This is quite a claim:
At the Bottoms Up Brewpub, which brews what may be among the finest pints in the US, a pale ale called Buckin' Bitter...
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"There have been booms before here," he says. "You just make what you can when it's happening and rein things in after it's gone." Ranchers, who originally made this part of the West famous, say they have been saved by the boom. This part of Wyoming has always offered the toughest of challenges to those living off the land: in winter the temperature can stay below zero for weeks on end and the snow that arrives in November often does not clear until May. The temperature, the elevation and the poor soil means agricultural crops are not viable and farmers will only get one harvest a year of forage crops and hay.
But now ranchers can lease land to the energy companies. "Most of the ranches around here have gas and let me tell you it has saved all of us, at least those who own full estate," says Tim Thompson, whose fifth-generation farm has 400 head of cattle and nine gas wells. "We would have lost the ranch otherwise, what with how beef prices have been."
Yet many residents are worried about the pace of growth and the short-term nature of the boost. House prices are soaring, drug crime is rising and there is a threat to their gently paced life, beneath a vast, panoramic sky that at night fills with millions of stars. This week, the local paper, the Pinedale Roundup, which says it is the US newspaper published furthest from any railway line, carried letters and columns expressing concern about the fast pace of development
"The US national energy policy is being played out on an epic scale in our back yard," says Ward Wise, a former Pinedale official and a member of the school board.
"All of a sudden, our little rural town has come face to face with the hurricane force of the global energy market. The trouble is, the national energy policy is doing nothing to curb consumption; there is no balance. Without a balance, you are going to destroy the quality of life."
Linda Baker is an organiser of the Upper Green River Valley Coalition, a group of local people trying to control the gas development and encourage the dozen of so major companies, such as Shell, BP and others, to use the best environmental management techniques. She works from an office above a wood-fronted hotel that dates from the early 1900s.
"Of course, the shop-owners like the boom," she said. "But there are also people who have lived here all their lives, in a town where business was done with a shake of the hand, in a town where the grocery store and the post office were focal points of the community. They are concerned about what is happening. When people say hello to each other on the street they don't just say 'Hello' they say "Hello Joe". They know their neighbours."
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But there is more to the mesa than natural gas. Environmentalists say the high sagebrush that seems to stretch for ever is part of the longest big-game migratory route in North America, a 500-mile round trip journey for pronghorn antelope and mule deer which move between their summer pasture grounds in Yellowstone and their winter home in the southern Wyoming deserts. Federal wildlife officials say more studies are required to assess what impact, if any, the drilling has had on these animal populations but some people here say the animals have been driven away by the human activity.
Rod and Leslie Rozier look out across the sagebrush and stand in awe as they breathe in the landscape from the windows of the homestead they have built on their 1,000-acre ranch on the edge of Pinedale. A trout stream passes feet from their home where they have seen beaver and otters, and the scrub beyond is home to elk. In a stand of nearby cottonwood trees, a bald eagle has built its nest.
But now when they look out their eyes are increasingly drawn to the drilling towers and pumps on the mountainside opposite. "It's all relative," says Mr Rozier, a member of the environmentalists' coalition. "It's still a wonderful place and it depends on your definition of pristine as to whether this is still pristine, but it is rapidly experiencing many changes and many pressures."
He says development of the mesa, as well as affecting the wildlife and their migration routes, has affected air and light quality. "I'm not against development but does it need to happen this quickly?" he says. "Why can't we slow the pace? Development has consequences. These are changes that will affect the infrastructure. There is so much gas, so much money. You could have it all. Why develop it in a rush. Why not go a little bit slower, with a little more care?"
Back at the Patio Grill, Billy Pape says he is now in semi-retirement, having passed the business to one of his sons. Still, every day he comes into help with the breakfast and lunch crowds, maintaining an eye on what is happening to his town. "There is a bottom to every barrel," he says. "Sometime, you're going to get to the bottom."
