WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.419 Imagine a massive globe -spanning corporate monopoly 00:00:04.419 --> 00:00:07.759 building entire tech cities from absolute scratch. 00:00:08.060 --> 00:00:09.859 Right, like totally controlling the infrastructure. 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:12.720 Exactly. Imagine them importing this huge foreign 00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:15.519 workforce just to maximize profits, maintaining 00:00:15.519 --> 00:00:18.600 a very strict closed -loop economy, and then, 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:21.239 you know, violently suppressing any small independent 00:00:21.239 --> 00:00:23.260 competitors with hired mercenaries. It sounds 00:00:23.260 --> 00:00:26.399 like a dystopian sci -fi setup. It really does. 00:00:26.640 --> 00:00:28.719 But now put cowboy hats on all of them because 00:00:28.719 --> 00:00:30.820 that is the actual hidden history of Wyoming. 00:00:31.059 --> 00:00:32.880 Yeah. And it's so wild because if you're like 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:36.250 most people, you probably picture. I don't know, 00:00:36.530 --> 00:00:39.250 a solitary cowboy riding across an empty sagebrush 00:00:39.250 --> 00:00:42.130 plain. Right, or maybe a geyser erupting in this 00:00:42.130 --> 00:00:45.689 pristine, untouched wilderness. It's a very specific, 00:00:45.890 --> 00:00:47.990 incredibly ingrained picture that we all have. 00:00:48.229 --> 00:00:50.670 It's the ultimate American frontier myth. I mean, 00:00:50.729 --> 00:00:53.390 we've been sold this idea of wide open spaces, 00:00:54.189 --> 00:00:57.009 rugged individualism, and a landscape that is 00:00:57.009 --> 00:00:59.090 just completely isolated from the complexities 00:00:59.090 --> 00:01:02.030 of the modern industrial world. So today, we 00:01:02.030 --> 00:01:05.129 are taking our sources, which is a really comprehensible 00:01:04.969 --> 00:01:08.489 historical overview of Wyoming, and we are using 00:01:08.489 --> 00:01:11.810 them to look completely past that heavily mythologized 00:01:11.810 --> 00:01:13.969 Wild West. Yeah, the mission of this deep dive 00:01:13.969 --> 00:01:17.769 is to discover how this sparsely populated, seemingly 00:01:17.769 --> 00:01:20.790 isolated region didn't just passively exist. 00:01:20.930 --> 00:01:23.209 No, it dramatically shaped modern America. I 00:01:23.209 --> 00:01:25.750 mean, everything from global electrification 00:01:25.750 --> 00:01:28.689 to women's suffrage. The contrast between the 00:01:28.689 --> 00:01:30.790 myth and the reality we found in these documents 00:01:30.790 --> 00:01:33.549 is just staggering. Like, this isn't just a story 00:01:33.549 --> 00:01:36.370 about cowboys. It is a dense mechanical look 00:01:36.370 --> 00:01:39.590 at resource extraction brutal pragmatism and 00:01:39.590 --> 00:01:41.829 constantly shifting populations Okay, let's unpack 00:01:41.829 --> 00:01:44.310 this because before we even get to the famous 00:01:44.310 --> 00:01:46.930 pioneer trails or the railroad tycoons We have 00:01:46.930 --> 00:01:49.310 to completely shatter the illusion that Wyoming 00:01:49.310 --> 00:01:53.109 was some Untouched isolated wilderness before 00:01:53.109 --> 00:01:55.530 Europeans arrived right the text shows evidence 00:01:55.530 --> 00:01:57.930 of human habitation stretching back roughly 13 00:01:57.930 --> 00:01:59.989 ,000 years 13 ,000 yeah, we're talking about 00:01:59.989 --> 00:02:02.420 the Clovis Folsom and Plano cultures And for 00:02:02.420 --> 00:02:04.739 you listening, when we say Clovis culture, we're 00:02:04.739 --> 00:02:07.640 talking about prehistoric people known for a 00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:10.819 very specific, incredibly sharp stone spear point. 00:02:11.419 --> 00:02:13.740 They were highly specialized big game hunters. 00:02:14.199 --> 00:02:16.919 And to put that 13 ,000 year timeline in perspective, 00:02:17.560 --> 00:02:19.780 that is thousands of years before the pyramids 00:02:19.780 --> 00:02:22.719 in Egypt were even a concept. Oh, wow. Yeah, 00:02:22.719 --> 00:02:25.539 these were highly active, culturally complex 00:02:25.539 --> 00:02:28.139 societies. I mean, the Bighorn Mountains alone 00:02:28.139 --> 00:02:31.039 have artifacts of human occupation dating back 00:02:31.039 --> 00:02:33.960 10 ,000 years. And my absolute favorite detail 00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:36.080 from the sources is actually up in those mountains. 00:02:36.439 --> 00:02:38.479 There is this massive physical structure known 00:02:38.479 --> 00:02:41.159 as the Bighorn Medicine Wheel. Oh, that site 00:02:41.159 --> 00:02:44.139 is incredible. It really is. It features 28 spokes 00:02:44.139 --> 00:02:47.099 made of stone just laid out on the ground. Functionally 00:02:47.099 --> 00:02:49.659 structures like this often served as astronomical 00:02:49.659 --> 00:02:52.180 calendars or you know shared ceremonial markers. 