ACROSS WYOMING Back Roads Drive to ROCK SPRINGS - Site Of One Of American History's Darkest Events 

Must say I enjoyed your video. My husband&I are in RS temporarily (job assignment). We travel for work. Been to almost every city from west coast to east coast. This type of town is, for lack of better word, therapeutic. No congestion of any kind. People are friendly and everything you need is here. Even an airport. We are Costco shoppers so about every other month we drive 2 1/2 hours to SLC, UT. Just be aware, winters are harsh but summer has been very pleasant. Thank you for this video and happy trails to all travelers.

This was my home town from "92 - "02. Grew up in that town from 1st grade to 11th grade. The best memories i have growing up is in those mountains!

Magnificent open spaces, no traffic congestion, what a delight. The UK is gridlocked most of the time, it's hell to drive on any motorway or through any town.

Some of our downtown buildings in Rock Springs Wyoming that you just seen are historical landmarks like the bank thats boarded up is more than 100 years old. I'm born n raised here i enjoy it.

as someone who was raised in rocksprings it amazes me how little people actually know about the mafias and the chinese massacre that happened in that very area

Another beautiful ♥️ adventure 🦋🌞☘️ drive enjoying fr jamaica 🇯🇲🏖️🌞

The First National Bank building is boarded up because it's being refurbished into offices. Should be done next year.

Loved this! I used to live in Worland (2009-2010) for work. I learned so much, met many great people, and explored the great state. I sure do miss it!

I have lived in Rock Springs for about 7 years now. This is definitely a great place to live. Thanks for the neat tour of our town!

Thanks for bringing us a long and seeing these out of the way places! You have passed my work office in Arapahoe, NE on your way to North Platte the other day and my birth place in this video of Riverton, WY. Found your channel a few months ago and have enjoyed your views of these not as traveled towns and routes. Keep up with the great videos!

Just retired to Rock Springs. Low cost of living, a great hub for traveling. That's what I'll do. BTW, only 40" of snow the whole year is a big plus for me. You were in the old area for sure. The other side of I-80 is the new section. Sure I'm too late but driving South into Utah, then around the Flaming Gorge area into Colorado is amazing. Takes you into the Dinosaur National monument area.

Thanks for taking us along great ride. 💛🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸😃

I noticed you slowed down a bit, giving us a longer view, when you passed through Hudson. I think I know why. There is a haunting, forgotten, hardscrabble quality to the place. You know when to pause and linger on a subject. Your videos show that you care about your viewers and want to give them a quality product. You succeed.

I lived in rock springs back in 1980 to 81 was there in the oil boom it was a wild town lived in the imperial apartments my husband worked for Smith energy. Thanks for the visit I loved living there

respect for talking about tricky but important topics of history.

My gosh, what beautiful land! Even the long stretches of flat land have a certain charm. I saw the most incredible church as you drove into Rock Springs. As always, thank you for your incredible videos, and sharing them with us

Some if not all of those views are extremely beautiful 🤩

You rock Lord Spoda! Please keep up the great work! :D

Beautiful drive , nice scenery,. Interesting video,! I've enjoyed watching!

Fabulous video! thank you Spoda

In Northern Colorado and trying to decide where to go first as I head north into Wyoming. I’m definitely headed for Rock Springs. Thanks!

Lord, I love your road trips!! Thank you so much for showing us the U.S. !!❤

So I remember my time living in Rock Springs when I worked for Union Pacific..downtown...the town way 2600 that went to 20,000 overnight when they had Trona mines in the mid 70s...and the water table got kinda sucked out. There was calapse of a mine shaft cross lateral in the middle of downtown that took out a quarter of a block of sidewalk and the basements of several buildings across the street from the railroad house in midtown at 3-4 am as a long train came through. Next morning when the National Back opened their base had partially collapsed as well. After a survey study it was determined that the collapse was a result of failure to backfill the mineshafts under the central part of town. Combined by the reduced water table. The main mine shaft had been inspected back in the day when closed with a drift rod the would go about 100' but it was not filled past that point. Go back and look for articles in October thru December 1974. Didn't enjoy your comments about the 'race riots' and railroad. But have to admit that it happened and it happened elsewhere as well. My question is was it motivated by workers or did management want to get rid of higher paid workers? Just asking. The people there are sincere and have integrity.

