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Wyoming Biographies
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James Bridger
(March 1804 – July 17,
1881)
Trapper, guide and
storyteller.
James or Jim Bridger was among the foremost mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820-1840. He was also well known as a teller of tall tales.
Jim Bridger had a strong constitution that allowed him to survive the extreme conditions he encountered walking the Rocky Mountains from what would become southern Colorado to the Canadian border he had also once said. He had conversational knowledge of French, Spanish and several native languages. He would come to know many of the major figures of the early west, including Brigham Young, Kit Carson, John Fremont, Joseph Meek, and John Sutter.
Jim Bridger was well known during his life and afterwards as a teller of tall tales. Some of Bridger's stories—about the geysers at Yellowstone, for example—proved to be true. Others were clearly intended to amuse. Thus, one of Bridger's stories involved a "peetrified forest" in which there were "peetrified birds" singing "peetrified songs" • James Bridger Books
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Hon. Joseph M. Carey
Joseph M. Carey
(January 19, 1845 –
February 5, 1924)
Mayor of
Cheyenne, first U.S. Senator
from Wyoming, Wyoming
Governor; born in Milton,
Delaware.
was a lawyer, rancher, judge, and politician, who spent most of his political career in Wyoming before and after it achieved statehood.
Carey was born January 19, 1845 in Milton, Delaware and was educated in Fort Edward Collegiate Institute and Union College before graduating from the law department at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia in 1864. He was admitted to the bar three years later, in 1867.
Shortly afterwards, he struck west and became the first United States Attorney for the Territory of Wyoming from its organization and served in that capacity from 1869 to 1871. He subsequently became an associate justice in the Supreme Court of the Territory of Wyoming. He served the court from 1871 to 1876 before retiring from the bench to become a rancher.
• Joseph M. Carey Books
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Dick Cheney (1941 -
) White House Chief of Staff
to President Ford, U.S.
congressman, Secretary of
Defense and Vice president
of the U.S.; grew up in
Casper.
During a forty-year career in politics, Vice President Dick Cheney has been involved in some of the most consequential decisions in recent American history. He was one of a few select advisers in the room when President Gerald Ford decided to declare an end to the Vietnam War. Nearly thirty years later, from the presidential bunker below the White House in the moments immediately following the attacks of September 11, 2001, he helped shape the response: America's global war on terror.
Yet for all of his influence, the world knows very little about Dick Cheney. The most powerful vice president in U.S. history has also been the most secretive and guarded of all public officials. "Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?" Cheney asked rhetorically in 2004. "It's a nice way to operate, actually." • Dick Cheney Books
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William "Buffalo Bill" Cody
(1846 - 1917) Pony Express rider,
cavalry scout, buffalo hunter, and
showman in the late 1100%s; born in
LeClaire. William Frederick ("Buffalo Bill") got his nickname after he undertook a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo meat. The nickname originally referred to Bill Comstock. Cody earned the nickname by killing 4,860 buffalo in eight months (1867-68). He and Comstock eventually competed in a shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name, which Cody won.
In addition to his documented service as a soldier during the Civil War and as Chief of Scouts for the Third Cavalry during the Plains Wars, Cody claimed to have worked many jobs, including as a trapper, bullwhacker, "Fifty-Niner" in Colorado, a Pony Express rider in 1860, wagon master,
stagecoach driver, and even a hotel manager, but it's unclear which claims were
factual and which were fabricated for purposes of publicity. He became world
famous for his Wild West Shows. Founder of Cody, Wyoming and Buffalo
Bill’s Wild West Show in Nebraska; born in Iowa.
• Buffalo Bill Books |
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John Colter, (1774 – May 7, 1812 or November 22, 1813)
Discoverer of
Yellowstone Park: An Account of
His Exploration in 1807 and of
His Further Adventures as
Hunter, Trapper, Indian Fighter
trader.