00:02:52.539 --> 00:02:54.520 But what's fascinating here is that its design 00:02:54.520 --> 00:02:57.400 is strikingly similar to the majorville medicine 00:02:57.400 --> 00:03:01.319 whale up in Canada. Right a site dated to 3200 00:03:01.319 --> 00:03:05.740 BCE. That is over 5 ,000 years ago, demonstrating 00:03:05.740 --> 00:03:08.400 the shared cultural and scientific understanding 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:11.419 that spanned massive geographic distances. And 00:03:11.419 --> 00:03:13.439 the physical evidence of that continental connection 00:03:13.439 --> 00:03:16.340 goes even further. The source material highlights 00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:19.080 large ceremonial blades chipped from obsidian 00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:21.900 rock formations. The black volcanic glass. Right. 00:03:22.659 --> 00:03:25.840 Exactly. And those specific formations are located 00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:28.460 in what is now Yellowstone National Park, in 00:03:28.460 --> 00:03:31.400 the far northwest corner of Wyoming. But those 00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:33.659 exact Yellowstone obsidian blades were discovered 00:03:33.659 --> 00:03:36.259 inside the Hopewell burial mounds in southern 00:03:36.259 --> 00:03:39.039 Ohio. Wait, let me stop you there. How does a 00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:41.500 fragile obsidian blade get from Yellowstone to 00:03:41.500 --> 00:03:44.180 Ohio a thousand years ago? I mean, who is carrying 00:03:44.180 --> 00:03:46.719 it? Well... It happens through an intricate relay 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:48.780 style continental trading network. It wasn't 00:03:48.780 --> 00:03:50.379 just one person walking the whole way. Right, 00:03:50.419 --> 00:03:52.000 that would be impossible. Yeah, tribes traded 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:53.759 with neighboring tribes who traded with the next 00:03:53.759 --> 00:03:56.860 group, creating this massive supply chain. Goods, 00:03:56.979 --> 00:03:59.319 technology, culture, it was all moving thousands 00:03:59.319 --> 00:04:01.879 of miles across different nations. So if you 00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:05.280 are listening to this, I really want you to reframe 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:08.189 your mental image of prehistoric Wyoming. It 00:04:08.189 --> 00:04:10.550 was not some isolated outpost at the edge of 00:04:10.550 --> 00:04:13.310 the world. Think of it more like a modern distribution 00:04:13.310 --> 00:04:15.409 hub. Yeah, it was a bustling center of continental 00:04:15.409 --> 00:04:18.689 commerce, which makes it fascinating to see how 00:04:18.689 --> 00:04:22.529 completely early European explorers misunderstood 00:04:22.529 --> 00:04:24.949 the region when they finally showed up in the 00:04:24.949 --> 00:04:27.769 early 19th century. They had absolutely no framework 00:04:27.769 --> 00:04:29.610 for what they were seeing, did they? None at 00:04:29.610 --> 00:04:31.980 all. I mean, John Coulter was likely the first 00:04:31.980 --> 00:04:35.100 American to enter the region in 1807 after leaving 00:04:35.100 --> 00:04:37.579 the Lewis and Clark expedition. He sees the thermal 00:04:37.579 --> 00:04:39.519 activity in the Yellowstone area, the boiling 00:04:39.519 --> 00:04:42.259 mud pots, the shooting geysers, and he dutifully 00:04:42.259 --> 00:04:44.639 reports back to the East Coast. And the East 00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:46.639 Coast establishment basically laughs him out 00:04:46.639 --> 00:04:49.339 of the room. Totally. They dismissed his factual 00:04:49.339 --> 00:04:52.100 firsthand accounts as fictional tall tales. He 00:04:52.100 --> 00:04:54.399 was openly mocked. And the exact same thing happened 00:04:54.399 --> 00:04:56.899 decades later, right, in the 1850s to Jim Bridger. 00:04:57.129 --> 00:05:00.209 Exactly. He explored the Yellowstone region, 00:05:00.649 --> 00:05:02.910 reported the geological reality of what he saw, 00:05:03.370 --> 00:05:05.430 and the establishment simply refused to believe 00:05:05.430 --> 00:05:08.589 him. The physical reality of Wyoming was literally 00:05:08.589 --> 00:05:11.269 too fantastic for the Eastern elite to comprehend. 00:05:11.629 --> 00:05:14.629 Those tall tales eventually proved true, of course, 00:05:15.110 --> 00:05:17.769 but what is striking about those early 19th century 00:05:17.769 --> 00:05:19.730 European arrivals is that they weren't actually 00:05:19.730 --> 00:05:22.250 looking to stay in Wyoming. No, they were just 00:05:22.250 --> 00:05:25.509 passing through or extracting resources. During 00:05:25.509 --> 00:05:28.209 the mountain man era, fur trappers flocked there 00:05:28.209 --> 00:05:30.990 for beaver pelts, holding these annual rendezvous 00:05:30.990 --> 00:05:34.160 starting in 1824. And Oranibu was essentially 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:36.500 an early pop -up trade city in the wilderness, 00:05:36.699 --> 00:05:39.040 right? Where trappers, Native Americans, and 00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:41.439 fur companies would meet for a few weeks to trade, 00:05:41.560 --> 00:05:44.379 drink, and resupply before just vanishing back 00:05:44.379 --> 00:05:47.620 into the mountains. Exactly. But by the 1840s, 00:05:47.819 --> 00:05:50.699 the fur trade was dying out and Wyoming primarily 00:05:50.699 --> 00:05:53.120 became an obstacle. It was just a massive expanse 00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:54.860 of land you had to survive walking through to 00:05:54.860 --> 00:05:56.980 get somewhere else. And that need to pass through 00:05:56.980 --> 00:05:59.639 triggered massive geopolitical consequences. 