Lincoln County, WY

Settlement & growth (pre-1960)

Before American settlement, the region now known as Lincoln County was part of the traditional territory of the Shoshone and Bannock peoples, who followed seasonal game and fish migrations through the Green River and Salt River valleys. The area saw sparse use by fur trappers in the early 1800s, but no permanent non-Native settlements existed until after the 1868 Fort Bridger Treaty confined the Shoshone to the Wind River Reservation far to the east.

The first permanent American settlers were Mormon pioneers dispatched from Salt Lake City in the 1870s and 1880s. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) organized colonization of the Star Valley region, founding Afton (1885), Thayne (1889), and Bedford (1890) as agricultural communities focused on dairy farming and hay production. These settlers were predominantly of English, Welsh, and Scandinavian descent, and their descendants still form the demographic core of the county's western half. The LDS cultural influence remains strong: Afton hosts the world's largest elk horn arch, and the county's social calendar still revolves around church activities and family reunions.

A second wave arrived with the railroad and coal mining booms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Union Pacific Railroad pushed through the southern part of the county, establishing Kemmerer (1897) and Diamondville (1898) as coal-mining towns. This drew a more ethnically diverse workforce: Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants came to work the underground mines, along with a small number of Chinese laborers who built railroad grades. By 1910, Kemmerer had a population of over 2,000, making it the county's largest town, and it remained a rough-edged mining hub through the 1950s. The coal industry also created the now-ghost town of Cumberland, which boomed from 1900 to 1930 before the mines closed.

A third, smaller wave came during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, when a few dozen families from Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle moved into the county's eastern ranchlands, drawn by available grazing land and the promise of work on the newly constructed Fontenelle Dam. These "Okie" settlers largely assimilated into the existing ranching culture and left little distinct trace.

By 1960, Lincoln County's population stood at about 9,000, with the economy split between agriculture (cattle, hay, dairy) in the Star Valley and mining in the Kemmerer area. The county was overwhelmingly white, native-born, and either LDS or mainline Protestant, with a small Catholic minority in the mining towns.

Modern era (post-1965)

The 1965 Hart-Cellar Act had minimal direct effect on Lincoln County, as the foreign-born population remains just 1.8% today. However, the county experienced significant domestic migration shifts after 1970, driven by energy booms and recreational development. The construction of the Jim Bridger Power Plant (1974) and the opening of the Kemmerer coal mine expansions brought a wave of workers from other parts of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain region, many of whom were young families seeking stable blue-collar employment. This influx temporarily increased the county's population to over 14,000 by 1980.

The most transformative modern development has been the growth of Alpine and the Snake River corridor as a bedroom community for Jackson Hole. Starting in the 1990s, rising housing costs in Teton County pushed service workers, construction trades, and second-home caretakers south into Lincoln County. Alpine's population grew from 550 in 1990 to over 1,200 by 2020, with many residents commuting 30-45 minutes north to jobs in Jackson. This has introduced a small but noticeable contingent of out-of-state transplants, many from California and Colorado, who bring more liberal political views than the native population. However, they remain a minority: the county voted 78% for Donald Trump in 2020.

Hispanic population growth has been modest but steady, rising from 2.1% in 2000 to 5.2% in 2024. This growth is concentrated in Kemmerer and Diamondville, where a small number of Mexican-heritage families work in the coal mines, construction, and service industries. There is no distinct Hispanic enclave; rather, these families are dispersed through existing neighborhoods and have largely assimilated into the local culture. The East/Southeast Asian population is negligible at 0.3%, and the Indian-subcontinent population is effectively zero.

Suburbanization has been limited to the Alpine area, where subdivisions of single-family homes on 1-5 acre lots have replaced former ranchland. Elsewhere, the county remains dominated by open range, with the largest town (Kemmerer) having just 2,400 residents. The county's college-educated share is 24.1%, below the national average, reflecting the dominance of blue-collar and agricultural employment.