When Jaelin Kauf zipped through moguls and jumps to win two world freestyle skiing titles this winter, she was far from the cowbells, gluhwein, chocolate and other slopeside paraphernalia that speckles historic European ski venues.

She skidded to a stop March 1 at the bottom of Kazakhstan’s Shymbulak Mountain Resort, a central Asian slope on the other side of the globe from her hometown of Alta, Wyoming. With two more races still on her international schedule, Kauf had just beaten Japan’s Rino Yanagimoto in the dual moguls event and secured the season’s crystal globe trophy for that discipline.

In besting Yanagimoto, she had also accumulated the most points for the season in both mogul events — the head-to-head duals and the single-skier competitions.

Her phone started buzzing.

“I was texting my parents … checking,” she said. “They said, ‘you also just secured the overall.’”

Kauf couldn’t believe it.

“Are you sure?” she texted back. “Are you positive? I don’t want to believe it or say anything if it’s not actually true.”

It was all true, but only half the season’s story. Within a couple of weeks, Kauf went on to Livigno, Italy, to win the freestyle single’s globe and then to fabled St. Moritz, Switzerland, to win the duals medal in the world Championships.

All those points, globes and medals might be as confusing to flatlanders as a mogul field is to an intermediate skier, but they shake out to simple truths.

Wyoming’s Jaelin Kauf, 28, dominates the freestyle moguls circuit. She won an unprecedented American crystal globe hat trick on the International Ski Federation tour this winter. She won the 2025 dual mogul world championship and is headed to next season’s Olympics in Cortina, Italy, where she hopes to add gold to her 2022 Beijing silver.

360s at the ’Ghee

Born in Vail, Colorado, to parents who skied on the pro mogul circuit, Kauf and her family moved to Alta and Grand Targhee Resort when she was three. Moguls — German for “small hills” — didn’t suit her at first. But she was determined to follow her older brother Skyler through the obstacles.

Then came mother Patti.

“My mom taught us how to do 360s off a catwalk or [by] just hitting road jumps or things around the mountain,” she said.

Skiers have long tested one another by racing down smooth courses and between gates set tightly for slalom and farther apart for giant slalom and downhill. Moguls were mine fields where grooming machines and racers didn’t venture.

That’s until the 1970s when Canadian Wayne Wong donned his white-rimmed mirror shades, got in the back seat and twisted his way through bumps in a new, expressive style — hot-dogging. Wong even incorporated a flip, the Wong-banger, into a bag of tricks that catapulted him onto posters found above many ski tuning benches across North America.

Today’s freestyle competition requires racing through manufactured snow moguls and over two kickers that enable skiers to perform aerial acrobatics. Judges rank competitors on time, style and form. In duals, skiers race side by side.

Kauf’s hometown hill, Grand Targhee, is blessed with snow and even moguls, but it’s not a mecca for budding aerialists. Kauf’s best simulation was on a trampoline. By the time she entered high school, the family had moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

That town is home to storied Howelsen Hill, a rare natural ski-jumping venue. Building on that heritage, the town also created one of the few American ski water ramps where athletes can practice aerial maneuvers in summer above a safe landing.

With aerials under her belt, Kauf in 2016 earned the rookie of the year title on the World Cup tour. Since then, she’s bumped and jumped her way to glory.

She has 16 World Cup victories, 50 World Cup podiums, a World Championships gold medal, seven U.S. Championship titles, and an Olympic silver medal. Along with Breezy Johnson, this year’s world champion downhill and team combined alpine champion who calls Jackson Hole Mountain Resort home, Kauf has again elevated Wyoming to the top of the world podium.

On to Cortina

At the culmination of Kauf’s season in St. Moritz, her family — mother Patti, stepfather Squeak Melehes, father Scott and stepmother Muffy Mead-Ferro — joined a smallish band of spectators and fans. Freestyle hasn’t captured the Europeans as completely as downhill and slalom, events in which stars bask in as much limelight as NFL quarterbacks do in the U.S. Nevertheless, “the locals or people free skiing would definitely stop and check out the event and see what’s going on,” Kauf said.

Regardless of the immediate audience, Kauf has been on the largest sports platform, including competing at two Olympics. In Beijing, even though COVID clouded her experience, the Olympic aura shone through.