00:05:59.939 --> 00:06:02.399 This is the era of the Great Migration. trails. 00:06:02.779 --> 00:06:05.420 Right. The route that became the Oregon Trail 00:06:05.420 --> 00:06:08.220 was already in regular use by traders in the 00:06:08.220 --> 00:06:11.899 early 1830s. It snaked right across Wyoming, 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:14.860 following the North Platte River, crossing the 00:06:14.860 --> 00:06:17.379 Continental Divide at a critical geographic bottleneck 00:06:17.379 --> 00:06:20.100 called South Pass, and exiting the western side. 00:06:20.339 --> 00:06:24.040 Then in 1847, the Mormon emigrants blazed the 00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:26.720 Mormon Trail, which kind of mirrored the Oregon 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:29.180 Trail, but split off at that same South Pass 00:06:29.180 --> 00:06:31.829 to head south toward Utah. And the numbers are 00:06:31.829 --> 00:06:34.209 just staggering. The text notes that between 00:06:34.209 --> 00:06:39.149 1840 and 1859, over 350 ,000 immigrants follow 00:06:39.149 --> 00:06:42.050 these trails. I need you, the listener, to visualize 00:06:42.050 --> 00:06:45.350 the sheer logistical nightmare of this. Imagine 00:06:45.350 --> 00:06:48.029 the population of a mid -sized modern city, say, 00:06:48.129 --> 00:06:50.470 New Orleans, deciding to pack their entire lives 00:06:50.470 --> 00:06:53.329 into heavy wooden carts and walk single file 00:06:53.329 --> 00:06:55.629 through a semi -arid desert. Yeah, it's mind 00:06:55.629 --> 00:06:57.009 -boggling. You wouldn't just have a difficult 00:06:57.009 --> 00:06:58.790 journey. You'd have the world's longest, most 00:06:58.790 --> 00:07:02.540 destructive traffic jam. 350 ,000 people, along 00:07:02.540 --> 00:07:05.180 with their horses, oxen, and cattle, are all 00:07:05.180 --> 00:07:07.720 walking through a very narrow, fragile ecosystem. 00:07:07.779 --> 00:07:09.699 Oh, the environmental impact was brutal. They 00:07:09.699 --> 00:07:12.120 are stripping the land of every blade of grass, 00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:14.980 polluting the scarce water sources, and cutting 00:07:14.980 --> 00:07:17.439 down all the available timber for miles in every 00:07:17.439 --> 00:07:20.060 direction. It was a devastating environmental 00:07:20.060 --> 00:07:22.800 shock. And it fundamentally upended the survival 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:25.040 mechanics for the Native American tribes who 00:07:25.040 --> 00:07:28.139 called that region home, the Arapaho, Cheyenne, 00:07:28.420 --> 00:07:31.250 Sioux, Shoshone. Crow and many others. Because 00:07:31.250 --> 00:07:33.389 their resources were being obliterated by people 00:07:33.389 --> 00:07:35.550 who were just passing through. Right. And to 00:07:35.550 --> 00:07:38.129 protect these massive wagon trains from the inevitable 00:07:38.129 --> 00:07:41.569 pushback, the U .S. military increased its presence 00:07:41.569 --> 00:07:44.629 and established fortified posts like Fort Laramie. 00:07:44.990 --> 00:07:47.649 That military presence leads to the treaties, 00:07:48.209 --> 00:07:50.430 specifically the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. 00:07:51.110 --> 00:07:52.870 The government essentially tried to map out the 00:07:52.870 --> 00:07:55.430 plains, guaranteeing certain lands to specific 00:07:55.430 --> 00:07:58.269 tribes in exchange for safe passage for the settlers. 00:07:58.750 --> 00:08:01.250 But there is an incredibly bleak... recurring 00:08:01.250 --> 00:08:03.370 historical theme in this text. Yeah, the promise 00:08:03.370 --> 00:08:06.230 of gold always instantly vaporizes peace treaties. 00:08:06.550 --> 00:08:08.569 Always. And we see the mechanics of that play 00:08:08.569 --> 00:08:11.110 out perfectly here. The 1850s were relatively 00:08:11.110 --> 00:08:14.569 quiet under the treaty, but in 1859, gold is 00:08:14.569 --> 00:08:17.269 discovered in Montana. And suddenly, a new wave 00:08:17.269 --> 00:08:19.790 of prospectors wants the fastest possible route 00:08:19.790 --> 00:08:23.100 north. Exactly. That meant blazing the Bozeman 00:08:23.100 --> 00:08:25.839 Trail directly through the Powder River country. 00:08:26.100 --> 00:08:28.839 Which were the exact prime hunting grounds the 00:08:28.839 --> 00:08:30.800 United States had explicitly promised to the 00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:34.000 tribes in that 1851 treaty. The influx of gold 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:36.440 seekers completely ignored the legal boundaries. 