Location: Green River
Top Things to do in Green River
Top 5 Things to do in Green River, United States
Green River is a city in and the county seat of Sweetwater County, Wyoming, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 12,515 at the 2010 census.
Restaurants in Green River
1. Expedition Island Park
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 39 reviews
Reviewed By Steve C - Annapolis, Maryland
Mile long “double tracked” trains are constantly cruising through the town. Green River is the main switching yard for the Union Pacific trains rumbling through that part of the country day and night. The buildings literally shake with each passing train. Like the smell of a pig farm, I suppose one gets used to the vibrations.
Green River is also home to one of only two remaining pedestrian bridges over railroad tracks in America. Railroad buffs come from all over the world to see it and snap their pictures of a bygone era.
On the far side of the bridge are stone steps leading down to the river and two blocks away was Expedition Island, located in a city park connected to a paved Greenbelt trail along the Green River, where the Powell expeditions departed in 1869 and 1871, to explore the unmapped Green and Colorado rivers. John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Civil War veteran, explorer, and founder of the USGS is one of my all time heroes.
If you brought your bike, you might want to combine your visit to Expedition Island with a nice ride on the Greenway Trail.
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2. Sweetwater County Museum
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 25 reviews
Reviewed By Tim W - Green River, Wyoming
A free to the public museum on the Main Street in town. Educational and interesting exhibits concerning the outlaw history of the county, the mining and Chinese immigrant history, and historic hi way 30, the Lincoln highway and first transcontinental roadway in America. Interesting and inexpensive gift shop and very present staff.
3. Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 12 reviews
Reviewed By Janet P - Granbury, Texas
Almost no signage. Hard to find. Gravel scraped roads. But for our purposes which was birding this is fantastic. Its difficult drive for sure because none of it is paved except drive into visitor center which is amazingly far from the highway. Very odd.
4. Green River Wild Horse Tours
Overall Ratings
5 based on 16 reviews
Reviewed By Suzy K - Rochester, New York
Rich is an excellent guide. He is extremely knowledgable about the environment, history and individual characteristics of the horses. My husband and I went with my 72 year old mother and 2 teenage kids and everyone loved it. The army vehicle is extremely fun. I would highly recommend this to any age group. Everyone in our group agreed it was one of the highlights of our vacation.
5. Green River visitor Center
Overall Ratings
5 based on 2 reviews
Reviewed By Steve C - Annapolis, Maryland
Our first stop in Green River after a yummy breakfast at the diner was the Green River Visitor Center on the west end of town where there were many informative outside exhibits about mining, horsies, and the ecology of the Green River Basin. Inside, there were some very cool Western artifacts and natural history books and – always a big plus – clean bathrooms. Jimmy and I sat on a bench overlooking the stark, yet lovely, Green River and the recently restored Kildeer Wetlands.
If wild horses are your thing, then you might want to take a little side trip on the Pilot Butte Wild Horse Scenic Tour – 26 miles off I-80, starting in Green River and paralleling UT 191, to the north. We didn’t have time for such a lengthy detour, but it it might be fun for folks who had another day or so to spend in the area. I mean, how can you not like wild horses?
Green River is primarily known for one thing: the industrial mining of trona and potash. Green River is the “Trona Capital of the World”. You can even follow the Trona Trail to the various mine sites. The largest and purest deposits of trona in the world can be found around Green River. What’s trona, you ask? Trona is a sedimentary mineral, sodium sesquicarbonate, deposited by an ancient inland lake as it evaporated 55 million years ago. It is mined about 1,500 feet below the earth with huge 75 ton boring drills that resemble metallic dinosaurs and then processed into soda ash.
Trona is used to make almost everything in your home and to control pollution. Twelve foot thick beds are mined in underground cities with maintenance shops, bathrooms, lunchrooms, electricity, and streets. Soda Ash is the primary ingredient in soap, baking soda, toothpaste, glass, glue, paper, snacks, fire extinguishers, and cattle feed. Westvaco sunk the first trona mine in 1946, right after World War II. The Church and Dwight Company opened their first sodium bicarbonate processing plant in 1986 (Arm & Hammer). Eventually there were five trona mines and four soda ash processing plants around Green River. The locals call it the “Trona Patch”. So, if you have a box of baking soda in your fridge, you have a little piece of Wyoming.
To put the importance of mining in perspective, there are so many shift workers living in Green River that the City Council banned door-to-door salesman so that the night shift could sleep in peace.
Wyoming is world-renowned for it’s many well-preserved fossils that were deposited millions of years ago in what were once ancient sea beds. This part of America and most of the Canyonlands were transformed from oceans, to lakes, to rivers and swamps many times over. Every rock formation we passed during our two week trip had started as a sand dune or the bottom of some large body of water. Then they had been uplifted into their current position when the continental tectonic plates smashed into one another. Wind, water, and erosion have done the rest.
Knightia, a small herring, is Wyoming’s state fossil. Geologists have also found alligators, turtles, bats, plants, crayfish, beetles, dragonflies, fig leaves, and palm fronds within the sandstone formations of southern Wyoming. And the prehistoric swamps deposited the coal which is fossilized peat. Hence the name “fossil fuel”.
Early industries included the making of railroad ties and ice cut from the frozen river and placed in insulating sawdust for local use in summer.
For more travel tips, please check out my popular travel blog.
