Business & Industry

Nearly 1,100 Wyoming servicemen, representing every county, died in World War II. As in other states, Wyoming’s people gained a stronger sense of being part of the nation thanks in part to war bond drives, scrap metal drives, book drives, victory gardens—and their loved ones’ service at home and overseas.

Coal production at the Union Pacific mines at Reliance, Wyo., north of Rock Springs peaked at 1.4 million tons per year in the early 1940s. The mines are closed now but a vast steel-and-concrete tipple remains. Visitors are welcome, with a caveat: Stay out of the interior.

Boeing Air Transport, a precursor of United Air Lines, trained the world’s first stewardesses in Cheyenne beginning in 1930. This and other aviation-related industries boosted Cheyenne’s economy through the end of World War II and beyond; the stewardess school finally closed in 1961.

Laramie, Wyo., was founded in 1868 with the arrival of the Union Pacific Railroad and won early fame as the place where women first voted and served on juries. It’snow known for its nationally ranked university and proximity to the Medicine Bow Mountains. 

Batiste Gamara, 19, emigrated from the Italian Piedmont to New York in 1907. He mined copper and coal in Pennsylvania, Michigan and, finally, near Kemmerer, Wyo. There, tragically, he was killed by falling coal in 1915. His great nephew tells his story. 

Ever since its 1868 founding, Atlantic City, Wyo., near South Pass, has endured mining booms that brought thousands and busts so severe that only a couple of residents stayed. Of three early gold-mining towns in the area, one is a ghost town, one is a state historic site—but Atlantic City survives as a community. 

Union Pacific locomotives still rumble through Cheyenne, as they first did 150 years ago. But after the railroad arrived in November 1867, skeptics questioned whether the town would last, as so many other end-of-tracks communities had died once the graders and tracklayers moved on.

The 1880s cattle boom seemed to promise a rich future for Alexander Swan, who amassed 4.5 million acres in southeastern Wyoming to graze 100,000 head. His extravagant tenure ended quickly—but the ranch lasted generations.

As an agricultural depression swept Wyoming, one of Powell’s banks temporarily closed. The owner of a second, S.A. Nelson, ordered tellers to stack cash in plain sight to calm jittery depositors. Thirty-six banks failed in Wyoming in 1924 alone. Confidence eventually returned—but only very slowly.

Patriotic feelings soared in Wyoming during the years of the Great War, bringing generosity toward the people of war-torn Europe and the soldiers who fought. Pacifists, however, and people of German heritage often suffered the scorn of fervent fellow citizens.