Following the return of the Lewis & Clark expedition, no member of the party lived so full a life of discovery and dramatic adventure as John Colter. The high point, of couse, was his discovery of that region of geysers, mud pots, and waterfalls known today as Yellowstone National Park. This explains why three authors, Stallo Vinton, Ethel Hueston, and Burton Harris, have written full-length biographies about Colter. Of the three biographies Vinton's is the earliest and most difficult to find. Originally published in 1926 by Edward Eberstadt, this early biography covers the life of Colter as hunter, trapper, Indian fighter, pathfinder and member of the Lewis & Clark Expedition • John Colter Books |
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June Etta Downey
educator
(1875-1932) Born in Laramie, Wyoming, June E. Downey came from a pioneer family that contributed a great deal to the development of the state. Her father, Colonel Stephen W. Downey, was one of the first territorial delegates to the United States Congress from Wyoming, and it was largely through his efforts that the University of Wyoming was established. June E. Downey graduated from UW in 1895 and took a job as a school teacher during that year. She received both her master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Chicago and, in 1898, began her UW career as an English instructor. In 1905, she became a professor of English and philosophy. Later, Downey chaired the Department of Philosophy and Psychology, making her the first woman in the United States to head an academic department. • June Etta Downey Books |
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Thomas Fitzpatrick
mountain man and guide
Known by the Indians as "Broken Hand," Thomas Fitzpatrick was a trapper and a trailblazer who became the head of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. With Jedediah Smith he led the trapper band that discovered South Pass; he then shepherded the first two emigrant wagon trains to Oregon, was official guide to Fremont on his longest expedition, and guided Colonel Phil Kearny and his Dragoons along the westward trails to impress the Indians with howitzers and swords. Fitzpatrick negotiated the Fort Laramie treaty of 1851 at the largest council of Plains Indians ever assembled. Among the most colorful of mountain men, Fitzpatrick was also party to many of the most important events in the opening of the West. • Thomas Fitzpatrick Books |
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Curt Gowdy (July
31, 1919–February 20, 2006)
Sportscaster, TV
play-by-play man for AFL,
NFL and major league baseball. was an American sportscaster, well-known as the longtime "voice" of the Boston Red Sox and for his coverage of many nationally-televised sporting events, primarily for NBC Sports in the 1960s and 1970s. Over the course of a career that stretched into the 1980s, Gowdy covered pro football (both the AFL and NFL), Major League Baseball, college football, and college basketball. He was involved in the broadcast of 13 World Series, 16 baseball All-Star Games, 9 Super Bowls, 14 Rose Bowls, 8 Olympic Games and 24 NCAA Final Fours. He also hosted the long-running outdoors show The American Sportsman on ABC.
Gowdy called all the Olympic games televised by ABC (with the exception of the 1988 Winter Olympic games) from 1964–84 with Roone Arledge's sports department at ABC. • Curt Gowdy Books
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Leonard S. Hobbs
(1896 - 1977) Developed the
engine for turbo jet
airplanes; born in Carbon
County. Leonard S.
(Luke) Hobbs (1896 in Carbon
County, Wyoming – 1977) was an
aeronautical engineer who
started in 1920 with the Army
Air Service at McCook Field in
Dayton, Ohio and later worked
for Stromberg Motor Devices
Corporation. He developed the
first float-type carburetor for
aircraft engines that was
capable of providing normal
operation during inverted
flight. In 1927 he became a
research engineer at the Pratt &
Whitney Aircraft Company and by
1944 was vice president of
engineering for parent company
United Aircraft Corporation. He
won the prestigious 1952 Collier
Trophy for "designing and
producing the P&W J57 turbojet
engine". In 1956 was elected
vice chairman of United
Aircraft, retiring in 1958 but
remaining on the company's board
of directors until 1968.
