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Jimmy Orr

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Mark Heinz

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Clair McFarland

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Renée Jean

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

BUFFALO — Tourists enjoying a warm summer evening in Buffalo get to see something uniquely Western that’s not seen much anymore — a covered wagon rolling down Main Street at a leisurely pace, a gentle clip-clop of hooves echoing off historic storefronts.

Kids wave and phones inevitably come out — cue the social media selfies — the minute Moonhitch Wagon’s history tour appears. 

Owner Ashlee Kintzler doesn’t mind a bit. She’ll stop for a beat if she can, and smile and wave for the photo.

“When you’re on the Moonhitch Wagon, you’re always in your own one-float parade,” she jokes with the guests. “Everybody wants to stop and take photos and videos and they want to come up and ask who you are and what you’re doing and how they can take a ride.”

The one-wagon parade has quickly established itself as a popular way to not only see Buffalo but also to catch other local attractions, such as sunsets over the Bighorn Mountains and history of the Bozeman Trail. 

And, soon, scenic and historic guided tours of Fort Phil Kearny.

“It’s so beautiful out there,” Kintzler said. “There’s rolling hills and whitetail deer and you’ve got the mountains as your background. It’s stunning, so we’ll do those in the golden hour at 6 o’clock in the evening and at 7:30 for a sunset view.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Still Loves Chariot Racing"}]

Although the Moonhitch Wagon takes its time, the idea for the new business was born from a life spent going very fast.

“I grew up in a chariot-racing family,” Kintzler told Cowboy State Daily. 

Her dad continued racing chariots into his 40s, and as a kid, Kintzler always knew just what she wanted to do in life — race chariots just like Dad.

“I ran chariots for a few years with my dad until I went off to college,” she said. “Then we both decided to get out of the chariot-racing world and get into more of a leisurely pace with what you’d call a heavy horse, a draft horse.”

It was a decision born from health complications for her dad and lifestyle considerations for Kintzler, who needed to prioritize her time for college classes.

“Chariot racing … we had always teased that it was a dying sport when we got into it,” she added. “There was never any money involved in racing chariots. It was really just for bragging rights and for the glory of hanging out with a great group of people.”

These days, the sport is practically nonexistent, though she still loves the adrenaline of it, Kintzler added.

“You start in a set of starting gates, like you would a flat track horse race, and when those gates pop, it’s a very quick break,” she said. “You’re zero to 45 instantaneously, and you cruise that quarter-mile racetrack as fast as you can. 

"Looking back, it kind of makes me laugh that I used to do that, and now we go 3 mph to get anywhere with our wagon and our teams.”

Kintzler moved to Buffalo in 2022, and one of the first things she noticed was the charm of her new home’s many historic buildings downtown. 

There was a whole nexus of Wild West history around the Occidental Hotel, she realized, with storefronts that have changed little since the 1800s lining the main drag. It was all, in her opinion, just begging for a wagon to appear.

“This town would really benefit from an attraction that is true to its heritage,” she thought. 

And it would also give her the chance to put all those skills she’d learned while chariot racing to good use.

Moonhitch was thus “born out of family legacy and Wyoming heritage” to feed both her love for horses and chariot racing and to celebrate her new home’s history.

Moonhitch supplies the horses and wagons, but it all works out so well because of Buffalo itself.

It provides the perfect backdrop to bring historical tales to life. It’s also a community that is proud to say it’s the real-life template for just about any Wild West movie or novel. In fact, it was one of the settings for Owen Wister’s famous novel, “The Virginian.”

The idea that anything that’s ever happened in a Western happened in Buffalo first was actually the theme of a BBC documentary, local historian Richard Kendall tells his wagon tour riders.

“We have the wagon trains surrounded by Indians,” he said. “We’ve got Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. 

"We have the Johnson County Cattle War. We’ve got Fort Phil Kearny up here, where the cavalry was surrounded and wiped out by the Sioux. So it’s all happened here.”

From his wagon seat, Kendall points out the 1884 Johnson County courthouse, built on the old site of the Lone Star Dance Hall, then glances down a Main Street that was once lined with 17 saloons serving a town of just 637 souls.

“I did the math,” he tells his riders with a chuckle. “That’s one saloon for about every 35 men, women and children in town.”

He points next to the Occidental Hotel, which is “the cradle of Buffalo itself.”

