Casper

City and administrative headquarters of Natrona County, east-central Wyoming, on the North Platte River, 212 km/132 mi northwest of Cheyenne; population (2000) 49,600. Oil and natural gas refining are Casper's main industries. Others include shipping and wholesaling livestock and agricultural products, and servicing the local mining of uranium, coal, and bentonite. The city is also a financial and medical centre. It is home to Casper College (1945) and the Tate Earth Science and Mineralogical Museum.

The largest city in Wyoming, it originated as a ferry site (1847) operated by Mormons on the Oregon Trail. A fort was erected to protect westward-bound travellers (1863), and the arrival of the North Western Railroad (1888) prompted official founding of the town in 1889. The community has been in the oil business since the enormous Salt Creek Oilfield opened in the 1890s. The nearby Teapot Dome oilfield was the centre of a national scandal in the early 1920s.