Michael Cassity

Michael Cassity, author of seven books, numerous historical articles and government studies, and a retired history professor is also a past president of the Wyoming Historical Society. He worked as a history professor at the University of Missouri – Columbia, the University of Kansas and the University of Georgia. At the University of Wyoming he was associate professor and then professor and exercised administrative responsibilities as assistant dean and coordinator in the School of Extended Studies and Public Service.

The Wyoming Council for the Humanities presented him its 1993 Wyoming Humanities Award for fostering the public humanities in Wyoming. The State Historical Society of Wyoming recognized his efforts to preserve an important feature on the Oregon – California Trail (Red Buttes, west of Casper) with the L. C. Bishop Award.

His work in historic preservation has resulted in the successful nomination of more than thirty-five individual historic resources to the National Register of Historic Places, the designation of a National Historical Landmark (Murie Ranch Historic District), the documentation of a Historic American Engineering Record coal mine resource, and the preparation of surveys of historical resources in a variety of communities, counties, and states as well as preparing statewide Historic Context statements focusing on (1) Wyoming homesteading, ranching, and farming; (2) Depression-era work relief projects in Wyoming; and (3) U.S. Route 66 from Chicago to California. He has spoken widely to academic and public audiences, often using his photography as well as historical analysis.

See his photography, much of it related to his historical research, at www.michaelcassity.com.

The New Deal and Wyoming Agriculture, Part 3: Returning homesteads to ranchland—and removing the people

When the New Deal arrived in Wyoming, federal policy divided the state in two. In the west, the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 brought the public range under federal regulation for the first time, creating grazing districts and permit systems that permanently reshaped who could graze and how many animals. In the east, a more disruptive transformation was underway: federal programs concluded that much of the land homesteaded on the Great Plains should never have been farmed and set about moving the people who lived there off the land, returning it to grazing.

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.

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

When the stock market crashed in October 1929, Wyoming’s farms and ranches were already struggling. What followed—collapsing markets, failing banks, and years of devastating drought—pushed the state’s agricultural economy to the breaking point. The Franklin Roosevelt administration’s New Deal offered relief, but it also brought federal power directly into Wyoming’s rangeland in ways that would permanently reshape the relationship between ranchers and the land they grazed.

“Little Switzerland:” Star Valley and its Dairies

A long, slender valley lies in western Wyoming along the Idaho border. Four to six miles wide and twenty-one miles long, Star Valley drew its first settlers, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because it was hard to get to—and it wasn’t in Idaho.

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.

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.

With the Pride a Monarch Might View His Kingdom: Martha Waln, Bighorn Basin Homesteader

Martha James, 21, left Wales in 1882 and came to Wyoming as maid to an upper-crust English bride. The next year Martha married a cowboy and came to the Bighorn Basin. Decades later, she told her stories. Her stories illuminate the contours of change in Wyoming at the time.

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