History

The only county in Wyoming named for a U. S. President, Lincoln County was created in 1911 from Uinta County. The northern portion was removed in 1921 to create Teton County. Present Lincoln County comprises two distinct areas: the southern portion, dominated by coal-mining and railroad activities and the northern part, the Star Valley, where farming and ranching predominates.

County Creation

Probably no Wyoming county was created with as much controversy as Lincoln County. Established by the Eleventh State Legislature on February 20, 1911, Lincoln County was two, three, or four counties compressed into one, and eight different bills creating counties out of the northern three-fourths of Uinta County and the extreme western part of Fremont County were introduced during the 1911 legislative session. A huge rectangle, approximately fifty miles wide east to west and approximately 175 miles long north to south, Lincoln County, as created, included all of present day Teton County and the western one-third of today's Sublette County, as well as present day Lincoln County.

Diversity

Geographically, economically, and even sociologically, the Lincoln County that was delivered by the legislature was certainly more than one county. The new county included four distinct geographic areas: the high plateau area, reaching from the Uinta/Lincoln boundary on the south to the Salt River Range on the north, with population centers in Opal, Diamondville, Kemmerer, Fossil, and Cokeville, and blocked off from the Green River Valley to the east by Oyster Ridge and the Wyoming Range; the Star Valley, with the towns of Afton, Freedom, Smoot, Grover and Thayne, isolated from the remainder of the county by the Salt River Range to the south, the Wyoming Range on the east, and the Gros Ventre Range and the Grand Canyon of the Snake River to the north, and with easy access only to Idaho on the west; the Jackson Hole, completely surrounded by mountains, and with Yellowstone National Park to the north, making the towns of Jackson and Wilson extremely difficult to get to from the rest of the county; and the Green River Valley, remote and isolated from the population centers in the new county, and with its people living on scattered ranches and in the towns of Daniel, Big Piney and LaBarge.

Ranching Communities

Economically the four geographic regions of the new Lincoln County had some commonality, as well as some distinct differences. Cattle and sheep ranching were important economically throughout the newly designated county, and were the sustaining and major economic factors in the Green River Valley and Jackson Hole. Although there was the faintest stirring in 1913, tourism was insignificant in Jackson Hole then, and would not become the dominating industry in the Hole for another forty years. There was some ranching in the Star Valley, but the principal economic activity was dairying, as it had been since Apostle Moses Thatcher, commissioned by Brigham Young, led Mormon settlers into the valley in 1879, and named it Star Valley, because it was the "star of all valleys." Sheep and cattle ranching had long been engaged in on the open ranges of the high plateau region of the new county, but it was coal mining that brought most of the population to the area, and it was coal mining, which employed most of the area's people, that dominated its economy.

As it did economically, ranching throughout the new county also brought an element of cohesiveness among the county's people sociologically. Most of the ranching population was native born, protestant, and with an Anglo-Saxon heritage, which assured some common social mores. But there were two other distinct social groups within the county's population.

Mormons

The Church of Latter Day Saints had fostered the settlement of the Star Valley, and 95% of its population was Saints. Polygamy, long practiced by the Mormons, had always been a source of conflict between them and the "gentiles" (non-Mormons); and though the federal government and state governments had tried to enforce anti-polygamy laws, remnants of the practice still survived in 1911. This was particularly true in remote, isolated rural areas, like the Star Valley. Wyoming had made little .effort to enforce laws against polygamy, while its neighbor to the west, Idaho, had. Consequently, when Idaho polygamists were threatened with prosecution, it became common practice for them to flee across the state line to Star Valley, where they could continue to practice their belief in relative safety. Though polygamy was not practiced openly in the Star Valley in 1911, it did exist and was known to exist, which caused the isolation of the Latter Day Saints as a separate sociological group within the new county's population, with the potential existing for conflict.

