Politics & Government

Delegates to Wyoming’s Constitutional Convention had to work quickly in 1889 to get a constitution adopted while Congress was still in session. Still, they managed to adopt some innovative ideas, especially in water law. The biggest stumbling block to statehood, in Congressional debate the following year turned out to be whether Wyoming had enough people. It was a close call.

Wiliam Ross worked his way from prosecuting attorney of Laramie County to the nomination for Governor on the Democratic Party's ticket. He died in his office and his wife was elected to take his place.

President Harrison appointed William Richards surveyor general of the Territory in 1889. He was elected governor and served from January 7, 1895 to January 2, 1899.

Old West adventurer, orator, barber, reported bigamist, and passionate defender of civil rights, Kentucky-born William Jefferson Hardin was Wyoming’s first African-American legislator in its territorial days.

President Arthur appointed William Hale Governor of Wyoming Territory July 18, 1882. Governor Hale took the oath of office August 3, 1882 and served until his death at Cheyenne, Wyoming, January 13, 1885.

Verda James, a schoolteacher, deputy director of public instruction for the state of Wyoming, assistant superintendent of the Natrona County schools, and later a faculty member at Casper College, was first elected to the Wyoming House in 1954. She served eight terms. During the last term, 1969-1970, she was elected House speaker, the first woman to serve in that position for a full term.

Thomas Moonlight was elected State Senator for Leavenworth County in 1872 and then appointed Governor of Wyoming Territory by President Cleveland on January 5, 1887. Governor Moonlight took the oath of office January 24, 1887 serving until April 9, 1889

A late-1960s Atomic Energy Commission plan to extract Wyoming natural gas with five underground nuclear explosions won strong initial support from the oil and gas industry and the federal government. Finally, however, the idea stalled, thanks to the emergence of more information on possible dangers, to Washington politics, and especially to intense local opposition in Sublette County, Wyo., where the devices were slated to be detonated.

The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 established the modern system by which oil and coal companies may lease federal land. This system has proven enormously beneficial to Wyoming’s state coffers since it was first enacted nearly 100 years ago. How this all came about is a story of early oil producers looking for a way around a presidential order and a highly contentious Supreme Court case, all with lucrative results for the state of Wyoming—and a stabilizing result for the industry.

Largely forgotten today is the stiff local resistance that arose in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to the creation and later the expansion of a national park there. The story covers 31 years of controversy, and includes a Rockefeller, a movie actor and a group of armed ranchers trailing cattle illegally across a national monument, and some of the most beautiful scenery in North America.