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Indigenous People in Wyoming and the West

Women’s Suffrage and Women’s Rights

The New Deal and Wyoming Agriculture, Part 3: Returning homesteads to ranchland

The New Deal split Wyoming's federal policy in two. In the west, the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 brought public range under federal regulation, creating grazing districts and permits that permanently reshaped grazing rights. In the east, federal programs deemed homesteaded Great Plains land unfit for farming and worked to resettle its residents.

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The New Deal and Wyoming Agriculture, Part 2: Killing Cattle to Raise the Price

When the New Deal arrived in Wyoming in the 1930s, federal agents fanned out across the state buying and slaughtering cattle and reducing crops to combat the Depression-era crisis of overproduction. This article examines how the Agricultural Adjustment Administration’s production controls played out on Wyoming’s ranches and farms.

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The New Deal and Wyoming Agriculture, Part 1: Drought, Depression and Despair

When the stock market crashed in 1929, Wyoming’s farms and ranches were already struggling. Collapsing markets, failing banks, and drought pushed the state’s agriculture to the breaking point. Roosevelt’s New Deal offered relief, but also brought federal power into Wyoming’s rangeland, permanently reshaping ranchers’ relationship to the land.

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James W. Byrd: Wyoming’s Pioneering Police Chief

In January 1966, James W. “Jim” Byrd became the first Black police chief in Cheyenne—and in Wyoming. Over a 25-year career he helped modernize the Cheyenne Police Department and went on to serve as a Wyoming highway safety director and U.S. Marshal. Read more about this quiet trailblazer in Wyoming public life.

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The Life of Alan K. Simpson

On a freezing New Year’s Eve in 1978, a handful of friends gathered at Christ Episcopal Church in Cody, Wyoming, to watch Alan Simpson sworn into the U.S. Senate by candlelight. Only about twenty people attended the midnight service, but the moment vaulted Simpson ahead in seniority and launched a career that would make him one of the most recognizable—and quotable—political figures in Wyoming history.1

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The New Deal: Returning homesteads to ranchland
The New Deal: Killing Cattle to Raise the Price
The New Deal and Wyoming Agriculture, Part 1
James W. Byrd: Wyoming’s Pioneering Police Chief
The Life of Alan K. Simpson

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“We Will Remain Out of the Union”: Wyoming, Woman Suffrage, and the Fight for Statehood

Wyoming became the 44th state on July 10, 1890, after a House vote so close that woman suffrage, written into the new state's constitution, nearly cost it admission to the Union.

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Telegraph sent on July 10,1890 from Joseph Carey to Hon John W. Meldrum. The message reads, "Governor Proclaim to the people that Wyoming is a member of the Indestructible Union of American States to them Extend hearty Congratulations. The president signed the bill at five thirty Washington time

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