Introducing Uinta County: Wyoming’s second smallest county has a lot to offer
The Wyoming Livestock Roundup is excited to highlight farms, ranches, agribusinesses and the historic community of Uinta County in the 2024 Fall Cattlemen’s Edition.
Tucked into Wyoming’s southwest corner, Uinta is Wyoming’s second smallest county sprawling 2,081 square miles – just 77 square miles larger than Hot Springs County, which is the smallest in the state.
Spanning from the Uinta Mountains on its southern flanks to the deserts of its northern reaches, Uinta County includes a vast and varied landscape of productive hay meadows, tree-lined riparian areas, wide-open sagebrush steppe and foothills of surrounding mountain ranges.
Outdoor recreation opportunities
Despite its small size, Uinta County has a lot to offer for those who enjoy wide-open spaces, fresh air and areas rich in history.
The county is home to part of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, which encompasses 2.2 million acres in northern Utah and southwest Wyoming and receives an average of nine million visitors each year, making it one of the most heavily visited national forests in the nation.
Uinta County is also a gateway to the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area (FGNRA), including the 91-mile long Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the canyons which contain it, a 13-mile stretch of the Green River that is renowned as a world-class fishery, a seven-mile National Recreation Trail, two National Register historic sites, the Flaming Gorge Dam, the Sheep Creek Geologic Area and the Flaming Gorge-Uintas Scenic Byway.
Although the FGNRA is housed within the borders of Sweetwater County, many of the gorge’s annual one million visitors must drive through Uinta County to get there.
The Bear River State Park, a 324-acre day use park in Evanston, lies within the Uinta County border.
The park is home to small herds of elk and bison and recently received a lot of national attention when a rare white bison calf was born in the spring of 2023.
Bear River State Park also boasts several miles of both paved and packed gravel trails for hiking and mountain biking and a visitor center with an extensive taxidermy display and information for local tourism opportunities.
Thirty-eight miles east of the park lies another popular attraction – the Fort Bridger Historical Site – the venue of one of the largest mountain man gatherings in the nation.
Established in 1843 as a fur trading post, the fort continues to celebrate the history of the West, and every Labor Day Weekend, thousands of visitors from across the nation gather to celebrate the fur trade era during the annual Fort Bridger Mountain Man Rendezvous.
More history is weaved into the patchwork of ghost towns which still stand erect in the area, including Almy, Bear River City, Carter, Fort Supply and Piedmont.
Agriculture and natural resources
A large majority of those who reside in Uinta County make their living in agricultural production or the natural resources sector.
According to the 2022 Census of Agriculture conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), Uinta County is home to 391 farms or ranches, with land in farms totaling 735,709 acres. This includes 60,227 acres of cropland; 651,079 acres of pastureland and 19,317 acres of woodland. Nine percent of land in farms – 64,393 acres – is irrigated.
Like many producers across the Cowboy State, those in Uinta County face difficulties like high input costs, volatile markets and the harsh Wyoming climate. However, unique to the small county is the high elevation – averaging nearly 7,000 feet, with producers running cattle on summer pasture almost 3,000 feet higher than that – and a short growing season which makes it a challenge to put up crops.
This year, the area’s alfalfa crop froze in the middle of June and some producers simply cut it down in hopes of a productive second cutting.
Despite these challenges and being one of the smallest counties in the state, Uinta County still stacks up to Wyoming’s larger counties in top 10 agricultural rankings.
Reporting a sheep and lamb inventory of 31,229 head, Uinta County ranks second in the state behind Converse County, and 24th in the entire nation, according to NASS.
Additionally, the county ranks third in horses, ponies, mules, burros and donkeys with 2,283 head and fifth in hogs and pigs with 56 head.
Uinta County also ranks ninth in other animals and animal products.
The top producing crop in the area is hay and haylage at 42,302 acres, and the livestock inventory includes 37,159 head of cattle and calves; 1,045 layers; 966 goats; 212 broilers and other meat-type chickens and 96 turkeys.
Hannah Bugas is the managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.
