Rebecca Hein
Rebecca Hein
Rebecca Hein, assistant editor of WyoHistory.org, is the author of more than 100 published articles and essays, in journals as diverse as The Writer, the CAG Quarterly (California Association for the Gifted), and the American Reporter online. She is the former principal cellist of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra and wrote arts columns for the Casper Star-Tribune from 2000-2006. She blogs about the connection between music and writing at www.musicofwriting.wordpress.com, and about the special needs of gifted children at www.caseofbrilliance.wordpress.com.
The Sticking Power of Ethel Waxham Love
Two years after they were married in 1910, a Lander bank took almost everything from John and Ethel Love’s sheep ranch in central Wyoming. Still, despite floods, blizzards, wild dogs, rattlesnakes, barbed-wire cuts and the Spanish Influenza the family remained—and Ethel, in her letters and journals, kept track.
Fort Halleck and the Overland Trail
During the Civil War, varying companies of soldiers from five states served at Fort Halleck on the Overland Trail in what’s now south-central Wyoming. They defended stagecoach stations, passengers, freighters and emigrant trains. Some died in blizzards, some witnessed a legal hanging and some lynched an African-American ambulance driver.
Minnie Fenwick, Nellie Tayloe Ross and the Presidential Campaign of 1928
During the 1928 Smith-Hoover presidential race, WCTU activist Minnie Fenwick was quite clear where she stood on Prohibition. Former Wyoming Gov. Nellie Tayloe Ross, however, a ‘dry’ working hard for the ‘wet’ candidate, navigated a more complicated route.
Wyoming Ratifies the Equal Rights Amendment
Would the Equal Rights Amendment jeopardize alimony and child support, or would it bring women better opportunities and a fairer society for all? As the 42nd Wyoming legislature prepared to vote, concerned citizens lobbied, wrote letters and argued on all sides of the question.
Wyoming Ratifies the 19th Amendment
In 1919, 50 years after Wyoming women won the right to vote, Congress finally passed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the same rights nationwide. Before the measure could become law, however, 36 of the 48 states would have to ratify it. Wyoming suffragists organized for a final push.
High School Hair Wars: 1960s Casper board suspends boy's education
In September 1967, Loren Evans, a ninth grader at Casper’s Dean Morgan Junior High, was suspended for refusing to get a haircut. Public controversy, vigorous on both sides, continued for three years while Evans studied college-level books at home.
John Wesley Powell: Explorer, Thinker, Scientist and Bureaucrat
In 1869 and 1871, John Wesley Powell led two expeditions from Wyoming Territory down the Green and Colorado rivers. These and other explorations brought him to a profound understanding of how the West’s aridity limits its economic prospects. He directed the U.S. Geological Survey from 1881-1894, and his ideas still affect land and water policy today.
Finis Mitchell, Mountaineer
Mountaineer Finis Mitchell shared his love of the Wind River Range through postcards, public talks and a famed, hip-pocket hiking guide. He ran a fishing camp, worked on the railroad, stocked mountain lakes with fingerling trout and served in the Wyoming House of Representatives. Mitchell Peak was named in his honor.
The Mountain Shoshone
The Mountain Shoshone, sometimes called Sheepeaters, lived at high elevations in what’s now northwestern Wyoming from prehistoric times down through the mid-1800s. Recent archaeological discoveries shed increasing light on the lives of these peoples, ancestors of some of today’s Eastern Shoshone.
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