00:08:37.139 --> 00:08:39.639 This encroachment forced the tribes to defend 00:08:39.639 --> 00:08:42.120 their recognized territory, leading to severe 00:08:42.120 --> 00:08:44.379 clashes. Like the first Powder River expedition 00:08:44.379 --> 00:08:47.419 in 1865, right? Yes. Ordered by Major General 00:08:47.419 --> 00:08:50.710 Grenville M. Dodge. It ended in a battle against 00:08:50.710 --> 00:08:54.070 the Arapaho and directly escalated into Red Clouds 00:08:54.070 --> 00:08:56.629 War, which was the first major military conflict 00:08:56.629 --> 00:08:58.870 between the U .S. and Wyoming Indian tribes. 00:08:59.190 --> 00:09:00.950 And the text points out that the U .S. actually 00:09:00.950 --> 00:09:03.529 conceded that conflict. The Second Treaty of 00:09:03.529 --> 00:09:06.889 Fort Laramie in 1868 ended Red Clouds War by 00:09:06.889 --> 00:09:09.110 agreeing to abandon the forts along the Bozeman 00:09:09.110 --> 00:09:11.509 Trail and closing the Powder River Country to 00:09:11.509 --> 00:09:14.570 whites. But again, gold changes the math. Less 00:09:14.570 --> 00:09:17.250 than a decade later, miners blatantly violated 00:09:17.250 --> 00:09:19.250 that second treaty by pushing into the Black 00:09:19.250 --> 00:09:21.549 Hills looking for gold, which ignited the Black 00:09:21.549 --> 00:09:24.490 Hills War in 1876. So the wagon trails and the 00:09:24.490 --> 00:09:26.929 gold rushes paved the way for massive disruption, 00:09:27.169 --> 00:09:29.470 but they were ultimately temporary. People were 00:09:29.470 --> 00:09:32.210 still mostly moving through. Right. What changed 00:09:32.210 --> 00:09:34.690 the permanent trajectory of Wyoming was the arrival 00:09:34.690 --> 00:09:38.490 of an industrial juggernaut. The Iron Horse, 00:09:39.350 --> 00:09:43.230 the Union Pacific Railroad. This completely transformed 00:09:43.230 --> 00:09:46.190 Wyoming from a seasonal transit route into what 00:09:46.190 --> 00:09:49.129 was essentially a massive corporate company town. 00:09:49.509 --> 00:09:51.750 Yeah, Wyoming actually became a formal U .S. 00:09:52.029 --> 00:09:55.149 territory in 1868 directly because the railroad 00:09:55.149 --> 00:09:58.129 needed a legal framework to operate within as 00:09:58.129 --> 00:10:00.690 it laid tracks westward. And the way this railroad 00:10:00.690 --> 00:10:03.509 was funded is wild. It wasn't just a few wealthy 00:10:03.509 --> 00:10:06.500 guys buying steel. Far from it. The Union Pacific 00:10:06.500 --> 00:10:08.960 Railroad companies were funded by massive federal 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:11.539 land grants. The government gave the railroad 00:10:11.539 --> 00:10:13.759 alternating sections of land along the tracks. 00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:15.960 And then the railroad used the promise of those 00:10:15.960 --> 00:10:18.720 future land sales as collateral, right, to back 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:21.360 huge borrowings from major financial centers 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:23.620 in New York and London. Exactly. They were a 00:10:23.620 --> 00:10:25.779 global financial monopoly operating in the middle 00:10:25.779 --> 00:10:28.240 of the plains. Let's dig into how that business 00:10:28.240 --> 00:10:30.600 model actually worked, because it reminds me 00:10:30.600 --> 00:10:33.379 of a modern mega corporation building its own 00:10:33.379 --> 00:10:36.659 closed loop tech city. To pay off those massive 00:10:36.659 --> 00:10:39.480 London and New York bonds, the railroad needed 00:10:39.480 --> 00:10:42.059 to sell that granted land to settlers as quickly 00:10:42.059 --> 00:10:44.360 as possible. Right, because those new settlers 00:10:44.360 --> 00:10:46.679 would farm and raise cattle, which they would 00:10:46.679 --> 00:10:48.960 have to ship out on the company's trains. And 00:10:48.960 --> 00:10:51.340 those same settlers would use the company's trains 00:10:51.340 --> 00:10:54.240 to bring in their manufactured goods. The Union 00:10:54.240 --> 00:10:56.399 Pacific didn't just build the tracks, they actively 00:10:56.399 --> 00:11:00.580 built the towns. Cheyenne, Laramie, Evanston, 00:11:00.860 --> 00:11:03.299 Rock Springs. These places were constructed from 00:11:03.299 --> 00:11:06.139 the dirt, up to service the railroad. They built 00:11:06.139 --> 00:11:08.899 the dining halls for passengers, the repair shops, 00:11:09.340 --> 00:11:11.740 the housing for the train crews. They engineered 00:11:11.740 --> 00:11:14.399 the entire local economy just to keep their own 00:11:14.399 --> 00:11:16.720 operations profitable. This raises an important 00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:19.139 question about how corporate monopolies influence 00:11:19.139 --> 00:11:21.919 demographics and social stability. A railroad 00:11:21.919 --> 00:11:24.860 requires a massive constant labor force to build 00:11:24.860 --> 00:11:27.799 and maintain. And that need for labor drove incredibly 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:31.799 rapid demographic diversity. Yes. By 