People & Peoples

In 1859-1860 Capt. William Raynolds led scientists, artists and soldiers who mapped much of present Wyoming and Montana. Their maps show a West frozen in time, home to Native people. But the maps were tools too of the nation’s sense of itself and its Manifest Destiny—to dispossess people who already lived here.

Fearless, determined Lizabeth Wiley served three terms in the 1920s as Greybull mayor. During her first, she opposed the Ku Klux Klan so successfully that by the term’s second half, she wrote, her job had become “tame.” Later, she weathered a bootlegging scandal and led relief efforts after a devastating flood.

Connecticut-born Edward Gillette came west 1878, eager for excitement. His expertise as a surveyor led eventually to his leading the party that located the Burlington Railroad route through northeast Wyoming. Though Gillette, Wyo., was named for him, he finally settled in Sheridan to a life of successful business and public service.

Frank Mondell’s popularity and political wit propelled him to represent Wyoming on the national stage for 13 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Yet his legislation and political maneuvering concerning irrigation, dry farming and tribal land appropriation left a murky legacy. Read more about his life in politics.

Agnes Wright Spring believed women’s stories were “filled with romance and color;” the story of her life is no different. Undaunted by sexist barriers, Spring served as Wyoming state librarian, director of Wyoming’s Federal Writers’ Project and Colorado state historian. Read more about her dedicated and deliberate life.

“WOMAN MAYOR IS JAILED, CHARGED WITH BEATING MAN,” read the headline following 1922’s Fourth of July in tiny Cokeville, Wyo. How had the town’s new mayor, elected just a month earlier on a Prohibition and law-enforcement ticket, found herself in the middle of a street brawl?

U.S. Census taker James Clopper counted 366 people with military connections at Fort Laramie in 1860, and another 300 civilians outside fort boundaries. It weas a diverse group: Soldiers, Indians, traders and freighters lived there; stagecoaches carrying people and mail, westbound young families and a few handcart-pulling Mormons were all passing through.

Skiing for fun began on Casper Mountain in the 1920s. People cut a few scattered slopes, added rope tows, started a ski patrol and held races. Hogadon Basin Ski Area was founded in the late 1950s. Today, Hogadon, 26 miles of Nordic trails and a world-class biathlon course lure skiers from everywhere.

In 1878, the enterprising Otto Franc described Wyoming as “the finest & wildest country . . .  abounding with fish & game.” From conflicts with rustlers through the beginnings of irrigation and the end of the open range, his huge Pitchfork Ranch came to dominate Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin.

Hawaiian cowboys, competing at Frontier Days in 1908, kicked off Wyoming’s Hawaiian music (and culture) craze. The “paniolo” dominated the world championships that year. Wyomingites bought ukeleles, phonographs and records and attended Hawaiian plays, musicals, dances and concerts for decades. Interest was still strong well into the 1950s.