“There were three things that worked together to determine that Buffalo was going to be right here,” he said. “The first thing is that Main Street generally follows the Bozeman Trail from down around Douglas up to the gold fields in Montana.”

The second factor was the creek flowing right through the town, which meant there was ample water for civilization. 

The third and final deciding factor was its distance from Fort Phil Kearny.

“There was a rule that said you couldn’t serve liquor within 3 miles of the fort,” Kendall said. “Guess how far it is from right there to the fort? Exactly 3 miles.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hotel Of The Century"}]

The Occidental was begun by a man named Charlie Buell who was taking care of the fort’s sutlers. 

“He would give them a place to take care of their horses, give them a meal and a place to sleep,” Kendall said. “He started in a tent right there where the Busy Bee is, and as he got more business, he expanded to a wooden hotel here.”

The Occidental served as the nerve center of the growing community.

“It was the place where business was taken care of,” Kendall said. “If you needed somebody to go to work for you, you came down here. They were in the saloon.”

Business decisions were also often made there, and famous people came to stay there.

“Teddy Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover stayed at the Occidental,” Kendall said. “Their names are in the register.”

Owen Wister, Ernest Hemingway, Buffalo Bill Cody, Johnson County Sheriff William “Red” Angus, frontier sheriff and U.S. Marshal Frank Canton, and renowned Union general, General Philip Sheridan are among other famous people who stayed there.

The infamous also put in an appearance — Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Calamity Jane, Tom Horn, and various members of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang.

Marathon high-stakes poker games lasting for days took place at the Occidental, and the original tin ceiling still has the bullet holes to show for it, as does the 25-foot wooden bar, brought to Buffalo via horse-drawn wagons more than 100 years ago.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Flood Of 1912"}]

The brick hotel was built sometime in the 1920s, after a 1912 flood wiped everyone out.

“The two biggest events in Johnson County history is one, the cattle war, and second, the flood of 1912,” he said, pointing at the next block over from the Occidental. “At the corner of that building up there, just above the American flag, you see a line marked about 2 feet above the flag.”

That mark, which is not all that noticeable when one is standing on the street, is where the high-water line for the 1912 flood was. It’s about as high as a man is tall. 

“You can extend it back that way and see how far the damage was,” Kendall said. “And it was a big deal. It was on June 11, 1912. It had been raining in the mountains all day. About 6:30 p.m. it started raining here and by 7:30 p.m. people were putting their babies to bed. They’d finished supper, and all heck broke loose.”

One cloudburst later, and it was like some invisible floodgate on high had suddenly opened up, engulfing the young town.

“It just came through these buildings here and just threw everything out in front of them, out into the street, down the creek,” he said. “This side wasn’t damaged quite as badly as the ones on this side, but when the water finally went down, people just got out here and started cleaning up.”

That included a jeweler who found his inventory of diamonds and other jewels scattered in the mud. 

“People came out here and picked through there and picked up everything they could find and gave it back to him through his store,” Kendall said. “There was one fatality, a young fellow 29 years old named Rodney Childs. He had been trying to get away, but couldn’t make it. He was swept away and died.”

Four of the town’s 17 saloons were completely destroyed, leaving the town to “make do” with just 13.

Kendall touches on many other lesser-known highlights of Buffalo history during the tour, including its red-light district — condemned but tolerated — complete with monthly “fines” that look suspiciously like license fees and its old Wyoming Railroad.

That became infamous for taking six hours to cover 29 miles because it had to stop and open 21 gates along the way. 

The history tour helps Buffalo history shine for tourists, but it’s the scenic Sunset Seeker tours that have so far drawn the most interest.

“That one really is a crowd pleaser,” Kintzler said. “We go out and watch the sun set over the Bighorns, and I stop for ice cream at Creekside Family Fun Center.”

From there, she takes guests to Mountain Plains Heritage Park, giving the kids a chance to burn off the sugar high from the ice cream, while the adults climb a hill to look out over the surrounding mountains. 

Along the way, there are interpretive plaques to spark discussion of the Bozeman Trail, the railroad and Native American history in the area.

“I tell people, put your phones away, kick up your feet and just enjoy the scenery,” Kintzler said. “Enjoy the clip-clop of the horses. Enjoy a slower pace of life and just relax.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Molly Mules'"}]

For all its popularity and charm, Moonhitch has required a carefully engineered survival to make it. Buffalo, like many communities in Wyoming, is seeing increased housing expenses that are making it hard for entrepreneurs like Kintzler to thrive.

