Did You Know These 20 Fun Facts About Our Beloved State?

1) Wyoming was the first state to have a county public library. Established in 1886, when Wyoming was still a territory, the Laramie County Library System (LCLS) located in Cheyenne is the oldest continually operating county library system in the United States.

2) In 1872, Yellowstone was designated as the first National Park in the nation. Not only is Yellowstone National Park the first in the nation, but also the first in the world. It also has more geysers than any other geyser field in the world.

3) The first Dude Ranch in Wyoming was the Eaton Ranch, near Wolf. The Eaton’s also came up with the term “dude”.

4) Devils Tower was designated as the first National Monument in 1906. The popular Columbia Pictures film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, was filmed on location at Devil’s Tower.

5) The horse on the Wyoming license plate has a name, “Old Steamboat.” It is named after a bronco that could not be ridden in the early 1900’s.

6) Even though it’s a thoroughly landlocked state, Wyoming actually has 32 named islands within its state lines.

7) The official State Dinosaur of Wyoming is the Triceratops. It's one of only six states with an official state dinosaur.

8) The second largest traveling sand dunes in the world — the Killpecker Dunes, are located north of Rock Springs.

9) It is against the law for junk dealers to transact business with anyone who is drunk.

10) Wyoming had the United States’ first female governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross, from 1925 to 1927. The outspoken Prohibition activist and former kindergarten teacher won an election after the sitting governor, her husband William Bradford Ross, died in office.

11) Depending on who you talk with, the word “Wyoming” in Delaware Indian language means either "large plains" or “mountains and valleys alternating;” in Munsee language "at the big river flat;” or in Algonquin “a large prairie place.”

12) The J.C. Penney stores were started in Kemmerer by James Cash Penney in 1902.

13) At the Carbon County Museum in Rawlins, are the remains of an outlaw by the name of George Manuse who was more familiarly called “Big Nose George.”  However, one doesn’t see a skeleton here, but rather a pair of shoes that a local doctor made from the dead man’s skin and the top of his skull, that was used as both a doorstop and an ashtray.  The doctor, John Osborne, would later wear the shoes when he became the Governor of Wyoming.

14) The world’s largest elk horn arch is in Afton, Wyoming. The 75 foot arch is made out of 3,011 elk antlers.

15) The town of Kemmerer is known as the Fossil Fish Capital of the World. Kemmerer is home to over 100 Pronghorn Antelope, about 3,000 people, and over 100,000 fish fossils.

16) Wild Bill Hickok married Agnes Lake Thatcher in the First United Methodist Church in Cheyenne in 1874.

17) Seven miles east of Medicine Bow is the Dinosaur Bone House made up of 26,000 fossils.

18) Wyoming is thought to have one of the richest fossil records in the nation. Middle Jurassic dinosaur footprints that are 165 million years old were found near Shell in 1997.

19) In 1887, Harry Alonzo Longabaugh was caught stealing a gun, horse, and saddle from a Sundance, Wyoming ranch. While in jail for the crime, he took on the name the “Sundance Kid.”

20) The state’s oldest bar is Buckhorn Bar and Parlor in Laramie. It was established all the way back in 1900, just ten years after Wyoming became a state.