I taught American history for the better part of three decades before I retired in 2018, and Wyoming was always the chapter my students sat up for. The Oregon Trail crossed it. The transcontinental railroad cut through it. The army fought here, the Cold War quietly waited here, and the country’s first national park was carved out of its northwest corner. You can stand in one state and touch a surprising amount of the American story.
What follows is my ranked list of 15 historic places worth your time, counting down from 15 to my number one. A few of these are National Park Service sites. Most are run by Wyoming State Parks, Historic Sites & Trails, which does a quiet, careful job with places the big-name parks tend to overshadow. I have tried to be honest about each one, including the few that take real planning to reach.
One note before we start. Several of these sites mark hard chapters, the killing of Native families, the wartime imprisonment of American citizens. I have written about them the way I taught them, plainly and with respect for the people involved.
Historic Sites In Wyoming At A Glance
| Site | Designation | Managed By | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Historic Governors’ Mansion | State Historic Site | Wyoming State Parks | Cheyenne |
| Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum | State Museum | State of Wyoming | Douglas |
| Piedmont Charcoal Kilns | State Historic Site | Wyoming State Parks | near Fort Bridger |
| Legend Rock Petroglyph Site | State Petroglyph Site | Wyoming State Parks | near Thermopolis |
| Ames Monument | State Historic Site / NHL | Wyoming State Parks | near Laramie |
| Fort Phil Kearny | State Historic Site / NHL | Wyoming State Parks | near Story |
| Connor Battlefield | State Historic Site | Wyoming State Parks | Ranchester |
| Quebec 01 Missile Alert Facility | State Historic Site | Wyoming State Parks | near Chugwater |
| Independence Rock | State Historic Site / NHL | Wyoming State Parks | near Casper |
| Oregon Trail Ruts | State Historic Site / NHL | Wyoming State Parks | near Guernsey |
| Fort Bridger | State Historic Site | Wyoming State Parks | Fort Bridger |
| Heart Mountain | Confinement Site / NHL | Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation | near Powell |
| Fort Laramie | National Historic Site | National Park Service | near Fort Laramie |
| Yellowstone | National Park (1872) | National Park Service | NW Wyoming |
| Grand Teton | National Park | National Park Service | near Jackson |
15. Historic Governors’ Mansion
We start in Cheyenne with the Historic Governors’ Mansion, a Wyoming State Historic Site. From 1905 to 1976 this was home to Wyoming’s first families, nineteen governors in all, before the state built a newer residence. The house itself is a tidy Georgian Revival building, and walking the rooms gives you a real sense of how the people running a young western state actually lived.
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There is a nice piece of history here that often gets missed. Wyoming was the first place in the country to grant women the vote, and Nellie Tayloe Ross, the first woman elected governor of any U.S. state, lived in this house in the 1920s. The interpreters do a good job connecting those dots.
Visiting note. The mansion sits in a residential neighborhood a few blocks from downtown Cheyenne, admission is free, and hours are limited and seasonal. Call ahead before you drive over, since staffing can change week to week.
14. Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum
Number 14 is the Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum in Douglas, a state-run museum sitting on the Wyoming State Fairgrounds. It opened in the 1950s and has grown into one of the better collections of frontier-era material in the state.
What you find inside is the texture of everyday life on the high plains, homestead tools, military gear, beadwork and clothing tied to the Plains tribes, ranching equipment, and the odd surprising artifact that makes you stop and read the label twice. It is the kind of museum that rewards an unhurried visit.
Visiting note. Douglas is an easy stop off Interstate 25 in eastern Wyoming. Admission is free, hours run longest during the summer fair season, and it pairs well with the Oregon Trail country to the south.
13. Piedmont Charcoal Kilns
At 13 we have something genuinely odd in the best way, the Piedmont Charcoal Kilns State Historic Site in the southwest corner of the state. Three of the original four beehive-shaped limestone kilns still stand out on the open ground, each about 30 feet across and 30 feet tall.