Coal Miners

The second distinct sociological group in the new Lincoln County was the coal miners at Kemmerer, Diamondville and Frontier. The mine owners and managers were akin to the ranchers sociologically. Some were involved in ranching, and others had been. However, the miners themselves were different. The miners were mainly recently naturalized citizens, or were emigrants with their own culture, churches, and mores. There were Welsh miners, Finnish miners, and miners from southern and eastern Europe, each of which formed their own social group. Although acculturation was taking place among the miners in 1911, when Lincoln County was created, the miners were a sociological group different than the other residents of the new county.

All of these factors--geographical, economic and sociological-­ contributed to the Eleventh State Legislature's difficulty in obtaining a majority agreement as to what was the most suitable plan if a new county, or counties, were created out of the northern three-fourths of Uinta County. Adding to the legislators' problem was the opposition of Uinta County citizens living in the Evanston area to the formation of any new county out of Uinta County. Prior to the introduction of the Lincoln County Bill, House Bill No. 203, and its eventual passage, five other bills (six, if you count one bill that was introduced in both the Senate and the House)creating new counties out of Uinta County--two of the bills included the western one-third of Fremont County—were introduced in the legislature.

A bill providing for the creation of Wyoming County was introduced in both the State Senate and State House of Representatives. The boundaries for this proposed county included all of the Green River Valley and the western one-third of Fremont County, as it was in 1911, and closely resembled the boundaries of present day Sublette County. House Bill No. 199, Wagner County, and Senate File No. 43, Clark County, were companion bills, proposing that two counties be formed out of the northern three-fourths of Uinta County. Wagner County was to include the Green River Valley north of LaBarge, Jackson Hole, Star Valley, and to a point in the plateau region approximately thirty miles south of Cokeville; while Clark County contained the ranching area along Hams Fork River and the Green River Valley south of LaBarge and the coal mining region around Kemmerer and Diamondville, and extended southward to the present Lincoln/Uinta county line. Bills to create Elk and Bridger Counties were also companion bills, and similar to the proposals for Wagner and Clark Counties. The principal difference was that all of the Green River Valley and the western one-third of Fremont County were included in Bridger County, which also contained the Hams Fork area and the coal mining region, with Kemmerer and Diamondville, and extended southward to the present county line. Elk County reached from Yellowstone National Park to a point approximately fifty miles south of Cokeville and twenty miles west of Kemmerer, and included Jackson Hole, Star Valley, and all territory west of the Continental Divide.

County Organization

The passage of the act creating Lincoln County was enthusiastically hailed in the Kemmerer-Diamondville area, the largest population center, but was received with little enthusiasm in the northern extremes of the new county. Organizing commissioners were appointed by Governor Joseph M. Carey on April 8, 1911 after the required petition was presented to him. The commissioners appointed were T. Hunter Salmon of Opal, Leo Nelson of Afton, and J. A. Black, also of Opal. The commissioners met on Saturday, April 15, in the Kemmerer City Hall. They elected Black, chairman, appointed J. P. Folger, clerk, scheduled an election for June 13, 1911 to approve or disapprove organization of the county and to choose a county seat, and established election districts and voting precincts.

During the two months before the election, campaigning for and against organizing Lincoln County was intense, and the issue remained in doubt, with the people living in the coal mining area of the county heartily in favor, while the ranchers and farmers residing in the remote valleys opposed it. Kemmerer and Cokeville were the only candidates for the county seat, with sentiment also divided. On June 13, 1911 the qualified voters spoke, approving the organization of Lincoln County by a margin of 1,841 voters for and 1,220 against. Kemmerer was chosen as the county seat over Cokeville by an even wider margin, 1,792 to 777.

