Loren Jost

Loren Jost, author of Fremont County, Wyoming: A Pictorial History (Donning Publishers, 1996), worked for many years at the Riverton, Wyo. Ranger, and now directs the Riverton Museum.

Fremont County, created in 1884 and named for famed explorer John C. Frémont, is still as diverse both economic factors and population as it was in the early days. Members of the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes continue to live and work on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Former reservation land north of Wind River was first opened to homesteaders in 1906. Ranching and irrigated farming have provided steadying influences over the decades to a local economy tied closely to booms and busts in gold, coal, uranium, iron-ore, oil and gas production.