A trader named Moses Byrne built them in 1869 to turn timber from the nearby Uinta Mountains into charcoal for Utah’s iron smelters. The Union Pacific ran right through the little town of Piedmont and hauled the charcoal west. The town is long gone, but the kilns endured, and Wyoming State Parks now administers them through Fort Bridger State Historic Site.
Visiting note. This one takes effort. The kilns sit at the end of a gravel road off Interstate 80 near Fort Bridger, with no staff and no services on site. Bring water, watch the weather, and do not attempt the road in a low car after rain.
12. Legend Rock Petroglyph Site
Legend Rock, northwest of Thermopolis, is one of the oldest and best-preserved rock art sites in the country. A long sandstone cliff carries close to 300 figures pecked into the stone over thousands of years by Native peoples of the region.
Most of the images belong to what archaeologists call the Dinwoody tradition, found in the Wind River and Bighorn basins, known for tall human-like figures with patterned bodies and headdresses. I will not pin a single tribe to this art, because the record runs deeper than any one modern nation, but it is rightly treated as sacred ground by descendant communities today.
Visiting note. This is a managed site, not a roadside pullout. From May through September you can usually drive in without a key. From October through April you need a permit and a gate key from the Hot Springs State Park bathhouse or the Thermopolis Chamber of Commerce. Photo ID is required, and the panels are fragile, so look but never touch.
11. Ames Monument
Drive the high windswept ground east of Laramie and you come upon a 60-foot granite pyramid standing alone on the prairie. This is the Ames Monument, built by the Union Pacific between 1880 and 1882 to honor Oliver and Oakes Ames, the brothers who helped finance the western half of the transcontinental railroad.
The pyramid is a real piece of art history. It was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, the most important American architect of his day, and the portrait medallions of the two brothers were carved by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the finest sculptor of the era. The monument marked the highest point on the original rail line, near the vanished town of Sherman. The Ames name later got tangled in the Crédit Mobilier scandal, a story the site does not shy away from. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 2016.
Visiting note. The Union Pacific donated the monument to Wyoming State Parks in 1983. It sits about 20 miles east of Laramie off the Vedauwoo exit on Interstate 80, open daily and free. There are no services out there, so fuel up first, and do not try to climb the structure.
10. Fort Phil Kearny
If you care about military history, Fort Phil Kearny is essential. The army built it in 1866 to guard the Bozeman Trail, the shortcut miners used to reach the Montana gold fields. The trouble was that the trail ran straight through prime hunting country held by the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, and they did not intend to give it up.
This was the heart of Red Cloud’s War. In December 1866, warriors led in part by a young Crazy Horse lured Captain William Fetterman and 80 soldiers into an ambush and killed them all, the army’s worst defeat on the plains to that point. The fighting forced the United States to the negotiating table, and by the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty the army abandoned the Bozeman forts entirely. The tribes burned Fort Phil Kearny to the ground. It is one of the rare cases in this era where the Native nations clearly won.
Visiting note. Fort Phil Kearny is a Wyoming State Historic Site and a National Historic Landmark near Story, off Interstate 90 between Buffalo and Sheridan. The visitor center and interpretive trails run seasonally, roughly spring through fall, with reduced grounds-only access in winter. Don’t skip the nearby Fetterman Fight and Wagon Box Fight markers.
9. Connor Battlefield
Number 9 asks more of a visitor than a quiet riverside park first suggests. Connor Battlefield sits along the Tongue River in Ranchester, and it marks the Battle of the Tongue River on August 29, 1865. I want to be accurate about what happened here, because the older tellings often get it backward.
This was not a battle between equals. General Patrick Connor, with cavalry and Pawnee scouts, attacked an Arapaho village led by Chief Black Bear at dawn. Soldiers destroyed the lodges and the winter food supply and killed scores of people, including women and children and Black Bear’s own son. It was part of the larger Powder River Expedition, and it is honest to call it what it was, an attack on a sleeping village rather than a clash of armies.
