Wyoming Highway 76 (WYO 76) is a

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

Carbon County, Wyoming Carbon County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 14,537. Its county seat is Rawlins, Wyoming, Rawlins. Its south border abuts the north line of Colorado. ...

, United States, that connects the settlements of Rawlins to

Sinclair Sinclair may refer to: Places * Lake Sinclair, near Milledgeville, Georgia * Sinclair, Iowa * Sinclair, West Virginia * Sinclair, Wyoming * Sinclair Mills, British Columbia * Sinclair Township, Minnesota * Sinclair, Manitoba People * Sin ...

. It follows the former route of

U.S. Route 30 U.S. Route 30 or U.S. Highway 30 (US 30) is an east–west main route in the system of the United States Numbered Highways, with the highway traveling across the northern tier of the country. With a length of , it is the third longest ...

(US 30) and parallels

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one o ...

(I-80), the main east–west freeway in the state. The highway was designated in the 1960s after the freeway was completed and transferred to local control, but later reverted to state maintenance.

Route description

The western end of WYO 76 is at an interchange with

I-80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one o ...

in the eastern outskirts of Rawlins; the highway is a continuation of East Cedar Street, which carries US 287, I-80 Business, and US 30 Business into Rawlins. The highway travels east from Rawlins alongside I-80, a major freeway which also carries US 30 and US 287, to the north and the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

's Laramie Subdivision to the south. WYO 76 crosses under the freeway as it enters

and turns north for a

block Block or blocked may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Block programming, the result of a programming strategy in broadcasting * W242BX, a radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, United States known as ''96.3 ...

on South 9th Street and east onto Lincoln Avenue. The highway passes through the town and the

Parco Historic District The Parco Historic District, also known as the Sinclair Historic District, comprises the center of Sinclair, Wyoming, originally known as Parco, surrounding the Parco Inn. The district includes 93 buildings, of which 49 are considered to be cont ...

, which includes several historic buildings in the

Spanish Colonial Revival The Spanish Colonial Revival Style ( es, Arquitectura neocolonial española) is an architectural stylistic movement arising in the early 20th century based on the Spanish Colonial architecture of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. In the ...

style. WYO 76 then leaves the town and its namesake

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, lique ...

and turns southeast to cross over the railroad and reach its east end, an interchange with I-80, US 30, and US 287.

History

In 1938, Highway 76 started out as the designation for Battle Mountain Road, which is the present-day routing of Highway 70 between Baggs and

Riverside Riverside may refer to: Places Australia * Riverside, Tasmania, a suburb of Launceston, Tasmania Canada * Riverside (electoral district), in the Yukon * Riverside, Calgary, a neighbourhood in Alberta * Riverside, Manitoba, a former rural m ...

. At that time, the Highway 70 designation was applied to the current routing of

Highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

from Walcott Junction south into Saratoga, then south through

into

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, then northeast into Laramie via Woods Landing. The modern-day route of Highway 76 is the former alignment of US 30 / US 287 prior to the construction of I-80. The old highway was initially transferred to Carbon County, who approved an ordinance to return it to local landowners in 1968; the formal relinquishment was never filed, so it remained under county ownership despite being a state highway. In August 1985, the town of Sinclair voted 58–19 in favor of rerouting Highway 76 off South 8th Street and onto South 9th Street.

Major intersections

References

External links

{{Attached KML, display=inline,title
AARoads: Wyoming State Routes 000-099

Corco Highways: Wyoming Highway 76
Transportation in Carbon County, Wyoming 076 U.S. Route 30 U.S. Route 287 Rawlins, Wyoming