John Hoyt, UW’s First President
John Hoyt, UW’s First President: Doctor, Lawyer and Visionary When President Rutherford Hayes offered Dr. John Hoyt the ambassadorship to Spain in 1877, …
John Hoyt, UW’s First President: Doctor, Lawyer and Visionary When President Rutherford Hayes offered Dr. John Hoyt the ambassadorship to Spain in 1877, …
An earlier version of this article was initially sent as an e-mail message to Albany County legislators and others on Jan. 29, 2015, in light of …
Wyoming Town Ordinances Favored Law and Order Lots of myths are out there about how local Western towns approached guns in their earliest years. Below …
Great Depression Consultants: Plans to Economize State/Local Governments Wyoming has spent money on outside consultants for many years. Perhaps the most notorious of these studies was …
Interesting Facts About Governors of Wyoming 1st Wyoming native to be elected governor: Robert Carey, b. Cheyenne, 1878, elected governor in 1918. 1st University of Wyoming …
Wyoming’s First Public Schools: Early Emphasis on Education in the Equality State By Phil Roberts Public schools, started even before territorial government, were the subject of …
Democrats should embrace the state’s symbols Wyoming Democrats in recent years often belittle the value of embracing the state’s symbols, ceding them to the GOP …
Wyoming Adopts the Sales Tax: The 1930s Origins of the Current Tax System By Phil Roberts, Department of History, University of Wyoming Wyoming’s …
Aliens and Slackers: Loyalty, Sedition and Vigilante Justice in World War I Wyoming By Phil Roberts This article first appeared in Annals of Wyoming 85 (Winter 2013) …
Extract from Regulating Liquor: Prohibition Enforcement, Official Corruption, and State Efforts to Control Alcohol After Prohibition Repeal By Phil Roberts, University of Wyoming The …
Conducting Investigations: Inside Federal Prohibition Enforcement in Wyoming This is the story of some long-lost files, some citizen complaints about wide-open bootlegging and official …
The Partnership Years: The Wyoming State Historical Society and the State of Wyoming, 1966-1994. By Phil Roberts. The decades of the 1960s through the 1980s …
Wyoming Responses to Heart Mountain “Relocation” Camp, 1941-43 An Editor Speaks Out and a Senator Stays Silent By Phil Roberts This article first appeared as …
Flu Epidemic of 1918 By Phil Roberts Published in wyohist.org in September, 2018. Available also on wyohist.org website Though disease epidemics were common throughout America …
Cowboys Form a Health Cooperative: The Fetterman Hospital Association and Health Care Coverage on the Range By Phil Roberts Wyoming would seem to be …
“Drizzling Rain Kept All Indoors”: Wyoming’s First Arbor Day, 1888 By Phil Roberts Wyoming law establishes the last Monday in April as Arbor …
Creating Counties in 1911: Why Two of Wyoming’s “Grand Old Men” Have No Counties Named for Them By Phil Roberts The 1911 Wyoming legislature created …
Febbruary 27, 2011 Text of Prepared Remarks for Nellie Tayloe Ross Dinner, Wyoming State Democratic Party, Cheyenne (Following is the prepared speech by Phil Roberts …
Memories of a Wyoming Life By Phil Roberts February 24, 2018 From time to time, I’m going to use this page as an informal personal …
June 2, 2010 Memorial Day Address Lusk, Wyoming, May 31, 2010 Thank you for the kind introduction. Also, before I begin my formal address, I’d …
Editor’s Note, February 23, 2018 Wyoming has been a “state of immigrants” in the “nation of immigrants” that is the United States. In territorial …
By Phil Roberts In Wyoming, with the smallest population of any state and a tradition of individualism, one person can have a greater impact …
By Phil Roberts Copyright by Phil Roberts, 1989. This article began as a graduate seminar paper in a class at the University of Washington in …
By Phil Roberts More than a century and a quarter ago in 1895, editors of leading newspapers gave their predictions about what how the 20th …
By Phil Roberts Published in Capitol Times (Cheyenne), January 1983 Sometime in March three young Cheyenne attorneys will present oral arguments before the Supreme Court …
Capitol Times, October 1982, pp. 10-13. Downtown Cheyenne was the only place to shop in 1960, but today [1982] it is feeling the hard times of …
(June 2019) By Phil Roberts It appears that the Cooper house at UWyo may be safe from demolition–at least for now. The Cooper house, …
The first Territorial Legislature in 1869 passed the suffrage bill, giving women the right to vote for the first time anywhere in America. But it …
Wyoming was the first place where women served on juries. Laramie was the site for the first women on a jury (1871), but women also were …
By Phil Roberts Wyomingites generally consider two winters during the state’s history as “worst of the century.” For many 19thcentury residents, the epic …
By Phil Roberts The Rough Riders are usually associated with Theodore Roosevelt, but his were not the only “rough riders” organized to …
By Phil Roberts Wyoming towns have some pretty strange street names. Take Obie Sue, CY, Hobbit Hole and Hog Eye, for …
By Phil Roberts “Somewhere west of Laramie there’s a broncho-busting, steer-roping girl who knows what I’m talking about.” So began a …
By Phil Roberts The townsite of Buffalo was once almost entirely owned by a widow. Her late husband had the foresight to file …
By Phil Roberts In the middle 1950s, with the advent of radioactivity and the government’s efforts to apply atomic power to peaceful purposes, …
Laramie hosted many travelers crossing the country on the newly completed transcontinental railroad. Few had a more exciting ride than those in this account from …
By Phil Roberts Former UW football coach Joe Glenn (2003-08) often repeated the familiar mantra “Powder River, Let ‘er Buck,” as an expression …
By Phil Roberts It was a cold, miserable day in January 1905, in Washington, D.C. , and a rising young army officer was marrying the …
By Phil Roberts Public school education dates to the earliest days of Wyoming Territory, even before the first territorial legislature authorized public funding for schools. …
By Phil Roberts Although few residents realize it, November 29 is a state holiday in Wyoming. Known as Nellie Tayloe Ross Day,” the …
By Phil Roberts The Thanksgivings of the 19th century in Wyoming weren’t always celebrated with turkey and the trimmings. While Cheyenne printers were …
By Phil Roberts The Americans with Disabilities Act was far in the future when a group of Lusk residents first met to …
Mary Godat Bellamy (b. 1861, d. 1954) was the first woman elected to the Wyoming State Legislature. A resident of Laramie, she was one of …
Lancaster P. Lupton established a post a mile from Fort Laramie in 1841 in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the lucrative fur trade in the …
By Phil Roberts, Department of History, University of Wyoming The automobile age arrived in Wyoming almost unnoticed. While the Spanish American War dominated …
By Phil Roberts Every year questions are asked about the bucking horse insignia on Wyoming’s license plates. Claims from several sources seem to confuse the …