Visiting note. Today the site is a peaceful Wyoming State Park with cottonwoods, a campground, and interpretive markers along the Tongue River. It is a short drive off Interstate 90 in Ranchester. Go for the history, read the signs slowly, and give the place the weight it deserves.
8. Quebec 01 Missile Alert Facility
From a 19th century battlefield we jump to the Cold War. Quebec 01, north of Cheyenne near Chugwater, was a real ICBM launch control facility, the kind of place where two officers waited underground with the keys that could end the world. It went into service in the early 1960s and was upgraded to control the powerful Peacekeeper missiles in 1986.
Here is where the old version of this article was out of date. Quebec 01 is not an abandoned ruin anymore. Wyoming State Parks took it over and it is now the only accessible Peacekeeper alert facility left in the world. A guided tour rides the elevator 50 feet down into the launch control capsule, the actual room where crews stood alert. For anyone who grew up during the Cold War, it is a sobering place to stand.
Visiting note. Tours run on a set daily schedule in season, and space underground is limited, so it is smart to call ahead even though walk-ins are sometimes possible. The site is about 30 miles north of Cheyenne. This is the kind of stop kids and history buffs both remember.
7. Independence Rock
Independence Rock is one of the great landmarks of the westward migration. It is a rounded granite dome rising out of the sagebrush in central Wyoming, and for tens of thousands of pioneers on the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails it was a milestone in the most literal sense.
The name comes from the rule of thumb that wagon trains needed to reach the rock by the Fourth of July to clear the mountains before the snows. Travelers carved their names into the granite by the thousands, and many are still legible. Walking up and reading them, real people with real dates, is the closest thing I know to touching the trail itself.
Visiting note. Independence Rock is a Wyoming State Historic Site and a National Historic Landmark along Highway 220 southwest of Casper. There is a rest area with shade and restrooms, a short walk to the base, and a steeper scramble to the top for those who want it. Summer mornings are best before the heat builds.
6. Oregon Trail Ruts
Just down the trail near Guernsey are the Oregon Trail Ruts, and they may be the single most moving thing on this entire list. Where countless wagons crossed a soft sandstone ridge, the wheels and the oxen wore grooves into solid rock, some of them five feet deep.
Stand in that channel and the scale of the migration hits you. These were not made in a season. They were carved by twenty years of families pushing west, one wagon at a time. A short paved path leads from the parking area up to the ruts, and a few miles away is Register Cliff, where pioneers signed their names in the soft stone. The two together make a perfect half-day of trail history.
Visiting note. The Oregon Trail Ruts are a Wyoming State Historic Site and a National Historic Landmark just south of Guernsey, free and open year-round during daylight. The walk is short but the last stretch is uphill, so wear real shoes and bring water in summer.
5. Fort Bridger
Cracking the top five is Fort Bridger, in the southwest corner of the state. The famous mountain man Jim Bridger and his partner Louis Vasquez set it up in 1843 as a trading post to resupply emigrants on the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails. Few places packed more western history into one set of grounds.
From there the story runs through nearly everyone who shaped the frontier. The Mormons controlled the post for a stretch in the 1850s, the army took it over and held it until 1890, the Pony Express and the Overland Stage both stopped here, and the railroad eventually passed it by. The grounds today hold restored and reconstructed buildings from several of those eras, so you walk through the layers in order.
Visiting note. Fort Bridger is a Wyoming State Historic Site off Interstate 80, with a strong museum and living-history programs. The big draw is the Fort Bridger Rendezvous over Labor Day weekend, when reenactors fill the grounds. Buildings are open seasonally, while the grounds stay open longer.
4. Heart Mountain
Number 4 is the one I tell people not to miss, and it is the hardest to write about. Between 1942 and 1945, the United States government forced more than 14,000 Japanese Americans, most of them U.S. citizens, into a confinement site here on the windswept flats between Cody and Powell. They had committed no crime. Their ancestry was treated as the offense.
Heart Mountain matters in part because of how people fought back from inside the fences. The Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee organized draft resistance on principle, arguing they should not be asked to fight for a country that had imprisoned their families. The legal battles that followed helped force a national reckoning with the incarceration, and a formal government apology came decades later. This is incarceration history, told without euphemism.