“I got to walk out in opening ceremonies and perform on that stage,” she said. “It was still the Olympics.”

Kauf visited China again this year when Beidahu hosted a moguls event and where she found welcoming hosts. “They are very excited to have us there,” she said. “Everyone was really friendly and nice.”

She’s now focused on Cortina, which last hosted the winter Olympics in 1956. The coming games offer a double chance — individual and the duals medals.

“It’s not just focusing on that singles run,” she said. “You have to think about duals strategy as well.”

She’s eyeing “a very clean, zipper line right down the middle … hoping to bring in a bit higher degree of difficulty into my jumps.”

Wyoming will be there with her. Kauf wears “Deliver the Love,” on the back of her helmet, “Grand Targhee” on the front. In her gear bag, she said, she’s even got “a few brown and gold things.”

The post With freestyler Kauf, Wyoming celebrates another world ski champion appeared first on WyoFile .

April eases Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks into the hustle of summer, coaxing cyclists to dust off their steeds for car-free exploration of otherwise heavily trafficked scenic routes.

In Wyoming’s two federal reserves, workers plow a winter’s worth of snow from highways, then open the roads exclusively for bicyclists and pedestrians. And in Yellowstone, for a bison or 10.

“It’s a rite of spring,” said Jackson resident Anna Davis, who rode 28 miles along the base of the Teton Mountains with a small band of friends Sunday. “To be able to bike in that setting, under those peaks with no cars, there’s not a lot of things like it.”

The internal-combustion-engine-free window is brief, however. Yellowstone opened the 49 miles between West Yellowstone and Mammoth to cycling last weekend and will allow motorized vehicles April 18. In Grand Teton, the Teton Park Road will not open to cars until May.

It’s not only cyclists who enjoy the open roads. On sunny weekends, thousands flock to Grand Teton’s Taggart Lake Trailhead to stroll with the family, rollerblade or skateboard. The first mile is a gallimaufry spiced with every color and brand of outdoor togs.

“I just love the sort of carnival atmosphere,” Davis said of that popular starting point. “Everyone’s so excited to be there. It’s hectic, but everybody’s being nice.”

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Growing up in the Bighorn Basin, Ismael Dominguez described himself as feeling distinct, as a Mexican-American in a majority white state, but also connected to a heritage of immigrant laborers who flowed to northern Wyoming to work its sugar beet fields and then built community.

Dominguez, who studied metalsmithing and sculpture at the University of Wyoming and today lives in Laramie, is honoring his roots — quite literally through his creation of a several foot high replica of a sugar beet — in a new art exhibit on display in the Laramie Plains Civic Center.

Called Migración: Betabeleros, the exhibit celebrates the migrant workers whose wearying work was the backbone of the sugar beet industry in the Bighorn River Basin. His artwork incorporates historic photographs, like the one atop this week’s Photo Friday, with textile sculptures of fields and the houses workers lived in — including the house Dominguez grew up in, he told a crowd that gathered in Laramie for the exhibit’s March 8 opening. 

“This work is an homage or offering to my ancestors and living family members who carried themselves and our lineage through the fields,” Dominguez wrote in a statement introducing the work. “So I could have the privilege of never having to know that kind of manual labor.” 

Dominguez was joined at the opening of his exhibit by two University of Wyoming linguistic scholars, Chelsea Escalante and Conxita Domènech. In 1927, the Powell Tribune ran a weekly publication called La Pagina Espanol. The Spanish language paper only operated for one year, publishing 23 editions inserted in the Tribune and sponsored by the Great Western Sugar Company. 

The newspaper documents the development of a community within a community in the Bighorn Basin, the two professors said, including clear segregation. The newspaper ran notices welcoming migrant workers to the local movie theater and to a Fourth of July celebration, Escalante said. But it also directed the betabeleros and their families to separate themselves.

“We want you to go to the movie theater, but please stay only on the western side, because that is your site,” Escalante said, characterizing the newspaper’s language. “You cannot sit on the eastern side. That’s for the white people. At the Fourth of July celebration, it was ‘come to the Fourth of July celebration’… But come at 4 p.m., after the Anglo celebration.”

