Encyclopedia | The great Wild West showman, Buffalo Bill, failed as a capitalist leading large irrigation projects in northern Wyoming but succeeded in founding the state’s tourist industry and his namesake town, Cody—where the tourist dollar still sustains life.
Encyclopedia | Passed in 1934, the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 regulated the public range around a system of grazing leases after 50 years of dispute over what to do with public lands in Wyoming and the West. The Bureau of Land Management manages most of the state’s federal lands today.
Encyclopedia | Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin was still largely unsettled in 1900 when irrigation-minded Mormon colonizers from Utah established the towns of Byron and Cowley, expanded Lovell and began digging the Sidon Canal on the Shoshone River. Their influence settled and stabilized a previously lawless part of the state.
Encyclopedia | In January 1949, a massive blizzard rocketed through central and southeastern Wyoming and nearby states killing 76 people and tens of thousands of animals and leaving memories in its wake that are still vivid more than 65 years later.
Oral Histories | Felix Mercado, born in 1940, worked with his family in the sugar beet fields around Worland, Wyo. in his youth.
Oral Histories | Frank "Pinky" Ellis of Casper, Wyo., born in 1929, was interviewed April 21, 2011 by Casper College student Emily Pearson at the Casper College Western History Center. In this interview, Mr. Ellis discusses growing up in Casper, his father’s journey from Ireland to Casper, life during the Depression, his father’s sheep operation, his own positions on the Casper City Council and Natrona County Public Library Board, life at Casper College and the University of Wyoming in the late 1940s, early childhood memories, family life and life’s lessons.
Encyclopedia | On April 2, 1909, seven cowmen attacked a sheep camp near Spring Creek in the southern Big Horn Basin. The raiders killed three men, kidnapped two others, killed sheep dogs and dozens of sheep and destroyed thousands of dollars of personal property. It was the deadliest sheep raid in Wyoming history. Unlike many previous incidents after which raiders went unpunished, however, prosecutors this time were successful and five raiders were jailed, marking the end of 15 years or more of violence between cattle- and sheepmen.
Encyclopedia | Grass was free and profits enormous in the cattle business in Wyoming Territory — for a while. The business dates to the 1850s, but the boom came after the Union Pacific Railroad connected Wyoming ranges to eastern markets. For a time it seemed as if every investor got rich. Finally, a weakening market and the overstocked range could not withstand two years of drought followed by a terrible winter. The big boom busted, following an economic pattern repeated many times since in an economy still based heavily on natural resources.
