1951 - 1960

1951

The Natural Resources Board is created to replace the Wyoming Planning and Water Conservation Board. (Session Laws 1951, ch. 13)
The Legislature imposes a levy on the retail sale of cigarettes, and wholesalers are required to secure a license from the Board of Equalization.
Juvenile Courts are established by Legislature. (Session Laws 1951, ch. 125)
On April 1, the Wyoming Air National Guard 187th Fighter Squadron is activated into federal service because of the Korean emergency. Eight of the eighteen pilots called into the conflict are killed.
Major uranium deposits are discovered in the Pumpkin Buttes area in Campbell County.
In July, Armistice negotiations begin at Panmunjom and indecisive fighting continues on the Korean front.

1952

The State Office Building (renamed the Barrett Building) is completed and dedicated in February.
After the death of her husband, J. R. Mitchell, May 6, Mrs. Minnie Mitchell is appointed to fill his unexpired term. She is the first woman to serve as State Treasurer in Wyoming.
July 18, the first television programs are seen in Wyoming on Channel 2 KWGN (Denver).

1953

Neil M. McNeice of Riverton locates the highly productive Lucky Me uranium mines in Fremont County, and Riverton is on its way to becoming the uranium capital of Wyoming.
All American Indian Days, an inter-tribal celebration, begins at Sheridan.
Wyoming State Parks Commission is created. (Session Laws 1953, ch. 99)
The State Historical Department is renamed the State Archives and Historical Department. (Session Laws 1953, ch. 143)
The Capitol Building dome is regilded at a cost of $900. The original specifications for the Capitol when it was built in 1886 called for copper. The gold leaf was put on the dome in 1900.
On July 27, Armistice is finally signed and a demilitarized zone is established in the general area of the 38th parallel in Korea. During the Korean War (1950-53), a total of 10,975 men from Wyoming serve their country, and there are 55 casualties. (Adjutant General's Office, Wyoming National Guard)
Tourism, one of Wyoming's leading industries, grows steadily during the postwar years as prosperity and more leisure time enable people to buy campers and trailers and enjoy the great out-of-doors. The spectacular scenery in the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone National Park, Snowy Range, the Continental Divide of the Rockies, the many points of historical interest, and the Cheyenne Frontier Days attract tourists to Wyoming by the thousands.

1954

Mrs. Minnie Mitchell is the first woman to be elected State Auditor in Wyoming.
March 21, Wyoming has its first television station, Station KFBC-TV in Cheyenne.

1955

The Centralized Microfilm Department is created to microfilm state records for preservation. (Session Laws 1955, ch. 147)
February 12, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends advisors to train South Vietnam's army.
The state motto, "Equal Rights," is adopted by the Legislature February 15. (Session Laws 1955, ch. 147) Cedant Arma Togae, translated: "Let arms yield to the gown" or "Let military authority give way to civil power" was the motto displayed on the territorial seal though it was never adopted by the state. The motto "Equal Rights" appeared on the Great Seal of the State of Wyoming in 1921, but it is not until 1955 that the Legislature officially adopts it. The state has several nicknames and slogans including: "Equality State," "Wonderful Wyoming," "Stop Roaming, Try Wyoming," "Healthy, Wealthy, Growing Wyoming," "Sagebrush State," "Big Wyoming" and the "Cowboy State."
"Wyoming," written by C. E. Winter with music by G. E. Knapp, is adopted by the Thirty-Third Legislature as the state song. (Session Laws 1955, ch. 103)
The Legislature reduces to $800 the benefit a veteran can derive from the $2,000 property tax exemption, and it abolishes a $500 property tax homestead exemption. (Session Laws 1955, ch. 175)
Uranium mining in Central Wyoming reaches large-scale proportions.
June 15, Cheyenne has heaviest rainfall in thirty years. U.S. Weather Bureau records 2.30 inches of rain in five-hour period on.
July 15, Solier Hall, a new "receiving" building, is opened at the State Hospital in Evanston. Plans are also drawn and funds appropriated by the Legislature for two additional buildings.
July 16, convicts at Rawlins seize three hostages and retire to new cell block where they hold out, demanding better treatment and food. Eighty of the rioters win a major point when the warden (Deane Miller) fires two guards they accused of brutality. On July 19 the Rawlins riot, first since 1912, is brought to a close without loss of life or injury, after fifteen hours.
Stanley D. Reser becomes the first male superintendent of the Girls' School at Sheridan.
On October 6, a DC-4 Tourist flight en-route from Denver to Salt Lake City crashes on Medicine Bow Peak, killing sixty-six persons.
Casper College, Wyoming's first junior college, has formal dedication ceremony on October 22.

