2007-02-19
Gillette is a town of about 20,000 in northeastern Wyoming that gets hardly a mention in a tourist guide, because there's not much to mention. Unlike some other towns in the West, it never had a glorious past, so there aren't any historic old houses or hotels—it's a coal-mining center whose time is now. It's not in the scenic part of Wyoming, either. (Yellowstone is in the northwestern corner of the state.) As you drive around town, you see big-box stores, chain restaurants, industrial lots surrounded by chain-link fences, I-90 (which bisects the town), railroad trains, and mobile homes. There's no reason at all to go there unless you're there for business or work, you're on I-90 and need to stop for the night, or you're visiting someone. I was in that third category last weekend, so I drove the 5 hours from Boulder.
Gillette has its good points. There's an extraordinary collection of outdoor art, with dozens of notable scuptures along different streets. (Every few hundred feet along one busy road.) There's an excellent theater, where I saw a touring opera company from London (England, not Wyoming) perform The Pirates of Penzance. And, it claims to have the world's largest mural. It's on the side of an L&H Industries building, and measures 56 feet high and 220 feet long. (The picture just below isn't mine; it's from the L&H web site.)
Here's my shot of the mural, taken with a Leica M8. I tried to get the trucks and assorted junk in the foreground to play against the mural, but without much success, as you can see.
L&H Industries Mural, Gillette, Wyoming
There are some parks in town, but they're not much to look at:
McManamen Park, Gillette, Wyoming
But, with my infrared Nikon D-70, I was about to make something from nothing, as you can see in these shots:
McManamen Park, Gillette, Wyoming
Here's one more infrared shot, taken on the way back to Boulder:
I-25 near Douglas, Wyoming