Politics & Government

Forty years ago, Cheyenne experienced one of the most catastrophic natural disasters in Wyoming’s recorded history. The devastating flood claimed the lives of twelve people, the youngest of whom was only 3 years old, and forever altered the landscape of Wyoming’s capitol. Read more about the most damaging flood in Wyoming history.

From 1890-1911, the University of Wyoming faced an existential threat when legislators repeatedly attempted to establish a separate agricultural college in Lander that would receive critical federal funding. Read more about how political maneuvering nearly killed Wyoming’s flagship university before it could fully establish itself.

Although James Julian is likely not a household name for many, his invention intertwines with some of the biggest names in Wild West legend. Julian’s invention of the hydraulic gallows impacted the way capital punishment was meted out in Wyoming for more than five decades. Read more about this gruesome invention.

On the morning of September 6, 1870, Wyoming women prepared themselves for a momentous day—the first election since the Territorial Legislature had passed the world’s first woman suffrage bill. Among the voters were women from Wyoming’s Black communities. They were the first Black women in U.S. history to vote.

The first woman to serve in the Wyoming legislature, Mary Godat Bellamy laid the groundwork for future generations of women in politics. Inspired by the first generation of Wyoming’s suffragists—such as her childhood babysitter Esther Morris—Bellamy devoted her life to women’s rights and reform movements. Read more about Bellamy’s remarkable life.

When, on July 9, 1867, James Whitehead pitched his tent on an empty plain next to Crow Creek, he became not only Cheyenne’s first resident but its first lawyer. The next day, lawyer W. W. Corlett stopped by. By afternoon, the two were partners: Corlett bought in with $5 greenback.

Preston Plumb of Ohio, Kansas and, briefly, Wyoming was forthright, honest, tireless and fair. He founded an abolitionist newspaper. He smuggled rifles into Bleeding Kansas. As an army officer he served on the Kansas border and the Wyoming frontier. And as a U.S. senator, with great skill and persistence, he championed the interests of the West.

The history of Japanese people in Wyoming is most often connected with the World War II internment camp at Heart Mountain. Yet Japanese railroad laborers were in Wyoming as early as 1892—and some may even have helped lay the tracks that delivered the internees to Heart Mountain two generations later.

Before Frank Canton became notorious in Wyoming in connection with the Johnson County War, he lived an outlaw’s life as Joe Horner in Texas. Discover more about Canton’s reputation as a sheriff, his time as a stock detective for the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and his role in the invasion of Johnson County.

After Yellowstone rangers slaughtered 4,300 elk in 1961 to try and control overpopulation, hunters, outfitters and the public were enraged. In response, zoologist Starker Leopold, son of famed naturalist Aldo Leopold, wrote a groundbreaking report for the National Park Service that advocated systematic, scientific management of natural areas—a revolutionary approach at the time.