1956

Congressional approval of the Upper Colorado River Project (Flaming Gorge area) makes better use of area water and produces electric power for Wyoming and six other states.
The state retirement law requires that all state employees over sixty-five years of age who want to continue on the payroll must be certified by their departments. The Wyoming Building Commission authorizes Glen Hendershot, building superintendent, to discharge all over seventy years of age.
The National System of Interstate and Defense Highways project is placed under the overall direction of the Federal Bureau of Public Roads. Individual state highway departments supervise construction by private contractors. The federal government's share in the cost of the interstate highway projects is 93 percent. Wyoming's first four-lane highway project is I-25 North.
Wyoming Boy's Ranch is founded by Captain and Mrs. James L. Berry near Glenrock.

1957

The taxing authority of the state is drastically re-tailored as the Department of Revenue under the Board of Equalization.
The law establishing the office of State Fire Marshal as a sub-department of the State Department of Insurance is amended to designate that the office shall be a sub-department of Labor and Statistics. The Commissioner of this department shall be the ex officio State Fire Marshal. (Session Laws 1957, ch. 257)
Minimum wage is set at seventy-five cents per hour. (Session Laws 1957, ch. 139)
Resident fishing licenses are separated from those for elk and deer.
The Legislature memorializes Congress against Federal Legislation to provide federal aid for school construction. (Session Laws 1957, ch. 95)
The Centralized Microfilm Department begins microfilming county as well as state records.
Casper fails in an attempt in the Legislature to require the State Highway Department to construct its proposed building there instead of in Cheyenne.
Cheyenne's Carey Junior High School is named honoring the memory of Hon. Joseph M. Carey, who served as governor and U.S. Senator from Wyoming as well as mayor of Cheyenne, and his two sons, Robert D., who also served as governor and U.S. Senator, and Charles D., an outstanding civic leader. A portion of the land required for the building was donated by heirs of Judge Carey.
In December, Governor Simpson commutes the death sentence of convicted 24-year-old Ernest Lindsay to life in prison with the stipulation that he can never be paroled. He follows the precedent he had set in the case of Clay "Tricky" Riggles in March. Riggles had been sentenced to die in the gas chamber at Rawlins in January, 1958.

1958

February 1, Warren Air Force Base, transferred to the Strategic Air Command, becomes the first Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) base in the world.
The Democrats win several key offices: Gale McGee, university professor in his first political bid, becomes U.S. Senator; J. J. Hickey, Rawlins attorney, Governor; and Jack Gage, Sheridan postmaster, Secretary of State; Velma Linford, a Laramie high school teacher, is re-elected Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Ellen Crowley is first woman appointed to the staff of the Attorney General.
Governor Leslie A. Miller's memoirs are published serially in the Wyoming State Tribune.
May 9, Former acting Governor Fenimore C. Chatterton (1903-1905) dies in Louisiana at the age of ninety-eight.
No hunting guides are required off-forest for nonresidents.
Mineral rights in the Riverton Reclamation Project are restored to the Indians.

