Wyoming Places Wiki / Medicine Bow Peak

Located in the Snowy Range area west of Laramie. Medicine Bow Peak has an altitude of 11,939 feet. On the summit which forms one flank on the peak stands the primary fire lookout tower of the Medicine Bow National Forest. To this location the Indians came great distances 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 – “good medicine bows”.

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

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1:24000 Quadrangle: Medicine Bow Peak

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