Things to Do in Lander, United States: Walking Guide

The best things to do in Lander combine local history, distinctive buildings, and unusual landscapes. Explore the historic downtown, discover small residential landmarks, and visit Sinks Canyon State Park, where the Middle Fork of the Popo Agie River disappears underground before re-emerging nearby. Neywo’s free audio guide for Lander adds context to 10 narrated places as you explore.

What to See in Lander

Jackson Park Town Site Addition Brick Row

On South Third Street, Jackson Park Town Site Addition Brick Row preserves a small historic residential group. The site includes three houses and two frame garages on the west side of the 300 block. Two houses date from 1917 and the third from 1919, offering a glimpse of Lander’s early residential development. The properties were added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 27, 2003.

Dickinson Creek and Flat Ditch

Dickinson Creek is a natural watercourse in Fremont County, while Flat Ditch is a local canal running through the same county. Neither is a major landmark, but both reveal the waterways woven into the landscape around Lander.

KOVE

KOVE is a local radio station licensed to Lander and connected with the wider Riverton area. It broadcasts on 1330 AM, making it part of the city’s everyday communications landscape.

Hunt Field

South of Lander’s central business district, Hunt Field is a city-owned public-use airport serving general aviation. The airport is identified by the codes LND, KLND, and LND. Its surroundings change from generally flat terrain to the northeast to hillier ground toward the southwest. Table Mountain, the highest nearby point, rises to 2,229 metres about 6.4 kilometres south of the airport.

Lander Downtown Historic District

The Lander Downtown Historic District preserves the city’s historic commercial core, especially along Main Street between Second Street and Fourth Street. It contains sixteen contributing buildings, including commercial buildings, the Noble Hotel, the Theatre, the Stockgrower’s Bar, and the Federal Building.

Most of the buildings date from 1890 to 1910. Earlier structures were often destroyed by fire or replaced, leading to more permanent masonry buildings. By 1910, an oil boom in central Wyoming was encouraging the construction of substantial new buildings. The district also includes three properties on the south side of Main Street and another facing Lincoln Street at Third Street.

Walking through downtown is one of the clearest ways to see Lander’s development reflected in its architecture. The Federal Building is also individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

United States Post Office and Courthouse

Built in 1907, Lander’s United States Post Office and Courthouse was designed to serve both postal and court functions. It formed part of an improvement programme organised by the United States Post Office Department and followed one of the standardised post office plans used for early twentieth-century facilities in Wyoming.

Its dual purpose makes it distinctive. Among the twelve Wyoming post offices included in the relevant study, Lander’s is the only one that also incorporated court facilities.

Lander Valley High School

Located at 305 Baldwin Creek Road, Lander Valley High School is the city’s primary public high school. It serves students from Lander and surrounding communities and is accredited by the Wyoming Department of Education and AdvancED, also known as North Central.

Wyoming Catholic College

Wyoming Catholic College is a four-year private liberal arts college with a Catholic character. It is the only Catholic college or university in Wyoming. Its programme combines a Great Books academic curriculum with extensive outdoor education, giving the college a particularly distinctive place in Lander’s educational landscape.

Sinks Canyon State Park

One of the most unusual natural sights near Lander is at Sinks Canyon State Park, just southwest of the city. There, the Middle Fork of the Popo Agie River disappears into a limestone opening known as the Sinks and later re-emerges at a pool called the Rise.

The Sinks and the Rise are about a quarter-mile, or roughly 400 metres, apart in a straight line. Dye tests carried out in 1983 showed that the underground passage takes more than two hours, although its exact route remains unknown. The river crosses Madison Limestone, where erosion has created cracks and narrow passages that allow the water to move below the surface.

The park is both a public recreation area and a nature-preservation area in the Wind River Range, managed by the Wyoming Division of State Parks and Historic Sites. The disappearing river is the main attraction, but the site also offers a striking look at how water shapes the region’s limestone landscape.

Explore Lander with Neywo

There are no scheduled tours listed for Lander, but Neywo offers a free Lander audio guide with 10 narrated places. The stories are available in 11 languages and play as you reach each place, at your own pace. There is no group and no schedule: simply explore Lander independently while the app tells the story of the places around you.

Download Neywo and use the Lander audio guide to discover the city’s historic buildings, local landmarks, and connection with the surrounding Wyoming landscape. You can also continue exploring the wider region with the Wyoming guide or browse the United States.