Jay Em is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in northern Goshen County,

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

, United States, just below the headwaters of the Rawhide Creek, on the old Texas Trail. It lies along U.S. Route 85, 35 miles north of the city of Torrington, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

of Goshen County. Its elevation is 4,590 feet (1,399 m). Although unincorporated, Jay Em has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

, with ZIP code 82219.

History

The site of the town was a watering hole on old Texas Trail. The land around the watering hole was claimed by Jim Moore (d.1875) in the 1860s. By 1869, Moore had the second largest cattle ranch in the

Wyoming Territory The Territory of Wyoming was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 25, 1868, until July 10, 1890, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Wyoming. Cheyenne was the territorial capital. The bou ...

, under the brand "J Rolling M", from which the community and "Jay Em Creek" would take later their names. The town was established to support ranchers in the surrounding area by Lake Harris between 1912 and 1915, and by 1915 a

was established. A newspaper, the weekly ''Jay Em Sentinel and Fort Laramie News'' (circulation 300) ran from 1917 to 1921. The town thrived with a number of businesses growing up, including a lumber yard and general store, and the Jay Em Stone Company, which made gravestones and building products from stone quarried in the Rawhide Buttes area. By the 1930s and the advent of the automobile, the town began declining somewhat, and beginning in the 1980s, most of the few remaining residents gradually moved to more modern accommodations scattered around the edges of town, eventually leaving the old, historic center of town for the most part abandoned. In August 2017 the town hosted thousands of visitors who came to view the

Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 The solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, dubbed the "Great American Eclipse" by the media, was a total solar eclipse visible within a band that spanned the contiguous United States from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts. It was also visible as a ...

Historic district

The center of the original community is included in the Jay Em Historic District, and listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

Education

Public education for the community of Jay Em is provided by Goshen County School District #1.

Main highway

U.S. Highway 85 U.S. Route 85 (US 85) is a north–south United States Highway that travels in the Mountain and Northern Plains states of the United States. The southern terminus of the highway is at the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas, connecting wi ...

References

External links

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Goshen County, Wyoming Unincorporated communities in Wyoming