Cokeville, WY

Cokeville is a Lincoln County town on the Wyoming-Idaho border, between Star Valley and Kemmerer. It was incorporated in 1910, and the 2020 census counted 502 residents. Shoshone people were the first inhabitants of the area; Tilford Kutch became the first Euro-American settler in the local history, arriving in 1869. Lincoln County School District 2 serves the town, with Cokeville Elementary and Cokeville High School.

Cokeville’s name is inseparable from May 16, 1986, when David and Doris Young took 154 children, teachers, staff, and visitors hostage inside the elementary school. A bomb exploded later that afternoon; everyone held inside survived, although many people were injured, and the two perpetrators died. The event remains a painful part of the town’s memory and school history. Cokeville today is still a small Wyoming community, with the elementary school, high school, town government, and roads through the Bear River country carrying the local daily life around a story no one there can set aside.