We had come to Laramie to find our childhood TV roots. We both have fond memories of watching TV cowboy series like Bronco, Bonanza, the Lone Ranger and Laramie. Well here we were, right in the middle of the Wild West (even though we are 1000 miles from the West Coast).
So we set out to find the real West. Although Laramie called to us we made our first stop the Wyoming State Penitentiary Museum, which is just across the river from town. This is because it was on our way! It is also the biggest attraction round here, so we figured that we would get it out of the way first.
Just as well we did, because it gave us a great insight into the development of Laramie, as well as what was happening in the local area.
The prison still has its dingy cell block and many of the supporting rooms and materials, like the infirmary. There were also many stories about the inmates, who dated from the 1860's. Of great interest was the prison work bulding, where they made brooms, the traditional sort that Mickey Mouse used to great effect in the sorcerer's apprentice
What we found out was that laramie was more a rail town than a cow town. The place is completely dominated be the Union Pacific railway. Both its history and its geography. There was nothing here until the railroad was built, when it became a watering point for the trains that had climbed the 'gangplank' up onto the high plateau. For quite a while it was the end of the line, so sort of built up all the rubbish that fell out of the trains when they hit the end of the track. This included out of work cowboys, railworkers, ex civil war soldiers, gamblers and 'ladies of the night'. Every other building was a bar, every bar had a brothel out the back. Geographically it Laramie existed because of a narrow causeway, called The Gangplank that joined the Great Plains to the Rockies Plateau, thus making a very good route for the railway, without that the railroad would have been built further south in Colorado. After the railroad was built communities sprang up along it, Cheyenne, Laramie, Rawlins, Rock Spring are all rail towns.
Because of the lawless element Laramie was pretty rough until town vigilantes took matters into their own hands and strung up three of the bad boys. In the 1870's at least 20 people were hung by their somewhat basic justice.
Mixed in with the truth and myth are a number of cowboy cult figures, probably best know of all being Butch Cassidy. We found out that he actually spent about 18 months in the Pen at Laramie, hung around a lot here and had a girlfriend, Etta Place, here who helped in some of his robberies. The Union Pacific Railway was held up several times, supposedly by him. There is no doubt though that the combination of wild country, the railroad and lots of civil war veterans meant that Laramie was the place that most fitted the Hollywood Mythology of the Cowboy.
Even today the town is dominated by the railroad. The trains are huge, up to a mile long! They reckon that more than 80 a day pass through, many of them taking goods imported from China on the West Coast to the big cities on the East coast. The rumble, bells and lonesome whistle sound are a very romantic reminder of America's past.
Much of Laramie however has gone, many of the historic buildings have gone, the stories merely echo down the years and where they took place there are empty lots, or modern banks. We found this quite sad really.
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