1870, roughly 00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:34.240 three eighths of Wyoming's total population was 00:11:34.240 --> 00:11:37.019 foreign born. Almost 40 percent. The text notes 00:11:37.019 --> 00:11:39.360 they were mostly coming from Ireland, Germany 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:42.000 and England. But laying track was only half the 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:44.700 equation. The railroad had an insatiable need 00:11:44.700 --> 00:11:47.809 for fuel, which meant they needed coal. And huge 00:11:47.809 --> 00:11:50.350 quantities of coal were discovered in the southwestern 00:11:50.350 --> 00:11:52.450 part of the territory, especially around Rock 00:11:52.450 --> 00:11:55.029 Springs. So the Union Pacific simply set up their 00:11:55.029 --> 00:11:57.549 own subsidiary coal companies to mine it. When 00:11:57.549 --> 00:12:00.330 a single corporate entity controls the jobs, 00:12:00.529 --> 00:12:03.610 the housing, the land, and the resources, the 00:12:03.610 --> 00:12:06.629 power imbalance is staggering. It creates a pressure 00:12:06.629 --> 00:12:10.220 cooker. And it inevitably boils over. The sources 00:12:10.220 --> 00:12:12.559 document a very dark outcome of this monopoly 00:12:12.559 --> 00:12:15.940 control in 1885, known as the Rock Springs Massacre. 00:12:16.100 --> 00:12:18.620 Oh, this part was rough to read. It was. The 00:12:18.620 --> 00:12:20.740 Union Pacific Coal Company had hired Chinese 00:12:20.740 --> 00:12:23.639 miners often to bypass strikes or lower labor 00:12:23.639 --> 00:12:27.080 costs. This pitted desperate groups of laborers 00:12:27.080 --> 00:12:28.980 against each other. And the white miners violently 00:12:28.980 --> 00:12:31.179 rioted, murdering and driving out the Chinese 00:12:31.179 --> 00:12:33.279 miners in what became one of the largest race 00:12:33.279 --> 00:12:36.559 riots in U .S. history. Right. When resources 00:12:36.559 --> 00:12:39.019 and survival are completely controlled by a monopoly, 00:12:39.700 --> 00:12:42.639 it historically fuels devastating class and racial 00:12:42.639 --> 00:12:44.860 violence. So you have the railroad maintaining 00:12:44.860 --> 00:12:47.500 an iron grip on the southern transit lines and 00:12:47.500 --> 00:12:50.190 the coal fields. But while they were doing that, 00:12:50.730 --> 00:12:52.909 a totally different kind of corporate power took 00:12:52.909 --> 00:12:55.009 over the open plains to the north. The cattle 00:12:55.009 --> 00:12:57.929 syndicates. Yeah. The cattle industry in Wyoming 00:12:57.929 --> 00:13:00.409 has a fascinating origin. It actually started 00:13:00.409 --> 00:13:04.590 with a massive, incredibly risky drive. In 1866, 00:13:04.830 --> 00:13:07.190 a man named Nelson Story Senior drove roughly 00:13:07.190 --> 00:13:10.730 a thousand head of Texas Longhorns all the way 00:13:10.730 --> 00:13:13.009 up the Bozeman Trail straight through Wyoming 00:13:13.009 --> 00:13:16.100 to get to Montana. Wait, pause. He walked a thousand 00:13:16.100 --> 00:13:18.220 cows from Texas to Montana. How long does that 00:13:18.220 --> 00:13:20.700 even take? Months. And more importantly, how 00:13:20.700 --> 00:13:22.940 many people do you need to guard a thousand cows 00:13:22.940 --> 00:13:25.820 from outlaws, predators, and the Native American 00:13:25.820 --> 00:13:27.940 tribes who are actively defending that exact 00:13:27.940 --> 00:13:31.720 territory? It was a massive, heavily armed, logistical 00:13:31.720 --> 00:13:33.919 undertaking. They had to fight their way through. 00:13:34.519 --> 00:13:37.100 But that rugged individualistic model didn't 00:13:37.100 --> 00:13:39.659 last long. Because the massive profits attracted 00:13:39.659 --> 00:13:41.940 wealthy investors from the East Coast and Europe. 00:13:42.059 --> 00:13:44.759 Right. They formed syndicates, essentially groups 00:13:44.759 --> 00:13:47.659 of wealthy investors pooling their money to monopolize 00:13:47.659 --> 00:13:51.100 an industry and act like a cartel. The text specifically 00:13:51.100 --> 00:13:53.720 mentions the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, 00:13:54.080 --> 00:13:57.620 created in 1873. They started out claiming they 00:13:57.620 --> 00:13:59.820 just wanted to standardize the industry, but 00:13:59.820 --> 00:14:02.899 they grew so wealthy and powerful that they wielded 00:14:02.899 --> 00:14:05.159 massive political influence across the entire 00:14:05.159 --> 00:14:08.429 western United States. The text literally refers 00:14:08.429 --> 00:14:12.090 to this cattle syndicate as the de facto territorial 00:14:12.090 --> 00:14:15.409 government of Wyoming. That's insane. And their 00:14:15.409 --> 00:14:18.870 absolute control set the stage for the 1892 Johnson 00:14:18.870 --> 00:14:21.779 County War. also known as the War on Powder River. 