On Wyoming’s border with Nebraska, Goshen County and its economy have long been stabilized by farming and ranching. Today, sugar beets and cattle are the main products. The area is traversed by the Oregon Trail and the North Platte River, is the home of Fort Laramie, and was well known to Euro-Americans by the 1830s. The Burlington Railroad arrived in 1900 and a Union Pacific line in the early 1920s, both providing impetus to the birth of many small towns, a few of which survive and thrive. Goshen County now supports a population of about 13,500.

Newcastle, Wyo., on the edge of the Black Hills, was founded in 1889 when the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad arrived in northeastern Wyoming. Newcastle sprang up where a spur left the main line of the Burlington to head seven miles northwest to the coal mines at Cambria. The Burlington –now, after its merger with the Santa Fe Railroad, the BNSF—is still a major employer, along with a local oil refinery, hospital and school district, and businesses that serve tourists.

Near Fort Phil Kearny in December 1866 in what’s now northern Wyoming, Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors ambushed and killed Capt. William Fetterman and his entire command of 80 men. Fetterman’s arrogance has long been blamed for the disaster, but new evidence shows a more complex and nuanced story.

Nels Smith was elected Governor in November 1938 and served until 1943. he was Defeated during his bid for reelection.

Nellie Tayloe Ross won an election to replace her late husband and became the first woman governor in the United States. Governor Ross survived several challenges to her authority, some of which started with her first days in office.

Since prehistoric times, people’s lifestyles in what became Natrona County have depended on their livelihoods. Casper was founded in 1888, and county was formed in 1890, shortly before Wyoming became a state. First cattle, then sheep and after 1910, the oil and refining business dominated. An Army Air Corps training base near Casper brought another boost in World War II. Casper College was founded in 1945. Since then, the county has continued to ride the booms and busts of the energy business, but with cultural, health-care and education opportunities growing all the while.

A stagecoach station established in 1856 at the confluence of the Ham’s and Black’s Fork Rivers west of Green River lay on long-distance travel routes used earlier by Indians, fur trappers and emigrants. In 1868 the Union Pacific Railroad established a station nearby, and renamed the place Granger. The site of the old stage station and one acre of land were donated to the state of Wyoming in 1930 to honor the early travelers.

Green River, Wyo., on its namesake river and on the Union Pacific Railroad, began as a stage station. After the U.P. relocated switching and roundhouse operations there in the early 1870s, the Green River rail yard became one of the busiest in the nation. Since the early 1900s, this county seat of Sweetwater County has weathered many booms and busts of nearby oil, gas and trona development, with the railroad and county government steadying its economy all the while.

In March 1866, when whites and Indians together at Fort Laramie mourned the death of Mni Akuwin, daughter of Spotted Tail, chief of the Brulé Lakota, a colonel at the post hoped it was a sign of peace between the peoples. Peace hopes were shattered later that spring however, by the arrival of hundreds of troops to build forts on the Bozeman Trail, and two more years of bitter warfare followed. Finally in 1868, the tribes of the northern plains gathered at the fort and signed a treaty, ending the war—for a while.

President Cleveland appointed George W. Baxter Territorial Governor in 1886. The new Governor took the oath of office November 11, 1886 and served until December 20, 1886.