Very good video. Thank you.

I grew up in Rock Springs. That's where a good deal of my childhood and a lot of my adulthood was. It used to be quite violent and had a crazy crime rate during the boom of the 1970's and until about 1986 when it began to calm down during the bust period after the boom had ended. You wouldn't imagine it looking at Rock Springs today, but...there were a lot of murders, and a lot of bad folks that lived there. I was in over 40 street fights before I turned 18. Why so violent? Enormously large amounts of money and opportunities in a teeny tiny cramped little city. Imagine a bunch of quick buck artists, prostitutes, drug dealers, and mafia all flocking to a place...a tiny remote place, where they all live in close proximity to one another. Rapid local inflation. Lots of people vying to get the most of the money that they could. Then it went bust.

I love watching all of ur videos because u send ur viewers on an adventure with u. U give informative information in detail about where u are and so much about the the areas. Thank u so very much. Also I love ur wife she really loves to go where the action is.

I am working my way through your very interesting videos! I commented on your Cheyenne video about living in a log cabin across the street from the capitol when I was 5. Then I hear you say you're fascinated by shotgun style houses! That cabin was built like that. My teenage brother hated the fact people had to walk through his bedroom to get to the kitchen! Our root cellar had a dirt stairway leading to it's dirt floor, the door of which was also in his bedroom... Such memories. Thanks!

I recently stumbled across your channel...really enjoying your videos!

I’ve vacationed, fished and hunted in Wyoming upwards of twenty times total. I’m a native Texan and love Wyoming. So much wildlife and so much history. Spent most of my time up north. Never made Rock Springs. Enjoyed the look. Thanks.

Loved Wyoming! Did TV Weather out there a few years back and enjoyed my trips in the wide open spaces. If ever back East toward KY, slide into Bowling Green. Our town is home to the Corvette Plant, Lost River Cave, a beautiful university (WKU) and not far from Mammoth Cave, plus a nice downtown square.

4:08 my condolences - Rock Springs resident

Hi Lord Spoda Rock Spring is a very cool and peaceful small town. Loved it. Thanks for the wonderful video as usual. Is Chris Le Doux's monument in Kaycee nearby on your way back? Best wishes.

Well from Rock Springs , head north on 191 towards Jackson. In 180 miles you will go through exactly 3 towns.....Eden , Farson , and my home , beautiful Pinedale. Make sure you gas up in Rock Springs , not much for accomodations .

Thanks for visiting. A lot of those old buildings are being renovated thankfully. You definitely missed a huge landmark of Rock Springs and that’s a restaurant called Grubs, it has been here 76 years.

Great ride as always.

I have lived in RS my whole life. I hope if you ever can come through again I recommend going to our museum and trying to check out the businesses there before fiesta guadalajara. They have very interesting spaces inside that only the owners and few others who have worked over there know of.

Rock Springs, Wyoming (spent a year there one week)

Awesome!

it's always surreal seeing my hometown, and where I live, in a video! the building with that red AM is being renovated into a black box theater. the AM stands for Actors' Mission, the local community theater. As for the 56 nationalities, the breakdown is more country of origin, or nationalities, such as Italian, Bulgarian, Slavic, French, Indian, etc

Was in RS in ‘73. Nothing looks familiar. Family had buffalo burgers. Ate elk roast in Casper & elk or antelope ribs in Saratoga. This is what families fed us. Some may be on the menus in WY. The church had a group gathering at Flaming Gorge. Hope you got to see it, so beautiful. In fact most of the western states are so beautiful - sparse population. Loved my TDY in WY & MT. SD was also beautiful - esp Black Hills. Connie from Gillette told me WY is completely over a volcano. They are always wondering when the underground volcano will explode. You should have driven thru the Snowy Range. In ‘86 when I drove from MS to WY & MT, we drove across the hot prairie then got to the Snowy Range. Snow just above Saratoga. We had a tarp & got out to sled on the snow with the boys. Had to get back into the car & turn on the heater. A girl from Saratoga took us to Encampment (near CO line) & they had a upstairs outhouse. Never seen or heard of one of before. Never heard of the Chinese massacre tho.