00:14:21.940 --> 00:14:23.820 And the mechanism of this conflict is crucial 00:14:23.820 --> 00:14:26.379 to understand. Most of the land in Wyoming at 00:14:26.379 --> 00:14:28.379 the time was public domain, technically open 00:14:28.379 --> 00:14:30.759 for any citizen to homestead and graze their 00:14:30.759 --> 00:14:33.259 animals. But as individuals, smaller ranchers 00:14:33.259 --> 00:14:35.419 and farmers began moving in. They started fencing 00:14:35.419 --> 00:14:37.779 off water sources and claiming land. Which put 00:14:37.779 --> 00:14:40.100 them directly at odds with the massive cattle 00:14:40.100 --> 00:14:42.259 syndicates who felt they owned the open range 00:14:42.259 --> 00:14:44.919 by right of prior use. And this wasn't a dispute 00:14:44.919 --> 00:14:47.220 settled with lawyers in a civilized courtroom. 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:50.100 It was flat out class warfare. Yeah, you had 00:14:50.100 --> 00:14:53.299 these wealthy syndicate cattlemen actively hiring 00:14:53.299 --> 00:14:56.299 a band of mercenaries from Texas to travel to 00:14:56.299 --> 00:14:59.039 Wyoming and assassinate the small settling ranchers. 00:14:59.120 --> 00:15:01.860 They branded them as wrestlers. Exactly. It culminated 00:15:01.860 --> 00:15:04.600 in a massive lengthy shootout involving the local 00:15:04.600 --> 00:15:07.159 homesteaders, the hired guns and a sheriff's 00:15:07.159 --> 00:15:10.059 posse. The violence got so out of control that 00:15:10.059 --> 00:15:12.320 President Benjamin Harrison actually had to order 00:15:12.320 --> 00:15:14.559 the United States cavalry to march in and stop 00:15:14.559 --> 00:15:17.600 it. The Johnson County War is arguably the most 00:15:17.600 --> 00:15:20.490 important of for understanding the cultural legacy 00:15:20.490 --> 00:15:23.230 of the state. I mean, it was fundamentally a 00:15:23.230 --> 00:15:26.090 brutal economic dispute over land and water rights 00:15:26.090 --> 00:15:28.710 between wealthy monopolies and working -class 00:15:28.710 --> 00:15:31.450 homesteaders. But it was aggressively repackaged. 00:15:31.710 --> 00:15:34.250 The irony here for you as the listener is incredible. 00:15:34.409 --> 00:15:37.830 We idolized the solitary, independent, rule -breaking 00:15:37.830 --> 00:15:40.649 cowboy fighting for freedom. Right. But the source 00:15:40.649 --> 00:15:42.590 text reviews that the territory was actually 00:15:42.590 --> 00:15:44.990 run by organized corporate cattle syndicates 00:15:44.990 --> 00:15:47.350 who were using hired guns to crush the independent 00:15:47.350 --> 00:15:51.370 guys. and popular novels, early films, and television 00:15:51.370 --> 00:15:54.710 shows took that messy corporate class warfare 00:15:54.710 --> 00:15:58.850 and sanitized it. They turned it into the symbolic 00:15:58.850 --> 00:16:01.690 Wild West narrative we consume today, complete 00:16:01.690 --> 00:16:04.129 with honorable gunslingers and... clear -cut 00:16:04.129 --> 00:16:07.470 heroes. And when you have massive corporate syndicates 00:16:07.470 --> 00:16:09.649 violently hoarding the land and the railroads 00:16:09.649 --> 00:16:12.789 controlling the towns, it creates a massive underclass 00:16:12.789 --> 00:16:15.730 of disenfranchised people. Yeah. And historically, 00:16:15.909 --> 00:16:17.870 what happens when young men are locked out of 00:16:17.870 --> 00:16:20.409 the legal economy? They turn to the illegal one, 00:16:20.649 --> 00:16:23.509 enter the outlaw. The text mentions that notorious 00:16:23.509 --> 00:16:25.629 figures like Butch Cassidy and Harry Longaball, 00:16:25.629 --> 00:16:27.889 the Sundance kid, both started their careers 00:16:27.889 --> 00:16:30.409 and spent time incarcerated in Wyoming as young 00:16:30.409 --> 00:16:32.909 men. There was a remote area in Johnson County 00:16:32.909 --> 00:16:35.190 called the Hole in the Wall, right? Which was 00:16:35.190 --> 00:16:37.429 a naturally fortified canyon that served as a 00:16:37.429 --> 00:16:39.409 well -known hideout for outlaw gangs from the 00:16:39.409 --> 00:16:42.129 1860s through the early 20th century. So we have 00:16:42.129 --> 00:16:44.649 a territory dominated by corporate railroads, 00:16:45.129 --> 00:16:48.450 powerful cattle cartels, hired assassins, and 00:16:48.450 --> 00:16:51.149 literal outlaw gangs hiding in canyons. It is 00:16:51.149 --> 00:16:53.809 a harsh, rugged, violently contested place. It 00:16:53.809 --> 00:16:56.289 really is. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:16:56.470 --> 00:16:58.639 though. Because despite all of that violence 00:16:58.639 --> 00:17:01.200 and corporate control, or maybe because of it, 00:17:01.759 --> 00:17:04.779 this rugged territory inexplicably became the 00:17:04.779 --> 00:17:07.599 world's leading laboratory for progressive rights 00:17:07.599 --> 00:17:10.019 and environmental conservation. Yeah, the pivot 00:17:10.019 --> 00:17:12.319 is pretty jarring. But before we even get to 00:17:12.319 --> 00:17:14.619 the laws, we have to look at the name of the 00:17:14.619 --> 00:17:17.460 state itself. The name Wyoming isn't even native 00:17:17.460 --> 00:17:20.299 to the region. No, it was introduced to Congress 00:17:20.299 --> 00:17:23.019 by a representative from Ohio who just needed 00:17:23.019 --> 00:17:25.299 a temporary name for the new government territory. 