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Old 05-28-2013, 04:00 PM
 
231 posts, read 781,279 times
Reputation: 311

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So I'm a Wyoming transplant from Pennsylvania who's been living in Pinedale for almost a year. I love it here and would stay, but got laid off from the job that brought me here and against my will I need to find work elsewhere.

One of my potential prospects is in Buffalo. I came out to Pinedale never having been to the area before and not knowing what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to find out the people here are fairly diverse, ethnically and politically, and that, for such a small town, there seems to be a pretty big population of 20-and-30-somethings (I'm 25), enough that on any given weekend I can hit any of them up for a night out (which here consists of going to the brewery, one of the bars, out to one of the nearby lakes or to someone's house). And the proximity to the Wind River mountains and Wyoming Range with all their beauty was just icing on the cake.

All I know about Buffalo right now is that it's roughly 5,000 in population, about 2-3 times larger than Pinedale, and it's close to the Bighorn Mountains. The natural beauty and old-west feel of Pinedale and its general area is what initially attracted me to the area. So my questions about Buffalo are:

1: Is it close enough to the Bighorns that you can actually see them from in town? Are the Bighorns accessible enough that if I wanted to I could just go out there for just a couple hours to a day for a pretty hike without making it a huge ordeal?

2: Does Buffalo have an appreciable population of young people? Would I be out of place and lonely there as a single 25 year old guy? (I say single just to state a fact; I'm not "searching" or anything.)

3: What's the political climate like? Is everyone pretty much red-blooded conservative, or is there a mix of types? Are the conservative types aggressive about it? I identify as moderate; I'm not a flaming liberal by any means, I just really value open-mindedness and the ability to agree to disagree without getting nasty.

4: Culture. Does Buffalo have any cool stuff to do besides going to the mountains? Any cool restaurants, or museums? Music? For a town of roughly 2,000 people in the middle of the high desert in Wyoming, Pinedale has more of it than I expected. They have a great Mountain Man museum, a nice assortment of locally owned and operated restaurants, including a couple that double as music venues every week for local musicians. Add in a really nice library that doubles as an art gallery and community center and it's really nice. I don't need huge fancy things, but having a little culture like that is nice.

Oh and the annual Green River Rendezvous here is a huge blast, like an old-west Mardi Gras but with a lot more historical reenactments. Any Wyomingites who haven't been ought to give it a try.

That's pretty much it. I know it's a lot more affordable to live in Buffalo, having looked at rental prices and such. Pinedale is very expensive, probably because of its isolation. I would say it's because of its proximity to Jackson Hole, but Jackson is more than an hour away, and other towns that are not even that far away from Jackson are a lot cheaper than Pinedale.
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Old 05-28-2013, 07:49 PM
 
Location: Wyoming
9,724 posts, read 21,130,734 times
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I live in Gillette but get to Buffalo a couple times each month on business. I'll answer your questions the best that I can.

1. Yes, you can see the Bighorns from town. It's at the very base of them. If fact, a few years ago a motor home ended up inside a downtown business building when the brakes overheated. (Driver was killed.) From the downtown business district you get on Hwy. 16 and head west, climbing all the way until you reach 8K feet or so, then it's up and down hills until Powder River Pass at a little under 10K feet.

Our favorite campground in the Bighorns (Middle Fork) is about 15 miles west of the business district. It's on the Middle Fork River, and the North Fork and South Fork are each a couple miles from it, as is Tie Hack Reservoir, a nice mountain lake for canoeing and trout fishing where Buffalo gets much of its water.

2. Check the census figures for average age in Buffalo, but I haven't noticed that it's much different than typical towns. I'd guess average age is 30ish.

3. Politically it's conservative, but I'm sure a moderate would fit in just fine. I consider myself a moderate conservative, if that makes sense, and I'd bet that's where the majority of Buffalo residents would place themselves -- fiscally conservative and socially moderate.

4. The Winchester is one of the better restaurants in NE Wyoming, and there are a couple others in town that aren't bad at all, plus it's got a few fast food joints and lots of bars. The historic Occidental Hotel downtown has good breakfasts, and I've heard they have good dinners. It's almost a museum in itself, as it put up the likes of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and Teddy Roosevelt. I think they have live music at least once each week.

Buffalo has lots of old west history. It's home of the infamous Johnson County Range War of cattlemen vs. farmers/sheepmen and not far from a few Indian-settler-cavalry fights and the famous Hole-in-the-Wall hideout. Buffalo has a small museum next to the courthouse. I've not been in it for more than a decade.

It's a cool little town with a lot to offer. I think you'd like it.
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Old 05-28-2013, 09:59 PM
 
Location: Cabin Creek
3,635 posts, read 6,222,473 times
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there some art centers there , think the potters make thier own pipes
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Old 05-29-2013, 01:31 PM
 
231 posts, read 781,279 times
Reputation: 311
Thanks for the replies! Sounds like my kind of place. It's important to me to be near good outdoor scenery. Even where I lived in Pennsylvania was beautiful with forested green hills and rivers. The plains and mountains of Wyoming are a different kind of beauty but beautiful all the same. I don't think I could handle living in a geologically boring place like Nebraska.
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Old 05-29-2013, 11:06 PM
 
Location: Aiea, Hawaii
2,417 posts, read 3,227,798 times
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If you haven't checked out the buffalo Chamber of Commerce online they have a good u-tube Video that shows a lot about Buffalo and Johnson County's history. Just Google Buffalo WY, about halfway down the page.
www.buffalowyo.org
Good luck,
Scott
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Old 05-30-2013, 08:21 AM
 
1,133 posts, read 1,338,972 times
Reputation: 2238
If you have 'Google-Earth' on your pc/laptop, you can enter the name of most any town here in Wyoming (or world-wide, for that matter) and as you 'hover' over the town, if you see a roadway marked in yellow, you can zoom down to street-level and 'tour' the town via your cursor-keys, as if you're driving/walking along the middle of the street...

