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SHOSHONI—Up until the last few years, many residents of this town of 600 people near the east bank of Boysen Reservoir believed their community was dying out. 

The median age was 55. Businesses had little interest in coming to town. Chris Konija, the town’s chief of police, said there was “almost an acceptance of fate” that Shoshoni was on the path to becoming “another Jeffrey City” — a former uranium mining boomtown now home to just a couple dozen people. 

“It was known as a living ghost town,” Konija said of his community. “It was a town that was slowly decaying and had been for years.” 

Due to a confluence of factors, however, Shoshoni has started to come back from the brink.  

As the housing market boomed in places like Lander and Riverton, it pushed more residents to look for housing in Shoshoni. The COVID-19 pandemic — and the premium it put on living amid open spaces — was also “partly” responsible for the change of fates, he said.  

The town’s mayor, Joel Highsmith, was the “driving force” in helping revive Shoshoni, Konija said. Now, a new plaza has reinvigorated the downtown area. The municipality hosted events, like a car show and concerts, in the summer of 2022. Businesses are courting Shoshoni and existing ones want to expand. 

But that’s been a challenge, Konija said. There’s nowhere for their prospective employees to live. One local developer recently located nine prefabricated homes in Shoshoni, he said, and already every one is rented out. The housing shortage, he said, has slowed a planned expansion at the town’s commercial mushroom farm and stymied the effort to attract a hotel. 

“If you don’t have housing and places to live, you can’t have businesses that thrive,” the police chief said. “They are codependent.”