Keeping a Campaign Promise – What !

 On a warm early fall day in 1869 Ester Morris of South Pass City Wyoming invited 40 friends to her home to listen to the first two candidates for Wyoming’s new territorial Legislature. Mrs. Morris who just a few weeks prior had listened to Susan B. Anthony and became a strong believer in giving women the right to vote.

Once the party goers were settled to listen to the candidates Mrs. Morris introduced them with the following words. “There are present two opposing candidates for the first legislature of our new territory, one of them which is sure to be elected, and we desire here and now to receive from them a public pledge that whichever one is elected will introduce and work for the passage of an act conferring upon the women of our new territory the right of suffrage.”

Well put on the spot in front of Ester Morris and her guests they made the promise. And Wyoming after much infighting in the new legislature, and some very cruel comments toward women, became the first to allow women suffrage.

Ester Morris went on to be appointed the first women, Justice of the Peace in America.

Wyoming the Leftover State

I remember reading once about Wyoming being a pass-through state. No one stopped, they just passed through. It might also have been the last of the west, everything left over from western expansion and settlement.

Wyoming was not only part of the Louisiana Purchase, a portion was part of Texas at one time and the south west a part of the Mexican Cession. Parts of Wyoming were in Oregon, Washington, Nebraska and Dakota at one time or another. It became so confusing that the famous camp at Fort Laramie was Fort Laramie, Nebraska, Idaho, and Dakota before it was Fort Laramie, Wyoming.

The east was settled, the west was settled, and the south and the upper Midwest settled long before there was a Wyoming. In 1854, travel on the Oregon Trail was heavy but travelers just kept passing through. Much of Wyoming is high desert climate, not suitable for agriculture and people wanting a new life, more often than not, were dependent on agriculture.

It took quite a while but here is how Wyoming became Wyoming.

Ø 1854- Northeast Wyoming belonged to Washington and eastern Wyoming was part of Nebraska

Ø 1861- Colorado territory was formed ending with its northern boundary, it would become Wyoming’s southern boundary

Ø 1861- Nebraska territory was divided and Dakota Territory was formed separated by the continental divide from Washington territory.

Ø 1863- Idaho Territory

Ø 1863- Wyoming Eastern boundary established

Ø Idaho Territory at this time would have been all of the present states of Idaho, Montana and a large part of Wyoming

Ø 1864- Montana Territory created

Ø 1865- Congress sets up a temporary government for the Territory of Wyoming-even though the territory had not yet been created

Ø 1867- Wyoming’s first county was created, Laramie (county seat Fort Sanders) later another county, Carter, was created – all would have been part of Dakota Territory at the time

Ø 1868- Government set up for Lincoln, later changed to Wyoming, this bill also added southwest Wyoming giving the state its four perfect corners.

Ø 1869- Finally – The Territory of Wyoming

Ø 1890- Statehood