Trona is the city's brand

Trona and the City of Green River have developed an inseparable relationship.

The white ore supports a great deal of Green River residents with high-paying jobs. The first soda well was drilled in Green River. Trona is responsible for massive growth the area experienced when the mines were developed to exploit the plentiful resource.

If the city wants to bring more tourism dollars in, it should develop that relationship further.

In many ways, much of the foundation for tourism based around trona has been laid out. The Mining Memorial Park at Thomas Moran Overlook provides a historical look at the machines needed to extract trona from the hundreds of miles of mines existing beneath the ground. While the park is planned to serve as a focus for all Sweetwater County industries, the trona mines were first in donating equipment for exhibition.

Another key component is the recently-installed Trona Trail Historic Mine Byway, which has three interpretive signs located in Green River. The trail focuses on the history of trona throughout the county, educating interested travelers in the local industry’s history as well as the every day uses of our unique ore.

Building upon those two installations, the city and other interested groups could both further curiosity in the ore and use it as a means of selling the area to tourists passing through Sweetwater County.

One area the city could capitalize on this is through an annual summer celebration. The event could be similar to the Green River Chamber of Commerce’s River Festival; a two-day celebration featuring a public dinner, a trona cup sports competition and possibly a sculpture competition featuring trona as the medium. We’re not advocating a “Trona Days” event take the place of River Festival, but we could see it being Green River’s major July event.

Green river doesn’t need to pay a consultant five figures to come up with a tourism brand. It’s been with us since we were dubbed “Trona Capital of the World.” All that’s needed to do is come up with a unified marketing push that makes the city unique from other locations in southwest Wyoming and along Interstate 80.

We don’t need to keep visitors here an entire week. Enticing people to stop off, check out a few trona-inspired attractions, buy lunch or dinner and either fueling up or staying the night before continuing their journey is perfectly fine.

Trona is what makes Green River unique from Rock Springs and every other stop found along I-80. Finding ways to celebrate and promote it will only help the city in the future.