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Despite two decades of research into the earliest Eocène fossils of the Rocky Mountain interior of North America, almost nothing is known of the squamates (lizards and snakes) from this time, nor of the response of this component of the terrestrial biota to climate change near the PalEocène/Eocène boundary. The present study addresses this lacuna. Sixteen squamate species are described in the earliest Eocène (Wa0) Castle Gardens local fauna of the lower‐most Willwood Formation of the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming. These include: two new iguanids, a species similar to Geiseltaliellus on the stem of Corytophaninae (basilisks and relatives) and a polychrotine (anoles and relatives); new stem representatives of the xantusiid (night lizard) clades Lepidophyma and Xantusia; a ‘higher’ amphisbaenian (worm lizard) of indeterminate affinities; six anguids, including a new species on the stem of Anniella (California …