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 weaponsthey said, "Good medicine bows." (Annals of Wyoming 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. (Guidebook of the Western United States)
Other Names:
Medicine Bow Range
County:
Albany
Feature Category:
Land Features
More Reading:
Guide to the geology, mining districts, and ghost towns of the Medicine Bow mountains and Snowy Range scenic byway. Hausel, W. Dan. Laramie, Wyo. : Geological Survey of Wyoming, 1993.; The Medicine Bows : Wyoming's mountain country. Thybony, Scott. Caldwell, Idaho : Caxton Printers, 1985.
Description:
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. (Decisions, 1932)