He was the author of The Wright Brothers' Engines and Their Design
, published in 1971 by the Smithsonian Institution Press as part of its Smithsonian Annals of Flight
• Leonard S. Hobbs Books
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Tom Horn (November 21, 1861 – November 20, 1903)
detective. An epidemic of cattle rustling in southern Wyoming in the 1890s and the desperate straits of stockmen set the stage for this saga of Tom Horn, a former Pinkerton detective, an expert hunter and dead shot, and one of the most mysterious and controversial figures in the history of the Old West. Some radicals in the powerful Wyoming Stock Growers Association turned to the man who once boasted, “Killing men in my specialty; I look to it as a business proposition, and I think I have a corner on the market.” Cattle thieves were duly warned, blood was shed, and Tom Horn was implicated but never charged. Then on the morning of July 18, 1901, Willie Nickell, the fourteen-year-old son of a Wyoming sheepman, was shot. Horn’s career was ended.
The arrest, trial, and execution of Tom Horn ignite fireworks in Dean Krakel’s book, and a colorful cast of cattle barons and lawmen adds to the sizzle. A jury convicted Tom Horn, but his hanging did not settle the specter of guilt. • Tom Horn Books
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Isabel Jewell
actress
(July 19, 1907 - April 5, 1972) was an American film actress most active in the 1930s and early 1940s. Born in Shoshoni, Fremont County, Wyoming, Jewell was a Broadway actress who achieved immediate success and glowing critical reviews in two productions, Up Pops the Devil (1930) and Blessed Event (1932).
She was brought to Hollywood for the film version of the latter, by Warner. Jewell appeared in a variety of supporting roles during the early 1930s. She played stereotypical gangster's women in such films as Manhattan Melodrama (1934) and Marked Woman (1937).
She was well received playing against type, as a seamstress sentenced to death on the guillotine, in A Tale of Two Cities (1935).
Her most significant role was as the prostitute Gloria Stone in Lost Horizon (1937).
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Gertrude Michael, a star of the golden age of Hollywood: And friends Lew Ayres, Joan Crawford, Jane Frohman [sic], Isabel Jewell, John Lodge
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Velma Linford(1907 - 2002)
writer - Velma Linford was born in Afton, Wyoming, and received B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Wyoming with graduate work from Wyoming, Denver, and California Universities. She taught in the schools of Afton, Laramie, and at the University of Wyoming. She served as the State Superintendent of Schools from 1955 to 1963 and then went into government service on the VISTA Task Force. She won many awards in the fields of education and government service and her publications include articles on volunteerism, education, folklore, Western history, economics, problems of youth, and challenges of older Americans. She lived in Utah at the time of her death. • Velma Linford Books |
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Patricia MacLachlan
(1938 - ) Author of
children’s books and
Newberry Medal for Sarah,
Plain and Tall; born in
Cheyenne. • Patricia MacLachlan Books |
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Esther Hobart Morris
(1814 - 1902) Helped women
receive the right to vote in
Wyoming and the nation’s
first female judge; born in
New York.
• Esther Hobart Morris Books |
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Ted Olson writer
• Ted Olson Books |
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John “Portugee” Phillips frontiersman • John
"Portugee" Phillips |
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Jackson Pollock
(1912 - 1956) Artist well
known for his abstract
paintings; born in Cody.
• Jackson Pollock Books |
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Nellie Davis Tayloe Ross
(1876 - 1977) Governor of
Wyoming; born November near
St. Joseph, Missouri.
• Nellie Davis Tayloe Ross Books |
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Jedediah S. Smith
(1799 - 1830) Mountain man
and first American to get to
California from the East. • Jedediah S. Smith Books |
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Alan K. Simpson
(1931 - ) Wyoming senator
from 1979-1997 • Alan K. Simpson Books |
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Alan Swallow
publisher and author
• Alan Swallow Books |
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Francis E. Warren
(1844 - 1929) First state
governor.
• Francis E. Warren Books |
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Chief Washakie
chief of the Shoshone
• Chief Washakie Books |
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James G. Watt (1938 - )
Former secretary of the
Interior; born in Lusk.
• James G. Watt Books
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Famous People of
Wyoming