00:17:25.500 --> 00:17:28.160 It is actually derived from a Delaware Native 00:17:28.160 --> 00:17:30.940 American word, specifically the Munsee language, 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:34.970 meaning at the big river flat. But it originally 00:17:34.970 --> 00:17:37.089 applied to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. 00:17:37.309 --> 00:17:40.390 Wait, really? Pennsylvania? Yes. It was popularized 00:17:40.390 --> 00:17:43.549 by an 1809 poem by a Scottish poet named Thomas 00:17:43.549 --> 00:17:46.609 Campbell called Gertrude of Wyoming. They literally 00:17:46.609 --> 00:17:49.710 imported a name from a poem about Pennsylvania 00:17:49.710 --> 00:17:53.230 to brand this violent new Western territory. 00:17:53.289 --> 00:17:55.470 That's hilarious. But once they had their territory 00:17:55.470 --> 00:17:58.069 officially named in 1868, they started making 00:17:58.069 --> 00:18:00.960 global history almost immediately. Right. On 00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:04.240 December 10th, 1869, the Wyoming Territory became 00:18:04.240 --> 00:18:07.359 the first future U .S. state to grant women the 00:18:07.359 --> 00:18:13.180 right to vote. 50 years before the 19th Amendment 00:18:13.180 --> 00:18:15.259 granted national suffrage. And it wasn't just 00:18:15.259 --> 00:18:18.380 a symbolic gesture on paper. It started a massive 00:18:18.380 --> 00:18:21.460 cascade of practical firsts. The very next year, 00:18:21.640 --> 00:18:25.019 1870, Wyoming had the first female court bailiff, 00:18:25.259 --> 00:18:27.759 Mary Atkinson, and the first time women served 00:18:27.759 --> 00:18:30.519 on a jury, both happening in Laramie. And that 00:18:30.519 --> 00:18:33.220 same year, Esther Hobart Morris became the country's 00:18:33.220 --> 00:18:35.200 first female justice of the peace in South Pass 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:37.460 City. Decades later, Wyoming proved it wasn't 00:18:37.460 --> 00:18:39.579 a fluke by becoming the first state in the union 00:18:39.579 --> 00:18:42.140 to elect a female governor, Nellie Taylor Ross, 00:18:42.240 --> 00:18:45.240 who took office in 1924. Alongside this incredible 00:18:45.240 --> 00:18:47.700 social progress, they were pioneering environmental 00:18:47.700 --> 00:18:49.880 preservation. Remember those tall tales from 00:18:49.880 --> 00:18:52.500 Colcher and Bridger about the boiling mud and 00:18:52.500 --> 00:18:54.539 geysers in Yellowstone that the East Coast laughed 00:18:54.539 --> 00:18:56.200 at? Right, the ones everyone thought were fake. 00:18:56.680 --> 00:18:59.160 Well, in 1871, Ferdinand Van Vier Hayton led 00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:01.559 a formal, scientifically rigorous geological 00:19:01.559 --> 00:19:03.779 survey that finally confirmed the stories with 00:19:03.779 --> 00:19:06.500 photographs and paintings. And the very next 00:19:06.500 --> 00:19:10.039 year, 1872, Congress was convinced to set aside 00:19:10.039 --> 00:19:12.940 the region, creating Yellowstone as the world's 00:19:12.940 --> 00:19:15.539 first national park. Conservation milestones 00:19:15.539 --> 00:19:18.299 just kept coming. Wyoming became home to the 00:19:18.299 --> 00:19:20.779 nation's first national monument, Devil's Tower, 00:19:21.380 --> 00:19:24.539 created in 1906 by Theodore Roosevelt, and the 00:19:24.539 --> 00:19:27.339 very first national forest, the Shoshone National 00:19:27.339 --> 00:19:30.680 Forest, established in 1891. They even took a 00:19:30.680 --> 00:19:33.059 radically progressive approach to basic natural 00:19:33.059 --> 00:19:36.180 resources. When they adopted their state constitution 00:19:36.180 --> 00:19:38.940 upon achieving statehood on July 10th, 1890, 00:19:39.380 --> 00:19:41.740 it included an article that uniquely claimed 00:19:41.740 --> 00:19:44.319 all water in Wyoming as the property of the state. 00:19:44.500 --> 00:19:46.519 Which is fascinating. If you're a modern listener, 00:19:46.700 --> 00:19:48.859 especially if you lean politically right, hearing 00:19:48.859 --> 00:19:51.240 that a rugged, individualistic western state 00:19:51.240 --> 00:19:53.859 essentially socialized its entire water supply 00:19:53.859 --> 00:19:56.200 sounds completely backwards. If we connect this 00:19:56.200 --> 00:19:58.539 to the bigger picture, it sounds backwards until 00:19:58.539 --> 00:20:00.490 you look at the the underlying mechanism driving 00:20:00.490 --> 00:20:02.029 all of these decisions. Because none of this 00:20:02.029 --> 00:20:04.190 progressive legislation was an accident, right? 00:20:04.509 --> 00:20:06.809 No. And it wasn't necessarily born out of high 00:20:06.809 --> 00:20:09.769 -minded utopian ideals. The territory had one 00:20:09.769 --> 00:20:13.869 massive existential obstacle, a very low population. 