Journey: Come for soccer, keep for Laramie

By Dennis Lennox, CP Contributor Sunday, September 13, 2026

One of the West’s best-kept secrets and techniques sits in plain sight alongside Interstate 80.

Home to the University of Wyoming, Laramie is definitely a school city. Yet its sturdy patina and unmistakable sense of place additionally make it a traditional frontier city.

As one would possibly count on, Laramie comes alive when the Cowboys soccer group performs at War Memorial Stadium. Brown and gold seem in all places, tailgates fill the parking tons, and crowds head towards the stadium, which doubles Laramie’s inhabitants of 31,407.

The shock is how a lot there may be to do. Visitors may spend two or three days exploring earlier than venturing past the town limits.

Start downtown with a self-guided historic architecture tour. Laramie sprang up with the Union Pacific Railroad in 1868, and its tents and shanties ultimately gave method to Victorian houses and substantial public buildings.

One distinguished landmark is St. Matthew’s Episcopal Cathedral. Built between 1892 and 1896 with regionally quarried sandstone, it appears suited to an older and significantly bigger metropolis.

St. Matthew’s is not any artifact. It stays the seat of the Episcopal (Anglican) bishop of Wyoming. Unfortunately, the Gothic Revival cathedral seems to be closed to guests outdoors of normal worship companies.

The Wyoming Women’s History House tells the story of Laramie’s vital position within the ladies’s suffrage motion. In 1869, greater than 20 years earlier than statehood, Wyoming turned the primary U.S. jurisdiction to grant ladies the correct to vote.

Nearby, the Laramie Plains Museum occupies the ornate Queen Anne-style Ivinson Mansion. Its interval rooms reveal the wealth and ambition that existed alongside the frontier’s rougher facet.

That rougher facet is the main focus of the Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site.

The jail’s large grey sandstone partitions and Old World castle-like structure nonetheless look suitably forbidding. The jail started receiving inmates in early 1873 and held them till 1901. More than 1,000 outlaws frolicked behind its partitions. The most well-known, or reasonably, notorious, was Butch Cassidy, who was imprisoned right here from 1894 till 1896.

The University of Wyoming deserves time even when you have no connection to the college. Old Main, Prexy’s Pasture and the remainder of the campus are price exploring on foot.

Notable points of interest embrace the school’s Geological Museum and Anthropology Museum. Then there’s the putting Centennial Complex. Designed by architect Antoine Predock, it’s house to the Art Museum and American Heritage Center.

Laramie can also be base for exploring southeastern Wyoming.

To the east, Vedauwoo Recreation Area is thought for huge granite formations that look as in the event that they had been piled there by giants. The 3-mile Turtle Rock Loop Trail is a straightforward introduction. The path circles its namesake outcrop, passing pine and aspen forests, and providing alternatives to scramble among the many rocks. Allow a few hours, notably in the event you cease for pictures.

To the west, Wyoming Highway 130 turns into the Snowy Range Scenic Byway. The route passes via the tiny city of Centennial earlier than climbing into Medicine Bow National Forest, the place alpine lakes and granite peaks result in the Libby Flats overlook at greater than 10,600 ft. From there, the freeway crosses the mountains and descends into the North Platte River Valley and Saratoga, a Western city recognized for its scorching springs. The drive is especially memorable in fall, when the aspens flip sensible shades of yellow and orange towards the evergreens and stark mountain peaks.

If you go

United Airlines gives service between Denver and Laramie, placing the town inside one connection of most U.S. airports. Alternatively, Denver International Airport is about two hours away by automotive.

Book a room on the newly renovated Holiday Inn Laramie. Sometime subsequent 12 months, a Graduate by Hilton lodge is anticipated to open, based on revealed reviews.

Consider consuming at Wyoming’s Rib & Chop House, Altitude Chophouse & Brewery and Lovejoy’s Bar & Grill.

The seasonal farmers market is nearly as good for people-watching as it’s for buying. It runs Fridays from late June via late September, from 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., in downtown Laramie by Depot Park.

Dennis Lennox writes a journey column for The Christian Post.