W.G. Curtis, the founder of Torrington, named the place after his birthplace: Torrington, Connecticut. The original settlement was where a railroad siding with a coal station and water tower were built for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. There had been a post office established here in 1889 and several businesses grew up around that to service travelers on the Oregon, Mormon and Texas Cattle Trails that all converged at the North Platte River near Torrington. Then the railroad came and brought its subsidiary, the Lincoln Land Company, with it. Lincoln Land surveyed the townsite of Torrington in April, 1900 and then sold the townsite to the already existing residents for the sum of $1.00.

When Goshen County was carved out of Laramie County in 1911, a competition arose between Torrington and Lingle for the county seat. The county seat finally ended up in Torrington because residents of the town contributed enough money to build a courthouse, and then built it in 1913.

This is big ranching and farming country, with the farms turning out lots of oats, alfalfa, sugar beets, corn, dry beans and hay. An ethanol industry has grown up here over the last several decades, and there is also Heartland BioComposites: a manufacturer of building materials, using recycled plastics, straw and wood composite materials as raw materials. And it looks like Wyoming is building a bright, shiny new "correctional institution" right outside Torrington.