I like the drone views of all town, but want to see these small town views. Don't forget!

I was in Rock Springs for about 30 mins in April before heading South to Flaming Gorge. The place seemed nice. Gas, firewood and beer were all very expensive.

Once upon a time in the late 1970s, I lived and worked here for the Daily Rocket-Miner. I lived in a tiny apartment on Elias Avenue, which you make a left turn onto around 11:03.

I wish you had more time in this area, you missed all of the old houses on A,B,C and D st 🥺 the older part of town off Railroad Ave, and the views that look over all of downtown right off Ludvig and Park ave, where you were. Also some great shots of allll of downtown if you went up by the hospital to the cliff houses. Not a very exciting town lol but you would have liked those streets, I hope you got to view them yourself off video 💞😀

Awesome!! I live here :) actually work on Broadway too, glad I came across this!

I moved to Rock Springs in 1965. My mom worked at the Outlaw Inn for the 'Don' for many years. I could certainly tell you some stories about that place.....

No rocksprings is ruff to live in high housing and the oilfield is gone, and not everyone works in the mine. Winter is brutal and don't even get me started on the wind😅

I can't help but love grafitti on the train cars. My favorite was Jack Skellington and his reindeer and sleigh.

I love Wyoming I’m so lucky to live here! Like no place on earth. The people are great and there is not very many of us

Here in southern Illinois had a bloody event also. Called bloody Williamson.. Rocks spring wy looks like a good place to live .i like what i see here in your video. 👍

I love old historical buildings. Too bad they don't maintain them! Heartbreaking

One quaint little city, very inviting.

Travelling with you from Alberta Canada

I've lived in Roc Springs all my life. A cool area to check out is Boars tusk and petroglyphs North of Rock Springs .

This is my home town, I was wondering if I would see one on it. My great grandparents migrated with their 8 kids eventually totaling 11. Because the land was cheap after the great depression. The side you came in on is West Rock Springs the older neighborhood was where my family and most of the mining workers lived in. The ruins of that unfortunate massacre still stand but not as an attraction but reminder. It is a spread out city

Love to visit.yes.

Bro it is so weird to come across a video of ur home town when it’s so small

I would have to get out and walk around that town and take some pics

Did you check out Green River while you were there? It's 18 Mi west of Rock Springs down i-80. I have thought an awful lot about moving to the state of Wyoming and I thought maybe that area of Rock Springs and Green River would be okay because they average less snow. However, I have read that they get a lot of wind. In those areas. I also like the high desert terrain. And from what I understand, Rock Springs is in the red desert region of wyoming. And for water recreation, I thought Green River might be a good place too because of the river being in its vicinity.

Rock Springs needs Amtrak service again.

Beautiful town

Rock Springs was built on top of the old coal mines. The records of the mine locations were either lost or never recorded at the time. I'm not sure which is the case. Either way they don't really know for sure where all the mines are but as they start to collapse and homes and roads slowly sink they are finding out. For many decades they have been working to shore up the mines to stop them from collapsing but that is a long and slow process. There really isn't a lot of new construction in the areas above the mines. You explored the older part of town. There used to be a coal mining town called Winton which is north of Rock Springs. They mined coal for the war effort and when the demand for coal died off after the war the town died and many of the homes in Winton were moved to Rock Springs. A lot of new construction is north of the interstate. I live in Green River, Wyoming and I grew up hearing about the rear tires of garbage trucks falling through the road exposing a unknown tunnel from a mine.

Lived here my whole life

Check out the University of Wyoming in Laramie on your way back east on I-80, nice campus, hidden gem, grab a drink at The Library.

Love Jackson! Too expensive to live there.😭

I’m from Rock Springs and the ambulance you saw driving at the 3:33 mark is the one I work on

"There's a whole lotta holes in Sweetwater County, one lone deputy upheld the law. He was a black belt in kwando karate and a master of the old quick draw....he gave them hell, Ed Cantrell "

My mother came to RS's from Arkansas with her first husband and my two older brothers to work the mines back in the 40's. He died from black lung. She said it was a rough town back then with a very tumultuous past. I think they only stayed a few years then went back to Arkansas.

