By Jared Mitovich | Photography by David Williams for WSJ
There's treasure inside a low-slung building on the outskirts of Casper, Wyo. -- roughly $11.6 million in state-owned gold bars.
Wyoming bought the gold in December after passing a law requiring the state's investment portfolio to add precious metals as a hedge against economic turmoil. Among the worries are rising federal debt, inflation and a weak U.S. dollar -- but also more extreme calamities, according to Bob Ide, a Republican state senator and lead sponsor of the "Wyoming Gold Act." The state legislature passed the bill last year with widespread support.
"I can't put a timeline on it, but there's gonna be a sovereign-debt crisis," Ide said. "There's no will to rein in spending."
A sovereign-debt crisis would mean the U.S. can't pay its debts, or there is such widespread fear of default that interest rates soar and the economy nosedives.
The state spent about $10 million as required by law to buy 2,312 troy ounces of gold, which equals about 72 roughly smartphone-sized bars. The stockpile, which has since risen in value, adds Wyoming to a growing cohort of states, including some with mining heritages, looking to add precious metal to their investment portfolios.
The gold is stored in a vault run by the private company Wyoming Reserve inside a beige, single-story building that used to be the Casper Star-Tribune's home. The vault is structured like "an onion layer," moored to bedrock and closely guarded, according to company Chief Executive Josh Phair. He testified in support of the gold-buying bill, which he said would help the state become a precious-metals hub for the country.
While state lawmakers mused about the logistics of transporting precious metals to Wyoming via aircraft and armored vehicle, the state ultimately bought gold from a bank that already had a stockpile in the Reserve, according to Phair. The storage fees there began at $7,021 a year when the state purchased the gold, but the cost fluctuates daily depending on the gold's value, according to the state treasurer's office
The concept has drawn some criticism, including from Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican who let the bill become law without his signature while calling it a threat to Wyoming's financial security. Among Gordon's concerns were gold's volatility as an investment asset and the legislature's intrusion into managing the state's portfolio.
Gold's valuation can swing wildly. The most active future reached a record high of $5,354.80 a troy ounce on Jan. 29 before falling about $700 within days. It has recently traded closer to $5,000. Still, Americans have long been drawn to gold as a hedge against economic turmoil. "Gold is the lie detector; it's the BS meter," Ide said. "It's the only real money that can't be debased."
Utah, a state with a long mining legacy, was the first to reaffirm gold and silver as legal tender in 2011. Another law passed in 2024 authorized the state to purchase as much as $140 million in precious metals -- up to 10% of its rainy day funds -- now stored in a Brink's vault in Salt Lake City.
Around the U.S., West Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia are among the states where lawmakers recently pitched legislation that integrates precious metals further into their state economies.
In West Virginia, one bill introduced this session would authorize the state to invest as much as 10% of public funds in gold and silver. Last week, a Tennessee senate committee backed a bill to appropriate $50 million to a dedicated precious-metals fund. This would follow an earlier Tennessee law, from 2023, that set the foundation for the state treasurer to buy and sell gold and silver.
Utah may push further. Ken Ivory, a Republican state representative who has led Utah's gold-law rush, is backing new legislation that would let mine owners and operators pay some taxes with gold. He said making gold more accessible would help protect everyday people from potential fallout from the federal government spending beyond its means
"I can't bear the thought of passing this off to my grandchildren without doing everything I can to try to fix it," Ivory said.
It isn't surprising that states with big mining legacies are also the first to store their wealth in minerals, said Steve Hanke, an economist at Johns Hopkins University. The economy of Wyoming, the country's least populous state, remains heavily tied to extraction: A new rare-earths mine broke ground in the state last year, and a gold-and-copper project is planned at a historic mining site near Cheyenne.
"They're commodity states," said Hanke, who served as an economist on President Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers and has also advised foreign governments on monetary policy. "They have ranches; they have mines. The talk, the chatter is always what's happening to the commodity prices."
But Hanke warned that lawmakers were basing their policy decisions on fears of an unlikely calamity. "The idea that somehow the dollar is gonna be displaced and people are gonna de-dollarize, it's just not gonna happen," Hanke said.
There are also practical considerations: Gold sitting in a vault has less liquidity as an investment than the financial instruments typically sitting in state portfolios.
"Gold is not an investment as much as it is a commodity or store of value," said Gordon, the Wyoming governor and a former state treasurer, in a letter explaining his objections. "The only income to be derived from gold is to sell it for a greater price than it was purchased."
Curt Meier, the current state treasurer, called gold a wise hedge against inflation and said he would push to bring the state's allocation to an even higher percentage of its portfolio. The amount stored thus far is only a small portion of the Permanent Wyoming Minerals Trust Fund, a $12 billion state investment fund created by constitutional amendment in 1975 to invest the state's profits from the extraction of natural resources.
"The amount that we've purchased so far is de minimis," said state Rep. John Bear, a Republican on the legislature's state investment funds committee. But "we needed to have some," Bear said.
Write to Jared Mitovich at jared.mitovich@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 16, 2026 20:00 ET (00:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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