Cheyenne

Cheyenne started as a railroad camp, and for its first year or two it was exactly the kind of place that phrase implies. Union Pacific surveyors staked the townsite on July 4, 1867, the first train pulled in that November, and thousands of workers, merchants, gamblers and hangers-on showed up almost overnight — the same rough, temporary boomtown pattern that followed the line across the West and earned each stop the nickname “Hell on Wheels.” Unlike most of those towns, Cheyenne didn’t fold up and move on with the tracks. It matured into the territorial capital in 1869 and grew fast enough to earn a second, friendlier nickname: the Magic City of the Plains.

Wyoming Territory made a habit of firsts, and Cheyenne was where most of them happened. On December 10, 1869, the territorial legislature granted women the right to vote and hold office, the first territory or state in the country to do so — motives were mixed, and some legislators openly hoped the publicity and the vote would draw more women to a territory with six men for every woman, but the law stuck and gave Wyoming its nickname, the Equality State. Nellie Tayloe Ross, who lived in Cheyenne’s Governor’s Mansion as First Lady, became the first female governor in U.S. history in 1925 after her husband died in office.

The building where the territorial legislature met still stands downtown: the Wyoming State Capitol, a Renaissance Revival building completed in 1890 with a copper dome coated in real gold leaf, one of only ten state capitols in the country with a gilded dome. A few blocks away, the old Union Pacific depot — the last of the grand 19th-century depots still standing anywhere on the original transcontinental line — is a reminder of why any of this exists in the first place.

The Wyoming State Capitol is free, it’s downtown, and it doesn’t try to hide its age the way a lot of renovated statehouses do. Built between 1886 and 1890 in Renaissance Revival style out of Rawlins and Fort Collins sandstone, its 146-foot copper dome has been coated in real 24-karat gold leaf five times since 1900, most recently in a 2009 re-gilding. A three-year, $299 million restoration finished in 2019 uncovered hand-painted artwork hidden under decades of paint on the building’s old bank-style vault doors, and inside the dome structure you can still find the penciled signatures of the workers who built it, plus a few added since.

Little Bear Inn has been Cheyenne’s original steakhouse since 1958, aging and cutting its own beef, with a separate bar, the Brand Bar, that runs live music most weekends. It sits out on the I-25 service road, easy to spot from the highway.

The Albany is the other long-established option downtown. Visit Cheyenne’s Foodie Scene page describes it as a family-owned restaurant and bar that opened in 1942 and was once a 40-room hotel.

5 breweries within 10 miles of Cheyenne, 3 of them brewpubs with a kitchen.

Brewpub locations from Open Brewery DB (MIT)

No NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL or MLS team plays anywhere near Cheyenne — the nearest big-league games are in Denver, roughly 100 miles south. Past Cheyenne clubs include baseball’s Cheyenne Indians (Class D seasons in 1912 and 1941), indoor football’s Cheyenne Warriors (folded in 2013) and junior hockey’s Cheyenne Stampede (its owner forfeited the Western States Hockey League license, and the team went dormant for the 2019–20 season).

*Fees subject to change, please check terrybisonranch.com for updated information.

21 more Highway Heads places lie within about 180 miles of Cheyenne in a straight line — far enough that most are a night away rather than an afternoon.

• Estes ParkColoradoabout 65 mi
• Rocky Mountain National ParkColoradoabout 70 mi
• BoulderColoradoabout 80 mi
• DenverColoradoabout 95 mi
• Denver Art MuseumColoradoabout 95 mi
• Buffalo Bill Museum and GraveColoradoabout 100 mi
• Dinosaur RidgeColoradoabout 100 mi
• Idaho SpringsColoradoabout 100 mi
• Red Rocks Park & AmphitheatreColoradoabout 100 mi
• GeorgetownColoradoabout 110 mi
• Georgetown Loop Historic Mining & Railroad ParkColoradoabout 110 mi
• Mount Blue Sky Scenic BywayColoradoabout 110 mi
• Loveland PassColoradoabout 120 mi
• Colorado Snowsports Museum and Hall of FameColoradoabout 130 mi
• Frisco Historic Park & MuseumColoradoabout 130 mi
• Camp Hale-Continental Divide National MonumentColoradoabout 140 mi
• CasperWyomingabout 140 mi
• Colorado SpringsColoradoabout 160 mi
• Hanging LakeColoradoabout 160 mi
• Glenwood Canyon rest areas and recreation pathColoradoabout 170 mi
• Glenwood Hot Springs ResortColoradoabout 170 mi

One full day covers the Capitol, the Depot Museum and a downtown walk without rushing; add a half day for Terry Bison Ranch or Curt Gowdy if you want a day trip too.

Frontier Days changes everything. Ten days centered on the last full week of July bring roughly 200,000 visitors, a PRCA rodeo, nightly concerts and free pancake breakfasts. Book lodging well ahead if your trip lands anywhere near it — the rest of the year, Cheyenne is a much quieter stop.

Cheyenne is genuinely windy, with an average speed among the highest of any U.S. city and frequent days over 30 mph. High-wind warnings and closures to high-profile vehicles on I-80 and I-25, especially west toward Laramie, aren’t rare; check wyoroad.info or dial 511 before you drive that stretch.

I-25 and I-80 meet in a cloverleaf right at Cheyenne, so it costs almost nothing to stop if you’re already passing through on either highway.

Wyoming State Capitol

Address

200 W 24th St, Cheyenne, WY 82002

Hours

Mon–Fri 8am–6pm; Sat 9am–4:30pm (late May–late Sept)

Price

Free

Link

ai.wyo.gov/about-us/visit-the-capitol

We checked opening hours, fees and operating status on 2026-09-22. These change without notice — confirm with ai.wyo.gov, terrybisonranch.com and cheyenne.org the week you travel.

Straight-line distance from Cheyenne, not drive time.

• Cheyenne Regional Jerry Olson Field (CYS) — 1 mile
• Laramie Regional (LAR) — 46 miles
• Northern Colorado Regional (FNL) — 49 miles