Grace Braig Alameda, 16, of Rawlins, Wyoming, disappeared around May 14, 1918, after eloping from her family's ranch near Rawlins with John Alameda, a 39-year-old sheepherder from Wamsutter. The two are believed to have boarded a train in Rawlins bound for Ogden, Utah, where John Alameda had relatives. A marriage license shows the couple married in Ogden, and that Grace Alameda misstated her age as 18. According to family accounts, John Alameda later told the Carbon County sheriff that the marriage lasted only three days and that Grace left him abruptly; he returned to the Rawlins area and worked on a ranch in 1919 before he, too, disappeared in 1920. A 1920 census record reportedly listed him as widowed. Grace Alameda's family and the sheriff searched for her; her horse was found in a Rawlins stable along with a coat button nearby. She has not been seen or heard from since.
The case remains open and unresolved 108 years later. It has been submitted to NamUs (case #153741, pending publication) via a Wyoming missing-persons advocacy compilation citing Cowboy State Daily's reporting. In October 2025, a rock hunter discovered a human skull in a cave near Needle Peak in southern Carbon County; the Carbon County Sheriff's Office and Coroner's Office are working with anthropological experts to determine its age and identity, and no other remains or items were found at the site. A relative, Sherri L. Boatman of Mills, Wyoming, has raised the possibility of a connection to Grace Alameda's disappearance, though authorities have not confirmed any link between the skull and this case. No arrests or named suspects have been publicly reported. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Carbon County Sheriff's Office or the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation.
