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Medicine Bow

Name: Medicine Bow

 

County: Carbon

 

Authority Name: Medicine Bow (Wyo.) 

 

GNIS Entry

 

Longitude:  1061217W

Latitude: 415344N

 

Legal Description:

 

Elevation: 6562/2000

(ft/m)

 

Feature Type: Populated Place

 

Origin of Name:

Medicine Bow is located in the eastern part of Carbon County. It is situated in the irrigation district of the Medicine Bow Valley. The name of Medicine Bow is derived from the Indians. A tradition says that the northern tribes traveled annually to the foot of the Medicine Bow Mountains for the purpose of procuring a variety of ash timber from which they made their bows. With the Indians, anything that is excellent for the purpose for which it is intended is called Good Medicine. The locality was known as the place where they could procure good medicine bows, hence Medicine Bow Mountains, Medicine Bow River, and the town of Medicine Bow naturally follows. 

Source: WPA

 

Indians came a great distance to obtain the unusually straight timber of that part of the region from which to fashion their bows and arrows. It was considered good medicine to use that timber for the making of their weapons; they said, "Good medicine bows."

Source: Annals 14(3)

 

The little town of Medicine Bow is well known to readers of Owen Wister's "Virginian" as one of the places where the cowboys played their laughable pranks, and the name of the novel has been taken by the hotel near the station. The name Medicine Bow is of Indian derivation, but how it came to be applied to the mountains from which the town takes its name is not certainly known. It is known, however, that some of the tribes annually visited the mountains that now bear this name to procure a certain kind of wood for their bows. In Indian talk anything that serves its purpose well is "good medicine," and according to reports the mountains and streams where this timber was found became known as places where "good-medicine bows" were obtained.

Source: Guidebook of the Western United States   

 

Other Names: 

 

Alternative Spellings:

 

History:

Medicine Bow Post Office was established in January, 1869.

Source: Wyoming Post Offices

 

Postoffice and incorporated town on the Union Pacific Railroad in Carbon County. A center of the sheep and cattle industry; some farming; shears about 70,000 sheep each year. Good school.

Source: Wyoming State Business Directory, 1910-11 

 

Stories:

 

Maps:

1:24000 Quadrangle: Medicine Bow

 

Newspapers:

 

More Information: 

 

Pictures:

 

 
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