What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Shakespeare
I came across the old nickname for Casper, Oil Capital of the Rockies, a bit by accident the other day and began to ponder it as a nickname for Casper, and then nicknames for Wyoming towns in general.* Hence the entry.
We'll start with Casper in this list, as Casper made us ponder it, but then we'll drop back to alphabetical order, to make it a bit easier reading.
Casper
Casper embraced oil production really early in its history and oil production and refining has been a feature of Casper's economy almost from its onset. It's had a collection of refineries and, while refining isn't what it once was in Casper, it still retains a refinery today, down from the three it had when I was young.
When I was growing up, the Casper Star Tribune had, on its masthead, the words "Oil Capital of the Rockies", a self proclaimed proud distinction that even the newspaper embraced. There's no way on earth that the paper would have that on the masthead today, but it did for years. I can well remember it, but I can't remember when that disappeared. It was still there at least as late as 1970, when the logo was actually printed at the top of every page. By 1975 the Tribune was asserting that Casper was the "World's Energy Capital", giving the town a promotion in that category which must have been inspired by the Arab Oil Embargo initiated spike in prices. By 1980, however, as the bloom was beginning to come off the boom's rose, the Tribune made no reference in its masthead to oil or energy at all.
The embracing of the title is something that predated the masthead and continues on. A common nickname for Casper is "Oil City", even though Natrona County actually had a town at one time actually called "Oil City", and it wasn't Casper. The remnant of that town is barely there today.
There are all sorts of businesses in Casper that use "Oil City" in their names, and one of the electronic news outlets uses it as well. Oil may be in trouble now days, but the naming habits don't show it.
Casper isn't limited to a single nickname, however. Another one you see in use is the name "Ghost Town" due to the old cartoon Casper the Friendly Ghost. As a "ghost town" is a town that is no longer inhabited, the use of the nickname is a bit unfortunate, but it's pretty common. Users of the nickname presumably simply assume that everyone is familiar with the animated cartoon that was first introduced in 1945. As the cartoon frankly isn't funny, in my view, I have to wonder if my disdain for the nickname is in part inspired by that. Be that as it may, it's certainly in widespread use. The last truck stop on the way out of the town to the west, which actually is several miles beyond the town and actually much closer to Mills, Wyoming, than Casper, is "Ghost Town", for example, which used to have a classic, but now long gone, neon sign that looked like the front of a cabover truck. Seeing it at night or in snowstorms remains an enduring memory of my youth.
Nobody has combined the two so far, so some opportunity remans. Oily Ghost Town, or Casper the Oily Ghost Town, or something. . .
Some time ago, some civic entity or perhaps the City of Casper itself came up with the name WyoCity. Or perhaps it paid somebody to come up with that. It hasn't stuck in the public imagination, and no wonder. WyoCity? What does that mean?
Another unofficial nickname for Casper is Wind City, which nobody who has ever been to Casper need wonder about. Chicago may call itself the Windy City, but it has nothing on Casper in regard to wind. As with Oil City, various local businesses have embraced the name and use it.
Big Piney
Big Piney is cold in the winter. Really cold. Like wind in Casper, residents of Big Piney have embraced that and its nickname is "Icebox of the Nation". They aren't joking.
Cheyenne.
Cheyenne, like Laramie, has an old nickname that probably goes back to early boosterism, with that being the "Emerald City of the Rockies". Towns on the Union Pacific at the time must have had a gem stone theme going on. The nickname was used early on and it competed with Denver's, which chose to call itself the "Queen City of the Plains". Oddly, Denver is really closer to the Rocky Mountains than Cheyenne, which is actually on the plains. Anyhow, Emerald City has fallen into disuse, and probably The Wizard of Oz didn't help that.
At some point the city itself decided it didn't like it, and it changed its nickname officially to the "Magic City of the Plains". Or, perhaps, the nickname existed simultaneously. It seems to have been based on the town springing up overnight, as if by magic, when it was built in 1867. The city still uses that nickname.
Unofficially people sometimes refer to Cheyenne as "Shy Town", using the sound of its first syllable. The nickname is simply a play on words and infers nothing beyond that.
Cody
Cody bills itself as the Rodeo Capital of the World, which is frankly bizarre. I doubt anyone uses the nickname and I've never seen a "Rodeo City" business there.
The name likely stems form the Cody Night Rodeo, which occurs nightly during the summer, but that wouldn't make it the Rodeo Capital. Cheyenne and Calgary would have better claims to that.