“It’s very difficult to make a living in Buffalo as a single-income household,” she said. “But I wanted to put together something that I knew was my own, and that I could make as big or small as I’d like.”

She’s kept costs manageable by leasing her teams during the wagon tour season, rather than owning them outright. 

Her teams include Percheron-Paint cross horses Sparky and Stanley, as well as Morgan-Percheron pair Mitch and Mike and Percheron-mule team Katie and Maggie, known as “Molly mules.”

Percheron blood runs through all of them for a reason.

“Folks ask me all the time, ‘Why Percherons?’” she said. “They are of the draft horse breed and they’re very strong, very docile. You get a lot of strength from them and size, but they’re calm and quiet and easy to work around. They’re not as high-strung as certain other breeds out there, but they’re strong and very gritty.”

The city also decided, at her and other vendors’ urging, to create a new tier of vendor with a lower seasonal fee, making the business a little less costly to operate.

Kintzler has been told often she could easily raise her tour prices from $30 per adult and $15 per child, but she’s decided to keep the fee modest as long as she can.

“I don’t want somebody to miss out on a tour because it was $10 more than the last one,” she said. “I’d rather keep this affordable than make it an exclusive thing at $50 a tour.”

Meeting new people has been her favorite part of the tour, which has included people from all over the world. 

“I love bringing people together,” she said. “People are so glued to their phones and screens these days, so it’s nice to see the face-to-face interaction and folks actually talking to each other.”

She also loves how complete strangers entering the wagon leave it as friends, making dinner plans together, and talking about what adventures to have next.

For a woman who once flew down icy chariot-racing tracks with manes and chunks of snow flying, it’s been oddly satisfying to move at a slower pace, knowing she’s created a moving front porch for the community, one where strangers come together over Buffalo’s past and present. 

Buffalo Wagon Ride 20260718 172306 8 2 26

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

<title>Wyoming Places: Buffalo’s Covered Wagon Tours A Nod To Town’s Old West Legacy | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Tourists enjoying a warm summer evening in Buffalo get to see something uniquely Western that’s not seen much anymore — a covered wagon rolling down Main Street at a leisurely pace, a gentle clip-clop of hooves echoing off historic storefronts.

Wyoming Places: Buffalo’s Covered Wagon Tours A Nod To Town’s Old West Legacy

Business & Tourism

Trent Tope’s historic general store in tiny Aladdin is particularly counting on Sturgis Rally goers this year. That’s because tourists aren’t spending money like they once did.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s tourists here,” the owner of Aladdin’s only store told Cowboy State Daily. “But they’re just not spending money like normal because they’re putting it all in their gas tanks.”

Fortunately for Tope, the cavalry is coming. 

It’s not a cavalry that rides a horse — though it has plenty of horsepower. It’s a cavalry that rides thousands of motorcycles through Wyoming every year, seeking adventures from Cody in the west to Aladdin in the northeast and from Cheyenne in the southeast. 

All along these adventures, Rally goers will gas up, buy burgers and beer, and fill hotels, motels and campgrounds. It’s a money trail that helps keep many businesses in small and large communities alive. 

“Honestly, if it weren’t for the Rally, (the Aladdin General Store) probably wouldn’t even be economically viable,” Tope said. “So we’re really looking forward to it.”

Aladdin looks to capture up to 60% of its annual revenue during August, all thanks to the many Rally goers who stop in for drinks and a plate of barbecue. 

There will be live music every day of the Rally as well as barbecue plates and an outdoor swimming pool bar. 

Jordan Yates, who co-owns the Aladdin store with Tope, dreams up interesting cocktails for the store’s tiny bar. She has 10 to 12 friends who will come help serve the extra-large crowds, as well as offer their own creative shots. 

“We’re already starting to pick up quite a bit,” Yates said. “I’m hoping we have the calendars by Rally to share, but we’re waiting on the printer.”

Aladdin’s calendar girls, who posed for the annual fundraiser that supports nonprofit causes such as the volunteer fire department and FFA, will be offering a bike wash, too. 

