Name: Medicine Bow Mountains

 

County: Albany, Carbon

 

Authority Name:  Medicine Bow Mountains (Colo. and Wyo.)

 

GNIS Entry

 

Longitude:  1061022W

Latitude: 410210N

 

Legal Description:

 

Elevation: 10807/3294

(ft/m)

 

Feature Type: Range

 

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: Medicine Bow Range

 

Alternative Spellings:

 

History:

Medicine Bow Mountains, Albany and Carbon Counties, Wyo., and Jackson and Larimer counties, Colo.; extend from Cameron Pass, Colo., near the Continental Divide, 100 miles northwest to the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming; and include all the highlands from Laramie Basin on the east, to North Platte River and North Park on the west.

Source: Decisions, 1890-1932

 

Stories:

 

Maps:

1:24000 Quadrangle: Foxpark

 

Newspapers:

 

More Information: 

 

Pictures: