Wyoming
Click an author to read a biographical essay prepared by a local student.
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By Judy Iliff and Nathel Coca
Wyoming, a land of mountains and valleys, is home to the nation's first national monument: Devil's Tower, which was made famous in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. President Grant named Yellowstone a national park in 1872; it is the oldest and largest in the nation. Founded in 1904, Eaton's Ranch in the northern Big Horn Mountains is the oldest dude ranch and may very well be the first in the world. The Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody was founded by
William F. Cody in 1897.The "Equality State" granted suffrage to women in 1869 and was the first state to elect a woman to public office– Esther Hobart Morris was the first Justice of the Peace in 1870. Wyoming became the 44th state in 1890 and selected the buffalo for its state flag in 1917. The Indian Paintbrush is the state flower, and the Bucking Horse and Rider was adopted for the state's license plates in 1936. The infamous symbol - "
a rallying point, a symbol of pride and a reminder of home, the Great State of Wyoming, to our troops" serving overseas during Korea and Vietnam - dates back to 1918 when it was used during World War I as the insignia for the Wyoming National Guard in France and Germany. The bucking horse and rider are thought to be modeled after a rodeo horse, "Steamboat": the horse that couldn't be ridden. "There has been a great deal of dispute as to who the image of the man on the bucking horse was patterned after" http://soswy.state.wy.us/bucking/history.htm.Wyoming is home to many Native American tribes including the Arapaho, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Crow, Nez Perce, and Shoshone who lived by hunting buffalo. They were, however, overpowered by the 1870s when ranching began. Cattle rustlers and vigilantes caused the Johnson County War in 1892. In addition, conflicts also arose between sheep and cattle ranchers.
Today Wyoming is perhaps best known for its diversity. Most think of the spectacular scenery of the Teton Mountains and Yellowstone National Park, which are located in the northwest corner of the state, and the Snowy Range, which is located in the southeast section of the state when they think of Wyoming. The majority of Wyoming, however, is fairly flat and dry. With the smallest population of the 50 states (453,588 according to the 1990 census), Wyoming, specifically Gillette, is one of the largest supplies of natural energy to the nation. "
The abundant productions of coal, oil, and coal bed methane gas support Gillette's claim of 'Energy Capital of the Nation.' Over 30% of the nation's coal supply is mined in Campbell County http://www.gillettewyoming.net/campbell.html . The energy crisis of the 1970s started a boom in Wyoming which declined when prices fell. Methane gas is a recent boom for the state.Wyoming is also the home of a vigorous and varied literary tradition. Much of the literature is based on cowboys, ghosts of Wyoming, historical fiction and nonfiction such as homesteaders, the Johnson County Wars, outlaws, and Native American literature. A plethora of authors also write about contemporary issues and themes.
Cowboy and Western Literature
Early writers such as Owen Wister focused on cowboy literature. Wister's classic novel, The Virginian (1902) is the story of a foreman of a Wyoming cattle ranch who lives by a code of honor. The hero of the novel takes part in a gun duel that "constitutes the first "walkdown" in American literature. This book was the preface to the western genre.
Hollywood popularized
Mary O'Hara's novel, My Friend Flicka (1941), which was made into a movie in 1943 and starred Roddy McDowall as the young boy. It was one of the most popular family films in the forties. In addition to Flicka, O'Hara also wrote two other novels: Thunderhead (1943) and Green Grass of Wyoming (1946).Part of Louis L'Amour's Bendigo Shafter takes place along the Oregon Trail and features tales of The Medicine Wheel, located at the northern edge of The Big Horn Mountains. Bendigo learns of The Medicine Wheel from a Native American; it is a prehistoric Native American cosmological rock that resembles a wagon wheel. The Medicine Wheel was first discovered by Crow Indian hunters nearly 300 years ago and is approximately 30 miles from Lovell, Wyoming.
Ghosts of Wyoming
Debra Munn's Ghosts on the Range: Eerie Tales of Wyoming features accounts of haunted locations throughout the state with interviews from locals. Mae Urbanek's Ghost Trails of Wyoming includes ghost town pictures that date back to the 1860's.
Homesteaders
Homesteaders such as Elinore Pruitt Stewart faced many hardships. She came to Burnt Fork, Wyoming, in 1909 but later settled near Green River and wrote of life in Wyoming over a period of four years in what is known as Letters of a Woman Homesteader (1914).
Johnson County Wars
Jack Schaefer's Shane (1954) is a western which features a mysterious stranger who enters the lives of a farm family and helps them fight local cattlemen who try to take over the family's property. The novel is based on the Johnson County Wars of 1892; wars broke out when cattle barons, whose unofficial headquarters were in Cheyenne at the famous Cheyenne Club, tried to take away land from small ranchers. Schaefer also wroteThe Great Endurance Horse Race (1963) which is about a 600 mile horse race from Evanston, Wyoming, to Denver, Colorado; the race took place in 1908.
