Wyoming History
The State of Wyoming is the ninth largest state in the United States, encompassing 97,914 square miles and supporting a population of nearly 500,000 people. Wyoming is comprised of a large plateau broken by significant mountain ranges, home to a large and diverse population of wildlife. Not only is the state rich in beauty, but also in its history. The early 19th century brought explorers and pioneers, daring fur traders and trappers, and travel-weary emigrants. Soon would follow missionaries, scientists, gold-seekers, frontier soldiers, pony express riders, telegraph operators, and stagecoach drivers, English and French nobility bent on big game hunts, railroad builders, cattle barons and cowboys, sheep owners and herders, bandits and rustlers, diamond swindlers, courageous homeseekers, and settlers. All were in search of a new life, a new adventure to enhance their quality of life. Some were successful, and others faced much hardship. Regardless, they are forever engraved in the State of Wyoming history.
A Homestead
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Archaeological evidence shows early inhabitants of more than 12,000 years of prehistoric occupation in the land known today as Wyoming. Among these groups were Clovis, 12,000 years ago, Folsom, 10,000 years ago, and Eden Valley, 8,000 years ago. Unfortunately, there is little known of these inhabitants. The latter were the big game hunters of the Early period. Following these, and remaining until about 500 A.D. were groups mixed of hunters and gatherers. The historic Indians followed until the white man. Travelers of the early 19th century to the wildlands of Wyoming recorded encounters with its native inhabitants, the Arapaho, Arikara, Bannock, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Crow, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Nez Perce, Sheep Eater, Sioux, Shoshone and Ute tribes. These are the historic Indians in Wyoming, the nomadic tribes known as the Plain Indians. The Plain Indians lived primarily on buffalo and other large game. Early on as fur traders and trappers entered the territory, the Indians acted as partners in hunting big game, but as time went on, the relationship became increasingly hostile as the Indians began to see their hunting lands were diminishing. Out of all the tribes, the Cheyenne and Sioux were the last of the Indians to be controlled and placed on reservations.
Historians believe the first Europeans to see Wyoming were Francois and Louis Verendrye, who arrived in 1743, but much is unknown of their travels. The United States acquired the land comprising Wyoming from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. John Colter, a fur-trapper and a former member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, first explored the area that would become Yellowstone National Park. The land of steaming geysers and towering water falls, nicknamed "Colter's Hell", would later become the world's first national park. After further expeditions sponsored by the President of the United States, the land like none other was set aside forever as a place to be enjoyed by all in 1872.
Talk of statehood for Wyoming began as early as 1869 after the organization of Wyoming Territory in that year. The road to statehood, however, did not begin until 1888 when the Territorial Assembly sent Congress a petition for admission into the Union. Bills were introduced in both houses of Congress, but did not pass. Though no legislation passed Congress enabling Wyoming to follow the steps that lead to statehood, Governor Francis E. Warren and others decided to continue as if an "enabling act" had passed. On July 8, 1889, Wyoming Territory held an election of delegates to Wyoming's one and only Constitutional Convention. Forty-nine men gathered in Cheyenne during September, 1889, and wrote the constitution. The voters approved the document November 5, 1889, by a vote of 6,272 to 1,923, and Wyoming was admitted into the union on July 10, 1890.
The name "wyoming" was adopted from the Delaware Indian word meaning "mountain and valleys alternating". Wyoming is also known as the "Equality State" because of the rights women have traditionally enjoyed here. Wyoming women were the first in the nation to vote, serve on juries and hold public office. In 1869, Wyoming's territorial legislature became the first government in the world to grant "female suffrage" by enacting a bill granting Wyoming women the right to vote. Less than a year later, Ester Hobart Morris became the first woman ever to be appointed a justice of the peace. In 1894, Estelle Reel became one of the first women in the United States elected to a state office, and in 1924, Nellie Ross was the first elected woman governor to take office in the United States.
The State Capitol of Wyoming is located in the heart of Cheyenne, in the southeastern region of the state. The construction of the classically designed building of Corinthian architecture began in 1886, and on May 18, 1887 the Capitol Building was completed. Additional wings on each side of the original structure were completed in 1890, and the final two wings were finished in 1917. The interior is finished in cherry, oak and butternut woods. The original cost and the two later additions totaled $389,569.13. The murals in the Senate and House chambers were painted by Allen T. True. They depict industry, pioneer life, law and transportation. The ceiling of each chamber is stained glass with the State Seal in the center.
Cheyenne, WY Weather
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