Few industries shape a community's fortunes as violently as oil, and Wyoming's oil towns have ridden the roller coaster for more than a century. When prices soar, the boom brings jobs, money, and frantic growth; when they crash, the bust empties man camps and boards up storefronts almost overnight.

The pattern is painfully familiar. A rise in oil prices sends companies rushing to drill, and workers pour in from across the country chasing high wages. Housing fills, restaurants overflow, and local governments strain to keep up with the sudden influx. For a few heady years, the money seems endless.

Then prices fall, as they always eventually do, driven by forces far beyond Wyoming's control. Drilling stops, workers are laid off, and the towns that swelled during the boom are left with empty apartments and hollowed-out budgets. The whiplash can be devastating for families and businesses that bet on the good times lasting.

Wyoming has learned to brace for the cycle, in part by saving mineral revenues during flush years to cushion the lean ones. But the fundamental exposure remains. The state's oil communities live at the mercy of a global market, and they have long since made peace with a hard truth: what the boom gives, the bust will eventually take away.