Visiting note. The site is a National Historic Landmark run by the nonprofit Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, not the Park Service. The interpretive center near Powell is excellent, with oral histories and artifacts, plus original structures and a walking path outside. It is open daily in the warmer months and on a reduced schedule in winter, so check before you go.
3. Fort Laramie National Historic Site
At number 3 we reach the first National Park Service site on the list, and it earns the spot. Here is the distinction worth remembering. Despite all the forts in this article, Fort Laramie is the only one run by the National Park Service. The rest are Wyoming State Historic Sites. Fort Laramie is a National Historic Site, and that federal stewardship shows in the preservation.
Fort Laramie began as a fur trading post in 1834 and grew into the most important military post on the Northern Plains. Wagon trains resupplied here. The army launched campaigns from here. And two of the most consequential treaties in Plains history, the Fort Laramie treaties of 1851 and 1868, were negotiated on this ground, agreements the United States would later break. To stand here is to stand at a hinge point of the West.
Visiting note. The site is near the town of Fort Laramie in southeastern Wyoming, open year-round, with a visitor center, an orientation film, and a dozen restored buildings you can walk through. Summer brings ranger talks and living-history programs. The 1.6-mile Confluence Trail makes a fine leg-stretcher.
2. Yellowstone National Park
The runner-up is a place that is history all by itself. Yellowstone was established in 1872 as the first national park anywhere on earth, the moment the United States invented the whole idea of setting land aside for everyone. Most of the park lies inside Wyoming, and the National Park Service runs it.
The human history runs far older than 1872. Native peoples including the Crow, Blackfeet, Shoshone, and the Mountain Shoshone known as the Sheep Eaters lived in and traveled this country for thousands of years. The early reports of geysers and boiling rivers were so far beyond belief that one magazine reportedly rejected an account with the line that it did not print fiction. Then the photographs and paintings arrived, Congress saw them, and the park was born.
Visiting note. Yellowstone is enormous and busy. Old Faithful, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Lamar Valley wildlife, and the Grand Prismatic Spring are the headliners, and early morning is your friend at all of them. For the full rundown, see our guide to the best things to do in Yellowstone.
1. Grand Teton National Park
My number one is Grand Teton National Park. I know it is a national park more than a conventional history site, but the way these mountains came to be protected is one of the better conservation stories in the country, and the place itself is simply unmatched.
The history here is a fight over land. The Teton Range was protected early, but the valley floor of Jackson Hole took decades of quiet effort. John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought up ranchland through a front company and gave it to the public, and after years of local resistance the modern park came together in 1950. Snap a photo at the Snake River Overlook and you are standing roughly where Ansel Adams made one of the most famous landscape photographs ever taken.
Visiting note. We first visited in 2016 and have come back many times since. The crowds have grown, and yes it is still worth it, you just need a plan. Beat the crowds with an early start at Jenny Lake, drive Mormon Row at sunrise for the barns under the peaks, and keep your distance from the wildlife. For trails, scenic drives, and lodging, our Grand Teton guide covers the details.
Check Out Our Grand Teton Film
Of all our films, this one captured the most wildlife, bison, elk, moose, bears, foxes, and beavers among them.
More Things To Do In Wyoming
If this list has you planning a trip, here are a few of our other Wyoming guides to help you fill out the itinerary.
- Wyoming National Parks, a full rundown of every Park Service site in the state.
- Best Things To Do In Grand Teton National Park, our trail-by-trail guide to my number one pick.
- Yellowstone vs Grand Teton, if you only have time for one and need help choosing.
You should know that this guide does not come out of thin air. More Than Just Parks is a family operation. My sons Will and Jim have spent their adult lives exploring America’s national parks and public lands destinations, working with the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior, the USDA, and the U.S. Forest Service to tell the stories of places that matter. And in 2018, after a lifetime teaching history, I joined them to help tell the stories behind them.
