10/08/2026
🌿A Summer of Progress for Rawlins Parks and Green Spaces🌿
As the growing season winds down, the City of Rawlins is taking a moment to highlight some of the progress made across our parks and green spaces this year. From long-awaited irrigation improvements and fewer ground squirrels at the cemetery to new scoreboards at the VFW Fields, City crews have made meaningful progress throughout the season.
One of the biggest improvements is happening at the Rawlins Cemetery, where crews are transitioning the property to an automated irrigation system. The new system will be more than 60% installed this fall and is already making an impact. Staff have spent the summer and fall repairing existing irrigation, installing new valves and controls, and converting the irrigation controls from manual to automatic. The new system will allow for more consistent and efficient watering while reducing the amount of staff time required.
Another piece of good news: there are noticeably fewer ground squirrels at the cemetery this year. In 2025, Carbon County W**d & Pest and the City expanded our control efforts, more than tripling the number of bait stations used at the cemetery. Ground squirrels can cause significant damage to turf, irrigation systems and even the stability around gravestones, so the reduction in population we saw this year is an encouraging result.
Crews also installed two new scoreboards at the VFW Fields, another improvement for the athletes, families and spectators who use those facilities throughout the season. Thanks to HF Sinclair, Marathon Pipe Line, Williams, and Wyoming Community Gas for their generous donations that made the new scoreboards possible!
All of this happened alongside the everyday work of maintaining approximately 75 acres of parks, green belts, cemetery grounds, trees and other City green spaces. That includes mowing, irrigation repairs, w**d control, tree care, bathroom maintenance and the countless smaller jobs that keep these spaces welcoming. Small improvements can make a difference too, such as an upgraded cleaning system that allows staff to power wash park bathrooms, making the work faster and more sanitary.
It was not an easy summer. The City began the season short on seasonal staff, and drought conditions and reduced water supplies required irrigation reductions at public green spaces. Even with those challenges, crews continued moving important improvement projects forward while keeping up with regular maintenance. There is still more work ahead, especially as damaged turf continues to recover, but this year brought some big steps forward.
For more information, contact Mira Miller, City of Rawlins Community Relations/PIO, at 307-328-4500 ext. 1022. Sign up for City news by email or text at rawlinswy.gov/notifyme under “City of Rawlins News.”