The exhibit runs in the Gorgon Gallery, in room 332 of the Laramie Plains Civic Center, until April 30. Dominguez plans to show it in Powell and Cheyenne, though he said Friday he had not yet pinned down the dates. The exhibit includes testimony, both written and played aloud, from his relatives, recounting their time in the fields and the betabelero community. 

Dominguez is calling for more people to share memories about Wyoming’s sugar beet industry. Stories can be submitted online at lpccwy.or/gorgongallery or in an email to awallace@lpccwy.org.

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This story was updated on March 3 to include a response from the airport — Ed.

The animal rights group PETA claimed a free speech victory Thursday, saying it reached a settlement in a lawsuit against the Rock Springs airport, which had refused to let it advertise a message criticizing leather luggage.

In the heart of Wyoming’s cattle and rodeo country, where cowboys ride leather saddles, cowgirls wear leather boots and most everybody else has leather gloves, airport officials blocked People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals from buying advertising urging fliers not to travel with leather luggage. The airport will pay PETA $35,000 in legal fees and allow it to advertise as it does others, the animal rights group said.

“PETA is celebrating this victory for the First Amendment and for cows who don’t want to be tormented and killed for their skins,” Asher Smith, PETA Foundation’s director of litigation, said in a statement. 

The rejected ad depicts a leather handbag with a cow’s head and legs — it looks to be a red-and-white Holstein dairy cow seldom seen in the area. Next to the image is the question, “Was she killed to make your carry-on?”

In its suit, PETA claimed that the airport, which advertised rodeo events on various platforms, invented a reason to reject PETA’s carry-on criticism. “[R]ather than allowing the ad to run, the airport, as alleged, quickly scrambled to create a set of policy guidelines to justify rejecting it,” PETA said in a statement announcing the settlement.

An airport official did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the airport director responded March 3 saying the settlement allows for the placement of a PETA advertisement in the airport but “sets no precedents” on advertising policies or practices. “No taxpayer dollars were used to settle this case,” Director Devon Brubaker wrote in an email. “Our insurance carrier made a payment to settle the case to avoid the accrual of further legal fees.”

The organization originally fought the lawsuit. Court filings state that the parties have reached a settlement, but the case, filed in June 2024, appears to need judicial approval before it is completely resolved.

The airport’s actions were unconstitutional, the suit asserted. Further, travelers can easily find vegan leather for their carry-ons, the group said.

Cows have friends, hold grudges and mourn, PETA said. Cowboys and cowgirls who no longer want to saddle their consciousnesses with the burden of the leather industry can avail themselves of the organization’s empathy kits, the group said.

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A whirlwind of emotions enveloped U.S. Ski Team downhiller Breezy Johnson upon winning the world championship downhill gold medal in Austria this week, but she didn’t forget her Wyoming roots.

From the day years ago when she designed a T-shirt to raise money, to last year’s training in Switzerland which she had to again fundraise for, she had backers in Jackson Hole and beyond who believed in her grit.

“There are so many people who have helped me,” she said in an emotional television interview after her downhill victory Saturday.

In two remarkable races within 36 hours of one another at the World Championships in Saalbach, Austria, Johnson, 29, won the women’s downhill gold and then, with Mikaela Shiffrin, the team-combined gold medal as well.

“She has been knocked down a couple of times with injuries,” Steve Porino, NBC’s “voice of alpine skiing,” told WyoFile. Johnson also had to sit out for 14 months for a “whereabouts violation” — failing to keep officials apprised of her location so that she could be drug tested at a moment’s notice. (She has never used drugs, she and her mother said.)

“She didn’t have opportunities to really train,” Porino said of the suspension that ended last fall. “So it was a year of idling for her, wondering whether the world of skiing was pulling away from her.”

While there may have been doubts about Johnson in the Western Hemisphere, European coaches could feel a zephyr. When the women’s downhill course was laid out in Saalbach last year, they told Johnson’s ski technician what they envisioned.

“All of the Austrian coaches were coming up to him and [saying] ‘this is a Breezy-Johnson course,’” Porino said. “‘We have a tremendous amount of fear for when she comes back, because this is her course, and it’s quite high-speed.”

86 mph

Johnson went 86 mph down the Zwölferkogel peak and 38 yards through the air over the Panoramasprung to win the downhill Saturday by 0.15 seconds. It took her just over 1:40 to finish the race.

