Cynde Georgen

Cynde Georgen’s family arrived in Johnson County in the early 1890s, and her roots are firmly planted in northern Wyoming. Born in northern California, she attended Northwest College in Powell, Wyo. and Montana State University in Bozeman, and obtained a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Wyoming in 1978.

She began work at the Trail End State Historic Site in 1988 and has served site superintendent since 1995. She has served as chair of the Colorado-Wyoming Association of Museums, Wyoming representative to the Mountain-Plains Museum Association, and as a member of the Sheridan County Historic Preservation Commission, the Sheridan Heritage Board and the Sheridan County Travel & Tourism Board of Directors.

Her most recent book, In the Shadow of the Bighorns: A History of Early Sheridan and the Goose Creek Valley of Northern Wyoming, was published by the Sheridan County Historical Society in 2010.

Trail End State Historic Site

Trail End, the mansion home of cattleman, banker and politician John B. Kendrick, was completed on a hilltop overlooking Sheridan, Wyo. in 1913, 16 months before Kendrick was elected governor. Kendrick later served three terms in the U.S. Senate and died in 1933. The Kendrick family continued to use the house until 1961. In 1968, the Sheridan County Historical Society bought the building, and in 1982 transferred ownership to the state, which operates the 14,000-square-foot mansion now as a state historic site.

John B. Kendrick: Cowboy, Cattle King, Governor and U.S. Senator

John B. Kendrick rose from poverty to great wealth and later to the pinnacle of political power. He arrived in Wyoming Territory in 1879 with a Texas trail herd, and by the early years of the 20th century was running his own ranches and a local bank. A Democrat, he was elected governor in 1914, and later served three terms in the U.S. Senate. There he worked tirelessly on irrigation, land use, and protection of natural resources. With humor, charm, broad intelligence and a willingness to work with political opponents, he became a model for long-term success as a Democrat in a Republican state.