Sinclair, WY

Sinclair is a Carbon County town built around a refinery, a company plan, and a remarkably intact town center. In 1922 the Producers and Refiners Corporation chose the site, broke ground for the refinery, and began building homes for workers. The first refinery run started in March 1923. The town was called Parco for its early years, then became Sinclair after Sinclair Consolidated Oil acquired the operation in the early 1940s. The Parco Historic District preserves the Spanish-influenced buildings, town plaza, fountain, hotel, school, church, library, and recreation spaces that made the company town feel complete.

The Sinclair refinery still has a 94,000-barrel-per-day capacity. Sinclair also keeps its own town hall and Parco/Sinclair Museum, where the older company-town story is part of the local calendar. Students attend Carbon County School District 1 schools in Rawlins, while the town’s historic streets stay close to the refinery fence line. Sinclair is a Wyoming place where industry is not a backdrop—it is the reason the town exists.