Porino called the course “a classic downhill, high speed, lots of terrain. There’s not these very sharp turns.

“The higher the speed is, the more aerodynamics matter,” Porino said. Johnson was able to hold her tuck longer than others. “When you’re strong like a bull, you have an advantage.”

In such a pure speed test, “a lot of bravado’s required,” he said. “That’s what she’s made of, and the whole World Cup circuit saw it.”

After the downhill victory, Johnson and Shiffrin had a chat. The two have known one another as friends, competitors and teammates for 15 years or longer.

“They set out rooming lists when we were children,” Johnson said of their early ski-camp years. “And I got roomed with this introverted blonde girl. We bonded over the fact that we both skied on Atomic.”

Shiffrin told of how they teamed up last week.

“After becoming world champ in downhill Saturday, Breezy Johnson told me ‘if you want to do the [team combined], I would be honored to pair with you,” Shiffrin wrote in a social post. “‘Not because of the medal, but because this sport is crazy fun and it would be fun to bring it full circle after all these years.’”

“What a wise woman,” Shiffrin wrote.

Shiffrin, recovering from an injury, had opted out of a giant slalom race, but saw the team combined as an opportunity. The U.S. Ski team paired the best slalom and best downhiller together, based on data, in the first-ever world championship race of its kind.

Johnson was fourth in the downhill, Shiffrin third in the slalom. Their combined time was 0.39 seconds ahead of the second-place team from Switzerland.

‘Tops the list’

With the combined win, Shiffrin tied the record for world medals at 15 and broke the modern-era record with her eighth gold.

At a reception after the race, Shiffrin reflected on a bond and two careers that began more than a decade ago.

“We talked at that time about the hopes and dreams, and I think we connected specifically about feeling like we were a little bit lost in a world where young girls were not really supposed to be as ambitious as we were,” Shiffrin said.

She spoke to Johnson.

“Everything you’ve overcome to get here this past year and a half, you’ve had to do a lot of it on your own, and that has been unbelievable to watch,” Shiffrin said. “I’m so grateful to be your teammate today. Thank you for a memory that tops the list of any medal I’ve ever won.”

For Shiffrin, “everything else has been a solo act,” Porino said, “and this is the first time, I think she’s experienced this real sense of team, relying on a teammate coming through.

“No one has had more experiences with winning than Mikaela,” Porino said, yet “that one [medal] stands alone.

“The fact that they were the greatest 15 years later is a pretty neat story.”

The post Breezy Johnson becomes Wyoming’s double world champ appeared first on WyoFile .

Documentary photographer Robert Frank drove all around the United States in 1955-’56, shot more than 28,000 black and white images and published 83 of them in the groundbreaking book “The Americans.”

Frank focused on people going about their lives at lunch counters, around jukeboxes, at political rallies, on streetcars and so on. Many of the photographs are rich with social commentary, contrasting rich with poor, privileged with marginalized.

He visited Wyoming and photographed at least in Casper, Lander, Dubois, Fort Washakie and South Pass, exposing about 20 rolls of film and making more than 700 images.

Not one of them made the cut for “The Americans,” a photography milepost that’s widely acclaimed but also criticized for Frank’s hard take on the country’s culture and customs.

Of the 700 Wyoming images, only part of one saw the light of day. The rest “have never been printed, have never been published,” said Robin Everett, an archivist at the Wyoming State Archives.

Now, the historical scenes and mostly gone people from the Equality State are alive again in an exhibit at Cheyenne’s Wyoming State Museum that Everett helped curate. Twenty-one images will hang at the museum through March 29, after which the show will travel to Buffalo and perhaps beyond.

The exhibit includes both single-image prints from Frank’s 35mm negatives as well as enlarged contact sheets displaying at once about 36 images from a single roll of film.

There’s a horse running through a field, “the long mane flowing back,” Everett said. “A mailbox, boots in the middle of a dirt road, an awful lot of people.”

Elisabeth DeGrenier, the director of exhibits at the museum, said the photographs “show everyday life in Wyoming.

“There’s a mother and her baby sitting in a car, folks at a rodeo, a high school prom, some landscapes.” Frank’s eye “highlights the life of an average American,” she said, “nothing flashy or extravagant.”

