How Many Unknown Graves Are There In Wyoming?

How many unknown and unmarked graves are there in Wyoming?

Let's start by saying there is no way to know the answer to this question. But we know that there are unknown graves all over.

There are entire graveyards where towns used to be, and yet we don't know many of the people buried there.

We could go back and start with the first humans in North America and go until today. That leaves bodies all over the place.

There are many unknown and unmarked graves along the Oregon Trail & Pioneer Routes. Thousands of nineteenth-century travelers died along those trails. Many never made it across areas like South Pass and the Sublette Cutoff. Most of them were buried in shallow, unmarked sites. Any marking that was made would have been taken by the elements over time.

Hanna, Wyoming, left hundreds of miners buried in unmarked graves after a mining disaster.

Forts and outposts have many graves of unidentified soldiers, as well as the many indians that died with no clue as to where they were placed.

We have all seen tombstones that were once readable. But time washed away the words, and now we have no idea who is there.

The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation keeps a registry of missing persons and cold cases. Their records go back to 1974. There are around 90 open. We have no idea where those people are.

Then there are the people who have died somewhere out there in the great expanse of Wyoming, and nobody ever found them. Those people will probably never be found. Nature will swallow them up and leave no trace.

Kinda creepy when you think about it. Welcome to Earth.