The Death of Matthew Shepard #ThisWeekInWYHistory
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death after he was kidnapped, robbed, and pistol-whipped in Laramie. His attackers tied him to a fence and left to die in near-freezing temperatures. A...
The Crash of United Airlines 409 #ThisWeekInWYHistory
*Photo credit Bill Larkin, showing a DC-4 in United Airlines livery
On Oct. 6, 1955, 66 people perished when their DC-4 crashed into Medicine Bow Peak in the Snowy Mountain Range of Wyoming. At the...
The History of the Cowboy Hat #ThisWeekInWYHistory
(Gillette, Wyo.) In the hand of the silhouetted cowboy on the iconic Bucking Horse and Rider logo is a hat that is so well recognized, no one would mistake the image as one of...
The State Asylum #ThisWeekInWYHistory
(Gillette, Wyo.) The Wyoming State Hospital, which still exists today, is easily spotted from I-80 that cuts through Evanston. On the opposite side of the highway is the local Wal-Mart.
While the buildings visible from...
This Week in WY History: How A Dead Cow Started A War
(Gillette, Wyo.) On Aug. 19, 1854, 29 soldiers were killed in one of the first battles of a lengthy war between settlers and Native Americans. And it all started over a dispute involving a...
The Wagon Box Fight #ThisWeekInWYHistory
On August 2, 1867, a group of 26 US soldiers and 6 US civilians held off a force of over 1,000 Oglala Sioux.
Captain James Powell, commander of the C company of the 26th US...
Was Tom Horn Innocent? #ThisWeekInWYHistory
(Gillette, Wyo.) The early part of the Twentieth Century was a violent time in Wyoming history. Cattle barons fought with shepherds. Property rights were weakly enforced, and grazing land was largely distributed on a...
World’s First Stewardess #ThisWeekInWYHistory
(Gillette, Wyo.) On May 15, 1930, a Boeing 80A making a commercial flight from San Francisco to Chicago made a stop in Cheyenne, one of 13 it would make before landing in Chicago 20...
Late Spring Killer Blizzard #ThisWeekInWYHistory
(Gillette, Wyo.) People this week have noticed a considerable improvement in the weather. While it seemed we had a winter stubbornly unwilling to dislodge itself and yield to spring, a blizzard that began on...
The Teapot Dome Scandal #ThisWeekInWYHistory
(Gillette, Wyo.) Wyoming isn’t often associated with a lot of national news, much less a scandal that goes all the way to the president’s cabinet. But on April 16, 1922, a senate investigation blew...