AHC: More People In Wyoming

kernals12

Banned
Since 1984, when Alaska overtook it, Wyoming has been our smallest state, with a mere 577,000 people. So, how can we make the Equality State reasonably large? As a benchmark, let's use neighboring Utah, which has 3 million people. Surely there must be a way to entice people to the state home to Yellowstone National Park.
 
Perhaps some more industrial and/or agricultural effort in the region could help, but I'm not too certain about that. You could also gain more people via more territory, but I think at best you'd only get a tiny sliver of say Montana or Nebraska.
 
More oil and gas formations wouldn't hurt. Something analogous to the Williston Basin that could attract more jobs/people to the state. Yes Wyoming has oil/gas but more wouldn't hurt.
 
Wikipedia shows a 41% increase in population in the 1970s - why was that and can that be maintained over the next few decades?

Here's a less plausible but possible one: Bowden Wyatt doesn't leave Wyoming for Arkanss after 1952, and thus he doesn't get to have the offer when he did for his alma mater of Tennessee after 1954; or he sees something with segregation that disgusts him and he decides to go back, figuring that he won't have to deal with it in a state where there aren't many blacks anyway. Or,if he was secretly pro-integration, he starts luring blacks to Wyoming. The man is a Hall of Fame coach and led Wyoming to an undefeated season and Gator Bowl, where they finished 12th in the Associated Press rankings.

Maybe an even better option would be Tennessee doesn't open up and he goes back to yoming, but either way, he also avoids an earlhy death by some years and lives to coach the team into the '70s where someone else relly good comes along. The gist is this:

Wyoming changed conferences in 1962. But, TTL a big argument ensues and somehow a few teams from the former conference Wyoming is in don't get selected Denver keeps its program instead in the new WAC. The Big 8 has been established for years - Bob Devaney is about to come from somewhere else and really revive the Nebraska program since he wasn't at Wyoming - and Wyoming decides instead to petition to join the conffrence which would one day be the Pac-10, but which was just then adding Washington State. Their success led them to be considered, but for now, they joined with Oregon, Oregon State, and Arizona and Arizona State with 1-2 others in their own conference. Eventually, they join the other 4 in the Pac-12 by 1978, as Utah, BYU, or Utah State are also invited to join.

The success of the program - even if middling till it starts playing the Pacific coast teams more frequently and getting better and better players - lets the university become nationally known. It becomes, if not a powerhouse program, like an Auburn, one which will have a few really good years, potentially a Heisman winner, etc.

So, more and more people start coing to the university who are major players in new industries - including computer science. Wyoming doesn't become TTL's Silicon Valley, but it does become where some smaller startups ave their headquarters because it's near their alma mater. Cheyenne, as the seat of government, becomes a more vibrant city, too, being so close to Laramie and the University of Wyoming.

Then, the miracle happens. In 1988, the team beats West Virginia in a nonconference game and wins all their others games, but one loss keeps them out of the Rose Bowl. However, they do so well they are number 2 in the nation, with only one undefeated team - Notre Dame. Wyoming was in the Rose Bowl the year before and lost, and now, they are playing NOtre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl for the "mythical national championship."

They lose. But, after 2 straight years of national prominence, even more people start flocking to the Unviersithy of Wyoming as so much free publicity is given about all they offer. That gets even more people to attend - and, more importantly, the right ones as society is changing and they have the companies to facilitate that.

It's not much - it certainly can't make Wyoming a top ten state. But, the number of computer and other companies as the world becomes more of a computer-based ones means that Wyoming has doubled their population from OTL and now has over a million people, with a... well, maybe not a megalopolis by any means, but a large developed area around Laramie and Cheyenne that is just good enough to dream.
 

kernals12

Banned
More oil and gas formations wouldn't hurt. Something analogous to the Williston Basin that could attract more jobs/people to the state. Yes Wyoming has oil/gas but more wouldn't hurt.
You are talking about changing the earth's geology. That goes in the ASB section
 

kernals12

Banned
In the late 20s, John D Rockefeller Jr. vacationed with his wife at Jackson Hole, he fell in love with the area and decided to buy much of the land to conserve it in the hopes it would be made into a national park, which it was, in 1943.

