Metal Detecting in Wyoming

1. The rule, in full

Wyoming – Chapter I, Section 15(c), State Parks rules

Operative text, read from the rule document at wyoleg.gov:

"(c) The use of any mineral or metal detecting device at a state historic or archeological site is prohibited, except for official use. The use of any mineral or metal detecting device at a state park or recreation area is prohibited without written permission of the superintendent."

Scope, Section 4(f) of the same chapter:

"Park land shall mean all state owned or controlled parks, historical sites, archeological sites and recreation areas administered by the department."

Determination: department-administered park land only. Does NOT reach municipal parks.

Two different rules in one subsection, and the page must not merge them:

• State historic or archeological site: flat prohibition. No permission

route at all, "except for official use". This is the strictest single provision found in any state so far.

• State park or recreation area: superintendent's written permission.

Status is therefore split – prohibited at historic and archaeological sites, permit_required elsewhere on park land. A single controlled value would be wrong either way, and the quotation carries the distinction.

The statute was checked for municipal reach and does not have it. W.S. 36-1-114:

"Before any excavation on any prehistoric ruins, pictographs, hieroglyphics, or any other ancient markings, or writing or archaeological and paleontological deposits in the state of Wyoming on any state or federal lands, shall be undertaken, a permit shall first be obtained from the state board of land commissioners."

"[S]tate or federal lands" – counties and municipalities are not named, so Wyoming stays out of the political-subdivision set. Worth carrying anyway for the state page: W.S. 36-1-116(d) makes removal of archaeological or palaeontological artefacts worth more than $500 cumulatively a felony, and 36-1-116(a) forfeits "all articles and materials discovered by or through his efforts" – but only on that state or federal land.

Currency caveat RESOLVED, 20 Sep 2026. The text above was first read from the rules as filed on wyoleg.gov, which carried a 2008 date, and was flagged because rules.wyo.gov – the Secretary of State's current repository – is an ASP.NET postback application whose document endpoints returned empty bodies.

It has now been checked against the current rules published by the agency itself: "Park Rules and Regs", Chapter 1, Rules and Regulations, effective 16 November 2021, downloaded from wyoparks.wyo.gov and parsed locally.

Section 15(c) is word-for-word identical to the 2008 text. So is the Section 4(f) definition of "Park land". The two-part split – flat prohibition at state historic and archeological sites, superintendent's written permission elsewhere – survives unchanged.

Worth recording why this was chased rather than accepted: Montana is the cautionary case on this exact page, where an entire rule series was repealed wholesale in 2023 while every secondary source still cited the old numbers. An 18-year-old filed version with no positive signal of change is not evidence of no change. Here the check came back clean; the point is that it was cheap and it could have come back otherwise.

Sources: wyoparks.wyo.gov Park-Rules-and-Regs.pdf (eff. 16 Nov 2021), parsed locally; wyoleg.gov ARULES AR08-036Parks; wyoleg.gov statutes title 36. Checked 20 Sep 2026.

2. Cities in Wyoming that publish a rule

Awaiting review. None of the city or county rows publishes until its status is set and its quotation chosen by hand.

3. County rules

Awaiting review. None of the city or county rows publishes until its status is set and its quotation chosen by hand.

4. Cities checked — no published rule

Awaiting review. None of the city or county rows publishes until its status is set and its quotation chosen by hand.