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The Online Encyclopedia of Wyoming History

Conflict

The Johnson County War: 1892 Invasion of Northern Wyoming

In April 1892, a private army of 52 cattle barons, their employees and hired Texas guns invaded Johnson County in northern Wyoming, intending to kill as many as 70 men they suspected of being rustlers or rustler sympathizers. The invaders managed to kill two men before word got out, and they were surrounded by an angry posse. Troops from nearby Fort McKinney intervened. The invaders were escorted back to Cheyenne, where they were charged but never brought to trial. The event ended in ambiguity and political division in the new state of Wyoming.

The Murder of Matthew Shepard

University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, who was openly gay, was brutally beaten in October 1998 by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. Shepard died several days later. The incident received international media coverage and continues to spark controversy about hate crimes. Shepard’s parents, Judy and Dennis, established a foundation in Matthew’s name, which continues its pro-LGBT educational work today.

A Brief History of Heart Mountain Relocation Center

From 1942 through most of 1945, about 10,000 Japanese-Americans from the West Coast of United States lived behind barbed wire in tarpaper barracks at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center between Cody and Powell, Wyo. in Park County—one of ten such camps around the nation during World War II. The center was briefly Wyoming’s third-largest town. When hundreds of young men in the camp were drafted into the U.S. military, 63 resisted, feeling they had been denied their constitutional rights. They and seven more leaders of the group were sentenced to federal prison. In the 1980s, Congress passed a law granting an apology and $20,000 to every survivor of the camps.

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Fort Reno and Cantonment Reno: Indian Wars Outposts on Powder River

Encyclopedia | Two military posts were built a few miles apart during the Indian Wars near the strategic Bozeman Trail crossing of Powder River—Fort Reno in the 1860s and Cantonment Reno in the 1870s. The first was one of three forts whose existence provoked the tribes into war. The second was an important Army base for later campaigns.

Dr. Willie Black, Chancellor of the Black Student Alliance in 1969, on the Black 14

Oral Histories | In October 1969, University of Wyoming Head Coach Lloyd Eaton dismissed 14 black football players from his team when they donned black armbands to protest certain policies of Brigham Young University. The incident stirred controversy in Wyoming and throughout the nation. Here, Dr. Willie Black, who was the chancellor of UW’s Black Student Alliance at the time, shares his recollections of those events, and broader thoughts on race and politics in the United States and the world.

Wind River Expose in 1980s Led to National Oil and Gas Reforms

Encyclopedia | Recurring oil theft on the Wind River Reservation in the 1970s eventually led to better practices that focus on preventing such losses and protecting American Indian tribes’ oil and gas revenues. 

Covering Cattle Kate: Newspapers and the Watson-Averell Lynching

Encyclopedia | News stories published about the July 20, 1889, hanging of Ella Watson and Jim Averell contained inaccuracies that historians and others accepted as fact for more than 100 years, leading to a variety of misunderstandings and resulting in questions about truth and history that haunt researchers today.

Coal Slurry: an Idea that Came and Went

Encyclopedia | The highly controversial ETSI coal slurry pipeline, proposed in the 1970s to move millions of tons coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to power plants Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, was never built, due to falling 1980s energy prices and stiff opposition from railroad companies.

Former University of Wyoming Football Player Mel Hamilton on his life and the Black 14

Oral Histories | In October 1969, University of Wyoming Head Coach Lloyd Eaton dismissed 14 black football players from his team when they donned black armbands to protest certain policies of Brigham Young University. The incident stirred controversy in Wyoming and throughout the nation. Here, player Mel Hamilton shares his recollections of that time and of much of the rest of his life with interviewer Phil White, who was a UW student in 1969 and the editor of the student newspaper, The Branding Iron.

How Are You Doing in Vietnam?

Oral Histories | Reel-to-reel audiotapes sent back and forth from a soldier to his family during the Vietnam War land in a box and are stored in a shed for over 40 years. They were given to the Wyoming State Archives to preserve the story of one Wyoming soldier. The tapes are a living history — not only of the turbulence of the era, but also tell the tale of a family trying to stay connected ... even as they are separated by war.

Wyoming's Nuclear Might: Warren AFB in the Cold War

Encyclopedia | The history of nuclear weapons in Wyoming is intimately connected to the F. E. Warren Air Force Base, which in turn is tied to the global development of rocketry and nuclear might. If Wyoming were a nation, Warren AFB in Cheyenne would make it one of the world’s major nuclear powers. Its history with nuclear weapons in Wyoming is tied closely to the worldwide tensions of the Cold War, and with the development of missile-based nuclear weapons systems.

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