A list of important historic sites in Wyoming.
Location: Green River, Sweetwater County
Relevant issues: Western expansion
Statement of significance: This was the embarkation point of Major John Wesley Powell (1834-1902) for his 1871 expedition down the Green and Colorado Rivers and possibly for his 1869 trip as well. On these trips, Major Powell explored the last large land area unknown to European Americans in the mainland United States.
Location: Story, Johnson County
Relevant issues: American Indian history, western expansion
Web site: www.wavecom.net/philkearny/index.html
Statement of significance: Established in 1866 to protect travelers along the Bozeman Trail, the fort was under virtual siege (1866-1868) in the “Red Cloud War” as Sioux groups fought successfully to prevent white invasion of their hunting grounds. This was one of the few times when the Army was forced to abandon a region it had occupied.
Location: Cody, Park County
Relevant issues: American Indian history
Statement of significance: This site has yielded evidence that several distinctive weapons and tools found in the Plains region were all part of a single prehistoric flint tool industry of Early Hunter origin. Initial age estimates place occupation of this site at approximately 5000
Location: Casper, Natrona County
Relevant issues: Western expansion
Statement of significance: This is a well-known natural landmark on the Oregon Trail, 1,900 feet long and 850 feet wide. Numerous travelers painted, carved, or wrote their names on its surface over the years.
Location: Kane, Big Horn County
Relevant issues: American Indian history
Statement of significance: This represents one of the most interesting and mysterious remains of late period aboriginal culture. Its builders and function are unknown. Composed of loose, irregularly shaped, whitish flat stones placed in a circle, it is apparently little modified since its construction (c. 1800); twenty-eight linear spokes, seventy to seventy-five feet in length, radiate from the hub.
Location: Mammoth, Park County
Relevant issues: American Indian history
Statement of significance: Obsidian Cliff occupies a unique position in national prehistory as a singularly important source of lithic materials for prehistoric peoples of interior western North America. It is recognized as an exceptionally well preserved, heavily utilized lithic source that served the utilitarian needs and ceremonial requirements or early indigenous peoples over a large area of North America for twelve thousand years.
Location: Guernsey, Platte County
Relevant issues: Western expansion
Statement of significance: Worn from two to six feet into an eroded sandstone ridge on the south side of the North Platte River, this roadbed gives clear physical evidence of the route followed by those who migrated westward across the Plains in the mid-nineteenth century.
Location: Kemmerer, Lincoln County
Relevant issues: Business and industry
Statement of significance: This district includes the Golden Rule Store and the home of James Cash (J. C.) Penney (1875-1971), who began here, in 1902, the retail chain that still bears his name.
Location: Sheridan, Sheridan County
Relevant issues: Cultural history
Statement of significance: William F. (“Buffalo Bill”) Cody (1846-1917) operated this hotel from 1894 to 1896, catering principally to sportsmen. The frame building has a piazza on two sides.
Location: South Pass City, Fremont County
Relevant issues: Western expansion
Statement of significance: This was the easiest passage through the Rocky Mountains, heavily used by westbound settlers, fur traders, and miners in the nineteenth century. The traffic through the pass helped establish an effective U.S. claim to the Pacific Northwest.
Location: Daniel, Sublette County
Relevant issues: Business and industry, western expansion
Statement of significance: Of the fifteen annual meetings held by mountain men of the Rocky Mountain fur trade from 1825 to 1840, this was the most popular rendezvous site. The annual spring trading fair held here attracted Anglo-American traders and trappers, including Kit Carson and Jim Bridger, and Native Americans.
Location: Cheyenne, Laramie County
Relevant issues: Political history, women’s history
Statement of significance: As a territory, Wyoming was the first major jurisdiction in the United States where women had full suffrage, and in 1889, an all-male group drafted a state constitution that included woman suffrage. When Wyoming Territory applied for statehood in 1890, Congress, after a close vote, passed the Wyoming statehood bill. This building represents that symbolic victory for the woman suffrage movement which commanded national attention.