Memo to souvenir hunters cruising down the highway looking for a memento from the Cowboy State: The Wyoming Department of Transportation has your number.
Specifically, that number is 307, Wyoming’s area code.
WYDOT has made it unavailable to anyone tempted to take off with mile maker 307 on Interstate 80 west of Laramie.
Jordan Young of WYDOT’s public information office said such thefts happened about once a year before the agency changed its strategy.
Rather than having to remake the mile markers, the department’s in-house shop did what other states with similar problems have done. About five years ago WYDOT made a marker that reads 306.99.
The 307 sign is history.
And it was only one in the state.
In The Right Wrong Spot
Young said the spot on I-80 where 307 was posted likely made it easier to steal. It was next to a truck pull-off.
“We wonder if parking made it easier for folks to pull off and grab it," Young said. “It wasn’t exactly on the side of the road where traffic would notice them, so it makes sense.”
Young said while some people might see it as a victimless crime, it isn’t.
“The mile marker signs are really important for finding issues that are reported by the traveling public, including crashes,” she noted. “It helps emergency services get to the area quicker knowing a mile marker and a direction.
“While it might kind of seem like innocent fun, it could be really detrimental if the wrong thing happened at the wrong time and at the right place.”
Jack Hoffman of Basin, the Department of Transportation's traffic engineer, agreed.
"Stealing and vandalizing signs is a crime with serious consequences, ranging from misdemeanors to felonies depending on the circumstances,” Hoffman said.
Beyond the legal penalties, he added, stealing and vandalizing signs poses significant safety risks to drivers and emergency responders. The act also leads to increased costs for taxpayers due to replacement costs.
WYDOT makes virtually all signs on Wyoming roadways, and many have to be replaced for various reasons, including crashes. Young said some signs are shot or otherwise vandalized, others are stolen, or damaged by sun or wind and are peeling.
Those man-made causes and acts by Mother Nature must be built into the agency’s budget.
Sign Budget Is $2.7 Million
WYDOT maintains more than 80,000 signs statewide and is responsible for manufacturing, installation and replacements. It has a $2.7 million budget to cover the expense.
It costs about $15 per square foot of signage, which is about half the amount that would be spent if the production was outsourced commercially.
“We average about 50,000 to 60,000 square feet of signage per year,” Matthew Manzanares, sign shop foreman, explained in a department promotional video last year.
In addition to mile markers, thieves target “Welcome to Wyoming” signs, he said.
WYDOT has five large “Welcome to Wyoming” signs at the interstate entrances to the state, including on I-25 south of Cheyenne.
“As far as our sign shop knows, these have never been stolen,” Young said. “They are so big, it takes large equipment like a crane to install them.”
It’s true that a thief tackling a job as big as removing one would be mighty conspicuous.
“We have about 37 smaller versions, 8 foot by 4 foot, of those big welcome signs around the state, and we do see those stolen from time to time,” Young said. ‘“Which is pretty impressive considering that they’re mounted with wood, because they’re so much larger than the average signs, so it’s a little more involved to take that one. You can’t just put that in a sedan.
“If one is stolen or damaged too frequently, we replace it with a cheaper green-and-white ‘entering Wyoming’ sign for a while.” .
One of the most notable acts of sign vandalism in Wyoming in recent memory occurred in April 2025, when two safety signs valued at more than $1,000 were vandalized or stolen east of the tunnel west of Cody on U.S. 14/16/20.
WYDOT's new "Bicycle in Tunnel" sign was dropped to the ground from its mounting bracket and was damaged, and a "When Flashing" sign was stolen.
The signs were installed in 2023 as part of a warning system that notifies motorists of pedestrians and/or bicyclists in the tunnels. The tunnel warning system is button activated by bicyclists/motorists.
Installing the tunnel warning system was part of the $5 million project that replaced the old lights with a new LED lighting system inside the big tunnel during 2023.
Wind Socks Left Alone
One item maintained by WYDOT doesn’t get stolen: wind socks such as the ones almost always flying horizontally in places like Wheatland and Chugwater. Wind socks are placed in strategic locations for highway safety, so hopefully motorists will keep realizing that stealing them puts drivers at risk.
A problem that has plagued several other states, including Colorado, Washington and Idaho, is the theft of “420” mile markers by marijuana users/fans who associate the number with cannabis culture.
Young said I-80, the longest highway in the state, stops at mile marker 401 east of Pine Bluffs.
Interstate 25 stops just shy of 307 miles. I-25’s northern terminus at Buffalo is at mile marker 300.5, at the junction of Interstate 90.
U.S. Highway 20 runs for 434 miles across Wyoming but does not have a 307 mile marker because it blends with other highways, including U.S. 14, U.S. 16, U.S. 26 and I-25.
Montana has had a similar issue with thefts of 406 mile markers, an iconic number because it’s the area code. The state initially tried 405.9 on I-90 just west of Columbus but that was taken, too, so the Department of Transportation gave up and painted “406” in white on the shoulder.