Douglas
Douglas is the "Jackalope Capital of the World", playing on its adoption of the jackalope as its official symbol. Indeed, the town has embraced the mythical creature and there are several jackalope statutes in town, although the one that used to be in the middle of the main street downtown has been removed as it was determined to be a bit of a traffic hazard.
Douglas has to get credit for embracing something whimsical and just running with it.
Frannie
Frannie, which is in two counties, but which is a really small town, bills itself as the The Biggest Little Town in the Nation.
Gillette.
Gillette calls itself the "Energy Capital of the World", although these days its energy businesses are hurting. By doing that, it's co-opting a nickname that the Casper Star Tribune had claimed earlier for Casper.
Gillette may have an official nickname, but like Cheyenne and Casper, it has an unofficial one that's a play on its name, that being "Razor City". Gillette, the company, manufactures shaving razors, and hence the nickname. Again, it doesn't apply more than that.
Gillette may be a bit fortunate in this regard, as its original name was "Donkey Town", having been named for Donkey Creek. Razor City isn't a great nickname, but it's better than Donkey Town as an official one.
Jackson
Jackson Wyoming is located in Jackson Hole and residents refer to the town as "The Hole". The area around Jackson, however, has a lot of nicknames.
Teton Valley, Idaho, which is just next-door to some extent, interestingly has a lot of nicknames. But as this post isn't on that topic, we'll omit them.
Laramie.
Laramie is the "Gem City of the Plains" for reasons that are unclear to me. The nickname has been around for a long time, and it was probably part of an early effort at boosterism. Laramieites know of the nickname, however, and its used in some businesses in Laramie. The official newsletter of the City of Laramie is the "Gem City Spark", so unlike Casper's government, it's embraced its old nickname.
Some haven't embraced it, however, and those appear to be students. UW students have taken up calling Laramie "Laradise", something that's come on since I lived there. Laramie can be a fun town, and students have a sarcastic streak, so the nickname probably embraces both, both implying that Laramie might be a paradise for the young, and that it isn't, at the same time.
Lovell
Lovell, Wyoming asserts that its the Rose City of Wyoming. This is because an early resident of the town, Dr. William Horsley, was a renowned expert on roses and promoted their growth in the community over a fifty year period. The nickname is unknown for the most part outside of Lovell, but it has been embraced by the town and businesses in the community use it for their names.
Meeteetse
Meeteetse bills itself as the Ferret Capital of hte World as the endangered black footed ferret, which was believed extinct, was relocated there. It also calls itself Where Chiefs Meet, which is taken from the meeting of its name in Shoshone, which is reputedly "meeting place", although that translation is disputed.
Riverton
I've heard Riverton occasionally referred to as "River City", probably recalling the fictional town in The Music Man. It's official nickname, however, is "The Rendezvous City", reflecting that one of the early fur trapping Rendezvous gatherings was held there.
Rock Springs.
Like Cheyenne, Rock Springs has an unofficial nickname that plays on its actual name, that being "Rocket City". It has an official one as well, however, that being "Home of 56 Nationalities", reflecting its early mining history when it was indeed very polyglot.
Saratoga
Saratoga calls itself "Where the Trout Leap in Main Street". The North Platte River runs right through town and the small town has an outdoorsy nature, so this might help explain this. Having said that, it might also stem from an early freighter tossing lighted sticks of dynamite off the bridge into town and blasting fish up on to the road, an act he took as he was tired of waiting for help to unload a wagon.
Upton
Upton calls itself the "Best Town on Earth", which its boosters must feel that it is.
Honorable mention, Interstate 80.
Not a town, but another sort of man made geographic feature, Interstate 80 also has a nickname, at least in part. The stretch of highway between Wolcott Junction and Laramie along Interstate 80 bears the nickname the "Snow Chi Minh Trail".
That nickname obviously can go no further back than the 1960s and I think it started in the 1970s, when the memory of the North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh Trail was still fresh. That NVA effort was persistently vexing to the United States and the blizzardy section of the highway is likewise vexing to motorist, hence the nickname.
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*For those who might wonder, Tulsa Oklahoma bears the nickname "Oil Capital of the World", although even by contemporary American standards, that nickname would more properly belong to Houston, Texas. Cognizant of that, Houston is the "Energy Capital of the World".
The reason Laramie is called the "Gem City of the Plains":
ReplyDeleteBeing along the transcontinental railroad (and later, the original transcontinental highway,) Laramie was very early to receive electricity. It was also a low passage through the mountains. When you looked down from the Laramie Mountains to the east of town, Laramie looked like a pocket full of gemstones with all its lights... hence, the name.