00:20:14.109 --> 00:20:17.369 Unlike Colorado to the south, Wyoming never experienced 00:20:17.369 --> 00:20:21.069 a massive sustained population boom from a permanent 00:20:21.069 --> 00:20:23.910 gold or silver rush. Exactly. And to achieve 00:20:23.910 --> 00:20:25.910 statehood and gain political power in Washington, 00:20:26.410 --> 00:20:28.650 you need a minimum number of citizens. So how 00:20:28.650 --> 00:20:31.430 does granting women the right to vote solve that 00:20:31.430 --> 00:20:34.460 problem? Because female suffrage specifically 00:20:34.460 --> 00:20:37.480 attracts families. It signals safety, legal standing, 00:20:37.740 --> 00:20:40.519 and civilization to women in the East. It shifts 00:20:40.519 --> 00:20:43.660 the demographic away from transient single male 00:20:43.660 --> 00:20:46.619 miners and cowboys toward permanent, reproducing 00:20:46.619 --> 00:20:49.599 communities. Achieving statehood required radical 00:20:49.599 --> 00:20:52.779 pragmatism. Exactly. Socializing water rights 00:20:52.779 --> 00:20:55.079 in an arid desert is the same thing. In that 00:20:55.079 --> 00:20:57.119 environment, water isn't a commodity you can 00:20:57.119 --> 00:20:59.220 let a monopoly hoard its life and death for the 00:20:59.220 --> 00:21:01.710 entire economy. These were brilliant practical 00:21:01.710 --> 00:21:04.529 survival strategies designed to attract and sustain 00:21:04.529 --> 00:21:07.109 settlers in an incredibly unforgiving environment. 00:21:07.259 --> 00:21:10.359 That completely reframes how you view the state's 00:21:10.359 --> 00:21:12.339 progressivism. It wasn't just idealism, it was 00:21:12.339 --> 00:21:15.119 pure survival. And as we pull back and look at 00:21:15.119 --> 00:21:18.079 the entire sweep of this deep dive, the contrast 00:21:18.079 --> 00:21:20.000 between the beginning of the timeline and the 00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:22.980 end is just staggering. We started this journey 00:21:22.980 --> 00:21:25.819 looking at ancient inhabitants trading ceremonial 00:21:25.819 --> 00:21:29.039 obsidian blades thousands of miles across a prehistoric 00:21:29.039 --> 00:21:32.519 continent. And by the late 1800s and early 1900s, 00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:36.039 Wyoming's Ferris Haggerty mine in Carbon County 00:21:36.039 --> 00:21:38.190 was supplied the copper that would literally 00:21:38.190 --> 00:21:40.720 wire and electrify the modern world. They went 00:21:40.720 --> 00:21:43.900 from stone tools to global electrification on 00:21:43.900 --> 00:21:46.980 the exact same footprint of land. It is an incredible 00:21:46.980 --> 00:21:49.920 arc of resource extraction, human adaptation, 00:21:50.059 --> 00:21:52.839 and global connection. But there is one final 00:21:52.839 --> 00:21:55.099 piece of this source text that really demands 00:21:55.099 --> 00:21:57.700 attention, and it has to do with how we, in the 00:21:57.700 --> 00:22:00.140 modern day, remember all of this history we just 00:22:00.140 --> 00:22:02.500 discussed. Oh, the curation of the historical 00:22:02.500 --> 00:22:05.759 memory. Yes. The text details how, after achieving 00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:09.119 statehood in 1890, the state actively began curating 00:22:09.119 --> 00:22:11.940 a nostalgia story of itself. They leaned heavily 00:22:11.940 --> 00:22:13.799 into the frontier West myth we talked about at 00:22:13.799 --> 00:22:16.180 the beginning. Pageants parades and school courses 00:22:16.180 --> 00:22:18.940 pushed this specific, sanitized narrative of 00:22:18.940 --> 00:22:21.420 the solitary cowboy. But it goes much deeper 00:22:21.420 --> 00:22:25.920 than local parades. In the 1940s, a Wyoming millionaire 00:22:25.920 --> 00:22:29.519 named William R. Coe made incredibly large financial 00:22:29.519 --> 00:22:31.960 contributions to the American Studies programs 00:22:31.960 --> 00:22:34.859 at Yale University and at the University of Wyoming. 00:22:35.140 --> 00:22:37.400 And he didn't fund those academic programs just 00:22:37.400 --> 00:22:39.839 because he was a fan of objective history. Not 00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:43.240 at all. The text states his explicit motivation. 00:22:43.480 --> 00:22:45.859 He wished to celebrate the specific values of 00:22:45.859 --> 00:22:48.740 the Western United States to directly meet the 00:22:48.740 --> 00:22:51.799 ideological threat of communism. The Wild West 00:22:51.799 --> 00:22:54.700 narrative that rugged individualism, the solitary 00:22:54.700 --> 00:22:58.079 hero taming the frontier, was literally financially 00:22:58.079 --> 00:23:00.559 weaponized as a cultural defense mechanism during 00:23:00.559 --> 00:23:03.079 the Cold War. The history was funded to serve 00:23:03.079 --> 00:23:05.480 a modern political purpose. Which leaves you 00:23:05.480 --> 00:23:08.099 with a pretty profound question to mull over 00:23:08.099 --> 00:23:10.180 long after you finished listening to this deep 00:23:10.180 --> 00:23:12.460 dive. The next time you picture that solitary 00:23:12.460 --> 00:23:15.039 cowboy riding across the sagebrush or you watch 00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:17.160 a movie about the frontier, well how much of 00:23:17.160 --> 00:23:19.500 the history you know is just an organic recounting 00:23:19.500 --> 00:23:21.539 of facts and how much of it is a deliberately 00:23:21.539 --> 00:23:23.539 funded narrative designed to shape your modern 00:23:23.539 --> 00:23:24.059 politics?