Back in 79 there was a sambos restaurant there I put all the tile in that restaurant

The building that's boarded up downtown there is under construction, it's an old first security bank building being restored currently

One thing great about diversity in America that I think people take for granted; there is such a great variety of different foods from all around the world!

Also was a sambos restaurant in Riverton I worked on it also

I noticed you drove by the Bareback Saloon... that's the "gentleman's club".

Would love to work on these houses.

Yall went through hudson and missed out on Lander which is a great little town. There is also a town called jeffery city which is between Rawlins and Lander. An old uranium mining town. Population is down to 50ish now. At one point it was about 4500 people. Lots of abandoned lots and buildings. The highschool there is supposed to have a Olympic sized swimming pool in it. Not sure if it's still standing though

13:22 is my boss's yellow truck on the left and 13:25 2 story building on the right is my office which was also the 2nd JC Penney store aka the Golden Rule store.

Love that city

I was thrilled to hear you mention Rock Springs' "56 nationalities!" They are very proud of that history! It used to be entertaining to page through the Rock Springs phone book and see all the crazy names! My wife's family are Slovenian/Croatians from Rock Springs. There was a time in the last century when southern and eastern Europe were in a terrible recession. At the same time, Rock Springs needed coal miners. Lots of immigrants came to Rock Springs to escape the recession, and brought their interesting names along!

Interesting take on that "dark part of Rock Springs" history. Not having done any research yet on this myself, so here are my questions: Were Chinese miners paid at the same rate as the established 2nd/3rd generation American miners? Were they paid by share, or at a simple (lesser) wage than the other group? Was the mining company using this disparity to amplify their profit? Was the mining company hedging themselves from backlash through strong security and displacing American miner's anger toward more "defenseless" targets of their ire?

Is the a&d saloon still there

Wonder if there are any actual “Springs” still around?

Rock Springs is also the place where Robert Leroy Parker got his nickname and became known as Butch Cassidy.

Must show winter views video also.

That building that was boarded up was being remodeled.

I googled shotgun house. I didn't have a clue what you talking about. 😅😅😅 I like tiny living and I would love to live in a shotgun house. ❤❤❤

I live in Rock Springs, and my friend you drove through the "ghetto" of rock springs! Lol

Any colleges in these towns???

My home town

Would have liked to see the high school, jr high, etc

Shame you only showcased the... less well off areas of town. Alas, it is neat to see my little town explored in a video by someone who has never been here before.

Rock Springs is a nice town. It has only one Hospital at least when I live there in the 90s. I moved to Wyoming in 1991 and left in 99. The people are very nice! There is no homeless there they actually will buy you a one-way bus ticket to wherever you want to go.This place also is famous for their Trona mines. Alot of people worked in the mines when I live there you usually could tell who worked at the trona mines because they had this white stuff all over their vehicles. The winters are very hard the temperature sometimes it would get into the negatives with a negative wind chill factor as well. I lived in Green River which is south of Rock Springs about 20 minutes everyone would go to Rock Springs. We finally moved to Rock Springs it was nice but to be honest I don't miss Wyoming it's an okay place to visit depending on what part of Wyoming you are visiting. And just like any little town the rocket minor which is the newspaper there would put everybody's business to keep the town entertained.

Why no video of Lander or Farson? You most likely drove through them on your way to Rock Springs.

I broke into that bank about five times

I wonder if the shotgun housing was for the miners.

At the height of it's Trona mining days....56 nationalities. Rock Springs is also close to what were the largest Trona mines in the world. I don't blame you for not knowing what Trona is, but it is extremely useful in the chemical industries and actually like coal and oil and steel....one of those commodities that can literally break an entire countries industry if you don't have that commodity.

I live in rock springs

My wife from rock spring. I am from Algeria and I will move to live there. Next year ...any edvices guys

I think I located the one of the Asians brave enough to make up that miniscule percentage of Rock Springs population , Cardiologist.

Shoulda went to Maybell, CO. It exists and that's it.

It's weird seeing some of the vehicles in this video and knowing who owns them personally lol