...and you don't have to worry about being run-over by an RV being driven by sight-seeing tourists ! ! !

Sorry about your job-loss; prayers sent heavenward, that you land another one soon !
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Old 05-30-2013, 03:55 PM
 
Location: Rock Springs WY
400 posts, read 945,020 times
Reputation: 257
"I don't think I could handle living in a geologically boring place like Nebraska"

Clearly you have not ventured off of I-80 when travelling through my great home state. It has a lot more to offer, geologically speaking, then most people ever take the time to see. hmpf!

As far as your concerns about attitude and such in wyoming, having lived in three different areas myself, I haven't found much difference throughout the state between the people. There is a pretty generalized 'attitude' here, which is of course a big part of what makes Wyoming so wonderful. Our saying is, as long as we're living in Wyoming we'll be home. Good luck!
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Old 05-31-2013, 11:48 PM
 
Location: North Dakota
10,226 posts, read 13,730,469 times
Reputation: 18004
Quote:
Originally Posted by KillerK View Post
So I'm a Wyoming transplant from Pennsylvania who's been living in Pinedale for almost a year. I love it here and would stay, but got laid off from the job that brought me here and against my will I need to find work elsewhere.

One of my potential prospects is in Buffalo. I came out to Pinedale never having been to the area before and not knowing what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to find out the people here are fairly diverse, ethnically and politically, and that, for such a small town, there seems to be a pretty big population of 20-and-30-somethings (I'm 25), enough that on any given weekend I can hit any of them up for a night out (which here consists of going to the brewery, one of the bars, out to one of the nearby lakes or to someone's house). And the proximity to the Wind River mountains and Wyoming Range with all their beauty was just icing on the cake.

All I know about Buffalo right now is that it's roughly 5,000 in population, about 2-3 times larger than Pinedale, and it's close to the Bighorn Mountains. The natural beauty and old-west feel of Pinedale and its general area is what initially attracted me to the area. So my questions about Buffalo are:

1: Is it close enough to the Bighorns that you can actually see them from in town? Are the Bighorns accessible enough that if I wanted to I could just go out there for just a couple hours to a day for a pretty hike without making it a huge ordeal?

2: Does Buffalo have an appreciable population of young people? Would I be out of place and lonely there as a single 25 year old guy? (I say single just to state a fact; I'm not "searching" or anything.)

3: What's the political climate like? Is everyone pretty much red-blooded conservative, or is there a mix of types? Are the conservative types aggressive about it? I identify as moderate; I'm not a flaming liberal by any means, I just really value open-mindedness and the ability to agree to disagree without getting nasty.

4: Culture. Does Buffalo have any cool stuff to do besides going to the mountains? Any cool restaurants, or museums? Music? For a town of roughly 2,000 people in the middle of the high desert in Wyoming, Pinedale has more of it than I expected. They have a great Mountain Man museum, a nice assortment of locally owned and operated restaurants, including a couple that double as music venues every week for local musicians. Add in a really nice library that doubles as an art gallery and community center and it's really nice. I don't need huge fancy things, but having a little culture like that is nice.

Oh and the annual Green River Rendezvous here is a huge blast, like an old-west Mardi Gras but with a lot more historical reenactments. Any Wyomingites who haven't been ought to give it a try.

That's pretty much it. I know it's a lot more affordable to live in Buffalo, having looked at rental prices and such. Pinedale is very expensive, probably because of its isolation. I would say it's because of its proximity to Jackson Hole, but Jackson is more than an hour away, and other towns that are not even that far away from Jackson are a lot cheaper than Pinedale.
You've gotten some good advice on this site about Buffalo. That's always been a town that I have liked and although I also like Pinedale, I would choose Buffalo over Pinedale in a heartbeat. You have the Bighorns close by and aren't too far from Billings (tax-free shopping) and can do weekend trips to the Black Hills. Yellowstone is also not too far.
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Old 06-01-2013, 03:24 PM
 
231 posts, read 781,279 times
Reputation: 311
Thanks for the info everyone! Sorry Wyomama, you are correct, I haven't gone off I-80 in Nebraska. I think when I drove through it I was so tired of driving and just wanted to be in Wyoming already!

Wait that's not entirely true, I did stop off somewhere in Nebraska to see the Strategic Air and Space Museum and that state park right next to it (can't remember the name of it). That was pretty cool.

About Buffalo vs. Pinedale, I came to Pinedale for the mountains and desert (and the proximity to Jackson Hole/Yellowstone didn't hurt either) but fell in love with it because of the people. If all the people I know left tomorrow, I wouldn't care about staying in Pinedale. My only concern is whether I'll be able to find the same level of community in Buffalo. But from what I've heard it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult.
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Old 06-01-2013, 11:18 PM
 
3,628 posts, read 3,746,064 times
Reputation: 5530
Quote:
Originally Posted by KillerK View Post
My only concern is whether I'll be able to find the same level of community in Buffalo. But from what I've heard it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult.
I think you will find that Buffalo is a good town in which to live and work. Nice mix of mountains and high desert nearby.

Besides, you'll be on the "right" side of the mountains. *ducks and runs*

Last edited by ElkHunter; 06-01-2013 at 11:42 PM.. Reason: fix quote
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