Wyoming History

The cabin made of rocks and hides was a pit stop on the way from Oregon to St Louis. The trip was the first time Westerners traveled through the South Pass.

Last week, President Donald Trump nominated Colorado native Neil Gorsuch to serve on the United States Supreme Court. Which begs the question: has there ever been a U.S. Supreme Court justice from Wyoming? Only one member of the Wyoming State Bar has ever served on the highest court in the land...

As we observe Black History Month, here's the remarkable story of Wyoming's first prominent African-American businessman, Tilford Ashford. Ashford was born in Missouri during the Civil War. In 1884, at the age of 22, he arrived in Cheyenne and opened a barber shop...

100 years ago today, on January 31, 1917, Governer Robert D. Carey signed a bill into law adopting the official Wyoming State Flag.

Many of the deadliest outlaws in the west passed through Wyoming in the late 1800s, but one lawman was widely considered to be the "fastest gun" in the territory. In 1876, at the age of 24, Daniel Boone May arrived in Cheyenne and found work hauling frieight up and down the dangerous Cheyenne-Deadwood stage line...

Today marks the 112th anniversary of Wyoming's grandest occasion; the wedding of Helen Warren and John Pershing.  The bride was the daughter of United States Senator Francis Warren, who had previously served as Wyoming's first Governor...

When he was only 16, Ahmed Balogun Mohammed arrived in Laramie, Wyoming, from his native country of Nigeria. Two years later, the mechanical engineering major became the first international undergraduate ever elected as UW's Student Body President...

This week marks the 25th anniversary of Wyoming's last execution. Jan. 22, 1992, convicted murderer Mark Hopkinson received a lethal injection. Hopkinson was the only person Wyoming has put to death in the last 50 years and was the only man executed by injection...

This week marks one of the weirdest anniversaries on Wyoming history. 68 years ago, the Wyoming legislature made it illegal for pilots to operate commercial or recreational airplanes under the influence of alcohol. In 1949, there were no federal laws governing drinking and flying...

There are dozens of breweries across Wyoming these days, some of whom are ranked among the finest in the world. While most of them are relative newcomers, Wyoming's proud brewing tradition dates back 145 years when a German immigrant first established the Green River Brewery...

I recently heard an amazing story about the night Christopher Walken bellied up to the bar at the Hitching Post in Cheyenne. It was the spring of 1979 and Walken had recently won an Academy Award for his role in The Deer Hunter. The actor had just been cast to play Nate Champion in the film Heaven's Gate, which was based on  Wyoming's infamous Johnson County War...

This week marks the 97th anniversary of the Volstead Act, which officially enacted prohibition on January 16, 1920. While most Wyoming politicians favored the recently passed 18th Amendment, at least publicly, the new law was rarely enforced in most parts of the state...