Outlaws and Justice
Doug Engebretson's Empty Saddles, Forgotten Names (1982) includes outlaws of Wyoming and the neighboring Black Hills of South Dakota.
Born in Laramie, Wyoming, lawyer
Gerry Spence is the author of several books including Gunning for Justice (1982), his autobiography. He also penned With Justice for None (1989) and From Freedom to Slavery, The Rebirth of Tyranny in America (1993).Native American Literature
Though she was born in Nebraska, Wyoming claims
Mari Sandoz as she researched and drew on the life of the Plains. She wrote a biography of the indomitable Oglala chief Crazy Horse (1942). Her most famous novel is Cheyenne Autumn (1953), based on a band of Northern Cheyenne who fled the Oklahoma reservation in 1878. Miss Morissa (1955) and The Horsecatcher (1956) are two other well-known novels.John Neihardt is a poet, novelist, and short story writer most famous for writing down the autobiography of a holy man of the Ogalala Sioux, Black Elk Speaks (1932). He also wrote The Mountain Men (1949).
Lakota writer Joe Marshall III was one of three writers of Soldiers Falling Into Camp (1998) which is an account of the Battle of the Little Big Horn told from the Lakota, Crow, and U.S. Cavalry's point of view. Marshall also wrote On Behalf of the Wolf and the First Peoples (1996) and Dance House: Stories from Rosebud (1998).
Contemporary Literature
Contemporary writers such as Shelly Ritthaler have written collections of stories about life in Wyoming. Ritthaler's The Ginger Jar (1990) delves into her life in northeastern Wyoming. Her fiction includes her American dream series: Heart of the Hills (1996) and With love, Amanda (1997).
Heart Mountain is Gretel Ehrlich's fictionalized story of a Japanese Relocation camp; Heart Mountain was an actual camp outside Powell, Wyoming, during World War II which housed 11,000 people of Japanese ancestry. Erhlich is also known for her essays and poetry. To Touch the Water is a contemporary collection of poetry about life in Wyoming; A Match to the Heart is her account of being struck by lightning and Islands, The Universe, Home contains personal essays. It was her novel The Solace of Open Spaces (1986) which first brought her fame.
Michael Gear and his wife Kathleen O'Neil Gear who live near Thermopolis are writers of prehistoric fiction. Michael wrote People of the Wolf (1990), People of the Fire (1991), People of the Earth (1992 ), and People of the River (1992). He and Kathleen coauthored People of the Sea (1993). Kathleen also wrote People of the Silence (1997) and People of the Masks (1998). Thin Moon and Cold Mist (1995) is a novel of fiction which takes place during the Civil War.Marsha Landreth, Sarah Andrews, Gregory Bean,
Margaret Coel, William Deandra, Marne Davis Kellogg, and Ron Franscell are a few writers who have chosen Wyoming as the setting for their novels.Franscell began his writing career as a reporter and is the editor/publisher of The News-Record in Gillette, Wyoming. He recently published two novels. Angel Fire (1998) is set in a fictitious small town and is the story of two brothers who have grown up and gone their separate ways. Circumstances bring them back to their native Wyoming, and the brothers must face their demons. Franscell's latest novel, The Deadline (1999), is a mystery set in fictitious Winchester, Wyoming. Neeley Gilmartin wants the local newspaper owner, Jefferson Morgan, to clear his name of a murder committed nearly fifty years ago. Morgan begins a quest by digging into the town's history to find the killer.
The Shipping News won E. Annie Proulx, born in Vermont but now living in Wyoming, the National Book Award in 1993 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1994. She wrote Accordion Crimes (1997) while in Wyoming and her most recent novel, Close Range: Wyoming Stories (2000), is a series of stories about the hardships of living in Wyoming.
Page Lambert's In Search of Kinship: Modern Pioneering on the Western Landscape (1996) is the story of a family and its ranch. Set in the 1850s Shifting Stars (1997) is the story of a woman searching for her Lakota ancestors. Lambert has also contributed to a variety of books such as Chicken Soup for the Cat and Dog Lover's Soul (1999) Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul: 101 Stories to Open the Hearts and Rekindle the Spirits of Women (1996), Leaning into the Wind: Women Write from the Heart of the West (1997), The Stories That Shape Us: Contemporary Women Write About the West: An Anthology (1995), and Writing Down the River : Into the Heart of the Grand Canyon (1998).Conclusion
Venture into our site and see for yourself the diversity of themes and the lifestyles of our Wyoming writers. You may just discover Wyoming is "Like No Place On Earth." We believe you, too, will find them as interesting and as intriguing as our students found them.
Nathel Coca and Judy Iliff teach at Campbell County High School in Gillette, Wyoming.