1959

Disregarding federal regulations requiring white stripes on interstate highways, the Legislature passes the yellow stripe act, requiring that the markings on all highways in the state be yellow on the premise that the color shows up better during snow storms. The Federal Highway Commission settles the matter by ruling that all states must conform or lose federal aid. (Session Laws 1959, ch. 30 and 179)
April 25, The Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Gallery of Western Art (now a part of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West) at Cody is dedicated.
Sheridan receives All-American City award. (Session Laws 1959, HJR 5)
Trading stamps are prohibited. (Session Laws 1959, ch. 84)
Historical Landmark Commission, created by the Legislature in 1927, is transferred to the Archives and Historical Department. (Session Laws 1959, ch. 77)
The Legislature proposes asking Congress to issue birth certificates for foreign children adopted by American citizens. (Session Laws 1959, SJM 3)
An act is passed to enable the Wyoming schools to accept funds available to public schools through the provisions of PL 85-864, the National Defense Education Act for Public Schools. (Session Laws 1959, ch. 49)
August 17, a severe earthquake occurs at West Yellowstone (Montana) at 11:37 p.m. A twenty-foot wall of water sweeps down Madison Canyon and half of a 7,600 foot mountain comes crashing at the mouth of the canyon. Eighty million tons of rock create a dam that blocks the entrance and forms Quake Lake. The earthquake gives credence to the Shoshone legend that the mysterious Sheepeater Indians of Yellowstone Park were destroyed by a convulsion of nature.
October 2, the first Atlas missile arrives by truck from San Diego, California, at F.E. Warren Air Force Base.
On November 4, a milestone in history is reached again when the first airborne missile is brought on a Military Transport C-133.
The Lincoln monument is unveiled at the summit of U.S. Highway 80. The 12.5 foot, 3.5 ton bronze bust, work of artist Robert Russin of the University of Wyoming Art Department, was cut in Mexico City. It is placed on top of a 30-foot granite base.

1960

The 1960 United States Federal Census shows Wyoming's population as 330,066.
On April 6 a statue of Esther Hobart Morris, a symbol of woman suffrage, is unveiled in Statuary Hall at the nation's Capital. The statue is the work of sculptor Avard Fairbanks, fine arts consultant at the University of Utah.
The Madison River Canyon earthquake in Yellowstone Park is opened for tourists.
Wyoming is second only to New Mexico in uranium production. It is estimated that the Wyoming deposits amount to more than fifteen million tons. Uranium industry employment is projected to expand from fewer than 2,000 workers in the 1960's to approximately 9,000 by the year 2000. (as of 1974)
Senator-elect Keith Thomson (R) dies of a heart attack on December 9. He is succeeded by J. J. Hickey (D), who resigns as Governor to accept the appointment made by Jack Gage, Secretary of State and acting Governor.
Other Wyoming leaders who have died during the year include: Tracy S. McCraken, publisher of a chain of six Wyoming newspapers; E. D. "Ted" Crippa, former U.S. Senator; Henry D. Watenpaugh, who had served five terms in the Legislature, was state director of OPA during the difficult days of World War II, and was instrumental in founding Northern Wyoming Community College; James W. Carroll, the first president of the Wyoming Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters and manager of radio station KWYO in Sheridan; C. A. Zaring, dean of Wyoming attorneys, who had practiced law since 1901 and who once represented Buffalo Bill Cody; Clara F. Mcintyre, a professor emeritus of English after having served at the University of Wyoming for thirty-five years; A. S. "Lon" Roach, a former warden of the State Penitentiary; Frank Flynn, former head of the State Industrial Institute at Worland; Glen Lewis, superintendent of the Wyoming State Prison Farm at Riverton; Edward M. Arnold, who parlayed a potato peddling job at historic old Fort Laramie into a fortune in ranches; Herbert J. King, pioneer Wyoming sheep man who was among the first to conduct research into culling and grading wool; and Mary Jester Allen, niece of Buffalo Bill, who was a publicity writer for his Wild West Show and a founder and director of the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody. She was one of the country's first women press agents and a writer for the Republican National Committee in the Harding-Coolidge campaign.

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