Torrington: a small town's year of planning for two minutes in the dark

Eclipse merch for sale in Torrington's Pioneer Park

After driving for an hour along Highway 85 and seeing nothing but fields stretching to the horizon and one or two isolated farms, we arrived one Friday evening in early August in Torrington, Goshen County, Wyoming, home to 6,500 people.
To say it is a small, sleepy place is an understatement. A sign outside Pioneer Park, the city park where we planned to camp, instructed us to call the police to come and unlock the padlock on our camping spot's water spigot if we arrived after hours. We were reluctant to get the cops involved in such a trivial task, particularly on a Friday night, but a friendly police officer arrived less than 10 minutes after we called. "What brings you here?" she asked. "We're just passing through on our way to South Dakota," I said, slightly sheepishly, although this may have been ridiculous. Even the marketing slogan for Goshen County, "Big Land. Small Pleasures", is pretty low key.
But we soon realized that something big is about to happen in Torrington. We figured this out when we got up the next morning and wandered through the 10 or so arts and crafts stalls set up in Pioneer Park and saw the eclipse T-shirts, hand-embroidered baseball caps and other hand-crafted eclipse souvenirs for sale. We chatted to a few stallholders, who told us that when the total solar eclipse occurs here at 11.47am on Monday morning,  it'll be the biggest event in the town's history.
"It's a really big deal around here," said Roxann Eddington, who was selling handmade beaded eclipse bracelets in the park. "Everyone is making eclipse stuff, so I thought I would too. Someone's even making an eclipse quilt that's going to be raffled off." She added that she had no idea where all the eclipse watchers are going to stay. "All the hotel rooms are sold out and they were selling for $600 a night. I joked to my husband that we could see if someone wants to camp in our yard."

Sign outside the Bronco Bar on Torrington's Main Street.

We discovered after chatting to Roxann that she's clearly on to something. Goshen County's website lists residents and businesses who are offering campers spots on their property and the Bucking Horse Steakhouse on Torrington's Main Street is advertising camping spots without hook ups on its forecourt for $300 a night. To put that in perspective, our campsite in Torrington's Pioneer Park, with water and electricity, cost $10 a night.
It turns out that county officials don't know whether 10,000 or 60,000 visitors will turn up for the eclipse, which is a pretty significant problem. We discovered this when we attended a public meeting in Torrington a couple of days later – by this point, we'd been Torrington residents for four nights, so we were feeling right at home. After receiving our free eclipse-viewing glasses at the door, we learned that the biggest concern is how many day trippers will join the well-prepared eclipse watchers from across the US and overseas, who booked accommodation in Torrington months ago.
"We're one of the closest towns where Denver residents can view the total eclipse, and if it turns out cloudy in Casper [Wyoming's second-largest city] another 50,000 people could come here," said Roger Spears, science advisor to Goshen County's Eclipse Committee.
As a result, Goshen County's Eclipse Committee has been meticulously preparing for this event for over a year. It has plans to deal with everything from food and gas shortages and phone and internet service failures to ground fires and rattlesnake injuries. "Rattlesnakes are numerous this season, we're close to breeding season, they're shedding skin and they're upset," Shelly Kirchhefer, Goshen County's emergency management coordinator, said at the meeting.
Stopping and parking on the verge of county roads and highways will be prohibited during the eclipse, partly because of the fire risk and partly because visitors might step out of their car and on to a snake. Kirchhefer said she's warning all visitors to look at the patch of ground they are standing on very carefully before they look up at the sun. "Wherever you are standing to watch the eclipse, you need to be vigilant."
She's instructing visitors to bring food, water and a full tank of gas with them and went on to urge locals to stock up on food, water and gas early to give Torrington's two supermarkets, stores and gas stations the chance to restock before the eclipse. She pointed out that while emergency services staff would be spread all over, Goshen County can't call on law enforcement personnel from nearby counties, because they are either in the line of totality themselves or dealing with the traffic coming into Wyoming from elsewhere.
"Can't we call in the National Guard?" asked one concerned woman. "They only respond in times of a disaster or emergency," said Kirchhefer. "Folks, this is an event."
It sure is. We were very sad to leave Torrington before the big day, but the first eclipse photos we'll search for on Monday won't be from Kansas City or Casper or any of the national parks, but from here.

Torrington's Main Street

Torrington's Wyoming Theater

Our camping spot in Torrington's Pioneer Park

Author

Kathryn