People & Peoples

Elwood Mead was only 30 in 1888 when Territorial Gov. Thomas Moonlight hired him to bring order to Wyoming’s water law. As territorial engineer Mead did just that, and his ideas were written into the state constitution adopted in 1890. Mead spent only 11 years in Wyoming, but all his life carried with him what he learned in the state.

Near Fort Phil Kearny in December 1866 in what’s now northern Wyoming, Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors ambushed and killed Capt. William Fetterman and his entire command of 80 men. Fetterman’s arrogance has long been blamed for the disaster, but new evidence shows a more complex and nuanced story.

Nels Smith was elected Governor in November 1938 and served until 1943. he was Defeated during his bid for reelection.

Nellie Tayloe Ross won an election to replace her late husband and became the first woman governor in the United States. Governor Ross survived several challenges to her authority, some of which started with her first days in office.

Milward Simpson also served on the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees from 1939 until 1954 when he was elected Governor.

Mike Sullivan practiced law with the firm of Brown, Drew, Apostolos, Massey, and Sullivan for twenty years and then ran for Governor in 1986. Governor Sullivan won the election and took office on January 7, 1987.

Mary Godat Bellamy, Wyoming’s first woman legislator, was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1910, where she sponsored bills aimed at improving the lives of women and children. She was active as well in the national movement for votes for women.

Lucy Morrison Moore, “The Sheep Queen of Wyoming,” was a leading sheep producer during the heyday of public-land sheep ranching from the 1880s to 1920s. Smart, tough and slightly eccentric, she and her family survived brutal, isolated conditions and attacks from cattle ranchers.

Lillian Heath, Wyoming’s first woman physician, practiced medicine in and around Rawlins, Wyo., beginning in 1893. As a teenager, she trained with Union Pacific Railroad surgeon Dr. Thomas Maghee, and assisted Maghee and Dr. John Osborne in their post-mortem investigations into the brain of outlaw Big Nose George Parrot. Later she won a medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Keokuk, Iowa, where she specialized in obstetrics. She retired after 15 years of practice, but remained keenly interested in medicine until her death in 1962.

Lester Hunt was elected to the House of the State Legislature in 1932, elected Secretary of State in 1934 and 1938, and elected Governor in 1942 where he served until 1949.