No moss

As he rolled through Wyoming, Frank photographed an armed forces ceremony in Casper, capturing a phalanx of saluting servicemen on one side of the frame, civilians lined up on the other. A car parked in the middle of the picture carries a Natrona County bucking bronco license plate and the lettering for radio station KSPR.

The Hotel Townsend, now the Townsend Justice Center, serves as a backdrop. In Frank’s style and method, there’s scant information. Nobody is identified. The picture is titled simply “Public ceremony — Casper, Wyoming, 1956.”

“Public ceremony” is the key that unlocked the photographer’s Wyoming cache for archivist Everett.

“I was doing a personal research project with Casper newspapers,” she said. “Some article came up where they referenced an image that appeared on a Rolling Stones’ album cover.

“Being part of the baby-boom generation, that piqued my interest,” she said.

Everett went down the rabbit hole.

“It had appeared on the 1972 ‘Exile on Main Street’ album,” she said. One article said Frank had taken the photo. He photographed the entire double album’s art – front and back covers, inside spread and the printed sleeves for both disks. Liner notes credit John Van Hammersveld and Norman Seeff with the design and layout, Frank with the concept. One of the photographs has a cropped version of “Public Ceremony.”

Everett, a Wyoming native, admits to having been naïve about the history of photography and Robert Frank himself. That’s no longer the case.

She located Frank’s collection at the National Gallery of Art, which stewards the material for the June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation. A good portion, if not all, is online.

“After looking at them, I came to the conclusion the state of Wyoming needed to see them,” Everett said.

Aunt Dodie

Frank, an immigrant from Switzerland, carried a small Leica III rangefinder camera suited for discrete street photography. A fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar, he mastered composition, lighting and the camera’s controls — shutter speed, point of view and lens aperture. He knew when to trip the shutter.

The contact sheets reveal how he worked. They show how many pictures he took of a particular scene, whether he framed it this way, then that, or just took one exposure and called it good. “I don’t see a lot of duplication,” Everett said.

Altogether, there are five contact sheets and 16 images in the exhibit. “To get as many images out there, we felt the contact sheets would be the best way to go,” she said.

Frank’s presentation in “The Americans” carries scant information. “Trolley – New Orleans” captions perhaps his most famous picture of seven faces looking from the windows of public transportation, the Black ones at the back of the car. Historians say he never asked for names, just took his pictures and moved on.

Part of the mission of the exhibit is to reconnect the Wyoming images with the state’s people. “We’re asking folks if they recognize anybody in the photos,” DeGrenier said.

That would make the pictures more powerful, the two curators said.

“I want people to look at the images,” Everett said, “and say ‘Wow! There’s Aunt Dodie! There’s my grandmother!’”

A Guggenheim Fellowship enabled Frank’s travels. The museum hosts an open house for the exhibit at 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 11.

This story had been corrected to acknowledge that John Van Hammersveld and Norman Seeff designed the album artwork — Ed.

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UPDATE: Wyoming State Parks announced Tuesday the Star Plunge has closed to the public and will remain closed until a sale is finalized or ongoing litigation is resolved. -Ed.

HOT SPRINGS STATE PARK—Emerging from the locker rooms, Scott Forke felt better, like he always does after a session in the Star Plunge’s Vapor Cave, Lobster Pot and heated mineral waters. 

“I love it,” he said. “For me, it’s therapeutic.”

Forke lives in Cody, but drives to Thermopolis once or twice a month to spend time in the Star Plunge’s waters, which contain minerals like calcium carbonate, magnesium, potassium and silica. He’s been visiting the facility for 40 years and buys an annual membership. 

He’s not sure what he’ll do if the facility closes to the public, which could happen Tuesday unless a sale agreement is reached or litigation surrounding its management is resolved. The facility’s future has been in dispute since last spring, when Wyoming State Parks elected a new operator to take over from the Luehne family after 50 years — a decision the family is fighting. 

But Forke knows how he feels about the closure. 

“It’s like the loss of an old friend,” he said. “I think it’s really sad that the state has stepped on the community and forced this onto locals.”

If the Star Plunge goes offline, there remain options for visiting the park’s heated waters. The state-run bathhouse offers free soaking, and the Tepee Pools adjacent to the Star Plunge contain a similar inventory of pools and slides. But neither has the Vapor Cave that Forke finds so salutary. He likes the vibe of the Star Plunge, he said, and doesn’t want to see it turned into a “Wally World” by an outside group.

