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Pronghorn
antelope all but outnumber people in
wide-open WYOMING, the ninth
largest but least populous state in the
union, with just 460,000 residents. Above
all, this is classic cowboy country
– the inspiration behind Shane, The
Virginian and countless other Western
novels – where the days of the open range
are evoked by rodeos, country-and-western
dance halls and ranch wear stores. The
state emblem, seen everywhere, is a
hat-waving cowboy astride a bucking
bronco.
Northern Wyoming
is the prime tourist goal, with close to
three million per year heading for the
simmering geothermal landscape of
Yellowstone National Park, and the
craggy mountain vistas of the adjacent,
and equally outstanding, Grand Teton
National Park. Wedged in between
Yellowstone and South Dakota to the east
are the helter-skelter Bighorn
Mountains, likeable Old West towns
such as Buffalo, and the
otherworldly outcrop of Devils Tower.
The
meager supply of buffalo in early Wyoming
caused fierce intertribal wars over
hunting grounds and kept the Native
American population down to around
10,000. However, Sioux, Cheyenne and
Blackfoot combined to inflict notable
defeats on the US Army before it could
clear the way for pioneer settlement in
the 1870s. The cattle ranchers and
sheep-farming homesteaders who followed
engaged in violent range wars over
grazing rights to the wiry grasslands.
Unlikely
as it may seem, this rowdy, heavily
male-dominated state was the first to
grant women the vote in 1869 – a full
half-century before the rest of the
country, on the grounds that the
enfranchisement of women would attract
settlers and hasten statehood, which
depended upon population. A year later
Wyoming appointed the country’s first
women jurors, and the “Equality State”
elected the first female US governor in
1924.
The
absence of rivers to irrigate farmland has
effectively put a lid on agricultural and
population growth. These days, any
weather-beaten, denim-clad stranger is
more likely to be an oil roustabout than a
genuine cowboy, fuel and mineral
extraction having replaced livestock as
the mainstay of the economy in the early
part of the twentieth century.
Click here to go to Wyoming
State web site |
