Carbon County, Wyoming

Carbon County is a county in Wyoming, United States, crossed by the Continental Divide in the south-central part of the state. It had a population of 14,537 at the 2020 census and covers 7,964 square miles (20,630 km2), of which 66 square miles are water, centred near 41°41′N 106°56′W.

Rawlins is the county seat, and its postal code is 82301. The county has one city (Rawlins), nine incorporated towns, two census-designated places, and a scatter of unincorporated communities. Carbon County sits in the Mountain time zone.

Towns & Villages in Carbon County

Carbon County’s settlements run from the county seat down to single-digit-population railroad and ranching hamlets. The table below lists the city, all nine incorporated towns, both census-designated places (CDPs), and the unincorporated communities with a documented location. Wyoming has no civil townships, so there is no township column.

Riverside and Encampment sit less than a mile apart on Highway 230 and share the ZIP code 82325 — they read as one settlement on the ground even though only Encampment is incorporated. A handful of names on the county’s older gazetteers — Carbon, Coyote Springs, Edson, Jays Roost, Lamont, McCargar Place, Milo, Oil Springs, Old Brooks Place, Old Haymaker Place, Old McKeal Place, Seminoe Dam, Tenmile, and Three Forks — are historic mining camps, ranch sites, or rail sidings with no current population or documented ZIP; they are omitted from the table above rather than published with guessed data.

ZIP Codes

• 82301 — Rawlins (also serves Muddy Gap)
• 82331 — Saratoga
• 82327 — Hanna (also serves Leo)
• 82325 — Encampment (also serves Riverside)
• 82321 — Baggs
• 82334 — Sinclair
• 82329 — Medicine Bow
• 82323 — Dixon
• 82324 — Elk Mountain (PO Box only)
• 82332 — Savery
• 82335 — Walcott (PO Box only)
• 82615 — Shirley Basin

Arlington and Ryan Park have no ZIP code of their own; mail there is routed through neighbouring Elk Mountain or Saratoga addresses.

Geography

Carbon County spans the transition from the Medicine Bow Mountains and Sierra Madre range in the south to the high sagebrush desert of the Great Divide Basin in the north, where the Continental Divide briefly splits and closes again around the Basin, so no surface water in that stretch drains to either ocean. The North Platte River crosses the county’s southern half through Saratoga and Encampment, and the Seminoe and Kortes reservoirs sit along it near the county’s northern edge. Interstate 80 and the Union Pacific main line cross the county east–west through Rawlins, Sinclair, Walcott, and Hanna.

Carbon County borders Albany County to the east, Natrona County to the northeast, Fremont County to the north, Sweetwater County to the west, and Jackson County, Colorado, and Routt and Moffat counties, Colorado, to the south.

Demographics

Carbon County had 14,537 residents at the 2020 census, spread across 7,898 square miles of land for a density of roughly 1.8 people per square mile. Rawlins is by far the largest community; Saratoga and Hanna are the next-largest incorporated towns. Wyoming has no state income tax, so household-income comparisons rest on the same ACS baseline used statewide: the county’s incomes run below the Wyoming median of $72,415, reflecting the concentration of retail, service, and lower-wage energy-sector jobs around Rawlins rather than the higher-paid mining and professional jobs clustered in Wyoming’s larger counties.

Economy & Local Life

The Union Pacific Railroad and its coal mines built the county from 1868 onward, and rail freight through Rawlins and Sinclair still anchors the local economy. The Sinclair oil refinery, just east of Rawlins, has operated since 1923 and remains one of the county’s largest employers. The Wyoming State Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison in Rawlins, and Carbon County’s state and federal land-management offices provide much of the rest of the public-sector employment. Wind power has grown into a major industry here: the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind project, developed on private and BLM land south of Rawlins, is one of the largest onshore wind developments in the United States. Ranching remains the base economy across the rest of the county, and Saratoga and Encampment draw seasonal visitors for fishing on the North Platte and the hot springs pool in Saratoga.

History

The Wyoming Territorial legislature organized Carbon County on December 16, 1868, one of the territory’s five original counties, and named it for the extensive coal deposits the Union Pacific Railroad was already mining along its new transcontinental line. Rawlins was platted the same year as a railroad town and became the county seat. The Wyoming Territorial Prison operated in Laramie, but Rawlins later built its own Wyoming State Penitentiary in 1901, now a state historic site open for tours; the outlaw George Parrott (“Big Nose George”), lynched in Rawlins in 1881, is among the county’s best-known frontier stories. Hanna’s coal mines were the scene of two major disasters, in 1903 and 1908, that together killed more than 300 miners and remain among the deadliest in Wyoming’s mining history.

Getting There

Interstate 80 runs east–west through Rawlins and Sinclair; US 30 parallels it through the same towns, and US 287 runs north out of Rawlins toward Lander and Casper. Wyoming Highway 130 climbs west from Saratoga over the Snowy Range into Albany County.

• Laramie — about 100 miles east on I-80
• Rock Springs — about 100 miles west on I-80
• Casper — about 100 miles north via US 287
• Cheyenne — about 150 miles east on I-80

The nearest airport with regular commercial service is in Laramie or Rock Springs; Denver International Airport, roughly 170 miles south, has the county’s nearest full-service commercial connections.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Carbon County, Wyoming?
It is in south-central Wyoming, straddling Interstate 80 between Laramie and Rock Springs, with its southern edge on the Colorado state line.

What is the population of Carbon County?
14,537 people, according to the 2020 census.

How big is Carbon County?
7,964 square miles (20,630 km2), making it Wyoming’s third-largest county by land area.

What is the county seat of Carbon County?
Rawlins is the county seat.

How many towns are in Carbon County?
One city (Rawlins) and nine incorporated towns: Baggs, Dixon, Elk Mountain, Encampment, Hanna, Medicine Bow, Riverside, Saratoga, and Sinclair, plus the Arlington and Ryan Park census-designated places.

What ZIP codes are in Carbon County?
Twelve ZIP codes serve the county, from 82301 in Rawlins to 82615 in Shirley Basin; the full list is in the ZIP Codes section above.

What is Carbon County known for?
Its coal- and rail-founded towns, the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins, and, more recently, one of the largest wind-power developments in the United States south of Rawlins.

More counties in this state: Towns and villages in Wyoming.