Most notable was creation of numerous boards, made up of the governor acting with the other four statewide elected officials, to administer many important state functions. Other states had already adopted similar systems. University of Wyoming trustees, for example, are appointed for six-year terms. The Constitution also allowed various boards and commissions to govern specific state agencies and even appoint the directors, taking that appointment power out of the governor's hands.
Only government reorganization in the s, more than years later, finally made many of these formerly governing boards advisory only. The Constitution provided for a four-year term for the governor with no restrictions on the number of terms a governor could serve.
During the 16th day of the convention, delegate A. Campbell introduced an amendment attempting to make an override require only a simple majority, but his proposal failed. Some of the main debates were over what levels of population and assessed valuation should be sufficient to establish new counties.
Others, however, saw danger in allowing new county formation too easily. New counties could drain off essential resources from older, established ones. Delegates compromised, allowing a relatively low threshold for county formation, but with the requirement that the old county from which the new one was carved would have to meet a specific threshold for assessed valuation, so that it would have sufficient financial resources to keep functioning.
Some delegates believed county officials would be more diligent if their pay was gained from a percentage of tax collected, from fees or other similar measure.
The majority, however, favored salaries, set by the legislature. Sorting out the judicial branch, delegates debated whether or not to have a supreme court separate from district courts. Many delegates, particularly non-lawyers, believed making two separate courts would be wasteful.
In the opinion of several delegates, the district judges would conduct most of the work while the Supreme Court justices would be left with little to do.
Lawyers, however, favored separate courts and managed to defeat an effort to retain the territorial system, but barely — 21 to Judges at all levels were to be elected to their offices.
In , the Constitution was amended to change that system dramatically, when the state adopted the "Missouri plan" of selection. A judicial nominating committee now accepts applications from Wyoming lawyers who have an interest in serving as a judge.
The committee selects three names and forwards the names to the governor who then selects one to serve on the court until the next general election, when voters are given the option of voting to retain or not retain the judge for the entire term. Legislative apportionment also consumed substantial delegate debate. The disagreements came with apportionment in the Senate. Delegates from the older established counties, along the southern tier on the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad , fought efforts by delegates from the smaller northern counties to follow a plan like the U.
Morgan , both from Cheyenne, argued that the federal analogy was flawed. Counties have no independence; they are creations of the state — not at all like the states' relationship to the federal government. George Baxter , also from Cheyenne, pointed out that it would be as unfair to give each county a senator as it would be to demand that each county give the same contribution to the state's general fund.
If delegates from the southern counties had been uniformly in agreement, the issue would have been settled very quickly. But former Territorial Gov. John Hoyt and M. Brown, the president of the Constitutional Convention, broke with their southern colleagues. Both argued that a smaller Senate, constructed along federal lines, could serve as a check on the popular will in the lower house. Brown called the idea "the happiest compromise that ever came to man.
All along, the delegates opted for apportionment in the House to be based on population. Elections were to be at large in each county. Even the least populated county, therefore, would have at least one representative.
Not until the legislative reapportionment after the census — and a legal challenge — were legislators in Wyoming elected from single-member districts. On the 19th day of deliberations, the convention rejected the federal analogy by allocating more than one senator to more populous counties.
The delegates, however, gave a sop to several northern counties in the form of one additional House member each. While the more populous counties gained greater representation in the Senate, arguably, a modified "federal" plan prevailed because at least one senator still was granted to each county — even to the least populated one.
For the majority of delegates, more specific language was not needed. The delegates did argue, however, about including literacy as a requirement for voting. One member argued that if a voter had to read in order to vote, most newcomers would be able to vote while old established ranchers, many of them war veterans who had been voting for many years, would be stripped of their voting rights.
The entire article, incorporating equal rights and the much more debated requirement for literacy, passed by a vote of Only one delegate, Louis J. In the article on mining, however, women were barred from mining coal, after considerable debate.
Finally, Alexander Sutherland, a Canadian-born Big Horn Basin rancher, noted that he had seen women working in the mines in Pennsylvania and said, "I hope we shall never see that in Wyoming. Convention President M. Brown introduced an article that would have established a coal tonnage tax.
