People & Peoples

A Winchester rifle at the Sweetwater County Historical Museum reportedly belonged to Wild Bunch member Bub Meeks, who participated in the famed Montpelier bank robbery, escaped prison twice and an insane asylum once and after a final scrape with the law died in 1912 in the Wyoming State Hospital. 

A few people in Wyoming know the secret behind their state flag. They will give a knowing smile, as they nod, yes—that bison wasn’t always hitched to the staff, he used to survey over the mountains and prairie. But the flag holds more secrets in its weave . . .

The Americans with Disabilities Act was far in the future when a group of Lusk, Wyo. residents first met to propose statewide legislation to make buildings, sidewalks and other public areas accessible for disabled people.

Lucy Yellowmule galloped into the Sheridan WYO Rodeo July 6, 1951. A young Crow barrel racer from Wyola, Mont., her horsemanship wowed the crowd and her selection as rodeo queen inspired creation of All American Indian Days and the Miss Indian America Pageant—institutions widely praised for improving relations among the races.

In October 1903, six Oglala Lakota Sioux and two white men died in a tragically unnecessary armed confrontation on Lightning Creek, northeast of Douglas, Wyo. But 35 years later, both sides made a public effort at a kind of reconciliation—at the Wyoming State Fair.

With the question of Vietnam deeply dividing both parties, Democratic Senator Gale McGee of Wyoming was a leading hawk—strongly pro-war. At the same time, he strongly favored a U.S. Senate committed to civil discourse and compromise, where all sides had room to air their disagreements.

The talking lasted 12 hours. Several times, the Ute negotiators returned to their camp; the soldiers could do little but wait. Each time negotiations resumed, the Utes refused to return to the Utah reservation they’d left five months earlier before crossing Wyoming in the summer of 1906. Civil officials were frantic. But the Utes, disgusted with losing still more of their land to the allotment system, were positive they would not go back.

Laramie-born attorney Thurman Arnold became head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division in 1938. Later he served as a federal judge in Washington, D.C. Earlier, Arnold had practiced law in Laramie, served in the Wyoming House of Representatives and helped found the University of Wyoming College of Law.

Democrat Lester Hunt, a charismatic wartime governor in heavily Republican Wyoming, won a U.S. Senate seat in 1948. There, he clashed with Sen. Joseph McCarthy. After Hunt’s son was convicted for soliciting homosexual contact, Hunt was blackmailed by Republican senators and committed suicide—circumstances that remained largely unknown for three decades.

In the fall of 1970, two community orchestras in Wyoming celebrated the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. At a time of dedicated local involvement, audience turnout was good and civic pride for these performances overflowed.