Is Gillette Wyoming Ready for the Biggest Event of its Life?

To our friends in Wyoming, please don't take anything in this story too seriously. We love our neighbors to the south. Wyoming is a fine place and we have a lot in common with the Cowboy State. We share crappy winters, glorious summers, tourists, annoying newcomers, and plenty of wide-open spaces with good people.

Wyoming generally ranks better than Montana for taxes, they pay teachers far better than Montana, and Wyoming has like 98% of Yellowstone National Park AND the Tetons. We're sure the town of Gillette is fully prepared to host the biggest event of its life, August 5 - 11. But we have to wonder...

Is Gillette, WY ready for 55,000 extra campers?

Every five years, a youth-centric Christian event called International Pathfinder Camporee selects a different spot to host its city-like camp. In 2019 it was held in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Oshkosh is about twice the size of Gillette, with 66,000 residents, 30 miles from Green Bay.

The Associated Press covered how Gillette was already preparing for the massive event back in 2021. With 55,000 kids, parents, counselors, and support staff from around the globe, all arriving at essentially the same time, the community will almost triple in population.

Toilets are just a fraction of the resources needed to pull this off.

Three years ago, the city started serious preparation by ordering 600 extra portable toilets, to the tune of $350,000. Of course, every sewer service company in town will be running at full capacity too, as will gas stations, grocery stores, hardware stores, hotels, and restaurants. Some locals are planning on leaving town for the week to avoid the congestion, while others welcome the huge boost to the local economy.

You'll never get a hotel room in Gillette from August 1 - 11.

It's tough for me to imagine Billings (pop. roughly 120,000) or any city in Montana pulling off an event this big. The logistics are mind-boggling. The Camporee will have its own radio station, newspaper, "streets" and stores, transforming Gillette's fairgrounds into a temporary city of campers. From August 5 - 11, Gillette will be the largest city in Wyoming. Adding to the congestion; Sturgis is August 1 - 11, with tens of thousands of bikers passing through Gillette on I-90. 

H/T Cowboy State Daily