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Indigenous People in Wyoming and the West

Women’s Suffrage and Women’s Rights

Wyoming and the Texas Ranching System

How did a subtropical cattle ranching practice make it into Wyoming? Wyoming’s cattle ranching industry has deep roots in the Tamaulipas area of Mexico, the Carolinas, and Texas. Read more about how this system got established in Wyoming, who profited from it, and what happened when it met the harsh reality of Wyoming winters.

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Roundups on Wyoming’s Open Range

In the 1870s and 1880s, the cattle ranching industry in Wyoming operated mostly on neglect with one exception: the roundups. For most of the year, cattle were left to roam and graze untended. But twice a year, they were rounded up—sometimes as far as 100 miles away from their home ranch. Read more about the roundups on Wyoming’s Open Range.

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From Sparti and his Spear to Pete and his Pistol

Dressed as a cowboy and donning a large stick-on mustache, graduate student Don Bogdan quickly became recognized as the “loudest and most obvious Cowboy fan at University of Wyoming sports events.” His portrayal of Pistol Pete became a staple at sporting events at University of Wyoming. Learn more about the man behind the mustache and the origins of Wyoming’s most beloved icons.

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Jaggar in the Absarokas

In 1893, young geologist Thomas Jaggar joined Arnold Hague’s expedition to map the Absaroka Mountains east of Yellowstone. Their 77-day journey through Wyoming’s rugged terrain documented the geology of what would become Shoshone National Forest, producing some of the earliest photographs and scientific records of this remote region.

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Crime Spree Across Southwest Wyoming

On March 4, 1955, Charles Billings began a 16-hour crime spree across southwest Wyoming that left two men dead and terrorized multiple communities. Starting with a burglary in Kemmerer, Billings murdered Albert Maffei, wounded two others, kidnapped a teenager in Evanston, killed Deputy Sheriff Ed Phillips, and was ultimately killed in a shootout with law enforcement in Green River after taking a family hostage.

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Wyoming and the Texas Ranching System
Roundups on Wyoming’s Open Range
The Origin Story of Pistol Pete
Jaggar in the Absarokas
Crime Spree Across Southwest Wyoming

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A Woman’s Place Was on the Railroad: Myrtle Forney in WWII Wyoming

In 1943, a 19-year-old Nebraska farm girl with two months of telegraphy training volunteered to staff one of the highest railroad stations in the country—and ended up earning equal pay with men while doing it. Myrtle Forney’s story of life at Wyoming’s remote Sherman Station, told through her own words and her daughter’s memories, is a remarkable window into the women who kept America’s railroads running during World War II.

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a railroad worker leans from the caboose to grasp at a long rake-like stick being held by a woman standing next to the track

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