Contributed photo

Contributed photo

Travel Directions:
From I-80 take WY Exit 235, “WY-130E / US-287S / US-30E and Walcott / Medicine Bow National Forest / Saratoga”
Go South on WY-130 for 20.5 miles to Saratoga.

Remarks:
Annie Proulx has called Saratoga, Wyoming, her summertime hometown since 2006. Visitors here will instantly sense that the community has a decided artistic vibe, a touch of enlightened spirit absent from most other small Wyoming towns. Once a stopping point on the Cherokee Trail, later famed for its warm therapeutic mineral spring, today its principal attraction is its lovely landscape. Saratoga lies on the south bank of the North Platte River, at the base of imposing Sheep Rock.

Although it is not quite (yet) Taos, Jerome, or Aspen, Saratoga already has a few of the boutiques, galleries, and “tablecloth” restaurants that point in that inevitable direction. And so it goes. In addition to outdoor adventures, Kathy and Doug Campbell’s Wolf Hotel (1893), which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is eminently worthy of a visit while you are in town.

Unlike other Wyoming places where we made inquiry, here Annie Proulx is quite a celebrity. Locals know her books and stories, remember the times and places they have encountered her, and evidence conspicuous pride that their home is now her chosen home. In this spirit, the community constructed a Saratoga “Writers Park” on the south side of Bridge Street, just west of WY-130. A free-standing park sign prominently features this excerpt from “A Lonely Coast,” one of the Wyoming stories in Close Range, which, though written about Casper, could easily describe Saratoga: “You come down a grade and all at once the shining town lies below you, slung out like all western towns, and with the curved bulk of mountain behind it.”

See:
http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/nplatte.html
http://www.wolfhotel.com/