The Medicine Bow Intermediate Field, an emergency landing field located between major terminal points, was an integral part of Route T. the New York to San Francisco transcontinental airway. In the 1920s the Post Office began to construct a series of lighted airway beacons. The airway beacon system, albeit primitive and hampered by reduced visibilities, laid the groundwork for the modern Federal Airway system. Intermediate fields were to be improved as little as possible in keeping with the fluctuating design of the airway. Officially referred to as Site 32 on the Salt Lake to Omaha airway the Medicine Bow field was laid out to afford pilots the opportunity to land in any direction. Originally located one mile west of its present position, it was relocated circa 1929 to take advantage of the proximity to local utilities.

The Dixon Town Hall was originally constructed to house the Stockgrowers Bank of Dixon in 1916. Founded in 1911 by E. W. Reade the Stockgrowers Bank served the upper Snake River valley farmers and ranchers by providing capital critical to the growing agricultural economy. The bank continued to serve area farmers and ranchers from this location until 1923 when it went into receivership.

The receivership was precipitated by a vast overextension of the banks assets in previous years. The overextension was common among rural banks of the twenties attempting to reap profits from a post World War I agricultural boom, a boom based on inflated agricultural commodity and land prices. Since the dissolution of the bank, the building served as a soda fountain in the early 1940s, a small mercantile in the late 1940s, the meeting hall of the local Little Snake River Veterans of Foreign Wars post, and as the local town hall. As the town hall, the building continued to be one of the town's significant civic centers.

The Stone Wall Ranch was the first permanent ranch homestead within the Little Snake River Valley. Founded by one of the valley's first permanent cattle raising residents, Noah Reader, in 1871, the ranch retains material culture elements that embody the relationship between stockmen and the local environment--elements that express an articulation between a mode of livelihood and local environmental constraints. The ranch name derived from the natural sandstone escarpment that still forms the back (north) wall of the ranch's main corral. The Stone Wall Ranch is significant because it is the first permanent settlement in the Little Snake River Valley and because of its unique environmental setting. Cultural elements of the property are integrated with the environmental features and elicit a feeling of confinement rather than the open spaciousness so common among Wyoming ranches.

The Union Pacific Railroad Depot is a one-story brick and granite transportation structure with Richardsonian Romanesque elements constructed in 1901 with a baggage and telegraph addition to the west side (1901-1903) and an Eating House addition to the east side (1903-1912). The Depot is representative of the influence of the railroad and its transportation connections as related to the development and growth of Rawlins. The railroad served as a reason for settlement and its transportation links provided support for the development of other industries and expansion of the city.

The Virginian Hotel, constructed in 1911, is a freely adapted example of Renaissance Revival architecture in the Italian style located in the small town of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Medicine Bow is the setting for perhaps the greatest of all Western novels, The Virginian, written by Owen Wister. Located in the Laramie Plains, a large expanse of grazing land in the Northwestern Plains, the town grew up as a railroad shipping point for cattle, sheep and wool. Before the arrival of the Union Pacific Railroad in June, 1868, Medicine Bow was the site of a tie operation, where logs and railroad ties cut in the Medicine Bow Mountains and floated down rushing mountain currents, gathered behind a boom stretched across the Medicine Bow River. With the addition of a water tank and roundhouse, the settlement became a permanent railroad station along a great transcontinental route.

Author Wister, who crisscrossed Wyoming fifteen time in the years 1885-1902, borrowed scenes from the country around Medicine Bow for his book, which was written in 1902. The Virginian Hotel did not play a role in that book. August Grimm, who with George Plummer was responsible for building the hotel, may have had in mind the fame of that great American novel, but the hotel probably was not built to honor Wister or the hero of his novel.

Although cowboys, as well as railroad workers needed a place to stay when they arrived in town, the hotel was built to serve a clientele from a much wider area. The significance of the Virginian Hotel rests upon its architecture and its role in local history. The Virginian stands as a physical landmark and as a commercial landmark in the town of Medicine Bow.

The history of Washakie Station, a stage station on the Overland Trail, begins in the early 1860s. Unlike stage stations east of Bridger's Pass, Washakie Station and others west of it were built of native stone quarried locally. Floors and roofs were usually made of poles and dirt, and the buildings usually faced south or east. Portions of a few crumbled walls, consisting of red sandstone slabs of varying sizes, are all that remain of this particular station. Foundation stones of what was probably a corral and hay storage shed are located nearby.

The Willis House is a two-story modified American Four Square style house built in 1908. It is the only two-story masonry clad residential building in the town of Encampment. The house was built by Mrs. Lydia M. Willis to be a deluxe house of prostitution and the headquarters of the Willis business empire. Mrs. Willis never finished the inside of the house. In 1931, the house was acquired and finished by Mr. Charles Deo Terwilliger, a locally prominent and respected rancher and merchant.

The Wyoming State Penitentiary is one of Wyoming's most significant historic sites. The penitentiary complex is historically and architecturally important on both a local and regional level. The placement of the State Penitentiary in Rawlins reflected the political and economic realities of nineteenth century Wyoming, and its construction and use provided a stabilizing influence for the railroad town. As one of the oldest state-supported institutions, it serves as a physical reminder of the tenets of the Wyoming Constitution and associated legislation. The Romanesque buildings at the state prison architecturally describe the prevalent stylistic concerns in Wyoming in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. Within the boundaries of the State Penitentiary's Historic District are buildings that range in construction date from 1891. The historic buildings can generally be divided into three stylistic categories: Romanesque, Mission, and utilitarian. The Romanesque structures, such as the administration building, cell block A, laundry, guard quarters-powerhouse complex, and commissary, are distinctive public buildings constructed of stone. The prison's association with a prominent architect, Walter E. Ware, also contributes to the penitentiary's architectural importance.