Arcadia Publishing issues numerous books about local history in the United States, most by local historians. Their titles include two books about different kinds of ranching in Wyoming: dude ranching and sheep and cattle ranching.

Recent bank failures—and moves by the U.S. government to protect the banks’ depositors—have sent shock waves through banking stocks and jitters through the markets at large. This week, therefore, seems to us like a good moment to revisit the banking events of the 1920s.

The author, a self-described “progressive Christian” and “citizen historian” (non-professional) has included eleven stories in this book of gutsy people and groups in Wyoming who have stood by their unpopular convictions. Often, they suffered for this.

During a stormy session, the Wyoming Legislature last month found itself debating the implications of one of the most telling events in our state’s history: the life and tragic death of Lester Hunt.

Wyoming: The Paradox of Plenty: The Allure and Risk of a Mineral Economy, by David Freudenthal. WordsWorth Publishing, Cody, Wyo., 2022, 237 pages. $20.00 paperback.

The author’s blunt, tell-it-like-it-is style permeates this engaging history of Wyoming’s mineral economy and its associated politics. Drawing on his experience as Wyoming’s governor from 2003-2011 plus substantial personal research, Freudenthal paints a compelling picture of our long dependence on the extractive industries.

The Chinese spy balloon that lingered over Montana for a while last week reminded us of reports of an earlier, more hostile balloon that bombed Wyoming during World War II. What? Wyoming was bombed? Well, yes, apparently.

By Rebecca Hein
Huge advances in medicine, biology, law enforcement and paleontology were not what I expected to learn about when I began researching the discovery of a thermophilic (heat-loving) bacterium in Yellowstone’s hot springs. At first it seemed to me nothing more than a scientific curiosity. I had no idea I’d end up with the perfect retort to people who believe little of significance ever originates in Wyoming.

On top of all its world-shaking benefits, the amount of money generated by this tiny life form are staggering. In a better world, maybe Wyoming, Yellowstone or the National Park Service would have ended up with some of the money.

For me though, the fascinating part of the story is how an apparently small discovery can mushroom into a world-changer.

By Dick Blust, Jr.
Geography, of course, is fundamental to all aspects of history, and in few cases is this more profoundly true than in the American West. Arguably, the most significant—in an emblematic sense, at least—is the Tri-Territory Historic Site in Sweetwater County, Wyo., where the Louisiana Purchase, the Oregon Country and the Mexican Cession all joined at a single spot along the Continental Divide. Those three acquisitions, with the last coming in 1848, became the overwhelming bulk of the western United States outside of Texas.

In January 1913, 110 years ago this month, old and new political animosities in Wyoming’s House of Representatives exploded into an actual fistfight. Blows were swapped, chairs were thrown and glass was broken when, reportedly, a framed picture smashed over the head of a lawmaker. At issue was a crucial question—who was the rightful speaker of the House?

It began when the elected speaker left the chair at a tense moment to join the debate. When he tried to regain it, the speaker pro tempore (the temporary speaker) refused to give up the gavel. The elected speaker dragged the speaker pro tem and his chair from the dais, the chair fell on top of the speaker pro tem—and that’s when the fighting really began.

Lighted candles warmed what may well have been Wyoming’s first decorated Christmas—before there was a Wyoming. The candles are a German tradition—they’re part of the winter warmth and light that the carol “O Tannenbaum” recalls. At Christmas 1859, a lighted tree filled most of a small log building on Deer Creek, about two miles upstream from creek’s mouth at present Glenrock, Wyo. 

Packed closely around were some army officers, a Native family and a few German Lutheran missionaries. Missionary Moritz Braeuninger read from the scriptures. Capt. W.F. Raynolds, his officers and the Indians, at least as shown in a sketch by one of the missionaries, all listened closely. The Oregon Trail ran nearby. Downstream at the mouth of Deer Creek on the North Platte was a busy stage station and trading post.

Government exploration, Indian business and high hopes had brought these people together. Raynolds was leading a small, two-year expedition of soldiers and civilian scientists from the U.S. Topographical Engineers to explore regions drained by the Yellowstone River, and had come down to the North Platte from the Yellowstone as winter was closing in. In 1857, a group of Mormons had begun building a stage and freight depot on the site for a planned West-wide operation to be owned and run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Later that year, as the U.S. Army marched toward Utah to re-establish federal control there, the Mormons abandoned the place.