Burns, WY

Burns is a Laramie County town about twenty-five miles east of Cheyenne, on the high plains of southeastern Wyoming. It began as a Union Pacific siding and water tank, then became a planned German-Lutheran settlement called New Berlin. The town was first platted as Luther in 1907, with a post office and businesses serving the Golden Prairie District. The name changed to Burns in 1910, and passenger trains once stopped four times a day. Its streets still carry the feel of a railroad town laid across open prairie. The population was 356 at the 2020 census.

Burns grew around banks, stores, a newspaper, and farm services before the hard years of the 1920s and 1930s brought falling crop prices, drought, and departures across Laramie County. Laramie County School District No. 2 serves the town, with Burns Elementary and Burns Junior-Senior High School. A branch of the Laramie County Library System adds another civic stop. Cheyenne remains the larger regional center to the west, while Burns keeps its own place among the ranch roads, grain fields, and wind-shaped horizons of the county.