“On the other side of the coin,” he said, “things don’t stay the same forever.”

The Luehne family has been operating the Star Plunge in Thermopolis’ Hot Springs State Park since 1975, when Wolfgang and Christine Luehne bought it and took over a 50-year concessionaire lease. Roland Luehne, their son, bought it from them in 2012. 

But the family’s relationship with the state has soured. A battle over the management of the facility has been unfolding since last spring, when Wyoming State Parks announced it had selected Wyoming Hot Springs LLC as the next leaseé through its request-for-proposal process. Wyoming Hot Springs LLC’s primary representative, Mark Begich, is a former U.S. senator from Alaska and the company operates hot springs resorts in Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming.

The new operator was scheduled to take over at the end of 2024 when Roland Luehne’s current management agreement expired. 

But Luehne’s company, C&W Enterprises, sued the state over the summer, accusing the Wyoming Department of State Parks of exceeding its authority and violating regulations. That initiated a flurry of legal filings over the fall in a pair of cases that have yet to be resolved. 

Outside of the courts, the issue also sparked debate about what Wyoming can gain, or lose, as it attempts to embrace an outdoor recreation and tourism economy while retaining long-held values of locals and visitors — with everyone from Plunge patrons to tribes and elected officials weighing in.

On Jan. 1, Wyoming State Parks granted a two-week extension to Luehne. But if ongoing litigation remains unresolved or a sale of the pools to Wyoming Hot Springs LLC doesn’t advance, the facility could close to the public. 

WyoFile visited Friday to check in with patrons and staff in what could be the final days under Luehne management. 

Employees 

Lifeguard Gene Moody perched on a stool, wearing a red hoodie with a radio clipped to the collar, surveying a handful of swimmers paddling around the indoor pool and soaking in smaller tubs. He wore a camouflage Donald Trump cap over his thick gray hair.

Moody, who is semi-retired, has been working at the Star Plunge for two and half years — checking water temps, warning people not to run and monitoring the slides. The former oilfield worker said it’s “the cleanest job I ever had.” 

Come Tuesday, Moody said, “I gotta find something else to do. I gotta have that income.” Moody is raising his twin teenage grandsons. 

Though he is confident he can find other work, Moody is upset about “the way [the state] approached this whole thing,” he said.

“You just don’t steal a person’s property,” he said. “And that’s what they tried to do.” 

Wyoming owns the state park land and holds lease contracts with many Hot Springs State Park tenants. The park is unlike more undeveloped state parks in that it features roads, parking lots and several buildings, including the aquatic facilities, hotels, a hospital, county library and others. 

Roland Luehne believes Wyoming State Parks intends to make the handoff without properly compensating him for improvements made to the facility over the years. Luehne’s lawsuits also allege the state’s proposal-seeking process was unfair and that the agency exceeded its authority. 

Wyoming State Parks officials defend their process as transparent and in the best interest of Wyoming. As the gem of the state park system, receiving upwards of 1 million annual visits, it’s time to update the park’s aging infrastructure to meet modern demands, the state says. 

Wyoming Hot Springs LLC’s winning bid promised major renovations for park facilities that have remained largely unchanged for decades. It proposes transforming Tepee into a spa and wellness center in a full reconstruction while enhancing the Star Plunge with new slides, pools and a poolside diner. One of the park’s hotels would also be updated. 

The elder Luehnes’ 50-year lease expired in 2008. Roland Luehne has since operated under a series of short-term management agreements, with the latest one expiring on Dec. 31. 

A court order signed Dec. 30 by Laramie District Court Judge Catherine Rogers denied Luehne’s request to continue operating after Dec. 31, (the state instead extended it) but prevents the state from enforcing the section of its management agreement that requires Luehne to remove his facilities upon expiration. 

The details of compensation and transference will likely be resolved by the court or the completed sale to the new operator. 

Hot city 

A woman working the Star Plunge front desk Friday, Kim, (she declined to share her last name), said she had probably fielded 24 calls in the previous three days from out-of-state visitors wondering what was going to happen to the facility. They included people who have been traveling annually to Thermopolis — people who build vacations around spending time at the Plunge but also patronize other amenities and restaurants in the town, she said. 