Brown pointed out that the coal industry was making substantial profits as the companies primary the Union Pacific Coal Company removed more and more coal from the territory. Little of the coal was used within the borders of Wyoming.
Brown argued that the state would be financially sound for years to come if a modest tax were assessed against every ton of coal shipped out of Wyoming. The measure passed initially. But soon afterward, C. Clark, a delegate from Uinta County and a lawyer for the Union Pacific, argued that if the state got revenues from every ton of coal mined, the result would be government waste, inefficiency and corruption. It would be preferable to keep government lean and honest, which could only be done, he said, if the tax on coal were not made part of the Constitution.
The delegates reversed their earlier decision. While taxation of coal would have forever changed state funding, Wyoming's Article VIII, involving water and irrigation, was revolutionary. The constitution set up a complete system of water allocation, unique among states to that time, and firmly established the principle of state ownership of the resource.
Because of the declaration that the state owned all waters within its borders, the state could intervene as to issues of water. The most important figure in drafting the water and irrigation article was Dr. The Constitution also set forth the principle that "beneficial use" determined the better water right, and no appropriation could be denied unless "demanded by the public interest.
Debates were long over questions of water and irrigation. And halfway through the convention, delegates adjourned for an entire afternoon to meet with the visiting U. Senate Committee on Arid Lands. Similarly the entire morning session of the 18th day involved a lengthy debate over the definition of "appropriation. Two delegates were credited with the water article — J. Johnston, a Laramie County farmer and manager of the biggest irrigation venture in the state, the Wyoming Development Company, in which both Warren and Carey had invested , and Charles H.
Burritt, a Johnson County lawyer. Prominent as well was Territorial Engineer Mead, who was not a convention delegate but nonetheless played a strong advocacy role behind the scenes. Mead advocated adoption of the prior appropriation doctrine already in operation, to some extent, in California and in Colorado where he had formerly served as assistant water engineer.
During his term as territorial engineer, he had traveled throughout the territory urging support for his system as a means of fair allocation for everyone. Asbury B. Conaway, a former territorial court justice serving as a delegate from Sweetwater County, questioned if the Mead-inspired article changed the common law rule about riparian rights — that is, simple streamside rights — to water.
Johnston and Charles Potter agreed it did. The rest of the delegates approved. While prior appropriation and administrative control by experts seemed reasonable, more revolutionary was state ownership of all waters within the state, a move that continues to intrigue modern historians.
Early in the debate, M. Brown pointed out that without state ownership, prior appropriators would not be subject to the Constitution. Coffeen questioned if the water appropriation was a move to enrich corporations. Republican Charles Burritt from neighboring Johnson County took issue with the insinuation. Such a connection "exists only in the very fertile imagination of the gentleman from Sheridan ," Burritt said. Contrary to Coffeen's suspicions, historian Don Pisani argues that the lack of big mining interests, the relatively ample supply of unappropriated water and the absence of large groups of farmers made the Wyoming article possible.
Other historians argue that the water article came from the "cattle kings — early arrivals and earliest users of water who were confident such prior appropriation would ratify their holdings and who were among those who established the Wyoming Development Company, noted earlier. At the same time, state ownership of the water was not a threat to them because they also were certain they would control state government.
But these interpretations do not account for the concern delegates had over rights of Wyoming cities to water. Delegates debated whether or not municipalities should have the power to appropriate water. The cities were given that power. Mead was crucial to the debate and to the eventual adoption of the water and irrigation article. Delegates drew from his experience with water and his persuasive abilities to argue for a predictable, expert-driven means of determining rights.
As Mead biographer James Kluger points out, Mead's ideas about water spread worldwide and the Wyoming convention gave him his first opportunity to articulate his water vision. Throughout the wide-ranging convention discussions on the state's ownership of water, no mention was made of the rights of the earliest water users—the Native Americans. Rather, the courts ruled, the earlier treaty with the federal government had given the tribes the best priority rights to most of the flow of the Wind River, if they could put it to use.
But even beyond natural resource issues and except for language exempting Indians from state tax and implying they could not vote because they were not considered citizens, delegates to the Constitutional Convention made no other mention of the presence of native people within the state's borders. She took office on January 5, , 20 days before "Ma" Ferguson of Texas elected on the same day took office.
