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Demographics of Uinta County
Affluence Level in Uinta County
A middle-class area roughly in line with national averages across income, home values, education, and employment.
People of Uinta County
The people of Uinta County, Wyoming, today number 20,605, forming a predominantly white, rural population with a distinctive Western identity rooted in ranching, energy extraction, and a strong sense of local independence. With 86.6% of residents identifying as white and a foreign-born population of just 1.0%, the county remains one of the least ethnically diverse in the state, though a Hispanic community of 9.9% represents a growing and visible minority. The county seat, Evanston, serves as the primary population center and economic hub, while smaller communities like Lyman, Mountain View, and the historic railroad town of Bear River City anchor a dispersed settlement pattern along the Union Pacific corridor. This is a place where family histories often stretch back multiple generations, and where the character of the population has been shaped by the railroad, the cattle industry, and the energy booms that followed.
Settlement & growth (pre-1960)
Long before European settlement, the Uinta County region was part of the traditional territory of the Shoshone people, who followed seasonal game through the Bear River Valley and the high desert basins. The Ute people also frequented the area, particularly the southern reaches near the Uinta Mountains, from which the county takes its name. These Native nations lived in a sparsely populated landscape of sagebrush plains and river bottoms, a pattern that would persist even after Euro-American arrival.
The first permanent non-Native settlers arrived in the 1860s, drawn not by land grants but by the transcontinental railroad. The Union Pacific Railroad pushed through the southern tier of Wyoming in 1868, establishing the town of Evanston as a division point and maintenance hub. This single event defined the county's early population: a mix of Irish and Chinese railroad laborers, followed by merchants, teamsters, and saloon-keepers who catered to the rail crews. The Chinese workers, who built much of the track through the rugged terrain, formed a small but notable enclave in Evanston, though most had left by the 1880s due to discriminatory laws and violence. The Irish, by contrast, stayed and became the backbone of the railroad workforce for generations.
Ranching followed quickly. By the 1870s, cattle barons like the Swan Land and Cattle Company had established vast spreads across the county, drawing cowboys and homesteaders from Texas, the Midwest, and the British Isles. The town of Lyman, founded in the 1880s, became a center for Mormon settlers from Utah who brought irrigation agriculture to the Bear River Valley. These Latter-day Saint families, many of English and Scandinavian descent, created a distinct cultural pocket that persists today in Lyman and Mountain View, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints remains a dominant social institution. Meanwhile, Bear River City, originally a rough railroad camp, evolved into a farming community of Danish and German immigrants who drained and cultivated the river bottomlands.
The early 20th century brought a new wave: oil and gas workers. The discovery of the Whitney Canyon and Carter Creek gas fields in the 1920s and 1930s drew roughnecks from Oklahoma, Texas, and the Appalachian oil fields. These workers, largely white and Protestant, settled in Evanston and the unincorporated areas around the wells, creating a transient but economically vital population. The Great Depression and Dust Bowl sent a smaller number of displaced farmers from the Great Plains into the county, but the population remained stable at roughly 7,000 through the 1940s. World War II brought a brief influx of workers to the coal mines near Almy, a now-abandoned mining town that once rivaled Evanston in size, but the mines closed by the 1950s, and Almy became a ghost town.
Modern era (post-1965)
The 1965 Hart-Cellar Act, which reshaped American immigration nationwide, had minimal direct impact on Uinta County. The foreign-born population today stands at just 1.0%, and the county saw no significant wave of post-1965 immigration from Asia, Africa, or Latin America. Instead, the demographic story of the modern era is one of domestic migration and natural increase, punctuated by energy booms and busts.
The most significant shift has been the growth of the Hispanic population, which rose from negligible levels in 1970 to 9.9% today. This is not a product of recent immigration but of a gradual, decades-long movement of Hispanic families—many of them Mexican-American and multi-generational U.S. citizens—from the Southwest and Colorado into the county's agricultural and service sectors. These families have concentrated in Evanston, where they work in construction, hospitality, and the oil fields, and in Lyman, where they are employed in dairy and hay operations. The Hispanic community is dispersed rather than segregated, living in mixed neighborhoods and attending the same schools as their white neighbors.
The energy industry has been the primary driver of population change since the 1970s. The oil boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s brought a wave of workers from Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, many of whom stayed after the bust. The natural gas boom of the 2000s repeated the pattern, drawing workers from the Rocky Mountain region and the Gulf Coast. These booms have made the county's population volatile: it grew from 12,000 in 1970 to 21,000 in 1980, then fell to 18,000 by 1990, before climbing back to 20,600 today. The population is disproportionately male during boom times, but families follow, and the county's school enrollment has fluctuated accordingly.
Suburbanization has been limited. Evanston, the only incorporated city of any size, has grown outward with new subdivisions on its south and west sides, but the county remains overwhelmingly rural. The college-educated share of the population is just 21.3%, well below the national average, reflecting the dominance of blue-collar industries. The Asian and Black populations remain tiny—0.2% and 0.3%, respectively—and are concentrated in Evanston, where a handful of professionals work in healthcare and education. There is no Indian-subcontinent population to speak of.
The future
The population of Uinta County is likely to remain stable or grow slowly over the next 10-20 years, driven by energy cycles rather than immigration or urban migration. The county is not becoming more diverse in the way that urban America is: the Hispanic share may rise gradually to 12-15% as younger Hispanic families have more children, but the white population will remain dominant. The foreign-born share will stay below 2%, as there are no industries or networks attracting new immigrants.
The cultural identity of the county is evolving in subtle ways. The old divide between Mormon Lyman and non-Mormon Evanston is softening as younger residents move between communities for work and school. The energy industry's boom-bust cycle continues to shape the population's character: during busts, the county becomes older and more family-oriented; during booms, it becomes younger and more transient. The next major energy development—whether in carbon capture, helium extraction, or a new oil play—will determine whether the county grows or contracts.
For someone moving in now, Uinta County offers a population that is stable, rooted, and culturally conservative, with a strong work ethic tied to the land and the resource economy. It is not a place of rapid demographic change or ethnic diversity, but it is a place where community ties run deep and where the population's history—from Shoshone trails to railroad camps to gas fields—remains visible in the towns and the faces of the people who live there.
* Values derived from national, state, county, city and local statistics and may differ in a specific area. Last updated: 2026-06-17T09:45:45.000Z
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