“This is what sustains our town,” she said, gesturing around her. 

With stately cottonwood trees, river access and mineral waters, the park is an undeniably special place. People have recognized that for centuries, and though many today speak of the difficulty of change, Hot Springs State Park has gone through a dizzying array of iterations. 

However, the draw of the mineral waters is certainly tied inextricably to the town’s economy. Thermopolis, which is Greek for “hot city,” was named in honor of the springs, and people visited the waters long before the town was established. 

Derrick Curley, 38, stopped into the Star Plunge midday to buy some merchandise. The Massachusetts resident had driven over the day before from Sheridan with a friend to soak and hike. After learning the Star Plunge might close, he figured he’d grab a sweater, which could become a relic. 

The Star Plunge “feels very, like, homemade,” Curley said. “It could use some updating, but not too much. It’s functional as is.”

As Curley and his friend drove away, steam wafted from the nearby mineral terraces, where a boardwalk allows visitors to hike among the sulphur-scented vapors. Kildeer flitted among the shallow terrace waters near the boardwalk, and patches of ice formed amid the interplay of temperatures. From the top of the walkway, park visitors could be seen walking dogs, soaking in the state bathhouse and swimming at the Tepee’s outdoor pool. The strains of an Elton John song drifted from the outdoor speakers of the Star Plunge as two small girls braved the kiddie slide over and over. 

The post Luehnes’ last splash? Thermopolis’ Star Plunge nears closure deadline appeared first on WyoFile .

For many, the enduring images of 2024 are of Wyomingites campaigning, casting votes and bringing fresh creativity to the democratic process. The past year brought much more than a historic election, however, and WyoFile was there to capture it all. This includes Wyoming’s ever-fascinating animals, the self-propelled endeavors of hardy denizens, as well as moments of mourning and transition. Here, organized loosely by theme, are our best photographs of 2024.

The last year will forever smell like smoke and carry fear of loss from wildfires.

Reporter Katie Klingsporn documented Wyoming’s students from preschool to high school graduation and the moments in between.

Life in the Equality State is, so often, lived among animals, wild and domestic.

Animals even made their way into the lawmaking process.

Lawmakers endured long days and tense moments during the legislative session.

Creativity and collaboration were part of the process too.

Politics didn’t just play out in Cheyenne.

During an election year, impassioned politics were on display across the state.

After the ballots were counted, WyoFile was there to document candidates’ joys of victory and agonies of defeat.

The loss of beloved community members reminded us that some things are more important than politics.

The year brought hard work, athletic endeavors and adventure.

And when the road got rough, as it did when Highway 22 collapsed on Teton Pass, WyoFile covered that too.

May your path through 2025 be smooth and full of wonder.

Correction: This story has been updated to update how the quilt was made. —Ed

The post Photographs that defined 2024, from milestones to memorials appeared first on WyoFile .

The federal government bought Wyoming’s 640-acre Kelly Parcel school section for $100 million today, a transaction that will see the wildlife-rich property that lawmakers had proposed for commercial development, instead preserved as part of Grand Teton National Park.

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the Grand Teton National Park Foundation announced the completion of this morning’s sale after the foundation spearheaded a $37.6 million drive for private funds to augment $62.4 million in federal conservation money.

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland called the transaction “an incredible milestone, decades in the making.” In a statement, she said the purchase “will benefit our public lands and Wyoming’s public school students for generations to come.”

Grand Teton Superintendent Chip Jenkins, who had traveled the state to lobby residents for the preservation initiative, thanked the foundation. “We simply would not be here today without them and the thousands of people who raised their voice in support of conserving this important part of the park,” he said in a statement.

Three unnamed families made key “lead” gifts, the Grand Teton National Park Foundation said while the National Park Foundation, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (through Walmart’s Acres for America Program) and the Jackson Hole Land Trust boosted the drive. Almost 400 donors, from 46 states, gave anywhere from $10 to $15 million, the foundation said in a statement.

“We are in awe,” Grand Teton National Park Foundation President Leslie Mattson said of the many contributions. “We are so proud to have helped enable this incredible achievement for the American people, Grand Teton National Park, and the state of Wyoming.”