Kemmerer was founded by P. J. Quealy in 1897, and named for his friend and business associate M. S. Kemmerer, a Pennsylvania financier. Quealy, financed by Kemmerer, had begun a coal mining operation in 1884 which became the Kemmerer Coal Company. The early success of the company resulted in the employment of many miners and the founding of the town. Kemmerer grew rapidly, with banks, businesses, and churches being established, and with the first public school opening its doors in 1898. Most notably, however, James Cash Penny, an employee of the Blythe-Fargo Company, opened his own store in Kemmerer in 1902, and named it the Golden Rule Store. From its modest beginning, grossing approximately $29,000 the first year of operation, the Golden Rule Store grew into the J. C. Penny Company--the mammoth, national merchandising chain, grossing billions annually. The company still maintains and operates Penny's original store in Kemmerer as its number one store.

Whitney Brothers

Before Lincoln County could be formally organized on January 6, 1913 with elected county officers, a criminal case, unique in the history of Wyoming, had its beginning. On September 11, 1911, Hugh and Charlie Whitney held up the State Bank of Cokeville. The brothers didn't wear masks and were recognized by their victims, as they had grown up in Cokeville, had worked on ranches in the area, and Charlie still lived in Cokeville. Hugh was wanted by Idaho for the murder of a conductor killed during an attempted train robbery in June 1911, and had persuaded Charlie, who had no previous criminal experience, to help him rob the bank. The bank's time lock vault was closed and couldn't be opened. Taking the money in the cash drawer and robbing the bank's customers (except gallantly refusing to steal from a young woman delivering the town's general store's daily deposit--the brothers didn't know it was $700), the Whitneys fled the bank, Cokeville, and Lincoln County with $500. This was the last that Cokeville and Lincoln County (the bank had long been out of business) heard of Charlie and Hugh Whitney until 1952.

On June 19, 1952 Charlie Whitney, now sixty-three years old, walked into the State Capitol in Cheyenne and surrendered himself to Governor Frank A. Barrett. Charlie had been advised to take this course by his friend, Montana Governor John Bonner, who had informed Governor Barrett that Charlie was coming and recommended leniency for him. Governor Barrett assigned the case to District Court Judge H. Robert Christmas at Kemmerer, and Charlie reported there to the Judge. He had written his life story, and while Charlie languished in the Lincoln County jail for ten days, the judge studied the autobiography. Returning to the courtroom, Charlie pleaded guilty to armed robbery and offered to pay back the money stolen forty-one years earlier. Stating that no worthwhile purpose would be accomplished by imprisoning Charlie, Judge Christmas sentenced him to five years probation and released him.

After the bank robbery in 1911, Charlie and Hugh had gone to Wisconsin, where they worked in a saddle shop. In 1912, the brothers settled at Glascow, Montana and began ranching. They prospered, but to serve their country, the brothers enlisted in the army in 1917, when the United States entered World War I. Discharged in 1919, Charlie and Hugh returned to Glascow, but shortly afterward Hugh sold his interest and moved to the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada, living there until he died in 1950. As Frank S. Taylor, the name he had assumed when he first came to Glascow and under which he had enlisted in the army, Charlie remained on the ranch. As the years passed, he prospered and became a prominent citizen in the community, active in church affairs and serving on the Glascow School Board and the board of directors for a local bank. The death of Hugh caused Charlie to think about his life, and then to discuss it with Governor Bonner, who recommended that Charlie take the action he did. After his release from court in Kemmerer, Charlie returned to Montana to live out his life. He died at Hot Springs, Montana, where he had retired, in 1968.

County Commissioners

On November 5, 1912 the citizens of Lincoln County elected their first county officials. Officers elected were: Thomas S. O'Neil, John E. Erwin and C. H. Peterson, county commissioners; Harold R. Harrisson, county clerk; Carl Cook, clerk of district court; S. Ed Hansen, county sheriff; R. H. Embree, county coroner; Ivan S. Jones, county and prosecuting attorney; G. W. Tanner, county assessor; Ben C. Bell, county treasurer; Maggie F. Nicholson, county superintendent of schools; and Jesse J. Reed, county surveyor. Also elected were twenty-three justices of the peace and nine constables.

