Name: Medicine Bow River

 

County: Albany, Carbon

 

Authority Name:  Medicine Bow River (Wyo.) 

 

GNIS Entry

 

Longitude:  1064101W

Latitude: 415956N

 

Legal Description:

 

Elevation: 6394/1949

(ft/m)

 

Feature Type: Stream

 

Origin of Name:

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: West Fork

 

Alternative Spellings:

 

History:

 

Stories:

 

Maps:

1:24000 Quadrangle: Tenmile Spring

 

Newspapers:

 

More Information: 

 

Pictures: