Table of Contents  [ Hide]

Statistics
Towns
Well-Known Residents of Fremont County
History
Wind River Reservation
County Creation
Organization
Roads and a Jail
Butch Cassidy
County Courthouse
Boundary Changes
New County Courthouse
Courthouse Branch in Riverton

Statistics

Towns

Unincorporated towns (2000)

Well-Known Residents of Fremont County

The county also claims to be the site of Sacajawea’s burial.

History

The county is named for John Charles Fremont, army explorer who mapped portions of the county in the 1840s. Created March 5, 1884, from the northern portion of Sweetwater County, it once included the major portion of the Big Horn Basin that later became Park, Big Horn, Washakie and Hot Springs counties. Until 1921, it included what is now Sublette County. The county is home to the only Indian reservation in Wyoming—the Wind River Reservation.

Wind River Reservation

Since its creation on March 5, 1884, by the Eighth Legislative Assembly of Wyoming Territory and its organization as a county two months later, Fremont County has been intricately linked to the Wind River Reservation. Originally established by treaty in 1863, the reservation included nearly half of Wyoming and parts of other states, but by the second Fort Bridger Treaty, July 3, 1868, the reservation containing 3,054,182 acres was established at its present location for the Eastern Shoshone Indian tribe. (The Northern Arapaho were settled on the reservation by the federal government in 1877, despite the objections of the Eastern Shoshones.)

The reservation was reduced in size by a series of agreements between the tribes and the federal government. The first agreement in 1872, withdrew the South Pass mining region from the reservation, to be followed by the McLaughlin Relinquishing Agreement in 1904, which opened 1,480,000 acres north of the Big Wind River to non-Indian settlement under the homestead laws. In 1938, all of the acres segregated from the reservation in 1904, except for 325,000 acres retained for the Riverton Reclamation Project, were returned to the Wind River Reservation, with non-Indian settlers retaining their property rights. Lands not patented or deeded once again became tribal lands.

County Creation

Because of the reservation, the act creating Fremont County differed from other acts creating counties during the territorial years. The enabling act for Fremont County recognized the reservation and provided that any land separated from it would become a part of the county. Also, the act establishing Fremont County designated Lander as the county seat, contrary to the enabling acts for other counties, which permitted residents to choose their county seats. Lander was the civilian settlement that had developed at Camp Augur (later named Camp Brown), and established in 1869, to control the Wind River Reservation. Although Camp Brown was moved 16 miles to the northwest onto the reservation in 1871, the civilian settlement, Lander, had remained at the original location, and in 1884, was the only community in Fremont County with a significant population.

Fremont County was a vast, panoramic region of mountains, valleys, and arid basins, with a sparse and scattered population. Named for John C. Fremont, the so-called "Pathfinder," the new county was bounded on the south by Sweetwater County -- approximately the northern two-thirds of Sweetwater County had been lopped off to form Fremont County -- and extended northward to Montana. On the west, Fremont County was bounded by Uinta County and Yellowstone National Park, and on the east by Carbon and Johnson Counties. Eventually, all or part of five counties would be created from Fremont County as it was established in 1884.

Organization

For organization, the creating act required that a petition with three hundred taxpayers' signatures be presented to the territorial governor. Shortly after passage of the act, the petition requesting appointment of commissioners to organize the county was given to Governor William Hale. After verifying the signatures, Governor Hale appointed Frank B. Lowe, N. E. Blinn, and James I. Patten to act as organizing commissioners for the new county. On March 28, 1884, the organizing commissioners met in Lander and set April 22 as the date to elect county officers. They also established voting precincts and polling places, and appointed election judges.

On May 6, 1884, the newly elected Fremont County Commissioners, A. J. McDonald, Robert H. Hall, and N. E. Blinn, were sworn into office by the organizing commissioners. Other county officers elected and taking their oaths of office were: Frank B. Lowe, county sheriff; H. G. Nickerson, county probate judge and ex-officio treasurer; James A. McAvoy, county clerk and clerk of district court; J. W. O'Neal, county assessor; William H. Bright, county and prosecuting attorney (Bright had gained fame for introducing the Woman Suffrage Act, passed on December 10, 1869, by the First Territorial Legislative Assembly); James Irwin, H. H. Hale, and Robert McAuley, justices of the peace; Charles N. Spy, county surveyor; Samuel Iiams, county coroner; and James I. Patten, county superintendent of schools.

Roads and a Jail

The first order of business for Fremont County's first elected Board of County Commissioners, May 7, 1884, was to establish road districts and examine petitions for county roads. Following this business, the board agreed to lease county office space from P. P. Dick for $120 monthly, and examined specifications for a proposed 15' x 20' wooden jail. The board then directed the county clerk to advertise for bids to construct the jail. On June 9, the commissioners opened bids received to build the jail, but rejected them because the cost was excessive. The specifications were revised and new bids called for, and on July 15, 1884, the commissioners accepted a bid by A. L. Bruce to build the jail for $1,600.

If there was any Wyoming County during the 1880's and 1890's that needed a jail, it was undoubtedly Fremont County. With its vast open ranges stocked with cattle and horses, the great distances from remote ranches and settlements in the county to the center of law enforcement in Lander, and its proximity to outlaw hangouts in the Hole in the Wall and Brown's Hole, Fremont County was a haven for rustlers, bank and train robbers, and the frontier lawless element in general. To cope with this, Fremont County had an elected county sheriff and one deputy sheriff.

