Ranchester, WY

Ranchester is a Sheridan County town of 1,064 residents in the 2020 census, nine miles south of the Montana line between Sheridan and the Bighorn Mountains. It was incorporated in 1911 and grew around the railroad: a tie mill loaded timber from the Bighorns, and the town took its name from S.H. Hardin’s ranch and his fondness for English place names ending in “-chester.” The Tongue River runs through the local landscape, with historic U.S. 14 and the Bighorn Scenic Byway carrying traffic through town. Connor Battlefield State Park sits inside Ranchester, on the site of the 1865 Battle of Tongue River involving U.S. Army forces and the Arapaho.

The park has fishing access, picnic areas, a playground, camping, and historical interpretation, so one of the town’s most consequential places is also an everyday outdoor space. Tongue River Elementary and Middle School serve local students, and the July Fourth wife-carrying contest gives the annual calendar a genuinely Ranchester-specific turn. The local scoop is a small rail-and-ranch town where a battlefield, a river, and a mountain highway all meet at the same edge of town.