Trailblazer Days Thermopolis Wyoming

Send us Fan MailStep into a weekend where wagon wheels still sing and history breathes. We sit down with Terry from Thermopolis, Wyoming, to unveil Trailblazer Days—a living celebration built around 16 Mule Johnson, the freighter who helped shape the town’s famously wide streets. From the first note of a Dave Stamey concert to the last waltz at a dessert dance, this is a full-scale revival of Western craft, community, and courage.We map the whole journey: a championship chuck wagon dinner with crews who cook like the old days, emceed by cowboy poet and broadcaster Andy Nelson. Then the main event rolls out—a non-motorized parade featuring a working 16-mule jerk line hitch pulling three freight wagons and a sheep wagon, plus buggies, sheep wagons, a jail wagon, and more. At the fairgrounds, collectors and teamsters turn a “wagon show” into a hands-on classroom, trading restoration tips, harness wisdom, and stories from the road. If you’ve ever wondered how a long hitch “dances” through a tight corner, this is where muscle memory meets art.Thermopolis adds depth far beyond pageantry. The town sits in the Bighorn Basin near Yellowstone, a last-frontier landscape that forged cattle barons, sheep queens, and outlaw lore from Hole-in-the-Wall to the pages of The Virginian. The weekend widens the lens with the museum’s milk can dinner and a Sunday dedicated to tribal history: a guided visit to Legend Rock’s petroglyphs and a bison barbecue setting the stage for the Buffalo Initiative on Wind River Reservation. It’s a living mosaic—draft horses, mules, Indigenous trails, and the communities that keep them all in view.Parade entries are open to non-motorized rigs from across the West, and travelers will find lodging, easy access, and the world’s largest hot springs waiting. Join us as we trade algorithms for word of mouth and bring people together the old way: food, music, teams, and stories that stick. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who loves the West, and leave a review telling us what you’d bring to the parade.Check out Trailblazer Days at the links below for more info - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1105730274732703/https://thermopolischamber.org/trailblazer-days-event-scheduleCall (307) 921-0800 Support the showFind us online at DraftHorsesAndMulesForSale.com