www.wyomingtourism.org

www.state.wy.us

 

 

 

#   Entered Union   Year Settled

44th       July 10, 1890       1834

 

Nickname

Equality State

 

Rank      Population

50th       532,668

 

Rank      Square Miles

10th       97,814

 

State Bird

Western Meadowlark

 

State Flower

Indian Paintbrush

 

State Tree

Plains Cottonwood

 

State Motto

Equal Rights

 

Wyoming gets its name from the Algonquin words for "land of vast plains." After the Union Pacific Railroad reached the town of Cheyenne, the capital, in 1867, the population began to grow steadily in the Wyoming Territory, established in 1868.

 

Wyoming was admitted as the 44th state in 1890. The constitution of the "Equality State" was the first in the world to grant voting rights to women. Wyoming was also the first state to elect a woman governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross.

 

People are spread out across the state in small farming and ranching towns, and millions of visitors come to enjoy the Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks each year. The state flower has the poetic name of Indian paintbrush. Wyoming is the smallest state in the Union in population.

 

Wyoming's Old Faithful

What is Old Faithful and why have millions of people traveled to Wyoming to see it?

 

Yellowstone National Park, part of which is in Wyoming, is home to more geysers than any other place in the world. The most famous geyser is Old Faithful, which got its name because its eruptions can be so reliably predicted. A geyser is a spring that sprays out blasts of heated water and steam.

 

The park has plenty of hot springs. In a geyser, steam and water build pressure beneath a narrow passageway in the ground. Steam forces the water up, and sudden changes in underground water temperature create violent explosions of water and steam on the surface.

 

Some geysers erupt in bursts, some at angles, and some from cone-shaped rock formations, such as Castle Geyser. Yellowstone's hot springs also form steam vents, mudpots, and vividly colored pools. The park's geysers, like Steamboat and Old Faithful, however, are far more famous.

 

Painter Thomas Moran

Can a painting have an impact on society? Thomas Moran's paintings of Western landscapes inspired Americans to save their wilderness areas as national parks. Moran was born in 1837 on February 12. In the summer of 1871, Moran and photographer William Henry Jackson joined the U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories.

 

Their job on this scientific expedition was to sketch and photograph lands along the Yellowstone River in northwestern Wyoming and southeastern Montana. Moran took detailed notes and made numerous sketches of the beautiful evergreen mountain peaks and waterfalls, but he also drew pictures of some strange sights.

 

Jackson's photographs and Moran's sketches of the Western landscape, including the bubbling sulphur fields, colorful hot springs, and shooting geysers, were brought back to Washington, D.C. The images helped convince Congress to set aside the Yellowstone area as a national park.

 

Legislation establishing the park took effect March 1, 1872. The members of Congress were so impressed with Moran's art that they purchased two of his panoramic landscapes to hang in the U.S. Capitol. How do his works make you feel?