The new Lincoln County Board of County Commissioners was sworn into office on January 6, 1913. They elected Thomas O'NeiJ, Chairman, and during the next several days, the board conducted business and accepted the oaths of and bonds of the other newly elected county officers. The commissioners leased space in Kemmerer for county offices, made arrangements with Uinta County to house Lincoln County prisoners in the Uinta County Jail, and established a courthouse and jail fund in the amount of $10,000 for future construction of a courthouse and jail. In March 1913, indicative of the lifestyle in Kemmerer, Diamondville and the other mining communities in the county, the county commissioners adopted two resolutions that notified saloon keepers that gambling laws would be strictly enforced and, secondly, that women drinking, dancing, or drawing customers into saloons would be considered as disorderly conduct and sufficient cause for the revocation of the saloon's liquor license.

Like many of Wyoming's frontier counties, law enforcement, with all of its ramifications, was a problem to Lincoln County. In March 1914, the county commissioners received a resolution from the Lincoln County Hospital Board, stating "a house of ill repute" was being maintained on the main road between Diamondville and Kemmerer, and demanding that the commissioners do something about it. The commissioners turned the resolution over to the sheriff. The same month, the county commissioners were negotiating with the Kemmerer City Council for the use of the city jail to house 15 convicts from the state penitentiary in Rawlins that the county planned to work on the county's roads during the summer months. Then a month later, on April 17, the commissioners removed Sheriff Ed Hansen from office for "collecting fees to which he was not entitled."

Annie Ritchie

In 1919, Lincoln County experienced another unique criminal case. Annie Ritchie, who operated a cattle ranch near Fossil, was considered by the county's residents to be a wealthy, beautiful, cultured woman. Consequently, when she was charged with cattle rustling, the county was shocked and the shock turned to consternation. On her way to trial in Kemmerer, Annie was shot by a masked rider, but she recovered from her wound and stood trial. She was convicted of rustling, the only woman in Wyoming history ever convicted of that offense, and sentenced to the penitentiary. Recognizing her need to complete business affairs, the judge granted Annie thirty days on bond before beginning to serve her sentence. She returned to her ranch from Kemmerer, was poisoned, and died. Although rumors abounded in the county as to whom the murderer was, the county sheriff was unable to uncover sufficient evidence to bring charges against anyone for Annie's murder, and the unsolved case became history.

Prohibition

The coming of prohibition to Wyoming and the nation in 1919 brought law enforcement problems to Lincoln County far greater than the county had experienced before, or has experienced since. Kemmerer was known as "The Little Chicago." The town and county supplied vast amounts of illegal whiskey to other communities and counties, both in and out of state. Speakeasies and saloons operated day and night and flourished, without interference from the law. Gun battles between competing bootleggers, and between the bootleggers and the law, erupted from time to time, and conspiracy and corruption reigned. All of this, and more, was going on in Chicago itself, except on a much larger scale. A large number, if not a majority, of Lincoln County residents believed that their constitutional rights had been violated with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. After all, they had not been allowed to vote prohibition up or down, and that was their American right.

At first, the people of Lincoln County accepted prohibition good­ naturedly, rallying at midnight on June 30, 1919 (the date national prohibition took effect), in the Kemmerer Triangle to bury "John Barleycorn." Everyone had their last drink or drinks, the local band paraded, the town drunk was laid out in a hearse, and a burlesque funeral was staged. Saloon doors were barred, and owners began to convert their saloons into legal businesses. But the good humor didn't last long.

Soon illegal whiskey began to appear, furtively at first and then more openly. With the moonshine whiskey came bootleggers, running the illegal booze to other communities in Wyoming and also across state lines. Closely following the bootleggers, as soon as Lincoln County gained a reputation as a supplier of the illegal booze, came state and federal enforcement agents into the county, accompanied by informers who ingratiated themselves with the moonshiners and bootleggers, and then informed on them. The effects were bribery, corruption, violence, and death among county residents due to methyl alcohol poisoning.