Witness the experience of Charley Stough, Fremont County Sheriff from 1891 to 1910, and Fremont County Commissioner from 1911 until his death in 1923. In 1892, Stough arrested four notorious horse thieves, Dick Dirk, Dick Nye, Jim Carr, and Joe Nutcher. While being held in jail (not the wooden one) awaiting trial, the four horse thieves overpowered the jailer, stuck a dirty sock in his mouth to keep him quiet, helped themselves to rifles, six shooters and ammunition from Charley's office, stole horses, and escaped. With the help of a rancher, Charley recaptured the horse thieves in a few days, returned them to jail, and eventually delivered them to the penitentiary in Laramie.

Butch Cassidy

Butch Cassidy was the next star in Charley Stough's experience. In 1894, Cassidy and an accomplice stole thirty horses from a ranch west of Thermopolis, with the intent of driving the horses to Brown's Hole and selling them. Stough took up the trail and followed it into Uinta County, whereupon he notified the sheriff there. The Uinta County Sheriff quickly picked up Cassidy's trail, captured him, and delivered him to Charley. Cassidy was prosecuted by Fremont County Attorney, William L. Simpson, father of Milward L. Simpson, a former Wyoming Governor and United States Senator, and grandfather of Alan Simpson, former United States Senator; found guilty; and sentenced to seven years in the penitentiary in Laramie. Accompanied by a deputy sheriff and a constable, Stough took Cassidy and five other prisoners to the penitentiary. Although the trip was hard--two days by stage to Rawlins and a half day by train to Laramie, and then the return home--Charley's biggest problems were not with Cassidy or the other prisoners, but in collecting his expenses for the trip from the Board of Charities and Reform. Charley had borrowed the money for the trip from the bank and was charged interest for the three months it took him to be reimbursed by the state.

County Courthouse

During the latter part of 1885, the county commissioners began planning for the construction of a permanent courthouse and jail. The commissioners made arrangements for Fremont County legislators to introduce a bill in the legislative assembly to authorize the construction and funding of the courthouse. Such legislative authorization was required by territorial law. On February 15, 1886, the Ninth Legislative Assembly approved the bill authorizing the Fremont County Commissioners to issue county bonds, not to exceed $25,000, nor to have an interest rate of more than eight percent, to pay for the courthouse and jail.

With legislative authorization for the project, the commissioners moved rapidly to get the project underway. On February 22, they directed the county clerk to advertise for plans for the building, and inspected available and offered sites. On March 10, the board really went to work: they accepted plans for the courthouse submitted by A. J. Thompson; they agreed to advertise for construction bids and for bids for the sale of $25,000 of county bonds; and they selected block 60 in the Amoretti Addition to Lander, given to the county by A. E. Amoretti, as the site for the new courthouse. A month later, the commissioners sold the bonds, and then on June 5, 1886, after previously rejecting all construction bids and then revising the plans and specifications, the board awarded the construction contract to Louis Poire for $24,300.

Poire began construction soon after the contract award, and throughout the summer and fall made excellent progress. The plans called for a two-story, red brick building, with a two-story annex for the county jail and sheriff's residence. The first floor of the main building contained offices for the county clerk, county assessor, county probate judge and treasurer, county sheriff, and the county commissioners. The upper floor housed a large courtroom, the judge's chambers, and a jury room. The county jail was on the second floor of the annex, with the sheriff's residence on the ground floor. The Board of County Commissioners accepted the new courthouse and jail on April 15, 1887, and an official opening and dedication was held for the county's citizens on May 18.

Boundary Changes

The courthouse and jail served Fremont County well for nearly seventy years. During those years, only one major change in the building was made. In 1914-1915, a two-story addition to the courthouse was built to provide additional offices and vaults for the county's officials. The seventy years did bring major changes in the boundaries of Fremont County. The change in the county's northern boundary began in 1897, with the organization of Big Horn County and was moved further south when Hot Springs County was organized in 1913. The effect was that Fremont County's original mammoth size was reduced by nearly half. In 1923, with the organization of Sublette County, Fremont County's western boundary was moved eastward, further reducing its size and establishing its present boundaries.

New County Courthouse

Although Fremont County's geographical size was reduced by more than half, the county had experienced steady, and at times booming, population growth and economic activity. So in the early 1950's, the county commissioners began to consider replacing the county courthouse and jail. October 6, 1954, the board passed a resolution to hold a special election to request the county's voters to approve or disapprove the sale of $500,000 of county bonds to raise funds for the construction of a new courthouse and jail. The voters overwhelmingly approved the proposal on November 2, and twenty days later the commissioners contracted with architect, Robert Wehrli of Casper, to design and plan the new county facilities.

On March 14, 1955, the board adopted Wehrli's proposed plans, and at the same meeting resolved to build the new courthouse on the same site as the old one, first having it demolished. In June, the board advertised for construction bids and for bids to purchase the county bonds. August 2, the bonds were sold to the highest bidder, Coughlin and Company, and a week later the construction and mechanical contracts were awarded to Spielgelburg Lumber and Building Company of Laramie, for $430,835. The electrical contract went to Worland Electric Company for $30,496.63.

Courthouse Branch in Riverton

The new Fremont County Courthouse was completed in January 1957, and occupied a month later by the county's officers. A two-story, red brick structure, the courthouse was functional and attractive and served the county's needs effectively for nearly twenty years. By the mid-1970's, however, because of substantial population growth in the county and resulting expansion of county services, additional facilities for county government were needed.

The first step taken by the county commissioners to meet the need was the construction of a county building in Riverton, the county's largest town. Completed in 1974, the building housed branch offices for the county clerk, the county extension agents, and the county treasurer, as well as facilities for the Riverton Court of the Fremont County Court system. In 1976, the second phase of the county's facility improvement program was completed--expansion of criminal justice facilities at the courthouse in Lander. The final stage of the county's building program was finished in 1984, and included enlarged and new office areas for the county officials, new vaults and storage areas, and new district court facilities. So, as Fremont County government entered its second century of service to the county's citizens, it facilities were equal to the task.