The parcel lies at the mouth of the Gros Ventre River Valley and is used by migrating pronghorn, mule deer, elk and other species. In considering how to maximize the financial benefit to Wyoming from state-owned property, some officials mulled state commercial development or advocated for a public auction that could have led to private ownership and construction of an exclusive subdivision.

Some Wyoming politicians, wary of federal land management policies and holdings in Wyoming that amount to about 48% of the state, sought unsuccessfully to bargain the parcel for federal coal lands.

To close the sale, The Conservation Fund provided a bridge loan. The loan enabled the Grand Teton National Park Foundation to accept multi-year pledges, the group said.

The U.S. Department of the Interior provided the federal money through the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The square-mile section was the largest piece of unprotected land inside Grand Teton, the foundation said, and had been the target of conservation efforts since the 1990s. The late U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas passed federal legislation in 2003 enabling the transaction and the Wyoming Legislature this year conditionally authorized the sale.

The parcel became school trust land upon Wyoming’s statehood on July 10, 1890, and as mandated by the state constitution, was earmarked to generate funds for school children and several institutions.

The foundation thanked supporting stakeholders from across the state, including conservation and sports organizations, state legislators and leaders, Gov. Mark Gordon and Sen. Mike Gierau (D-Jackson).

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Millions of patrons have downed one at Jackson Hole’s Silver Dollar Bar inlaid with thousands of 1921 coins mostly arranged in an alternating heads and tails pattern.

Since 1950, much history has passed over the 2,032 silver dollars embedded in the bar of the Wort Hotel’s signature tavern. Business deals, amorous solicitations and tall tales have sloshed over images of Lady Liberty and the American eagle engraved by George Morgan.

The Silver Dollar Bar became such an emblem that the late owner Bill Baxter built two more — one in 2015 in the hotel’s dance-floor Showroom and the third this summer in its Silver Dollar Grill.

Not all of the coins fit the heads-tails pattern, however. Furthermore, one of the silver dollars embedded in the Showroom is not a 1921 Morgan, hotel Manager Jim Waldrop said.

Rather than shudder at the irregularities, Waldrop embraces them.

“We like little quirks like that,” he said.

Nevertheless, Waldrop helped ensure the traditional 74-year-old heads-tails pattern persisted when 1,632 silver dollars, all of them 1921 Morgans, were inlaid in the grill’s new bar this summer. He set the first coin.

“They’re all alternating — heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails — Morgan 1921 silver dollars,” he said. Baxter set the 1,632nd coin, bringing the three-bar total to 5,056.

Waldrop wouldn’t say what each uncirculated 1921 silver dollar for the latest bar cost. They list for between 30 and 300 times face value, and more, online.

Distinctive, yes, but the Silver Dollar Bar is not original. Jess and John Wort wanted their regal hotel to house more than a plain-Jane gin joint, so Jess visited Reno’s Harolds Club to check out the storied Covered Wagon Room and its bar, said to be made out of silver dollars.

The Silver State’s pioneer-themed gambling nook “had a bourbon waterfall and over 2,000 silver dollars” according to the blogger Just A Car Guy. They were “set in its illuminated bar top” with a horseshoe curve and stools with Conestoga accents, according to another description.

Harolds was torn down in 1999. But the Wort has blossomed, much of its color documented in Charlie Craighead’s book “Meet Me at the Wort.”

Those who passed and received pours and concoctions across the Silver Dollar Bar include the likes of Steve Bartek, Wilma Taylor, Annie Band, Steve Stenger, Ed Long, Mike Randall, Leslie Kraft, Jackie White, Barbie Hartnett, Margene Jensen, Pam Carter, Margaret Midge Egan-Bard, Roseva, Bryan Davis, Tammy, Rick, John Dykes, Lisa Bradshaw, Mike May, Dave Shultz, Stacey Carter, Lydia, Art Hazen, Doris Thorkildsen, Steve Furch, Cousin Good-eye, Derrick Beard, Mary Lou Osman, Ruth Luton, Buddy Schulz, Little Bill Lowthian, Greg Winston, Willard Miner, Dail Barbour, Sandy Saunders, Rocker & Jilly Bean, Dawna Wilson, Barb Gams-Van Eeckhout, Jeannie Ivies and her sister, Connie Coons and Whitey, according to a social media call for names, perhaps never noticing anything out of place.

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