Pope Farm & Apple Orchard

Our take

What the record actually confirms

Pope Farm & Apple Orchard sits along U.S. Highway 26 outside Lingle, in Wyoming’s North Platte Valley — a region with a short, dry growing season that makes any surviving commercial apple orchard notable. Local sources describe this as the oldest and last remaining apple orchard in Goshen County, over 100 years old, and grown without pesticides, herbicides, or artificial fertilizer. Six varieties are named, and the list leans heavily toward heritage apples rather than modern commercial varieties: Duchess of Oldenburg, Northern Greening, Prairie Spy, Winter Banana, Yellow Transparent, and Wealthy. Several of these — Duchess of Oldenburg and Yellow Transparent in particular — are older varieties that have mostly disappeared from large commercial orchards, making this list a genuine point of interest for anyone tracking down less common apples.

Posted hours are 8am to dusk, daily, and the operation is explicitly cash only, with no restrooms or picnic area on site. Phone is 307-837-3015.

A working farm stand, not a destination orchard

The “cash only, no restrooms or picnic area” detail is worth sitting with, because it tells you what kind of experience to expect here. This isn’t built as a family agritourism stop with a store, seating, or amenities — it reads as a genuine, no-frills roadside apple stand run on a century-old planting. That’s consistent with the framing from local sources describing it as the last of its kind in the county: a working farm continuing to sell what it grows, not a business that’s been built up around the visitor experience. If your expectations are shaped by larger orchards with hayrides, cider mills, and gift shops, Pope Farm will likely feel like a different category of visit entirely — closer to buying apples directly from a farmer than visiting a fall festival.

No-spray growing on a century-old planting

The pesticide-free, herbicide-free, artificial-fertilizer-free growing description is specific and notable, especially paired with the orchard’s age. Trees planted roughly a century ago and still producing without modern chemical inputs suggests either unusually resilient rootstock, a small enough operation that pest pressure has stayed manageable, or both — though the record doesn’t explain which. What it doesn’t tell you is anything about fruit size, cosmetic quality, or yield consistency that sometimes comes with no-spray growing, so go in expecting apples valued more for flavor and heritage than uniform supermarket appearance.

The honest uncertainty: is it still open?

No dedicated orchard website exists for Pope Farm, and every source used to compile this record is a third party — a farm-finder directory, a u-pick locator site, and a local newspaper feature — rather than the orchard speaking for itself. None of these confirms the orchard is definitely operating for the current season. Given that the record explicitly notes how few commercial apple operations survive in Wyoming’s climate at all, and that this farm is already described as the “last remaining” of its kind in the county, calling 307-837-3015 before making a special trip is a genuinely important step, not just a formality.

What’s still missing

No pricing is confirmed anywhere in the record. No exact season-start or season-end date exists beyond the general “mid-or-late August to early October” range from local sources. Nothing confirms whether picking is self-serve u-pick in the usual sense or simply buying apples directly from the farmer at the stand.

Bottom line

Pope Farm & Apple Orchard offers something genuinely rare — a century-old, no-spray planting with heritage varieties like Duchess of Oldenburg and Yellow Transparent that have largely disappeared from commercial orchards elsewhere — but it’s a bare-bones cash operation with no website and no independent confirmation that it’s active this season. Bring cash, don’t expect amenities, and call ahead before driving out to Highway 26.