>Why A Shortfall Of More Than 20,000 Homes Isn’t Enough To Get Wyoming Building | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming needs tens of thousands of new homes, but only a fraction of the need is under construction because builders say the math doesn’t work. Middle-class wages aren’t high enough to afford to buy houses while home-building costs just continue to rise.

Why A Shortfall Of More Than 20,000 Homes Isn’t Enough To Get Wyoming Building

Outdoors

Public Lands

Waterfalls shoot straight out of volcanic cliffsides, flinging themselves into canyons almost no one ever visits. 

Far from the boardwalks and pullouts, meanwhile, something that looks very much like a starfish seems to nap where no starfish should even be, sunning itself in a crystal-clear thermal pool in Yellowstone National Park. 

It’s all part of a hidden Yellowstone that most people never get to see — the Yellowstone that Bozeman filmmaker Stephen Quayle has spent five decades chasing with a camera and has finally stitched into a new film, 

“Only 5% of Yellowstone is visible by the roads or by the boardwalks around the geysers,” Quayle told Cowboy State Daily. 

Another thin, 10% slice belongs to the hardy few willing to trek for miles into grizzly bear and wolf territory. 

But from a helicopter, “the most gorgeous” waterfalls and the most intriguing geothermal pools can be seen in stunning aerial views. 

Photographing from the air takes a million-dollar camera lens, Quayle said, one that can take high-resolution images from at least 2,000 feet away. 

That’s the minimum height recommended by the FAA for flying over places like national parks. Any lower could violate federal laws if an aircraft disturbs wildlife or park visitors.

“That way we can present to people the Yellowstone that really is,” he said. “And it’s breathtakingly wonderful. It is not just a wonder of the world, it is 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Fateful Party Weekend"}]

Quayle’s relationship with Yellowstone began when he was a college student with time on his hands and weekends to burn in glorious summer road trips. 

Yellowstone was perfect for that when you’re a young man from Bozeman, Quayle said. 

“I went there because that’s where everybody used to go and party,” he admitted. “And from Bozeman, they drive down to the inner West Yellowstone, but I would take a diversion. That doesn’t mean I didn’t partake of some of the wild stuff in those days. 

"But the bottom line is that it was so close, and in those days you could go from one feature to the next and never see another car,” Quayle added.

The more he photographed Yellowstone, the more he wanted to go back. It felt like becoming lost in another world, one that seemed to rearrange itself every time he visited.

At first, Quayle stuck to closeups. Think bacterial mats, colorful mineral formations, tiny, iridescent insects — all reflecting his interest at the time in abstract art.

“Most photographers would take a leaf,” he said. “I would take the veins in the leaf.”

But over time, Quayle saw that Yellowstone was like this gigantic living creature, breathing, pulsing, moving around. 

That could never be captured with microshots of leaf veins and abstract rock patterns. 

For the real Yellowstone, Quayle realized he had to do something to widen his scope. 

On a map, Yellowstone National Park looks vast, but knowable. 

You can drive in and easily hit the biggest, most popular features — Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic, the Canyon — and drive back out with a phone full of photos and a comfortable sense that you’ve now seen Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It’s a beautiful illusion. "}]

For one thing, Yellowstone is among the most dynamic landscapes on earth. Fire and water are shaping and reshaping its landscapes all the time. 

The park is also vast —  3,500 square miles — and the majority is too dangerous and too inaccessible for most people’s hiking abilities. 

“It’s a matter of practicality,” Quayle said. “Because some of these waterfalls come out of the side of a mountain and you’ve got wolves in the park and you’ve got grizzlies in the park … and the wolves are not, ‘oh they’re so cute,’ and it’s not Yogi Bear time.”

Some areas are even untouchable when it comes to horseback, Quayle added, and the park also has rules on where people can go by horseback, which helps protect fragile areas. 

Quayle himself didn’t even realize at first just how much he’d been missing. Until one day he got the idea to take a helicopter ride and look down on this creation. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Yellowstone became a whole new world. "}]

Geyser basins became vast, veined paintings. Rivers resolved into networks tying distant waterfalls together. Thermal scars appeared in forest clearings that had no signs, no names, no crowds.

