Address
1007 W. 1st Street
Casper
WY

82604
United States

The Unitarian Universalist Community of Casper, alongside other members of Friends of the Circle, helps care for the Bart Rea Learning Circle (labyrinth) at Amoco Park. Each year, UU Casper organizes an Earth Day cleanup to help tend this space, while other volunteers and groups contribute throughout the seasons.

The Bart Rea Learning Circle is part of a larger vision led by Platte River Trails, a citizen-driven nonprofit working to develop the Platte River Trail as a central non-motorized corridor while preserving the scenic, natural, and historic character of the North Platte River.

Located near Fort Caspar, this landscape carries many layers of history—Indigenous, industrial, and ecological. What follows is a deeper look at how this land has been shaped over time, including its environmental cleanup and transformation into the community space we share today.

A Brief History of Amoco Park and the Refinery Lands

Industrial roots along the North Platte

What is now Amoco Park sits within a landscape shaped by more than a century of oil development in Casper. Beginning in the early 1900s, a large oil refinery—originally operated by Standard Oil and later known as Amoco—was built along the North Platte River. At its peak in the 1920s, it was one of the largest gasoline-producing refineries in the world and a major driver of Casper’s economy. (Wikipedia)

For decades, the refinery processed crude oil from nearby fields, bringing jobs and growth—but also leaving behind significant environmental damage.

Pollution and closure

After nearly 80 years of operation, the refinery closed in 1991. By then, the site had accumulated widespread contamination from industrial practices that were common earlier in the 20th century. Soil and groundwater were polluted with petroleum byproducts, and millions of gallons of hydrocarbons had leaked into the ground over time. (High Country News)

The refinery sat directly along the river, raising concerns about impacts to water quality and the broader ecosystem. The closure left Casper with one of the region’s most complex environmental cleanup challenges.

A long-term cleanup effort

Cleanup began in the 1990s and has continued for decades through collaboration between the company (later acquired by BP), regulators, and the local community.

Key elements of the remediation included:

Removing hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of contaminated soil
Installing groundwater recovery systems and monitoring wells
Building a barrier wall to protect the river from pollution
Treating contaminated water through engineered systems, including wetlands
Removing old infrastructure such as pipelines and refinery structures

Because pollution had penetrated deep into the groundwater, some cleanup systems are expected to operate for many decades.

Rather than restoring the land to residential standards, the site was cleaned to a “brownfields” level—safe for recreation and commercial use, but with ongoing monitoring and restrictions. (WyoHistory)

From industrial site to community space

Out of this cleanup effort came a major transformation. The former refinery lands were redeveloped into what is now known as the Platte River Commons, which includes parks, trails, a golf course, and business areas.

Amoco Park—along with features like the labyrinth and public art—exists within this reclaimed landscape. It stands as both a recreational space and a quiet reminder of the land’s industrial past.

Native American history and deeper context

While Amoco Park itself is a modern creation, the land it occupies has a much longer human history. The North Platte River corridor has been used for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples, including the ancestors of tribes such as the Arapaho, Lakota, Shoshone, and Cheyenne.

These groups relied on the river for water, travel, trade routes, and seasonal gathering. The broader Casper area sits within traditional homelands and travel corridors shaped long before oil development or settlement.

Industrialization—especially oil extraction and refining—transformed these landscapes dramatically, often without regard for earlier cultural or ecological relationships to the land. Today, efforts to restore and care for places like Amoco Park can be seen as part of a longer story of reckoning, stewardship, and reconnection.