Breanna Slaton has an extensive bucket list for her Wyoming rockhounding adventures. Jade is on that list, and so are selenites, an ethereal-looking crystal that’s a form of gypsum. They range from clear to milky white, with a silken texture, particularly after polishing.
But the coolest find in her growing Wyoming collection of cool Wyoming rocks was never on her bucket list at all. And it isn’t even really a rock.
It’s a mystery coin advertising Cheyenne Frontier Days. She and her husband, Jonathan, found it lying along the North Platte River one unexpectedly warm February day.
February and Fate
In fact, everything about the day and her find was unexpected, Breanna told Cowboy State Daily, making this feel as much about fate as it is about luck.
February, as most anyone knows, isn’t typically great for rockhounding. It’s normally freezing cold, with lots of snow on the ground. More often than not, Breanna spends a February weekend huddling up under a snuggly blanket and binge-watching television.
But this February, it was warm and blustery outside — spiking a serious case of highly contagious spring fever. Once Breanna had infected Jonathan with that, they decided the only way to seize this unusually warm day was by getting themselves outside.
Clearly, some rockhounding was the prescription for this situation.
“My husband does it for me,” Slaton admitted.
Because she’s the kind of person who is always looking down at the ground everywhere she goes, eyes peeled for interesting and cool rocks — even if she’s just standing around in a parking lot.
“As a matter of fact, I found a really cool (rock) at Hat Six that I had to bring home,” she said. “And I joked with my brother that my husband literally can’t take me anywhere because if it’s pretty and stands out to me, I will grab it.”
The Hat Six she’s referring to is a gas station and convenience store on the road of the same name near Casper.
This particular day, however, it was her husband who did the actual finding.
“He’s like, ‘What is that on the ground?’” Breanna recalled. “I bent down and was like, ‘Oh it’s a coin!’”
(Courtesy Breanna Slaton) 
(Courtesy Breanna Slaton)
The Riderless Bucking Horse
At first, Breanna thought the grimy coin was a quarter. She probably would have still picked it up if it had been a penny, but a quarter is a little more exciting to find than a penny.
She soon realized, however, that this coin wasn’t a quarter either.
“I spit on the coin to clean it up a little,” she admitted. “Then I wiped it clean on my pants.”
Underneath the river sludge, she saw the words “Cheyenne Frontier Days” floating over a riderless bucking horse. Beneath the horse’s stomping hooves were the words “Last week of July.”
On the reverse side, she saw the words “Frontier Bucks” over the top, with what looked like $1 in the center. Beneath that, along the bottom curve, were the words “No Cash Value.”
That sent her to Google, looking for anything about the history of this coin.
That produced surprisingly little information, so she headed to Facebook to see if she could crowdsource more information about the coin.
Theories were many, but no one offered anything like the definitive proof or evidence she craved.
A Saloon Coin?
Cheyenne Frontier Days CEO Tom Hirsig, shown a picture of the coin Breanna found, told Cowboy State Daily he believes it’s a saloon coin.
“All I know is they used them in what used to be the adult headquarters, where they had the dance hall and stuff,” he said. “They used them as, like, beer chips.”
Hirsig added that he wasn’t personally around when Cheyenne Frontier Days was still using Frontier Bucks, so he doesn’t recall whether they were used for other things as well.
But he does happen to have a whole bag of the old tokens.
“When they were remodeling Chute 9, they were all over there, a whole bunch of them,” Hirsig said. “And I just give them out to people every once in a while.”
Shirley Churchill, a past Miss Cheyenne Frontier Days, told Cowboy State Daily she, too, is unfamiliar with the tokens, but that her aunt, who was also a Miss Cheyenne Frontier Days, spoke often of an open-air pavilion in Frontier Park where dances were held.
“Seems I recall you had to have a ticket or a token to dance,” she said. “This would have been in the early ’30s and early ’40s.”
Jeanette Tyrrell Daly, the oldest living Miss Cheyenne Frontier Days, also did not recognize this particular coin but believes it was likely for dances or for the carnival.
The Luck of Wyoming
Everyone agreed the coin is a great find, regardless of what its true history is.
It’s become a priceless treasure to Breanna, who has placed it with her diamond-shaped selenites and the mini fish fossil her brother found and gave to her.
She doesn’t care what the coin’s monetary value might be.
“I’ll never sell it,” she said.
It took enormous luck to find this mystery Cheyenne Frontier Days coin. Selling it would be too much like selling her own luck. Any good rockhound will tell you that’s something one should never do.
Breanna moved to Wyoming four years ago to escape from California. She’d forgotten all about rockhounding, but Wyoming reminded her one day at Sinks Canyon.
That’s the thing about Wyoming. It has a way of unlocking the inner child in anyone willing to take a deep breath and look around for a second. From there, it’s endless adventures and smiles.
Breanna’s new coin may say “no cash value” on it, but she knows the coin’s true worth. It’s in the memory she made with her family on an unexpectedly warm and blustery February day in Glenrock, Wyoming, where she and her husband took a deep breath of Wyoming air and an unexpected treasure came to light.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