If it hadn't been made into a national park, that area could be a lot bigger, given its natural amenities. And of course, ironically, those amenities would be destroyed by the people moving to the area for those amenities.
 
You are talking about changing the earth's geology. That goes in the ASB section
And, if you move to ASB, you can work in palm trees and sandy beaches to lure people to Wyoming. But, other than that, looks like the ole' "slim and none" situation.
 
Back in the 1970s a independence moment gets rolling in Wyoming. It may not succeed then, but the states reputation for resistance to the Feds & everything else attracts eventually over one million survivalists, white supremacists, anti Feds, business attracted to a perception of lack of regulation, & others disaffected with the rest of the US.
 

Vuu

Banned
Hm, some sort of Silicon Valley level of accident (one important tech guy moving there to help his mom or grandma, whatever, starting a fad), resulting in it being the center of IT?

Don't see that it has any good baits to make people come, and the climate is pretty bad as far as I have heard.
 
The Free State Project chooses Wyoming instead of New Hampshire as its target for people to move to.


Alternatively, the Jewish Territorialist Organization decides that the American West would be a good place to settle Jews in. The climate isn't all that different from the pale, temperature-wise, so you could little shtetls on the prairie.
 
When Wyoming was first being settled create some upheaval in Europe. The wave of refugees would settle there. It happened to Nebraska.
 

kernals12

Banned
The Free State Project chooses Wyoming instead of New Hampshire as its target for people to move to.


Alternatively, the Jewish Territorialist Organization decides that the American West would be a good place to settle Jews in. The climate isn't all that different from the pale, temperature-wise, so you could little shtetls on the prairie.
The problem I see with that plan is backlash from the locals.
 
Since 1984, when Alaska overtook it, Wyoming has been our smallest state, with a mere 577,000 people. So, how can we make the Equality State reasonably large? As a benchmark, let's use neighboring Utah, which has 3 million people. Surely there must be a way to entice people to the state home to Yellowstone National Park.

Isn't the easiest POD solution hidden in the opening question? - The Mormons stop in Wyoming instead of continuing on to Utah.
 
Since 1984, when Alaska overtook it, Wyoming has been our smallest state, with a mere 577,000 people. So, how can we make the Equality State reasonably large? As a benchmark, let's use neighboring Utah, which has 3 million people. Surely there must be a way to entice people to the state home to Yellowstone National Park.

I looked extensively into why Wyoming has such a low population, once. The real question isn't why Wyoming has such a low population (it's comparable to Montana, for example) - the better question is why Utah and Colorado (and to a lesser extent, Idaho) have such large ones.

Utah's easy: Mormons. Period. Sure, there's plenty of non-Mormons in Utah, but they're there to take advantage of economic development and population caused by Mormons moving there because it was their Mormon homeland.

Colorado is a little more difficult, but I'm pretty sure it was because of repeated silver rushes (and to some extent other mineral wealth). Eastern Colorado also has more abundant water resources than Wyoming. There were later interesting effects, like the development of tuberculosis hospitals that brought a disproportionate number of educated and relatively well-off people.

Idaho's population is concentrated in the Snake Valley, a broad, flat plain with relatively abundant water and fertile soil. Wyoming has no equivalent region. A lot of the Wyoming plains were owned by cattle barons who felt no need to sell them, and though I'm not sure it particularly matters, a lot of decent land was and is part of Indian Reservations.

Wyoming always felt to me like it should have been more populous, especially since it's right on the Transcontinental Railroad. But the fact is, there's not really anything in particular to draw people there. There was a little "gold rush", but it topped out at like 1,000 people.

There's maybe some little policy changes that could increase that number - though OTL giving women the vote didn't particularly help. The government hands out free or cheap land, somehow? Earlier establishment of a university? The winds of chance?

I can't help but wonder about letting Chinese railroad builders, stay, though. There were a lot of them, and their work finished very nearby, in the Utah panhandle.

The problem I see with that plan is backlash from the locals.

What locals? But yeah, organic but increasing immigration is one thing, being fingered by an international Jewish group is another.
 
geez, what's with you guys wanting to put crowds of people in my nice thinly-populated state? But yeah, the problems have been addressed... a lack of well watered arable land, no real gold/silver rushes, etc. It's notable that MT, with a similar situation, didn't reach a million people until a few years ago...
 
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