“It’s like a whole different world,” he said. “You literally wouldn’t know you were on planet Earth.”

The view from 2,000 feet is ultimately the one that captured and held Quayle’s attention the best. 

Waterfalls spilling over volcanic rocks like crystal threads of light into dark and lonely slot canyons and broad amphitheaters that had been carved by wind and water and time. 

There were blue-and-white ribbons twisting over black volcanic rock, framed by forests and meadows that melted into the mists of morning. Scenes like this often felt less like sightseeing, and more like eavesdropping on a secret earth, as if he, himself, was an alien. 

One time he saw what looked like a perfect, starfish-like form sunning itself in a crystal clear thermal pool.

“Imagine a starfish, a perfect starfish, in water that’s too hot to have any life,” he said. “How do you get that kind of design in geothermal pools?”

Quayle said he’s shared the images with researchers, who are still evaluating them.

Quayle has combined the footage taken from the air with snapshots he’s taken at Yellowstone National Park over a 50-year period, creating a feature-length film he calls “Yellowstone: Above & Below.” 

His goal with the film is to help people access even the most inaccessible places in the park, as well as raise funds to help support the park. 

Ten percent of the film’s proceeds will be donated to the park’s official nonprofit, Yellowstone Forever, to help fund conservation, education and stewardship of the park.

“Yellowstone is alive,” the film’s narrator says over sweeping aerial shots. “Every breath of steam, every shifting terrace is part of an ancient story written in stone and fire.”

Creating the film has taken Quayle a lifetime, including about four or five years worth of helicopter rides.

“We were in a helicopter for sometimes six and eight hours a day,” he said, a ride that was paid for by the hour. “I mean, it’s a lot of time in the air, but there’s no other way to see it all, to reference it.”

To capture the views, Quayle rented a gyro-stabilized camera system with a long-range lens once used for military surveillance. He also hired Hollywood cameraman Nel Boshoff to operate it.

The camera is so precise, Quayle said, it can focus on an elk 2 miles ahead and then zoom in on its eyelashes. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Where Science Meets Spirit"}]

Ask Quayle why he keeps coming back to Yellowstone after 50 years, and his answer lies somewhere between science and spirit.

From above, the branching runoff channels remind him of blood vessels in a human body, and everywhere he sees beauty born from volcanic violence.

“It’s a place of wonder and warning,” he says in the film. “It is fragile, and yet holds the strength of worlds beneath its surface.”

For most visitors, Yellowstone will always mean the 5% everyone else sees — Old Faithful, the canyon, a glimpse of bison in the valley. 

The remaining 95% — Quayle’s waterfalls in hidden canyons, starfish patterns at the bottom of a boiling pool, and backcountry geysers with no signs or names — are like something from a dream, revealed by one man’s uncommon obsession. 

If the images leave viewers feeling like they’ve gotten as close to the edge of creation as they ever will from a living-room couch, that’s fine with Quayle. That feeling is everything about Yellowstone that he’s ever wanted to say.

Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com

Quayle yellowstone alternative 6 21 26

<title>The Yellowstone You’ll Never See: Filmmaker Spends 50 Years Capturing Its Secrets | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Most tourists see just 5% of Yellowstone from roads and boardwalks. Bozeman filmmaker Stephen Quayle has spent 50 years filming the places most never reach. “It’s like a whole different world,” he said. “You literally wouldn’t know you’re on planet Earth.”

The Yellowstone You’ll Never See: Filmmaker Spends 50 Years Capturing Its Secrets

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

A Casper man says he's being forced to part ways with his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig at his wife's behest, blaming the vehicle's irresistible appeal to the opposite sex.

"I knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it hurt any less," Austin Griess wrote in a tongue-in-cheek Facebook post advertising his lifted 1984 AMC Eagle wagon for sale. "My wife is making me sell my lifted AMC Eagle because of all the attention it brings. 

"I only have eyes for her, yet this car seems to draw in way too many female lookers for my comfort."

