State Parks Find New Ways to Save, Make Money

Stateline: HYATTVILLE, Wyo. — These are tough times at Wyoming’s state parks. Employees are taking on new tasks, like hauling trash, and using duct tape to keep their equipment from falling apart. They’ve had to cut back on spraying mustard weed, making fires a bigger threat.

Here at Medicine Lodge State Archaeological Site in the north of the state, Native American petroglyphs dot a massive sandstone cliff and campsites are set up along a trickling creek that spills out of a canyon. But the budget was once so tight, “we were down to just being lucky to buy toilet paper and pump toilets,” said Brooks Jordan, the park’s superintendent and lone employee.

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