State report sheds light on BHC population trends

The pace of Big Horn County’s growth has slowed since its post-pandemic peak, according to a new report from the Wyoming Administration and Information’s Economic Analysis Division.

The report documented overall population growth trends since the 2020, but focused specifically on the period from July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024.

 Big Horn County added 23 residents during that one-year period, an increase of .2%.  From April 1, 2020, to July 1, 2024, the county grew by 4.9%, or 566 residents.

Among the nine incorporated communities, Burlington, with an updated population estimate of 379, has shown the most growth — 20.7% since April 2020. Cowley (85) and Deaver (171) rank second and third at 12.1% and 11%, respectively.

Burlington also showed the most year-to-year growth, at 2.2%.

Here are the July 1, 2024, population estimates for Big Horn   County:  Lovell 2,366; Greybull 1,715; Basin 1,337; Cowley 859; Byron 577; Burlington 379; Deaver 171; Frannie 123; Manderson 89.

The number of residents living outside those incorporated places was set at 4,468.

Big picture

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly half of the 31 large cities and towns (over 2,000 people) in Wyoming added residents between July 1, 2023 and July 1, 2024. 

For cities and towns with population over 2,000, Evansville demonstrated the fastest annual growth (2.1%), followed by Laramie (1.6%) and Mills (1.6%), while Laramie (516), Cheyenne (417), Gillette (323), and Sheridan (230) showed the largest numerical addition from 2023 to 2024. 

Three cities or towns, Pinedale (-34), Wheatland (-51), and Kemmerer (- 26) experienced annual population declines of more than 1.0 percent. Evanston is the only place that lost more than 100 residents during the year. 

As of July 1, 2024, 68.6 percent, or 403,303 people in Wyoming lived in incorporated places. Nearly half (49.2%) of the state’s residents lived in 11 cities and towns with population of more than 10,000. Wyoming’s total population grew 2,551 or 0.4% in 2024, and this growth rate was slightly slower than the combined population change for these 11 large cities. 

“In the past a couple of years, Wyoming’s large cities have mostly reversed the population declines experienced in 2021 and 2022 due to COVID-19,” noted Dr. Wenlin Liu, chief economist with the State of Wyoming, Economic Analysis Division. “Many individuals with telework capabilities opted to move to rural and lower cost areas during the  pandemic.”