This fall marks the 15th anniversary of the brutal murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. Shepard was gay, and prosecutors successfully portrayed his murder as a hate crime.  The crime won immediate national attention, and remains historically significant as it changed the ways Wyoming thinks of itself and the nation thinks of Wyoming.

This month we offer a straightforward account of the crime and a gallery of related photos in The Murder of Matthew Shepard and a more expansive essay on the crime’s meaning and aftermath in The Legacy of Matthew Shepard. Both are by Jason Marsden, who was a personal friend of Shepard’s and a prizewinning reporter on the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune at the time of the murder.  Marsden now directs the Matthew Shepard Foundation in Denver.

In Anchor Dam and the Reservoir that Wouldn’t Hold Water, Annette Hein tells an interesting story about the momentum of a bad idea. Anchor Dam, in the Owl Creek Mountains west of Themopolis, was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the late1950s. The bedrock on which the dam was built is a kind of limestone that dissolves easily in groundwater and as a result, the reservoir cannot fill to its capacity. The dam was completed in 1960; initial construction costs were $3.4 million but subsequent—and failed—attempts at mitigation more than doubled the expense.

While privately admitting the project's failure, Bureau personnel tried to gloss over the story in public because they did not want to damage their agency's reputation or put funding for future projects at risk.

Christmas memories, festivities to enjoy

In an oral history with a Christmas angle, Former Natrona County Commissioner Frank “Pinky” Ellis discusses the sheep business, small-town politics and family life. Ellis recalled that his father traveled to Ireland in 1927 in hopes of finding a woman to marry. He met his future wife there at a Christmas dance. The oral history was conducted by the Casper College Western History Center.

editor@wyohistory.org.