I found myself driving through Laramie, Wyoming today, and wondered what the memorial legacy of Matthew Shepard was. tl;dr: basically nothing.
Ten years after his murder, the University of Wyoming put a plaque with Shepard’s name and dates on a park bench, like he’d donated a hundred dollars to the alumni fund.
As for the site where he was beaten, tied up, and left to die, “Residents of this neighborhood have been especially anxious to bury the past and even petitioned local government to change the street names in order to confuse pilgrims to the murder site.”
The most prominent marker remains the town’s name itself.