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Fort Laramie in the 1830s

The human history of the U.S state of Wyoming stretches back roughly 13,000 years, to the period when humans first migrated to North America from Asia. Stone projectile points associated with the Clovis, Folsom, and Plano cultures have been discovered throughout Wyoming. In the Big Horn Mountains there is a medicine wheel that was constructed between 800 and 900 years ago. It is believed that the Big Horn medicine wheel is part of a larger complex of sites in northern Wyoming that show 7000 years of human use. When White explorers first entered the region, they encountered numerous American Indian tribes including the Arapaho, Bannock, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Crow, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Nez Perce, Sioux, Shoshone and Ute.

French explorers first entered Wyoming in the 1700s, and all or part of the current state has been claimed by Spain, France, Mexico, Texas, and finally the United States. In the early 1800s, the region was occupied by Native Americans and later small numbers of European trappers. In the mid-1800s, large numbers of emigrants passed through Wyoming on the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails, but few stayed permanently in the area. The arrival of the transcontinental railroad in the late 1860s spurred population growth and permanent settlement, with led to the creation of the Wyoming Territory in 1868.

Further settlement led to the creation of the State of Wyoming in 1890. Wyoming has remained among the least populated states since its creation, but has become an important energy producer and renowned for its natural spaces. The first National Park, National Forest, and National Monument were all located in Wyoming.

Pre-historic Period

Big Horn medicine wheel

The earliest evidence of human habitation in Wyoming is from the Clovis culture. The Colby site in the northern part of Wyoming is dated about 11,000 years BP. Early humans were typically nomadic and mainly hunted big game, such as Pleistocene camel, bison, and antelope. Clovis projectile points have been found throughout Wyoming. Clovis culture was followed by, and overlapped with, Folsom Culture, which lasted until about 10,500 years BP.

Around 10,000 years BP, the Rocky Mountains became warmer and drier. Paleoindians on the plains continued to hunt big game, but mountain peoples used smaller game and plants more extensively. The area dried further, and around 6,000 BP the region was mostly depopulated. The climate improved around 4,500 BP and the region was re-settled, mainly along the North Platte River, Belle Fourche River, and Shoshone Basin. Many teepee ring sites exist in Wyoming from the Late Prehistoric period, which lasted until about the 1700s. Bison remained an important food source, which were hunted with spears, bows, and bison jump sites, where bison were herded off cliffs or into sinkholes.

Early Explorers and the Fur Trade

Around 1700 European artifacts began to appear through trade among Native American sites in Wyoming. Though Spanish expeditions reached the high plains in the 1500s-1700s, there is currently no evidence of the Spanish reaching Wyoming in that time period. In 1742 frenchman Louis-Joseph Gaultier de La Vérendrye and his brother François may have reached the Big Horn mountains, but it is not conclusively known if it was another range they visited.

John Colter, a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was the first white American to definitively enter the region, which he did in 1807. His reports of thermal activity in the Yellowstone area were considered at the time to be fictional. Robert Stuart and a party of five men returning from Astoria, Oregon discovered South Pass in 1812. Afterward the fur trade expanded in the Rocky Mountains, so by the 1830s there were perhaps two hundred white fur traders in Wyoming.

From about 1820 to 1840 the fur trade in Wyoming was at its peak, mainly trading the beaver pelt. Fort Laramie, or Fort John, was first established in 1834 at the confluence of the North Platte and Laramie Rivers by William Sublette and Robert Campbell. The later name of the fort came from a french trapper, Jacques La Ramee, who trapped in the region in the 1810s and was killed in 1820 or 1821, and whose name is applied to many areas and features in modern Wyoming. Changing fashions and over-trapping led to the end of the beaver pelt trade in the 1840s, and all fur forts except Fort Laramie was abandoned. Though brief, the fur trading period represented the first widescale exploration of Wyoming, and during this time many fur traders discovered and traveled what would eventually become the Oregon Trail.

Emigration Trails

Main article: Emigrant Trail in Wyoming

Independence Rock, a famous Wyoming landmark along the Oregon Trail

The route later known as the Oregon Trail was already in regular use by traders and explorers in the early 1830s. In 1842 and 1843 John C. Fremont, called "The Pathfinder", led expeditions across the Rocky Mountains to study and map out the area, following much of what would be the Oregon trail. Fremont's were used for many years as a primary record of the Oregon Trail route.

