sugar beets

Felix Mercado on sugar-beet farming in the Big Horn Basin

Felix Mercado, born in 1940, worked with his family in the sugar beet fields around Worland, Wyo. in his youth.

Goshen County, Wyoming

On Wyoming’s border with Nebraska, Goshen County and its economy have long been stabilized by farming and ranching. Today, sugar beets and cattle are the main products. The area is traversed by the Oregon Trail and the North Platte River, is the home of Fort Laramie, and was well known to Euro-Americans by the 1830s. The Burlington Railroad arrived in 1900 and a Union Pacific line in the early 1920s, both providing impetus to the birth of many small towns, a few of which survive and thrive. Goshen County now supports a population of about 13,500.