Business & Industry

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Title Article Type Author
Absaroka Mountains, mining in Encyclopedia Brian Beauvais
Airmail, U.S. in Wyoming Encyclopedia Steve Wolff
American Indian tribes, trade among Encyclopedia Samuel Western
Arnold, Thurman, Laramie lawyer and New Deal trustbuster Encyclopedia Dee Pridgen
Atlantic City, Wyo. Encyclopedia Lori Van Pelt
Automobile, Wyoming’s first Encyclopedia Phil Roberts

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.

When Jackson Hole News co-owner Virginia Huidekoper learned in June 1971 that Bill Briggs had just skied down the Grand Teton—first person ever to do it—she fired up her Cessna and flew a reporter and photographer over the mountain for an unforgettable, front-page photo of the tracks.

Starting a newspaper is tough, even without rivals. Against enormous odds, the Jackson Hole News managed to not only thrive while competing for three decades with the Jackson Hole Guide, it ended up buying the established newspaper and merging into the Jackson Hole News&Guide, which survives today.

Another high heating bill? A newspaperman wondered why. What he found led the Casper Star-Tribune on a probe in 1984 that revealed how a gas company was passing the cost of its own mismanagement on to Casper customers. It saved residents money, and earned a Pulitzer nod.

A short line with a short life, the 40-mile-long Wyoming North and South Railroad began quietly during the oil-boom years of the 1920s. It helped the Salt Creek area thrive for a time, but unsound construction, better roads for cars and trucks, bad weather and the Great Depression sealed its demise.

Journalist Merris Barrow arrived in Douglas, Wyo., in 1886 to treat readers to a newspaper “written to be read”—Bill Barlow’s Budget. It needled the powerful and tickled its readers, all while boosting the town. Barrow’s monthly Sagebrush Philosophy circulated nationwide. He died in 1910, just 53 years old.

Sixteen years after Congress passed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, Wyoming became the 49th state to view public television. Surviving on shoestring budgets of federal, state and private funds, donated equipment and volunteer pledge drives, Wyoming PBS managed to expand across the state—and finally to thrive.

From 1929 to 1942, the Warm Spring Canyon tie flume carried 300,000 railroad ties per season down from mountain tie camps to the Wind River near Dubois, Wyo., for floating to Riverton and the railroad in big log drives each spring. The flume was abandoned in 1942; dramatic chutes and trestles remain.