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.

The Rawlins to Baggs wagon road was a primary freight route from the Union Pacific Railroad south to Colorado. Freighters first supplied Ute people at the White River Agency and later, after the Utes were forcibly removed to Utah, freighters supplied the Euroamerican settlers who took up the Indian lands.

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.

One fine summer morning in 1871, the sailboat Annie launched from the north shore of Yellowstone Lake—the first known boat to traverse its waters. Read more about this exciting chapter of the epic Hayden Geological Survey in Jett B. Conner’s article, The Annie.

Marching through 60 years of diligent practice, winning prize after prize and generating civic pride, the Casper Troopers grew from a local operation to one that attracts young musicians from across the United States—and performs nationwide.

One of three major roads across the mountain West, the Cherokee Trail ran from the Cherokee Nation—present Oklahoma—to the California gold fields. It served as a principal route for people from the South to lands of their dreams—and it crossed what’s now Wyoming on the way.

Playing a large trout without losing your fly; keeping the line taut while using the latest technology in reels and rods—dedicated fishermen and women enjoy all these things. How did the craft of tackle-making begin and evolve in Wyoming?

Since the late 1940s, birders in Casper and around the state have pursued annual Christmas bird counts, providing reams of data for a fast-changing world. Rising early and working late, birders live to listen, watch and learn—and the birds keep flying.

No landscape is beyond the reach of history. The wilderness of the Absaroka Mountains, bordering the west side of Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin, is no different. Evidence of early mining activity still endures in isolated pockets, and searchers can still find cabin ruins, tailings and a few crumbing tunnels.