Even if the calendars are not ready, Yates said most of the calendar girls will still have posters to sign, and they will be helping with the bike wash.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Devils Tower Loop"}]

Aladdin is just one of the tiny towns on the Devils Tower Loop, a route many Sturgis Rally goers will ride during their visit. 

The loop runs through Beulah, Sundance, Carlile Junction, Devils Tower, Hulett, Alva, and Aladdin on the Wyoming side. It takes in Whitewood, Spearfish, Belle Fourche, St. Onge and Sturgis in South Dakota. 

Many of the towns along the loop — or even near the loop, like Moorcroft — stage their own events during the Sturgis Rally to draw riders.

Among the best-known of these side events is Hulett’s Ham and Jam, held on Wyoming Wednesday of Sturgis Week, which is Aug. 12 this year. Roughly 

 on one day for a free pork sandwich with classic picnic dishes like pork and beans and potato chips. 

The music and food are free — while supplies last — paid for by the town and sponsors as a thank you to the riding community. The main serving station is right next to Captain Ron’s Rodeo Bar on Main Street, where the idea was born almost 40 years ago. 

Sundance has also made its mark with the 

, where riders gather to shred their tires, producing thick clouds of black smoke, in a 3 p.m. street party that dovetails perfectly with the noon Ham 'N Jam. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"When The Region Goes Black"}]

Ham and Jam time is go-time for the region, Hulett’s Tom Coronato told Cowboy State Daily. He co-owns the Ponderosa Cafe and Bar with his brothers, Dean and Bob Coronato. The latter also owns 

“I think the entire Black Hills, if you actually talk to the liquor salesmen, your food salesmen, and all the purveyors, this is when the entire region goes into the black,” he said. “Most businesses ride the red for 10 months out of the year, but then like July and August put them into the black, until they go back into the red sometime around Christmas.”

It’s a nerve-wracking cycle for the business owners, Coronato said. And it’s one that requires some thought into what the visitors will actually buy. Expensive artifacts and curiosities, for example, not so much. But stickers and postcards with artwork on them are popular as mementoes.

Beyond the short-term lift to businesses though, there’s a longer-term impact that goes beyond how individual businesses do during the rally. The ripple effects start with sales and lodging tax revenues that support county services and spread out to the general impression the area makes, which ultimately attracts new residents.

“I’ve lost count of how many people have moved into the surrounding area,” Coronato said. "Crook County, Gillette, Spearfish — all the surrounding counties — because they’re Rally people who came through here and said, ‘You know what, when I want to move out of my home in Chicago or Denver I want a second home out here because the summers are just outstanding.'”

That’s helping build a larger community, with demographics that can better help support new businesses.

“They may be second homeowners, but they still pay taxes here,” Coronato said. “They still pay school tax. They’re still paying revenue into the communities. They’re putting insurance companies in business and the title companies — the ripple effects are way larger than ‘Hey, I’m able to sell more beer on Wednesday than anyone else.’”

It’s not just small communities that benefit, though. Larger communities such as Cheyenne and Cody also see substantial economic benefit from Rally goers.

Cody Yellowstone Director of Marketing Katrina Southern told Cowboy State Daily that Rally goers show up before and after the Sturgis Rally to check out the Beartooth Loop, which is on Harley-Davidson’s list of top-rated scenic rides. That loop includes Chief Joseph Highway and can easily include side trips into Yellowstone. 

“My husband rides as well, and I mean the twists and turns down Chief Joseph as well as the Beartooth are phenomenal for bike riding,” she said. “And people will also take the Chief Joseph route and loop around, go in through the northeast gate of Yellowstone National Park, and then come back around through the east gate.”

There’s also a scenic loop that goes around to Sheridan and the Bighorn Mountains, as well as loops that run down to Thermopolis and the Hot Springs.

That’s brought some Sturgis Rally goers back to Cody multiple years in a row for new adventures. The late-August riders help bridge the gap between the family-vacation crush of midsummer and Cody’s strong September shoulder season.

“We’ve been essentially a base camp for the Sturgis Rally for quite a few years now,” Southern said. “And everyone here loves having them come in. They’re always so friendly and they’re just looking for a new adventure.”

In Cheyenne, Sturgis brings between $3 to $5 million annually, Visit Cheyenne’s Jim Walter told Cowboy State Daily. While that represents a 1-2% slice of the capital city’s $485 million tourism economy, it’s still a hefty sum in real dollars.

