After months of stiff competition, the Wyoming State Shooting Complex Oversight Task Force has selected Park County to host the multi-million dollar facility.

The task force voted this week to site the forthcoming facility on nearly 2,000 acres of land south of Cody.

It’s expected to accommodate shotgun, pistol and rifle ranges, as well as archery.

In 2023, the state Legislature set aside $10 million for its construction and created the task force to search for a site.

“Gun people, competitive shooters [and] firearms aficionados already show up at our door,” said James Klessens, president of the economic development group Forward Cody and a member of the Park County committee who argued in favor of their site. “We're offering them one more thing that they can do. And it becomes a pure economic development project.”

Klessens highlighted Cody’s history as a hospitality community, once home to the entertainer Buffalo Bill, and the large number of gun manufacturers in the town as two more potential factors in its selection by the task force.

“It's at the base of the mountain called Carter Mountain,” he said. “It's right in the midst of a bunch of BLM [Bureau of Land Management] and other state land. So it's completely buffered virtually all the way around it by state and federal lands.”

A list of nine possible host communities was narrowed to just two by late June: Park County and Campbell County.

The Legislature and Gov. Mark Gordon will still need to confirm the pick in the upcoming 2025 general legislative session.

This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.