Wyoming Trivia & Tidbits - Page 8

Looking for Wyoming trivia? Try our list Wyoming little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Between the Bighorn Mountains and the Black Hills, the Thunder Basin National Grassland ranges in elevation from 3,600 to 5,200 feet. The semi-arid region abounds with rare species—swift fox, mountain plover and black-tailed prairie dog. With more than 572,000 acres in five Wyoming counties, it is one of the largest intact grassland habitats remaining in the northern Great Plains.

first appeared: 3/13/2005

More than 200 Boy Scouts and their leaders in Jackson (pop. 8,647) log 2,000 hours each spring at the nearby National Elk Refuge gathering 10,000 pounds of antlers. The Scouts auction the antlers and donate 80 percent of the proceeds to the refuge to help with winter feeding.

first appeared: 2/27/2005

The 1868 diaries of Maj. Robert Dunlap Clarke describe events ranging from picnics with fellow officers and their families to Indian attacks. Clarke was a U.S. Army paymaster who traveled the Bozeman Trail, the shortest route from Wyoming to Montana’s gold fields, to pay troops at stations including Fort Phil Kearny near Story (pop. 887) and Fort Fetterman near Douglas (pop. 5,288).

first appeared: 2/13/2005

Sportscaster Curt Gowdy, born in 1919 in Green River, was known as "the voice of the Red Sox," serving as the play-by-play announcer for the Boston baseball team from 1951 to 1965.

first appeared: 2/13/2005

Artist Harvey Jackson calls his mural on the L&H Industrial Welding Shop in Gillette (pop. 19,646) a community triumph. Completed in 2004, the Campbell County Industry Mural measures 220 feet long and 56 feet high and took 220 gallons of paint, 250 people and $198,000 donated by local businesses and residents to achieve. The mural depicts local industries, including oil and gas, agriculture, railroads, coal and ranching.

first appeared: 1/30/2005

Other large works created in Gillette by Harvey Jackson, who calls himself a "creatologist," include a wrap-around American flag that seems to wave in the breeze on the American Radio Building, a 10-by-24-foot red Packard roadster outside Packard’s Grill, and a 100-by-18-foot mural of a cowboy, titled Tired Eyes, on Gillette Avenue.

first appeared: 1/30/2005

An early Scottish resident reportedly named the town of Afton (pop. 1,818), established in 1878, after a Robert Burns poem titled Flow Gently, Sweet Afton about a river in southwestern Scotland. The Star Valley town boasts a huge arch made of elk horns, which stretches across four lanes of U.S. Highway 89.

first appeared: 1/16/2005

The LOTOJA-Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyo.-bike race traverses three states and 203 miles in one day, making it one of the nation's longest single-day events. Fewer than 10 riders took part in the first race in 1983; hundreds now participate in the annual September event, racing through Utah and Idaho and usually finishing in Jackson (pop. 8,647) 8 to 12 hours later.

first appeared: 1/2/2005

Originally built in 1923 as a vaudeville house, the Lotus Theater in Sheridan (pop. 15,804) underwent a renovation in 1941 that included a new art-deco façade and a new name: the WYO. After the theater closed in 1982, local citizens raised funds to restore it. The WYO re-opened as a performing arts center in 1989.

first appeared: 12/19/2004

West of Casper (pop. 49,644), Hell’s Half Acre is a horseshoe-shaped, 320-acre gorge that cuts through the surrounding plain to a depth of 150 feet. Its landscape includes jagged rock towers, eroded spires and brightly colored rock. The area appeared as an alien planet in the 1997 movie Starship Troopers.

first appeared: 12/5/2004

Beginning in 1822, hundreds of early travelers—trappers, explorers and settlers—carved their names into the limestone cliffs along the Green River near La Barge (pop. 431), creating a permanent record of their passage on what is now called Names Hill.

first appeared: 11/21/2004

In 2001, artist Cosimo Cavallaro sprayed a vacant house in Powell (pop. 5,373) inside and out with 10,000 pounds of melted cheese, calling his creation "The Cheese House." Cavallaro has since moved on to New York City, where an exhibit earlier this year involved 300 pounds of sliced ham piled on top of a bed.

first appeared: 11/7/2004

Charles Buell, owner of the Occidental Hotel near Clear Creek, helped name the town of Buffalo (pop. 3,900). It’s reported that Buell asked his patrons to place possible names for the new town in a hat. The winning name drawn came from Will Hart, whose hometown was Buffalo, N.Y.

first appeared: 10/24/2004

Some time between 1932 and 1940, an American Indian rock carving—or petroglyph—known as the Great Turtle Shield was stolen from its rock face near Ten Sleep (pop. 304). It reappeared in 1941, when it was anonymously donated to the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne (pop. 53,011), where it remains.

first appeared: 10/10/2004

When crews worked through the winter of 1903-04 to construct the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, temperatures were often below zero and snow drifted up to 20 feet high. Temperatures were so frigid that nails had to be heated so they wouldn’t shatter.

first appeared: 10/3/2004

In September 2000, the state contributed a 7-foot-tall bronze statue of Chief Washakie to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. The statue, created by sculptor Dave McGary of Cody (pop. 8,835), recognizes Washakie as a respected 19th-century warrior and leader who advanced peace between the United States and American Indian nations.

first appeared: 9/19/2004

With almost 70 patents registered in the Wyoming Inventors Database, gun designer John D. Pedersen of Jackson (pop. 8,647) is one of the database’s most prolific inventors. His patents are for firearms and firearm components, such as cartridges and rifle barrels, and span the years 1909 to 1944.

first appeared: 9/12/2004

On Dec. 25, 1900, Myrtle Wallin of Rock Springs (pop. 18,708) became the first Wyoming woman to receive a patent, for a work-holder, a device to assist seamstresses.

first appeared: 9/5/2004

In 1995, Joan Sheridan of Cheyenne (pop. 53,011) earned 20 patents for her unique Christmas stockings, making her one of the state’s most prolific female inventors.

first appeared: 9/5/2004

After serving five terms in the House of Representatives, Edgar “Ed” Herschler was elected a record three terms as governor of Wyoming, from 1975 to 1987. He grew up near Kemmerer (pop. 2,651), and served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II before becoming a lawyer, and then a politician.

first appeared: 8/29/2004

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