Austin Griess found the 1984 AMC Eagle 4X4 Wagon on Facebook Marketplace during the dead of winter.

During the cold months he worked on it, installing a lift kit, tuning it up and making it reliable enough to serve as a daily driver. Then he said he turned it into a true “chick magnet” by added a modern stereo.

The goal was to debut the finished wagon with 150,000 original miles on it at a Memorial Day car show.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We didn't make it in time for entry,\" Griess said."}]

"The payment is due here in June," he joked. "No trophy making a payment."

After months of wrenching and modifying the Oldsmobile, he said that his wife has had enough of competing with the AMC for attention.

[{"type":"text","text":"“The wife just kind of had enough of me at that point,” he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"So, the Eagle is now looking for its next owner."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Finding Bigfoot"}]

Along with making whoever drives it irresistible, "This would be a perfect Bigfoot hunting rig,” said Griess, adding that his day job is in sales.

[{"type":"text","text":"The four-door Eagle is rugged, practical, and weird. "}]

"That's the ideal car to take your wife and two kids and throw all your crap in the back, go to the mountains for a picnic, and go fishing" says mechanical philosopher Ron Gordon. 

The Eagle is powered by a 4.2-liter inline-six engine shared with old Jeeps.

The original muffler is still hanging on, although Griess admits it's become a little rough around the edges.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's a little bit raspy,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Perfect For Wyoming"}]

Long before crossovers filled dealership lots, vehicles like the AMC Eagle were doing much of the same work.

Ron Gordon owned an auto shop in Big Piney for 15 years and has spent nearly 70 years around cars. When shown photos of Griess’ golden Eagle, his first reaction was blunt.

"One of the Lee brothers made it: Ug Lee or Home Lee," Gordon said with a laugh.

[{"type":"text","text":"But beneath the humor was genuine admiration."}]

"It was a pretty unique car in its day," he said. "It was the first real sport utility vehicle on the market."

[{"type":"text","text":"The Eagle debuted years before today's crossover craze."}]

It combined station wagon practicality with four-wheel-drive capability, making it particularly appealing in places where winter weather and rough roads were facts of life.

"It'd be good for anything from going fishing or to sheep ranch," Gordon said.

That versatility made vehicles like the Eagle a natural fit in the Cowboy State. 

Griess agrees, calling it "the perfect Wyoming car — great for snow, inclement weather and getting off the paved roads."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Before SUVs"}]

To understand why people get nostalgic about station wagons, Gordon said you have to remember what Wyoming life looked like decades ago.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then, a trip to town wasn't a quick errand."}]

"It was 60 miles to go buy groceries," Gordon recalled. "When you got in the car to go someplace, it was an event."

Station wagons weren't fashion statements, he added, "They were tools. They hauled groceries, hauled kids, and camping gear." 

Gordon remembers one summer when his family traveled to Idaho, where his father was working in the mountains.

The family camped, and he and his brothers slept in the back of a station wagon.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"There was a bear come in one night,\" Gordon said."}]

The animal poked holes in juice cans before dogs chased it away and up a tree. Looking back, Gordon laughs at the memory.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I guess the station wagon was a safe haven for me,” he said."}]

For families throughout the West, station wagons were simply part of life before minivans hit the scene.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Everybody that had a big family had a station wagon,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Time Machine "}]

Griess was born in 1988, but said he grew up surrounded by remnants of the decade. 

His parents were older. His uncles still wore the giant mustaches that survived long after the 1980s were over. 

"Life was simpler back then," says Griess. "If you wanted to do something, you just did it." 

[{"type":"text","text":"The AMC Eagle was meant to embody that mindset. "}]

"It just screams going out and camping with just the necessities," he said.

Music helps complete the vision. The Eagle has speakers — of course. Its soundtrack, according to Griess, has plenty of Molly Hatchet, Ted Nugent, and old-school rock.

It’s the kind of music that sounds best with the windows down and a dirt road ahead.

A Casper man says his wife is making him sell his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig — a lifted 1984 AMC Eagle wagon with 150,000 miles he says attracts too much female attention. "I knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it hurt any less,” he said.

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