In 1843, the first large migration on the Oregon Trail of 1,000 emigrants was led by Marcus Whitman to Oregon. In 1847, the Mormon migration began, generally following the same route as the Oregon Trail through Wyoming. In 1849 the California Gold Rush began and cause further overland emigration. That year about 30,000 emigrants passed through Fort Laramie.

The Oregon trail snakes across Wyoming, entering the state on the eastern border near the present day town of Torrington following the North Platte River to the current town of Casper, on the way passing Register Cliff, where many emigrants carved their names. The trail then crosses Wyoming to South Pass, and exits on the western side of the state near Cokeville. Over 350,000 emigrants followed these trails to destinations in Utah, California and Oregon between 1840 and 1859. Many also followed the Overland Trail through southern Wyoming. In 1863, gold was discovered in Montana, drawing miners north along the Bozeman and Bridger trails through the Powder River Country and Big Horn Basin respectively. By the late 1860s, the Transcontinental Railroad was nearing completion, and traffic on the east-west emigrant trails ceased. Very few emigrants settled in Wyoming during this period, and left little more than trail ruts and a few graves.

Indian Wars

Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868

When white explorers first arrived in Wyoming the area was occupied by several Native American tribes, namely the Shoshonis, Crows, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and sometimes the Blackfeet and Utes. The Shoshonis and Utes had entered the area before 1700, but the other tribes had migrated more recently from the midwest.

As traffic on the emigrant trails increased in the 1840s, conflict between the settlers and the Native Americans increased. The U.S. government responded by inviting tribes to peace treaty negotiations in 1851, which led to the first Treaty of Fort Laramie being signed. The tribes agreed to national boundaries, safe passage of Oregon Trail emigrants, and other concessions in return for yearly payments in goods. The treaty reduced conflict for a short time, but ever increasing numbers of emigrants brought disease and disrupted wild game, leading to strife with the native tribes. Tensions between Americans and the Native Americans was exacerbated further by the Grattan Massacre near Fort Laramie in 1854, which led to the First Sioux War.

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The influx of emigrants and settlers into the state lead to more encounters with the American Indian, resulting in an increase of military presence along the trails. Military posts such as Fort Laramie were established to maintain order in the area. In 1851, the first Treaty of Fort Laramie was signed between the United States and representatives of American Indian nations to ensure peace and the safety of settlers on the trails. The 1850s were subsequently quiet, but increased settler encroachment into lands promised to the tribes in the region caused tensions to rise again, especially after the Bozeman Trail was blazed in 1864 through the hunting grounds of the Powder River Country, which had been promised to the tribes in the 1851 treaty. As encounters between settlers and Indians grew more serious in 1865, Major General Grenville M. Dodge ordered the first Powder River Expedition to attempt to quell the violence. The expedition ended in a battle against the Arapaho in the Battle of the Tongue River. The next year the fighting escalated into Red Cloud's War which was the first major military conflict between the United States and the Wyoming Indian tribes. The second Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 ended the war by closing the Powder River Country to whites. Violation of this treaty by miners in the Black Hills lead to the Black Hills War in 1876, which was fought mainly along the border of Wyoming and Montana.

Railroad

The Union Pacific Railroad reached the town of Cheyenne, which later became the state capital, in 1867. The railroad eventually spanned the entire state, boosting the population, and creating some of Wyoming's largest cities, such as Laramie, Rock Springs and Evanston. Along with the railroad came the need for coal, which was discovered in quantity in the southwestern part of the state, especially around Rock Springs. In 1885, a violent riot known as the Rock Springs Massacre broke out between white and Chinese miners employed by the Union Pacific Coal Company in Rock Springs.

Territory and Statehood

The name was used by Representative J. M. Ashley of Ohio, who introduced a bill to Congress to provide a "temporary government for the territory of Wyoming". The name "Wyoming" was made famous by the 1809 poem Gertrude of Wyoming by Thomas Campbell. The name is derived from the Delaware (Munsee) name xwé:wamənk, meaning "at the big river flat", originally applied to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania.

