Wanted: One tourist from Wyoming

People from Wyoming must think they’re just too good for Frederick.

Since the Tourism Council of Frederick County opened its new Frederick Visitor Center in April, nearly 8,500 visitors have passed through its doors. And in those three months, the visitors came from all over the U.S., representing every state. Except one: Wyoming.

“I compile our monthly statistics,” said Robyn Hildebrand, visitor services manager for the tourism council. “We still have a zero in that one column.”

To entice visitors from the Cowboy State, the Tourism Council of Frederick has announced that visitor center officials will give a prize bag to the first visitor at the new center who can whip out a valid Wyoming driver’s license.

The prize bag includes a $20 Downtown Frederick gift card, a coffee mug, a book by local artist Helen L. Smith and a Frederick-emblazoned tote bag. The whole package is worth around $60, said Liz Shatto, coordinator of the Frederick Historic Sites Consortium.

“I thought about flying out there to get that gift prize,” said Alan Dubberley, deputy director of the Wyoming Office of Tourism. “It’d be totally worth the $400 or $500 [plane] ticket.”

Dubberley said that while he knows Wyoming gets visitors from all over the U.S., he doesn’t know how many have been from Frederick.

But Wyomingites haven’t snubbed Frederick before. In 2010, 17 visitors from the state came to Frederick’s visitor center, and in 2009, 29 had come to town.

“We can’t explain it,” Shatto said. “We have not had any Wyoming visitors this entire calendar year.”

It could be because that while Wyoming is the 10th largest state in the U.S. by area, it’s the least populous, with 563,626 residents in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By comparison, Baltimore had 620,961 residents in 2010.

“We just started reaching out to Wyoming,” Shatto said. “We’re inviting Wyomingites — is that even right? — to come in and see all there is to see and do. We’re a crossroads of American history.”

Michelle Kershner, marketing and communication manager for Tourism Council of Frederick, said she informed the Wyoming Office of Tourism about Frederick’s efforts in an attempt to spread the invitation.

“Apparently their director of tourism is often out in this area,” Kershner said. “So it’d be great if she was the first.”

The new center is on the site of downtown Frederick’s former Spoke Factory, which dates from the end of the 19th century. The project cost $3.2 million.