The Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Shoshone tribes were among the many tribes of Native Americans which roamed over the Wyoming region before the dawn of European exploration. The French explored the region briefly in the 1740's, but serious exploration of Wyoming was not fully pursued until members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition charted the area 1805. Their reports of abundant furs in the Northwest encouraged fur trappers to further explore the terittory. The John Jacob Astor Company was the first entity to establish posts west of the Continental Divide in Wyoming. Trappers, called "mountain men" made legends out of places like Colter's Hell, and mapped passageways through the Rockies that would later be followed by migratingpioneer families. Kit Carson was one of the most famous of the mountain men to inhabit Wyoming, and Jebediah Smith, whose scalp was once ripped off by a grizzly bear and sewn back on by his fellow trappers was also among them.
The fur trade boomed in the 1820's and 30's. Although many of the trappers lived like Native Americans, they were not always accepted by them. Trappers bound for "beaver gold" were sometimes accompanied by sportsmen, scientists, and missionaries. The first "trappers' rendezvous" was organized in 1825 by William Henry Ashley. There white and Native American trappers would assemble in early summer to dispose of their winter's catch, get fresh supplies, and "enjoy the conviviality they had missed during the long winter." The rendezvous became an annual affair until the virtual extinction of the beaver in Wyoming in the 1840's.
The 1840's were the boom years of the Oregon Trail, and thousands of homesteaders passed through Wyoming on their way to Oregon, California, and Utah. Over 150,000 people crossed through Wyoming's South Pass during this time. Mormons following Brigham Young passed through the area in 1847, followed by another 50,000 California-bound gold seekers in 1850. Small rest stops popped up along the way where weary travelers could get supplies, repair their wagons, and replace their worn-out draft animals. Fort Laramie, established as a private fur trading post, was for many years the best-known settlement in the Rockies. Fort Bridger, Wyoming was opened by the famous mountain man, trapper, guide, and storyteller James Bridger in 1843. Bridger, one of the original owners of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, later helped explore the region which became Yellowstone National Park.
The Indians were eventually became alarmed by the number of whites who were using the Oregon Trail. Wild game disappeared for many miles on either side of the broad highway, misunderstandings arose, and occasionally white travelers suffered from Indian retaliations. In 1851 a treaty at Fort Laramie awarded $50,000 in goods each year for 50 years to be divided by over 10,000 Indians in exchange for allowing travelers to use the trail unmolested In other words, the Indians were given about $5 each per year in exchange for their entire livelihood. Tensions climaxed in the 1854 when approximately 30 military personnel were killed by the cheated Indians in what became known as the Grattan Massacre.
The 1860's marked the coming of the railroads and cities such as Cheyenne, Laramie, and Evanston began to spring up across Wyoming. Later that decade the Bozeman Trail was blazed from Fort Laramie to the Montana gold fields, right through a favorite Sioux hunting ground, and the Indians retaliated by killing eighty-two American soldiers. After years of warring, the Bozeman Trail garrisons were eventually withdrawn. A treaty made at Fort Bridger created the Wind River Indian Reservation for the peaceful Shoshone Tribe. Within a decade, the Arapahoe were also crammed onto this tiny plot of land.
When gold was discovered on sacred Sioux lands in the Black Hills of Montana, the federal government attempted to take the land by force. The Native Americans successfully rebuffed the absconding Federal troops in a series of confrontations leading up to the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana in 1876 where General George Armstrong Custer and his men were all massacred. After the battle Chief Sitting Bull's Sioux tribe was forced to flee from teritory. When Sitting Bull returned five years later, he was imprisoned for two years before he was sent to Standing Rock Reservation. Sitting Bull was later allowed to travel with Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show.
The land which is now Wyoming shifted among several territories until it became its own territory on July 25, 1868. The new territorial government quickly gave women the right to vote and to hold office, making Wyoming the first territory in the nation to do so. Rapid settlement eventually led to the required population of 60,000 eligible voters, and on July 10, 1890 Wyoming became the forty-fourth state.
In the 1870's and 80's hundreds of thousands of Texas longhorns were herded into Wyoming, making the state a "Cattleman's Commonwealth." The excess of cattle led to economic disaster in the winter of 1886-87 when most of the cattle starved. Rivalries with the sheepmen, who briefly dominated the state, led to the Johnson County War. In 1892 cattlemen invaded Johnson County searching for rustlers whom they intended to kill. The cattlemen had already killed two of the men on their list when they were surrounded by a sheriff's posse. The dismissal of the case against them for lack of evidence caused dissension in Johnson county, and in 1909 a group of cattlemen again settled a range dispute with some prominent sheepmen by attacking the sheep camp and killing the herders. After these cattlemen received penitentiary sentences, dispute resolution became more normalized.
Over four times the quota of Wyomingites volunteered for service in the Spanish-American War in 1898. Wyoming residents again volunteered in vast numbers for service in World Wars I and II. In 1925 Wyoming furthered its liberal views in regard to women's rights when Nellie T. Ross became first woman governor in the United States. The Cold War prompted exploration and mining for uranium, and since World War II, Wyoming has been AmericaΓÇÖs number one state in known reserves of uranium and its number two state in actual production of the radioactive element. Not surprisingly, when one considers this fact, Wyoming is home to one of the worldΓÇÖs largest intercontinental ballistic missile launching bases.
Visiting the State
Statue of Buffalo Bill, in Cody.
Old Trail Town's reconstruction of the log cabin used as a hideout by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Devil's Tower National Monument, formed from volcanic intrusion of igneous rock.
Fetterman Massacre Monument, in Sheridan.
Fossil Butte National Monument has the world's largest deposits of fossilized fish.
The magnificent Grand Teton National Park
Old Fort Caspar
Oregon Trail State Historical Site, in Guernsey.
Many rodeos and three-day sun dances near Dubois (in July) for Shoshone and Arapahoe Indians.
Scenic and natural sites: Wyoming has four national forests, ten state parks, and a number of wildlife and animal preserves, including the most famous Jackson Hole refuge for elk. Wisconsin also features outstanding hiking trails, float trips on rivers, wagon-train and prairie-schooner excursions, dude ranches (including Eaton Brothers' Dude Ranch), and fishing resorts.
Shoshone Dam, known as Buffalo Bill Dam, (completed in 1910).
Periodic Spring at Afton which stops flowing every 18 minutes in late summer, then begins again, gradually building to a thundering torrent.
Yellowstone National Park features Old Faithful geyser, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Lake, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, petrified forests, lava formations, and black bear in its back country.
Famous Wyomingites
Thurman Wesley Arnold (1891-1969) Lawyer, trustbuster, and author of The Folklore of Capitalism (1937).
Esther Hobart Morris (1814-1902) First woman justice of the peace in the United States. Her district was in Wyoming.
Edgar Wilson "Bill" Nye (1850-1896) Humorist and journalist.
Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) Abstract expressionist painter.
Nellie Taylor Ross (1876-1977) First woman governor in the U.S. (Wyoming 1925); the first woman director of U.S. Mint (1933-53).
Fascinating Fact
Yellowstone National Park is the largest (over 2 million acres) and the oldest of the national parks. It features the world's largest geyser area, with about 3,000 geysers and hot springs. Jellystone National Park, the cartoon home of Yogi Bear, was modeled after Yellowstone National Park.
State Flag Of Wyoming
Wyoming adopted its state flag in 1917. The flag features a silhouette of a bison, a common animal in the area, especially in the 19th century. Within the bison is the state seal. The red border signifies the American Indians, the white border signifies purity, and the blue stands for the sky, loyalty, and justice.