After the arrival of the railroad, the population began to grow steadily in the Wyoming Territory, which was established on July 25, 1868. Unlike Colorado to the south, Wyoming never experienced a rapid population boom in the 19th century from any major mineral discoveries such as gold or silver.

Inclusion of women's suffrage in the Wyoming constitution was debated in the constitutional convention, but ultimately accepted. The constitution was mostly borrowed from those of other states, but also included an article making all the water in Wyoming property of the state. Wyoming overcame the obstacles of low population and of being the only territory in the U.S. giving women the right to vote, and the United States admitted Wyoming into the Union as the 44th state on July 10, 1890.

Suffrage

In 1869, Wyoming territory gave women the right to vote. And in addition to being the first U.S. state to extend suffrage to women, Wyoming was also the home of many other firsts for U.S. women in politics. For the first time, women served on a jury in Wyoming (Laramie in 1870). Wyoming had the first female court bailiff (Mary Atkinson, Laramie, in 1870) and the first female justice of the peace in the country (Esther Hobart Morris, South Pass City, in 1870). Wyoming became the first state in the Union to elect a female governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross, who was elected in 1924 and took office in January 1925.

Wildland Preservation

The Hayden expedition in Wyoming as photographed by William Henry Jackson

Following on the reports of men like Colter and Bridger, a number of organized expeditions were undertaken in northwestern Wyoming. The Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition in 1869 and the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition in 1870 confirmed the stories of the mountain men. In 1871, Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden lead a formal survey of the area, the result of which ultimately convinced Congress to set aside the region. Yellowstone National Park became the world's first National Park in 1872. Most of the territory that comprises Yellowstone National Park is located in Wyoming. Wyoming is also home to the nation's first national monument (Devils Tower created in 1906)), and the first national forest (Shoshone National Forest created in 1891).

Settlers

The Homestead Act of 1862 attracted many new farmers and ranchers to Wyoming, where they congregated along the fertile banks of the rivers. Most of the land in Wyoming in the 2nd half of the 19th century was in the public domain and so was open for both homesteading and open range for grazing cattle. As individual ranchers moved into the state, they became at odds with the larger ranches for control of the range and water sources. Tensions rose to a boiling point in April 1892 as an armed conflict known as the Johnson County War, fought between the large cattle operators and smaller ranchers and homesteaders. The increased number of settlers also brought with them merchants, as well as outlaws. A number of notable outlaws of the time started their careers in Wyoming, including Butch Cassidy and Harry Longabaugh, both of whom were incarcerated in Wyoming as young men. An remote area in Johnson County, Wyoming known as the Hole-in-the-Wall was a well known hideout for a loose association of outlaw gangs known as the Hole in the Wall Gang. It was used from the 1860s through the early 20th century by outlaws operating throughout Wyoming.

Mining

Precious metals were never discovered in great quantities, though a small amount of gold was discovered near South Pass prompting a small rush in the 1860s. Coal was discovered early and has been mined extensively through the state. Union Pacific Railroad ran several coal mines in the southern part of the state to supply the railroad. In 1885 tensions at a Union Pacific mine in Rock Springs resulted in the Rock Springs Massacre, one of the largest race riots in U.S. history. Oil is also plentiful throughout the state. In 1924, irregularities over the allocation of naval reserves near Casper resulted in the Teapot Dome Scandal. Natural gas, bentonite and uranium have also been mined through the state's history.

Historical memory

After 1890 Wyoming pageants and parades, as well as school courses, increasingly told a nostalgic story of Wyoming as rooted in the frontier West. During the 1940s, Wyoming millionaire William R. Coe made large contributions to the American studies programs at Yale University and at the University of Wyoming. Coe was concerned to celebrate the values of the Western United States in order to meet the threat of communism.

See also

Main article: Historical outline of Wyoming

• Bibliography of Wyoming history
• History of the Great Plains
• History of the Rocky Mountains
• History of the Western United States
• List of Wyoming counties
• Emigrant Trail in Wyoming
• Territorial evolution of Wyoming

Bibliography

• Larson, T.A. (1978). History of Wyoming, Second Edition, Revised. University of Nebraska Press.