Cheyenne is the “last big stop” for many of the Rally goers, Walter said. It’s where many of the riders stage for the last night in a real bed and the last big restaurant meal before arriving in Sturgis.  

“I know over the years the Plains Hotel has always had motorcycle parking specifically out front for people going to Sturgis,” Walter said. “I think there’s a few bars that do some things as well, like they’ll put out signs that say, ‘Welcome bikers.’”

Walter sees the Rally goers as an essential boost after Cheyenne Frontier Days, when many residents are feeling tapped out and less likely to eat out. 

“Having that Sturgis traffic come through sells that extra cheeseburger, that extra glass of beer, and fills that extra seat in the restaurant when everybody here in the community is all worn out and staying home for a couple of days,” Walter said. “These folks are coming through and doing that for us.”

On a map, the Sturgis Rally looks like a dot in South Dakota, but in Wyoming it’s a long and winding money trail that lifts towns from Cody to Hulett and Aladdin and from Cheyenne to Newcastle and beyond. 

For some places, the trail is just a handy, 1-2% bump, smoothing over a slow period when children head back to school and families aren’t likely to be vacationing. 

For other places, it’s become the difference between life and death for tiny town businesses. 

For them, it’s half a year’s income, crammed into a few loud and boisterous days. 

“There’s basically only four ways to get to Sturgis,” Coronato said. “Every community benefits along those highways for miles. It’s hundreds of miles of benefit.”

Ham and Jam 8 2 26

<title>Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Is Make-Or-Break For Businesses In Small Wyoming Towns | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A stream of bikers on their way to and from the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally create the biggest business week of the year for small northeast Wyoming towns. Bikers stay at motels, pack bars, eat and gas up — helping some businesses thrive, and others survive.

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Is Make-Or-Break For Businesses In Small Wyoming Towns

Kevin Killough

 — You can spot Charles Randolph’s house near Chugwater while whizzing by it on Interstate 25. 

At a quick glance, you might think someone built an igloo out on the Wyoming range. 

The beige house is monolithic dome construction that’s used in all kinds of buildings, big and small, including stadiums and warehouses. 

Though it stands out on the Wyoming landscape, Randolph said his dome house is very comfortable and stays warm even in the coldest of Wyoming winters. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Place Like Dome"}]

Randolph and his wife, Susan, call it Hoth after the icy planet in the “Star Wars” movie “The Empire Strikes Back.” The house looks a bit like the igloo structures portrayed in the movie. 

Randolph grew up in Cheyenne, and so when he retired in 2013 after 37 years working for Burlington Northern Railroad as a dispatcher, he returned to Wyoming. 

The type of construction the Randolphs used for their home is called a monolithic dome structure, known for its durability and energy efficiency. 

The area gets its share of hail. One May, a storm dumped 2 feet of hail on the ground, and Randolph spent hours helping people get their cars unstuck. 

One particularly nasty hailstorm did $40,000 worth of damage to a neighbor’s home. 

Randolph said the golf ball-sized hail left some dimples on his dome, which eventually popped out on their own when things warmed up. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Huff And Puff"}]

While the Randolphs were living in Texas, where Charles worked, he saw a monolithic dome apartment building going up. 

“They had about two dozen of these little apartment domes. They had a kitchen, one or two bedrooms and a living room. They rented them out and the people never moved. They loved it,” Randolph said. 

So, when the Randolphs were deciding what to build for their retirement home, they called up the contractor who’d built those apartments. 

The construction type was developed in the 1960s in Utah. The structures are earthquake proof, fire resistant and capable of surviving direct hits from hurricanes. 

While hurricanes aren’t likely in Chugwater, the structure, Charles says, is also tornado resistant. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Balloons And Concrete"}]

Charles and Susan were living in their garage when they began building Hoth in August 2017. 

The first step was to lay out a concrete foundation that outlined the footprint of the home. After that was done, a contractor laid out a giant balloon over the concrete. 

It takes only a few hours to pump all the air into it. After the balloon was all pumped up, the contractors sprayed the inside with 12 inches of insulation. 

Embedded in the insulation are connection points for rebar, which went on next.  

The rebar wound around the contours of the dome. Altogether the structure has 900 pieces of rebar to reinforce it. 

