Happy Birthday, Wyoming! 2015 marks the 125th Anniversary of Wyoming becoming a state. On July 10, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed the bill which created the new state of Wyoming, the 44th state in the United States of America.
Territorial Representative to the U.S. House, Joseph M. Carey sent a telegram from Washington to Wyoming extending “hearty congratulations” and proclaiming that Wyoming was now a member of the Union. Image courtesy of Wyoming State Archives. Click image for more information.
The formal celebration of Wyoming’s statehood occurred July 23, 1890. The day’s celebration was specifically recounted in a couple of Wyoming’s newspapers of the time, the July 24, 1890 Cheyenne Daily Sun and the July 27, 1890 Wyoming Commonwealth. The Cheyenne Daily Sun had a headline of “A GREAT DAY.”
Cheyenne Daily Sun, July 24, 1890, p. 1
To celebrate this, the Wyoming State Library has created an online exhibit to commemorate the official statehood celebration. Explore the event through those newspapers, encountering the pomp and circumstance, the distinguished people that were there, the presentations, and the speeches and poem that were given. You will also find some documents, re-created audio of the ceremony, and links to the historic Wyoming newspapers that recounted the event. Join us as we celebrate “A Great Day.”
“The Wyoming State Library is excited to present this online exhibit. With all of its pomp and circumstance, speeches, poem, and presentations, July 23, 1890 was a celebration of the culminating efforts, struggles, and compromises leading up to statehood,” said Thomas Ivie, Research & Statistics Librarian.
Visit the exhibit at
https://sites.google.com/a/wyo.gov/wyomingnewspapers/exhibit-wyoming-statehood-celebration
About Wyoming Newspapers
http://newspapers.wyo.gov/
Wyoming Newspapers is a service of the Wyoming State Library to ensure the preservation of historic Wyoming newspapers. Wyoming Newspapers includes over 330 historic Wyoming newspaper titles, the earliest of which is the Chugg Water Journal from 1849. Over 800,000 newspaper pages have been converted from microfilm and paper to a digital format.
For more information about the online exhibit or about Wyoming Newspapers, contact Thomas Ivie, thomas.ivie@wyo.gov or 307-777-6330.