Politics & Government

Title	Author(s)	Article Type
Barber, Amos	Wyoming State Archives	Encyclopedia
Barrett, Frank	Wyoming State Archives	Encyclopedia
Baxter, George	Wyoming State Archives	Encyclopedia
Bellamy, Mary Godat	Wyoming Legislative Service Office	Encyclopedia
Brooks, Bryant	Wyoming State Archives	Encyclopedia
Campbell, John	Wyoming State Archives	Encyclopedia
Carey, Joseph	Wyoming State Archives	Encyclopedia
Carey, Robert	Wyoming State Archives	Encyclopedia
Chatterton, Fenimore	Wyoming State Archives	Encyclopedia
Clark, Alonzo	Wyoming State Archives	Encyclopedia

Flaming Gorge Dam and Reservoir

In 1869, explorer John Wesley Powell named the red-walled canyon on the Green River in Wyoming Territory “Flaming Gorge.” The Flaming Gorge Dam, completed in 1964, helps regulate water flows and its power plant generates electricity. The dam is located in Utah, but the reservoir stretches north into Wyoming near the town of Green River. In 1968, the U.S. Congress created the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, which is located in the states of Utah and Wyoming and draws visitors from around the world.

Encyclopedia : April 7, 2013 - 11:04pm

Industry, Politics and Power: the Union Pacific in Wyoming

The construction of the Union Pacific in 1868 gave rise to the towns, geography of settlement and the economy of new Wyoming Territory in 1869. Obstacles to construction were both physical and financial, and the railroad overcame them with sometimes slapdash results—hastily laid track and rickety bridges, watered stock and Congressional corruption. But the Union Pacific contributed enormously to Wyoming’s growth and development, made its modern economy possible and continues today as an economic power in the state.

Essay : March 23, 2013 - 8:46pm

President Theodore Roosevelt's 1903 Visit to Wyoming

In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt included Wyoming in his 25-state tour of the western United States. He spent nearly three weeks in Yellowstone National Park, gave a speech in Newcastle, and on the return leg from California, left the train long enough for a well-publicized horseback ride from Laramie to Cheyenne, and two extra days politicking and socializing in Wyoming’s capital.

Encyclopedia : March 8, 2013 - 10:02pm

Frank "Pinky" Ellis on the sheep business, small-town politics and family life

Frank "Pinky" Ellis of Casper, Wyo., born in 1929, was interviewed April 21, 2011 by Casper College student Emily Pearson at the Casper College Western History Center. In this interview, Mr. Ellis discusses growing up in Casper, his father’s journey from Ireland to Casper, life during the Depression, his father’s sheep operation, his own positions on the Casper City Council and Natrona County Public Library Board, life at Casper College and the University of Wyoming in the late 1940s, early childhood memories, family life and life’s lessons.

Oral Histories : March 7, 2013 - 4:45pm

John B. Kendrick: Cowboy, cattle king, governor and U.S. senator

John B. Kendrick rose from poverty to great wealth and later to the pinnacle of political power. He arrived in Wyoming Territory in 1879 with a Texas trail herd, and by the early years of the 20th century was running his own ranches and a local bank. A Democrat, he was elected governor in 1914, and later served three terms in the U.S. Senate. There he worked tirelessly on irrigation, land use, and protection of natural resources. With humor, charm, broad intelligence and a willingness to work with political opponents, he became a model for long-term success as a Democrat in a Republican state.

Encyclopedia : December 27, 2012 - 1:49pm

The Ambition of Nellie Tayloe Ross

Nellie Tayloe Ross, a Democrat, was elected governor of Wyoming a month after her governor husband, William Ross, died of appendicitis in the fall of 1924. She ran because of respect for her husband’s Progressive ideas and also as a result of her own ambition. She lost her bid for re-election in 1926, but went on to figure prominently in the leadership of the national Democratic Party. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her to direct the U.S. Mint after he took office in 1933, a job she held for 20 years. She died in Washington in 1977, at the age of 101.

Essay : December 11, 2012 - 10:17pm

The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920: The law that changed Wyoming’s economic destiny

The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 established the modern system by which oil and coal companies may lease federal land. This system has proven enormously beneficial to Wyoming’s state coffers since it was first enacted nearly 100 years ago. How this all came about is a story of early oil producers looking for a way around a presidential order and a highly contentious Supreme Court case, all with lucrative results for the state of Wyoming—and a stabilizing result for the industry.

Essay : April 28, 2012 - 11:18am

Stephen Downey

Stephen Wheeler Downey was a prominent Laramie lawyer active in public life in Wyoming for more than 30 years beginning in 1869. He served in the territorial and state legislatures where he was an early supporter of votes for women and introduced legislation to found the university of Wyoming. He served in the U.S. Congress as Wyoming’s territorial delegate, as a member of the convention that drew up the state constitution in 1889, as president of the University of Wyoming trustees, and, at the beginning and end of his career, as Albany County’s prosecuting attorney. He died in 1902 and is buried in Laramie.

Encyclopedia : April 16, 2012 - 1:34pm

The Establishment of Grand Teton National Park

Largely forgotten today is the stiff local resistance that arose in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to the creation and later the expansion of a national park there. The story covers 31 years of controversy, and includes a Rockefeller, a movie actor and a group of armed ranchers trailing cattle illegally across a national monument, and some of the most beautiful scenery in North America.

Encyclopedia : March 12, 2012 - 2:01pm

The Wagon Wheel Project

A late-1960s Atomic Energy Commission plan to extract Wyoming natural gas with five underground nuclear explosions won strong initial support from the oil and gas industry and the federal government. Finally, however, the idea stalled, thanks to the emergence of more information on possible dangers, to Washington politics, and especially to intense local opposition in Sublette County, Wyo., where the devices were slated to be detonated.

Essay : February 25, 2012 - 4:58pm

This Date in Wyoming History

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