Medicine Bow Wyoming Tourism

Trappers and mountain men, so often pointed out as the first European users of almost any part of the west, had their turn in Medicine Bow, elbowing out the Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes who had used the nearby Medicine Bow River bottom as a source of bow-making materials.

The trappers were succeeded by the empire builders in the form of the Union Pacific Railroad, for which a pumping station was built on the river in 1868. A town grew up along with the ranching endeavor in the surrounding countryside and by the late 1880s and early 1890s, more range livestock was being shipped from Medicine Bow than any other place on the Union Pacific line.

In 1911, the town’s mayor, August Grimm and his partner, George Plummer, opened a hotel to the public, making much of its electric lighting and sewer system, the first of their kind in the town. In 1984, the hotel was reopened in its present completely renovated state, having received designation as a National Historic Place. Tour the decorated rooms and speculate about where one Owen Wister (author of the first western novel) stayed.

Seven miles east of Medicine Bow stands the Como Bluff Museum Building, made entirely of dinosaur bones, and was featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not as the “Oldest Building in America.” The Site and building are now in private hands, but the owner will sometimes permit tours on request.