Ross went on to become the first woman to be appointed Director of the United States Mint-a position she held for 20 years, from to In , women held three of the state's five top elective positions and a total of 23 women hold seats in the Wyoming Legislature, three in the Senate and 20 in the House.
Talk of statehood for Wyoming began as early as after the organization of Wyoming Territory in that year. The road to statehood, however, did not begin until when the Territorial Assembly sent Congress a petition for admission into the Union.
Bills were introduced in both houses of Congress, but did not pass. Though no legislation passed Congress enabling Wyoming to follow the steps that lead to statehood, Governor Francis E. Warren and others decided to continue as if an "enabling act" had passed. Forty-nine men gathered in Cheyenne during September, , and wrote the constitution. The voters approved the document November 5, , by a vote of 6, to 1, Bills for Wyoming statehood were introduced in both the U.
Senate and House in December, The House passed the bill March 27, President Benjamin Harrison signed Wyoming's statehood bill, making Wyoming the 44th state.
Carved from sections of Dakota, Utah, and Idaho territories, Wyoming Territory came into existence by act of Congress on July 25, The territorial government was formally inaugurated May 19, The first territorial governor, John A.
Campbell, appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant, took his oath of office on April 15, At the time of its organization, Wyoming had already been divided into four counties: Laramie, established January 9, ; Carter later Sweetwater , established December 27, ; Carbon and Albany, December 16, These counties extended from the northern to the southern boundaries of the territory.
As the territory and later the state became settled, the following counties were carved from the original five until there are now twenty-three counties in Wyoming. July 10, , the territory consisting of the thirteen counties was admitted into the Union as a State.
The Ninth Territorial Legislative Assembly authorized the construction of the building in , and on May 18, , the cornerstone was laid.
Flagstone for the building's foundation was quarried near Fort Collins, Colorado, 45 miles south of Cheyenne, while sandstone from quarries near Rawlins, Wyoming, was used in the construction of the upper floors. Additional wings on each side of the original structure were completed in and the final two wings were finished in The interior is finished in cherry, oak and butternut woods. The murals in the Senate and House chambers were painted by Allen T. They depict industry, pioneer life, law and transportation.
The ceiling of each chamber is stained glass with the State Seal in the center. Oregon Trail Ruts - Located near Guernsey, the "signature ruts" provide a vivid physical reminder of the old Oregon Trail. Here, thousands of wagon wheels and oxen hooves passed during the emigration period of the mids, gradually grinding the deep ruts into a layer of soft sandstone. Father Peter DeSmet called it "the great registry of the desert," since thousands of westbound emigrants scratched their names on its surfaces.
The rock is now home to Wyoming's Centennial Acre. Bridger - In the summer of , Mountain Man Jim Bridger announced he was building a trading post, " It later evolved into the town of Fort Bridger, the only town in Wyoming with direct roots to the earliest days of the Oregon Trail. This site was one of the last opportunities the pioneers had to cross the river they had followed from central Nebraska on the Oregon Trail. The post was named in honor of 1st Lt. Caspar Collins who was killed while protecting a supply train from Indian attack.
Laramie - The most significant outpost on the Oregon Trail system was established as a trading post in by fur traders William Sublette and Robert Campbell. Some examples for the State of Wyoming:. To find more books and articles about Wyoming 's history use the Internet Google search for phases like "Wyoming history.
FamilySearch Catalog Surnames Search lists many more histories under topics like:. Memories Overview Gallery People Find. Sign in Create Account.
Family Tree. From FamilySearch Wiki. The usage of "Mormon" and "LDS" on this page is approved according to current policy. Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. Washington D. Family History Library film Item 1. Compiled by Federal Writers' Project. Contributor T.
Edition: illustrated, Published by U of Nebraska Press, ISBN , Page My Army Life and the Fort Phil. Lippincott Company, Original from Harvard University. Digitized Dec 28, White, American Indian chronology: chronologies of the American mosaic Edition: illustrated. Published by Greenwood Publishing Group, Full text available at Google Books , Worldcat. Clark Company, Item notes: v. Digitized Aug 15, History of Wyoming.
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