This Wyoming City is Fastest Growing City According to Recent Reports

A new study from Wyoming’s Economic Analysis Division says that Mills was the fastest-growing town with more than 2,000 people in 2022. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Mills gained 188 people between July 2021 and June 2022, bringing its total population to 4,431. That’s 4.4% more than before. The study said that Wyoming’s smaller towns and cities did better than its bigger ones.

For example, the population grew 3.3% in Star Valley Ranch, which was the second-largest rise. That raised the number of people living in the town from about 1,965 to 2,030.

Lovell, Afton, and Buffalo, among other places, all grew by 1.8%. Newcastle and Douglas, on the other hand, saw population growth of about 1.2%.

Out of all the towns in Wyoming, Gillette added the most people, with a net gain of 277. That meant that the number of people living there rose from 32,987 to 33,264, a .8% rise. Sheridan stood out too, adding 195 people, or about 1%. Its people dropped from 19,040 to 19,235.

Cheyenne and Casper, three of Wyoming’s largest towns, both got a little smaller. As of July 2022, there were 64,610 people living in Cheyenne. Compared to the previous year, 456 people moved out, which is a.7% drop in the population.

As of July 2022, there were 58,543 people living in Casper, which is 220 fewer than at the same time in 2021. The value has dropped by .4%. Jackson and Rawlins were the only places where the population dropped by more than 1%.

The number of people living in Jackson dropped by 1.6%, from 10,869 in July 2021 to 10,698 in July 2022. During the same time period, 101 people died in Rawlins. According to the Census Bureau, the number of people living there dropped from 8,298 to 8,197, which is a 1.2% drop.

To give you some background, Wyoming’s population grew by about 1,898 people that year, which is about 3%. A lot of that growth happened in rural areas. In 2022, Wyoming’s 99 cities and towns only grew by .1% in total.

“The COVID-19 virus changed patterns and trends of domestic migration in the past few years,” Wenlin Liu, chief economist for Wyoming’s Economic Analysis Division, said in a May 18 story about the study. “During the pandemic, many people who could work from home chose to move to areas with fewer people and lower costs.”