Ten years ago, Pinedale was a sleepy western cow town. Today that has changed.

“You can’t make a left turn on Pine Street anymore,” says Mindi Crabb, the marketing director for the Sublette County Tourism Board. “You can’t stop in town at 3 p.m. and expect to find a motel room. The line at the grocery store winds back into the produce section.

“For people in urban areas, that doesn’t sound so bad,” she adds. “But you have to remember that Sublette County’s population is only around 7,000. That number is expected to grow as much as 30 percent by 2010 and that doesn’t include the 2,000 or so non-resident gas field workers who are here at any given time. For a small rural area where people used to feel as if they knew all their neighbors, these changes are very real.”

Pinedale Online, the town’s Internet newspaper and community forum still promotes the western, small-town image. The news articles are written in a folksy, down-home style, and the lead stories tend to feature things like moose sightings on Main Street or community events such as a cowboy poetry reading. There is a list of outdoor activities popular in the area—hiking, camping, snowmobiling, fishing, climbing, horseback riding—and the photo gallery features scenic shots of the Wind River Mountains, the Wyoming Range, and the area’s world-class wildlife.

Read more...