There were a number of spectacular, or infamous, events in Lincoln County during the nearly 16 years prohibition was in effect in Wyoming. On March 8, 1920 enforcement agents poured gallons of confiscated moonshine into the Hams Fork River---thirsty county residents gathered downstream from the dumping site to save buckets of the diluted "hootch." In 1923, moonshiner, Andrew Hirko, killed informer, Harry Ritchey, and Hirko was sentenced to life in the state penitentiary for 2nd degree murder. Five years later a double killing took place in the county: bootlegger, Mike Soptik shot and mortally wounded enforcement agent, James Capon, and then in turn, Soptik was shot (six times) and killed by another agent. The most spectacular prohibition event in Lincoln County took place in 1931. Enforcement agents from a series of raids captured about 24,000 gallons of moonshine booze worth $90,000, and burned it on Diamondville Hill. The conflagration burned for hours and while it was burning, one enterprising Diamondvilleite managed to save six half-empty kegs, storing them in an abandoned shack near the fire. Once the fire was over, he went to retrieve his booze, but someone had hijacked it from him. When prohibition finally came to an end, April 1, 1935, practically all of the residents of Lincoln County celebrated. "John Barleycorn" was resurrected from the grave in which he had been interred in 1919, and legal whiskey flowed freely.

County Debt and Changing Borders

Throughout the prohibition era and despite the problems connected with it, county government functioned in Lincoln County with some major achievements made, and with a major change in the county. From its beginning in 1913, Lincoln County government operated in the red, having to issue certificates of indebtedness to pay its bills. But with frugal management by the county commissioners, the county's indebtedness was erased by 1918. Although by using its courthouse and jail fund, the county had purchased a city block in Kemmerer and built a county jail in 1916, it was still leasing space for county offices in 1920. With the county out of debt, the commissioners that year began considering the construction of a new courthouse for the county, but then, in 1921, the state legislature enacted legislation creating Sublette and Teton Counties out of Lincoln County.

County Courthouse

The organization of Teton County in 1922 and Sublette County in 1923 affected the assessed valuation of Lincoln County and caused the county commissioners to delay making a decision regarding construction of a courthouse until the county's financial situation was clear. Finally, in February 1924, the commissioners determined to present a $100,000 bond issue proposal for the construction af a courthouse to the county's electorate. Three months later, the commissioners employed architects Headlund and Watkins of Salt Lake City, Utah to design the courthouse and prepare plans.

The $100,000 in county bonds were approved by Lincoln County taxpayers by 455 yes votes to 169 no votes on August 19, 1924, and then were sold to three bond companies on August 30. Two days later, the architectural plans for the Lincoln County Courthouse were accepted by the commissioners, and on September 29, 1924 construction contracts were awarded. The general construction contract for $87,766 went to T. G. Rowland of Logan, Utah, while the plumbing and heating contract for $11,205 was awarded to Horace Fereday of Spanish Forks, Utah. Construction began soon after the contract award, and on November 4, 1924, the board of commissioners approved the concrete work and footings for the courthouse.

Occupied by the county almost a year later, the dark red brick, two-story courthouse, with its six white, stately columns, white trim, and large dome with a statute of justice atop, was an impressive building and a source of pride to the county's citizens. The lower floor of the building, a semi-basement, contained offices for the justice of the peace, the county surveyor, the county superintendent of schools, a large room for the county library, and vaults and storage rooms for the county officers. The district courtroom, judge's chamber, and offices for the county commissioners, the county clerk, the county treasurer, and the county assessor were all on the upper floor.

Today, nearly sixty-four years later, the Lincoln County Courthouse still serves the county's people. Following the completion of a new county law enforcement facility in 1976, the county embarked upon a major remodeling project for the courthouse. Finished in 1986, the remodeling provided for expanded and refurbished county offices, along with both interior and exterior renovation. Now a truly modern public building, meeting the governmental needs of the county, the Lincoln County Courthouse has an historic aura of a bygone era.