BootsnAll Articles

Wyoming Things to see and do Articles

Yellowstone National Park – Yellowstone, Wyoming

What to do at the world’s oldest National Park.

August 2002 – Wyoming Ghost Towns – Wyoming, USA

August 2002 – Wyoming Ghost Towns

Fighting Fort Washakie’s South Fork Fire

Northfork Fire crews load up at Fort Washakie last Saturday for a
Dickinson Park ride.

Thin white ash drifting like snow during a sweltering early July afternoon last week had many Riverton, Wyoming residents joking about a “Washakie Winter.” Humor aside, such comments were ominous. Around 2 [...]

Is Yellowstone National Park North America’s Pompeii? – Wyoming, USA

December 2001 – Wyoming Ghost Towns

Heart Mountain, Wyoming – Wyoming, USA

November 2001 – Wyoming Ghost Towns
By Mike Jamison

World War II’s Japanese-American Relocation Camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming

The Heart Mountain camp’s power plant.

Early 20th Century Model-T tourists dubbed it the “Old Yellowstone Highway.” And for me, as with them, this solitary yet starkly beautiful route through the Rockies to Old Faithful has always promised untethered [...]

So You Want to Mine Coal: Gebo, Wyoming – Gebo, Wyoming, USA

November 2001 – Wyoming Ghost Towns
So You Want to Mine Coal: Gebo, Wyoming

Gebo’s graveyard reveals the miners’ struggle.

He was exploited, worked long dangerous hours underground; meager pay fed his family; social security didn’t exist; labor laws were practically non-existent – and a canary provided life insurance.

Think of him when modern office politics dog you. Yes, [...]

October 2001 – Sweetwater, Part I – Wyoming Ghost Towns

Autumn Gold in the Sweetwater Mining District,Part I

Head frame and main shaft building above one of many abandoned South Pass City area mines.

Gold exists in two forms: material and spiritual.

During Wyoming’s early years the former attracted miners westward in hopes of striking it rich. Today however, the towns these hardy folks established in that quest [...]

Japan’s WW II Balloon Bombing of Western National Forests – Wyoming Ghost Towns

WW II’s Casper Army Air Field kept watch in Wyoming. An abandoned gunnery range tower still stands.

Riverton, Wyoming

September 11, 2001 and December 7, 1941: dates that will live in infamy.

Like its 1940s counterpart the September World Trade Center and U.S. Pentagon terrorist bombings have jolted Americans into reality. As with the Japanese Pearl Harbor attack [...]

Jeffrey City – Wyoming Ghost Towns

A Forgotten Communities Primer:Jeffrey City, Wyoming’s Post-Industrial Ghost Town

A derelict Jeffrey City street corner.

Mention the American West, and pretty soon talk turns to ghost towns. If you’ve never actually seen one its concept is familiar: You know, Festus and Matt ride into a deserted false-front main street, in a howling gale that blows tumbling tumbleweeds.

Then, [...]

Attack on America: Japan’s WW II Balloon Bombing

Attack on America: Japan’s WW II Balloon Bombing of Western National Forests
By Mike Jamison

WW II’s Casper Army Air Field kept watch in Wyoming. An abandoned gunnery range tower still stands.

Riverton, Wyoming

September 11, 2001 and December 7, 1941: dates that will live in infamy.

Like its 1940s counterpart the September World Trade Center and U.S. Pentagon [...]

November 2001 – Wyoming

November 2001 – Wyoming Ghost Towns
By Mike Jamison

Part II, Sweetwater Mining District:Of Lewiston, Gillespie Place & Stone Circles

Known as a “tipi ring” locally, no one knows a stone circle’s purpose.

On a barren, windswept hill high above central Wyoming’s Sweetwater River lies a lonely stone circle that has observed human activities, perhaps for millennia.

Walking slowly [...]