Wyoming Music: Jalan Crossland - Bosler

Jalan Crossland is a local artist whom a lot of people follow.  Bosler is a small town north of Laramie, or at least it was.

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Wyoming a few people still lived there, and a second hand appliance store did a pretty good business with students.  By law school that was already changing, although somebody had taken up residence in the old, probably 1920s vintage, school that was there, having converted it pretty clear to coal fired heat. 

Now it's really past even that state of decline.  I'm not sure if anyone lives there any longer, although my guess is that the answer is probably yes.  

Bosler once figured fairly significantly as an Albany County town. In the early 20th Century it was a going concern, and also nearly lawless.

Crossland, in this song, works in multiple layers of satire.  The town is satirized, but so is the person who dreams of it as a refuge.  Urbanites dreaming of Wyoming that way are not uncommon, and indeed land just outside of the windswept Bosler was marketed to out of states at one time who no doubt didn't realize that its 7,000 feet in elevation, exposed to the wind, and cold in the winter.

Bosler Consolidated School, Bosler Wyoming.

Bosler Consolidated School, Bosler Wyoming.

This is the Bosler Consolidated School, in Bosler Wyoming.

These photos present a glimpse of schools not all that long ago.  I don't ever recall the Bosler Consolidated School being open, and Bosler itself has been barely there my entire life.  My guess would be that this school must have been closed at least as far back at some date in the 1970s, and probably prior to that.  But, based on its brick construction, I'd also guess that this school dates no further back than the 1920s.  Bosler must have been more of a going concern at that time, and it was more of one in the early 20th Century.  Now, it's just a small location on State Highway 287 just before you get to Laramie.  No doubt the number of kids attending here dropped down to a small number and then the school simply closed, with the students being bused either to Laramie or Rock River.

There must be a lot of little schools like this.  Well built buildings from an era when transportation wasn't as good or sure, and when there were more people in the little towns.