Elk Mountain, Wyoming

The town of Elk Mountain takes its name from the eleven-thousand-one-hundred-and-fifty-six-foot peak that rises above the Medicine Bow River valley in Carbon County, Wyoming. This was Overland Trail country, and in eighteen sixty-two the Army built Fort Halleck at the mountain's base to protect westbound emigrants from attack along the trail. The fort closed in eighteen sixty-six, but the river crossing stayed busy.

Settlers, timber crews, and ranchers filtered into the valley, and the first mercantile store went up in nineteen oh two, followed by the Elk Mountain Hotel in nineteen oh five, a building still standing today. The town incorporated in nineteen oh nine and has stayed small, a few hundred residents on the high plains with one of Wyoming's more dramatic mountain views as a permanent backdrop.