BY LORI VAN PELT | Assistant Editor

The first time I visited Trail End, the John B. Kendrick Mansion, in Sheridan, Wyo., I was overwhelmed by the beauty and spaciousness of the house, but the one room that fascinated me was the ballroom on the third floor. A ballroom! That was the crowning touch for an elegant mansion.

I climbed the stairs. Who danced here after the house was finished in 1913? Who was invited? Who wanted to be invited? All sorts of scenarios played through my mind as I tried to envision the ladies decked in silk or taffeta and the rules of etiquette they, and the gentlemen who escorted them, were required to follow, especially when they attended functions at the home of a Wyoming governor and U.S. Senator.

On a subsequent trip, I found another visitor in the ballroom. She was unaware of my presence at first. Multi-colored light from the stained glass windows filtered into the room. The woman twirled and curtsied in the center of the floor as if she danced a waltz with a handsome suitor. She noticed me then and stopped in mid-step. We both chuckled, and I told her to continue. The room was made for dancing, after all. She didn’t, though, and I was sorry to have interrupted her reverie. We returned to our modern-day lives as tourists amazed by the other features of this room: built-in seating all around the edge and a separate musician’s loft with electric lights that was accessible by a narrow stairway.

Being able to imagine yourself as a part of the past while living in the present is one of the best things about living in Wyoming. This state is filled with enthralling places and intriguing stories. Whether you visit WyoHistory.org or our great state—and I hope you’ll come to both places often--I wish you the joy of that feeling. The woman who visited Trail End that day left before I did. I think she may have been from Kansas. I hope she danced all the way home.

See Cynde Georgen’s articles “John B. Kendrick: Cowboy, Cattle King, Governor and U. S. Senator” and “Trail End State Historic Site” on WyoHistory.org.

WyoHistory.org Officially Launched

Though WyoHistory.org has been online since May 2011, its official launch is underway this spring in conjunction with the 60th anniversary of the Wyoming State Historical Society. Festivities began March 28, when Editor Tom Rea displayed the site at Casper College’s Western History Day. The site offers histories of each of Wyoming’s counties plus items on all kinds of people, places, trends and events in Wyoming’s past. These range from Teddy Roosevelt’s famous presidential horseback ride from Laramie to Cheyenne, to the exploits of pugnacious novelist and Cody newspaperwoman Caroline Lockhart, train robbers Butch Cassidy and Bill Carlisle, and Lillian Heath, Wyoming’s first woman physician who kept a pistol in her pocket when she went on calls.

Currently, about 300 articles, essays, field-trip suggestions and oral histories with transcripts are on line at www.wyohistory.org. We’re working on many more. To help keep you informed of our progress, we will be sending this newsletter the first of every month.

Visit the website at www.wyohistory.org, find the “Topics” tab at the top, pick your favorite category and see what you can find. Happy browsing!

We welcome your feedback. Please send comments, questions or suggestions to Tom Rea at editor@wyohistory.org.

New this month on WyoHistory.org

New this month is Mac Blewer’s “Butch Cassidy in Wyoming.” We hope you’ll think we’ve done a good job sorting fact from legend and lore.

See also Annette Hein’s articles on Flaming Gorge and Alcova dams, complete with a photo gallery showing Alcova Canyon and its hot springs before the dam was built.

People curious about the Indian Wars won’t want to miss Tom Rea’s article, “Peace, War, Land and a Funeral,” which opens with the often romanticized story of the funeral at Fort Laramie of Spotted Tail’s daughter, and uses that event to frame the causes, content and consequences of the crucial Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 two years later.

Check out our Calendar

Under “WyoHistory.org news” near the bottom of the home page, click on Learn more under “Calendar,” and find a Google calendar of upcoming talks, re-enactments, gatherings and other history-related events around Wyoming. Email editor@wyohistory.org for a user name and password, so that you and your organization can enter your own upcoming events.

Your support is appreciated

We want to keep this website as a permanent and growing archive of Wyoming’s history. We welcome your support. You can donate via PayPal, or contact Editor Tom Rea directly at editor@wyohistory.org.