This month, we feature the story of a band of Utes traveling through Wyoming in 1906 after leaving their Utah reservation, plus an article about a Black man lynched in Green River in 1918.

Difficult negotiations

The talking lasted 12 hours. Several times, the Ute negotiators returned to their camp; the soldiers could do little but wait. Each time negotiations resumed, the Utes absolutely refused to return to their reservation. Civil officials were frantic. The Utes were positive about one main thing: They would not go back. Read more in Tom Rea’s article “The Flight of the Utes.”

Denied due process

It began with a bowl of mush and ended in the murders of two men—one shot through the heart, the other dragged from the jail and lynched by a vicious mob of 300 to 400 people. Afterward, no one would testify to who was in the mob. Read more in Dick Blust’s article “The Lynching of Edward Woodson, 1918."

Women’s History Month

March is Women’s History Month: Linked below find two recent articles published since this time last year—one on a writing ranchwoman and another on an ardent prohibitionist.

For lots more, see our landing page on Women’s Suffrage and Women’s Rights in Wyoming. With 2019 marking the 150th anniversary of the territorial legislature’s vote to extend the franchise to women, and 2020 marking the 100th anniversary of Wyoming’s ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, the last two years have been lively. One more anniversary is coming up in 2021: September will mark 150 years since Louisa Swain of Laramie became the first woman in Wyoming territory to cast a vote under the new law.

Weather and other calamities
The Lander bank took almost everything from John and Ethel Love’s sheep ranch in central Wyoming, just two years after they were married in 1910. Still, despite floods, blizzards, wild dogs, rattlesnakes, barbed-wire cuts and the Spanish Influenza the family remained on the ranch. Read more in Rebecca Hein’s article “The Sticking Power of Ethel Waxham Love.”

“Even if we have to import some Carrie Nations.”
During the 1928 Hoover-Smith 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. Read more in Rebecca Hein’s article “Minnie Fenwick, Nellie Tayloe Ross and the Presidential Campaign of 1928."

Calendar Events

The Campbell County Rockpile Museum in Gillette has scheduled a public talk, “The Atomic Bomb: The Inside Story,” also to be streamed live on Tuesday, March 23 at 7:30 p.m. Speaker Lucas Fralick holds an M.A. in history from the University of Wyoming where he specialized in the politics and policies of the Cold War.

Event capacity is limited to 30 people. The museum will also be streaming the talk live on its Facebook page and on its YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/user/RockpileMuseum.

For additional information about programs and events at the Rockpile Museum, 900 W. 2nd St., Gillette, Wyo., please call (307) 682-5723 or visit https://rockpilemuseum.pastperfectonline.com.