Biohazard Cleanup Near West Wamsutter Wamsutter, WY

Wamsutter is an incorporated town in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, that bills itself as "The Gateway to the Red Desert" and sits along Interstate 80 between Rawlins and Rock Springs, on the easternmost border of Sweetwater County.

Wamsutter had a population of 203 at the 2020 census, down 55.0 percent from its peak of 451 in 2010.

In the 2010 census, Wamsutter had 189 households, with a median age of 38.3 years.

Wamsutter was founded in 1868 as a vital service stop for the Union Pacific Railroad, where steam locomotives stopped for water and coal in the water-scarce Red Desert during construction of the transcontinental railroad.

The town was originally named Washakie in honor of the prominent Shoshone Chief Washakie, but freight intended for nearby Fort Washakie was often misdirected to the rail stop, so the town was renamed Wamsutter in 1884 after a Union Pacific bridge engineer.

Wamsutter was incorporated in 1914.

Wamsutter is the largest settlement, and the only incorporated town, in the Great Divide Basin.

Natural gas was discovered in the Wamsutter Arch in 1946, with major reserves found at Desert Springs in 1958, and by the early 2000s the Wamsutter Field had become one of the largest tight gas reservoirs in Wyoming, driving several boom-and-bust cycles.

Wamsutter was a stop on the Lincoln Highway, U.S. Route 30, which has largely been superseded by Interstate 80.

Wamsutter sits at an elevation of 6,746 feet and has a cold semi-arid climate, with a record high of 105 degrees Fahrenheit on July 28, 1897, and a record low of minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit on January 1, 1979, and again on February 2, 2011.