Douglas is a small Wyoming ranching town on the North Platte River, known for two things: the Wyoming State Fair, held here every August since 1905, and the Jackalope. The mythical antlered jackrabbit was invented here in 1934 by local taxidermist Douglas Herrick, who grafted a set of deer antlers onto a jackrabbit carcass and sold the result to the Hotel LaBonte for $10. Douglas has embraced the joke ever since — the giant Jackalope Square statue stands in the centre of town, and the Chamber of Commerce issues official hunting licenses good for a single fictional date each year.
The history runs deeper than the kitsch. Fort Fetterman State Historic Site, eleven miles northwest on a bluff above the North Platte, was the Army's main staging post for the campaigns that ended the Indian Wars on the northern plains in 1876. The Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum on the fairgrounds covers this history in detail, and includes Tom Horn's saddle in its collection. More surprisingly, the western side of town holds the site of a massive World War II prisoner of war camp — the Camp Douglas POW Site once held 3,000 German prisoners, and Italian inmates painted murals on the Officers' Club walls that are now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Downtown Douglas has a coherent grid of late Victorian and Edwardian brick buildings, including the Hotel LaBonte (1913), the College Inn Bar (1906, listed on the National Register), the 1886 railroad depot that is now the Douglas Railroad Interpretive Center, and the Gothic Revival Christ Episcopal Church from 1898. The North Platte offers blue-ribbon trout fishing almost from the town's doorstep. To the south, Laramie Peak (10,275 feet) in the Medicine Bow National Forest gives serious hikers a full-day objective with big views.