[{"type":"text","text":"“So, it’s not going to fall apart,” Randolph said. "}]

With the rebar in place, the contractor sprayed the concrete on the inside of the dome. It’s 4-8 inches thick throughout the house. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The Randolphs began moving in nine months after construction began. "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Winter Resistant "}]

The house is heated three ways. They have a floor heating system, a double-sided fireplace and a thermal mass wall. The materials around the mass wall absorb the heat of the sun. 

“During the winter, when the sun is low and coming up from the south, it will heat the wall up to 85 degrees,” Randolph said. 

He said that during last December’s cold snap that sent temperatures plunging to minus 40 degrees, the house managed to stay at 64 inside.

“You put on a sweater and an extra blanket on the bed. It’s not bad,” Randolph said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The structure also stays quite cool in the summer. "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Shingles "}]

The Randolphs still have some work to do on their dome home, such as painting the exterior. 

It’s covered with a silicone material that eventually wears off. If Randolph paints it, it will just run off. So next year Randolph will give his dome on the range some color. 

He said he gets calls from roofers trying to sell him a new roof with super durable shingles. 

“So, I sent them a photo of my house and said, ‘What are you going to do? Build a roof over my house?’” he said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"They still keep calling."}]

Monolithic dome Charles and Susan Randolph 8 6 23

<title>Chugwater's Igloo House Is Earthquake Proof, Fire Resistant And Can Withstand Tornadoes, Owner Says | Cowboy State Daily</title>

That igloo-like structure near Chugwater is a monolithic dome house. It’s been pummeled by hailstorms without a scratch, can stay warm even in the harshest of winters and they claim it could stand-up to a tornado.

Chugwater's Igloo House Is Earthquake Proof, Fire Resistant And Can Withstand Tornadoes, Owner Says

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

 petroglyph sites in North America is hidden away in a secret spot near Newcastle, Wyoming. The petroglyphs of Whoopup Canyon are among the oldest and most "realistic" known to exist.

Hundreds of images are carved into the sandstone walls across 150 known panels. They depict people, animals and even the technology used by some of the earliest Indigenous people in North America.

A lucky group of people got to visit this protected site July 25 as part of a tour coordinated by the Wyoming Historical Society and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Newcastle office.

The tour was led by Lucas Keeler, a BLM petroleum engineering technician who’s also one of the foremost authorities on Whoopup Canyon.

“It’s one of the largest and oldest petroglyph sites in North America, and it’s a love and passion of mine,” he told Cowboy State Daily.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"It’s Not Art"}]

At many petroglyph sites, it’s hard for most people to recognize what’s being depicted. Images are deliberately abstract or artistic, which some believe is attached to the spiritual significance of the people who made them.

At Whoopup Canyon, little is left to the imagination. The images, free of artistic embellishments, are easy to identify and interpret as what they are.

Ralph I. Olinger, a businessman, amateur archaeologist, and Wyoming House representative from Lusk, noted as much during the first scholarly assessment of the petroglyphs with University of Denver anthropology professor Etienne B. Renaud in the 1930s.

“The deer and elk are mostly pictured, but there are mountain goats, antelope, bison, and a few other animals,” he wrote. “There seems to be none of horses.”

Keeler noted that the realism of the petroglyphs is one of many unique attributes of Whoopup Canyon. That’s also why he emphasized that the images “are not art.”

“It wasn’t art to the people that created them,” he said. “It is a historical record with cultural and spiritual significance. A sacred link to the land. There’s nothing wrong with referring to petroglyphs as ‘rock art,’ but it’s deeper than that.”

That was the background Keeler provided to the tour group before they departed from Newcastle to reach the sandstone canyon. They hiked a mile through chest-high grass, under the shade of ancient cottonwoods, before stopping at the end of the canyon to get a closer look at the panels.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Life And Times"}]

As the group approached the canyon wall, careful not to touch anything, many images were easy to understand. The walls were covered with elk, deer, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, birds, and “Mister Bison,” the only bison depicted along the entire four-mile expanse.

One of the most extraordinary petroglyph sites in North America is hidden away in a secret spot near Newcastle, Wyoming. The petroglyphs of Whoopup Canyon depicted in 150 sandstone panels are between 3,000 and 10,500 years old. Access is extremely limited.

Kevin Killough

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Chugwater's Igloo House Is Earthquake Proof, Fire Resistant And Can Withstand Tornadoes, Owner Says

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