County Past
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Platte County, Wyoming

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
15historic places
—earliest paper
1911formed
8,605pop. 2020
9cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 15 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1966; 3 are also National Historic Landmarks. Most listings are in or near Wheatland, Guernsey, Chugwater.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Wyoming is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Platte titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

5 of 15 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

15 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
Chugwater Soda FountainChugwaterBuilding2022
Diamond RanchChugwaterDistrict1984
EWZ Bridge over East Channel of Laramie RiverWheatlandStructure1985
Grant, Duncan, Ranch Rural Historic LandscapeWheatlandDistrict2013
Grant, Robert, RanchWheatlandDistrict1995
Guernsey Lake ParkGuernseyDistrict1980
Lake Guernsey State Park NHLGuernseyDistrict1997
Oregon Trail Ruts NHLGuernseySite1966
Patten Creek Site (48PL68)HartvilleSite1989
Platte County CourthouseWheatlandBuilding2008
Powars II Paleoindian Hematite QuarrySunriseSite2021
Register CliffGuernseySite1970
Sunrise Mine Historic DistrictHartvilleDistrict2005
Swan Land and Cattle Company Headquarters NHLChugwaterBuilding1966
Wheatland Downtown Historic DistrictWheatlandDistrict2021

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Platte was formed in 1911 (1911-02-21) from Laramie.

PLATTE created from LARAMIE. PLATTE not fully organized, attached to LARAMIE "for judicial, revenue and elective purposes." Technically, PLATTE had been created on 9 February 1911, but the mapping reflects the intent of the legislature.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Platte County population from 1920 to 2020 (Census historical series).

12k9,2306,48619201960197020002020
1920194019501960198020002020
7,4218,0137,9257,19511,9758,8078,605

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

SiteTypeDist.
Fort Laramie National Historic SitePark unit34.2 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

9 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 9 of 9 listed
NameLatLon
Boot Hill Cemetery42.31974-104.72653
Dwyer Cemetery42.23344-104.94742
Emigrant Hill Cemetery42.34744-104.76905
Horseshoe Cemetery42.47727-105.05587
Iowa Flats Cemetery41.75343-104.74074
Lucindy Rollins Grave42.26063-104.75212
Prairie Rest Cemetery42.26687-104.72078
Register Cliff Cemetery42.24713-104.7118
Wheatland Cemetery42.03891-104.96032

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Platte County, Wyoming

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.