Cheyenne, Wyoming
A few years ago, my sister and her family lived in Denver, our whole family was making plans to migrate that direction, and my brother and I were talking about starting a business manufacturing firearms. Then in 2013, Colorado enacted a new gun control law which, among other things, banned full capacity magazines. This made Colorado an unsuitable location for many manufacturers in the firearm industry, and they began moving out of the state. My brother and I began researching alternate locations. The seemingly obvious choice was Cheyenne.
Cheyenne is only two hours away from Denver, straight up I-25. In fact, Cheyenne is at the north end of a whole urban corridor. The population of the city is about 60,000 with nearly 100,000 in the metropolitan area. Not much industry in terms of manufacturing, machining, or engineering, but with the whole urban corridor, the regional resources would be enough. The biggest question was, would I want to live there?
The question became moot. My sister and her family relocated out of Colorado, partly in response to the new gun law and the increasing nanny-state politics that it signified.
However, this summer I found myself planning a camping road trip that would take me west on I-80, right through Cheyenne. Even though I no longer have any reason to consider living there, my curiosity led me to spend a little time exploring the city.
Cheyenne is bigger than I expected. Looking at photographs and considering population numbers, I expected a much smaller, dustier, and colder little rural town. Instead, Cheyenne is like a very large Denver suburb, the same sort of roads and architecture. It seemed like a very nice place to live and raise a family. For some reason, I had imagined a “downtown” of two or three blocks. However, it has a rather large urban zone. The outskirts of the city are spacious and spread out, with interesting character and the mountainous feel that Denver has. Grass was green, so they evidently do not suffer from drought.
If I was still planning to relocate to that region, Cheyenne would be very appealing to me.
