[8] Gillette's population increased 48% in the ten years after the 2000 census, which counted 19,646 residents after a boom in its local fossil fuel industries.

[9][10] Gillette is centrally located in an area involved with the development of vast quantities of coal, oil, and coalbed methane gas.

[12][13] As a major economic hub for the county, the city is also a regional center for media, education, health, and arts.

[14][15] Gillette was founded in 1891 with the coming of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad and incorporated on January 6, 1892, less than two years after Wyoming became a state.

[17] In 1974, U.S. psychologist ElDean Kohrs used the town as the basic example of what he called the Gillette syndrome, the social disruption that can occur in a community due to rapid population growth.

Some of Kohrs's claims about the energy industry's influence have been disputed, since similar increases in divorce rates, welfare usage, and crime were also seen in other rapidly growing areas of the country.

[22] It is situated between the Bighorn Mountains to the west and the Black Hills to the east, in the Powder River Basin.

The earliest were almost exclusively elm, cottonwood, white poplar, green ash, Colorado blue spruce, and ponderosa pine.

In the 1960s, crab apples, honey locust, catalpa, European mountain-ash, and other evergreens were planted.

Each year newly selected works are shown at the Donkey Creek Festival, where visitors can meet the artists.

[32] Participating artists have included Jane DeDecker, Gary Lee Price, and Benjamin Victor.

Started in 2018, it pays artists to display their sculptures for sale at Mount Pisgah Cemetery.

[35] A free multi-day event, Donkey Creek Festival is held in every June at the Gillette College.

It includes the Avenues of Arts reception, concert, car and motorcycle show, disc golf tournament, and 5K run and walk.

[36] The Gillette chapter of PFLAG hosts an annual pride event to support the local LGBTQ community.

The center can be divided into 3 rooms by using moveable soundproof walls; which retract if more space is needed for a certain event.

This facility includes a 42-ft climbing wall resembling the Devils Tower National Monument.

[48] The Energy Capital Sports Complex site has four fast-pitch softball fields that can be converted for Little League baseball.

The departments are Human Resources, Finance, Police, Development Services, Public Works, and Utilities.

[53] The number of licenses is capped by population by state law and due to scarcity have been sold privately for as much as $300,000.

[54] Public education in Gillette is provided by Campbell County School District Number 1.

[56] Over the air digital television stations available in Gillette include KOPA-CD on RF Channel 9 (ABC).

It can be viewed on Charter Communications Cable channels 189 (Education), 190 (Public Access) and 192 (Government).

The A Battery, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery of the Wyoming National Guard are based in Casper, Gillette, and Lander.

In David Breskin's bildungsroman The Real Life Diary of a Boomtown Girl,[73] Randi Bruce Harper is raised by parents in the Wyoming "oil-field service business"; as an adult, she drives a Wabco haul truck "down in the pit" while living with her husband in Gillette.

[76][77] Marcus Sakey, in his Brilliance trilogy, lists Gillette as one of the three entrances (along with Rawlins and Shoshoni) to the New Canaan Holdfast, a large portion of Wyoming land owned by "abnorms".

[80] The events were dramatized in the crime story TV shows Redrum and Murderous Affairs.

[81][82] The Drive-By Truckers' song "21st Century USA", from their 2020 album The Unraveling, is about a layover the band had in Gillette.