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Indigenous People in Wyoming and the West

The 11th Kansas Cavalry—in Kansas and the West

For Kansans, the Civil War began early. The era—Bleeding Kansas it was called—made the Civil War intensely personal when its Free Staters became Union soldiers. But when the Civil War ended, war wasn’t over for them. An Indian war waited for them along the North Platte River, far to the West.

The Rock Art of Whoopup Canyon

Whoopup Canyon, a system of roughly 150 rock art panels along a four-mile stretch of Dakota sandstone in northeast Wyoming, is a special place. Its petroglyphs, mostly images of game animals, are among the most extensive and among the oldest in North America.

Lawyers and the Law in Early Wyoming

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.

Camping along the Early Lincoln Highway in Wyoming

On the western edge of Wyoming’s Red Desert lie the remains of an informal campsite where, for about two decades, motorists on the transcontinental Lincoln Highway pulled off to spend the night. Inscriptions they left on rocks, and bottles and saucer shards they scattered in the sagebrush tell tales of earlier times.

Homesteader Cecilia Hendricks: Letters from Honeyhill

“I got a letter today,” Cecilia Hennel noted in her diary in 1911, “from someone who signed himself John Hendricks, asking me if I would consider a proposal of marriage from him. . . . I should like to know who he is, and how he got my name . . . [he must be] somebody pretty ‘fresh.’”

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It’s Archives Month!

In October we recognize the vital role that archives play in preserving our past. It’s an invitation for everyone to engage with the wealth of historical records and documents that shape our identity.

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October 2024