Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center sees visitors from around the world

Like the Bighorn Canyon Visitor Center, numbers at the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center are down a bit in 2023 compared to the year before, though still strong.

Director of Operations Nancy Cerroni said visitation is down about 10 percent this year so far, with 2,705 people entering the center east of Lovell compared to 3,022 in 2022.

“Our numbers haven’t been the same since COVID,” Cerroni said. “We were above 4,000 (annually) until COVID.”

Center staff member Katie Rundell added that visitation slowed down earlier this summer instead of falling later in autumn.

Still, visitors came to the center from around the world, Cerroni and Rundell said, representing 14 countries other than the U.S.: 60 from Canada, 33 from Germany, 24 from England and also Australia, the Netherlands, Israel, Belgium, Switzerland, New Zealand, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Ireland.

Visitors also came from 48 of the USA’s 50 states, with only New Jersey and Delaware not on the list.

There were 364 visitors from Montana, 305 from Wyoming, 118 from Colorado, 115 from Minnesota, 111 from Wisconsin and 89 from Florida as the top states to visit the center.

The center has started to see bus tours, thanks to the efforts of the Lovell Area Chamber of Commerce, Cerroni said, along with non-bus tour groups. There was even a tour group from inner-city Philadelphia, Rundell said, adding, “They had never seen a horse before.”

One interesting visitor was a woman who was bicycling across Canada from Prince Edward Island to Alaska but took a side trip to Lovell just to see the wild mustangs, Cerroni said, adding, “We took her out twice to see the horses. She said it was a dream come true.”

School and church groups visit the center, Cerroni said, including both public school and home school students, and staff members give talks about the Pryor Mountain mustangs.

“That’s great, because one of our biggest goals is education,” she said.

Cerroni’s PryorWild tour company had a good year, she said, noting, “We did have a little problem with rain and the flooding in June that washed out roads, but the BLM got right on it and made it passable.”

Sales at the center also held up. Rundell said, noting, “Things flew off the shelves like crazy.”

Cerroni noted that the center will participate in the Main Street Mingle this year in the form of a pop-up store at the old Better Body Fitness building next to the mural park at 215 East Main.

“We want to get down there and be a part of the community,” she said, adding that the store will be called the “Merry Mustang Mini-Store.”