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a m e r i c a n l o c a l h i s t o r y n e t w o r k w y o m i n g w e b s i t e
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ABOUT WYOMING
From the Lusk Herald, Reprinted in the Sheridan Post, 21 March 1889
Contrary to the general opinion in the large centers of population in the east, there is the very best of good society in the west. By this we do not mean fashionable society, with all its attendant evils of dissipation so destructive of health, morals and life itself, but an intelligent society, and one in which all the rational pleasures of social life are reasonably enjoyed. Churches, schools, literary societies, musical organizations, dramatic societies, dancing clubs and the various secret and benevolent orders are found even here on the frontier, and eastern Wyoming affords to its people all the advantage of a social character that you will find in the east.
Wyoming is 385 miles east and west by 275 miles north and south with an area of 100,000 square miles and comprises a total of some 64,000,000 acres, with a population of about 80,000, which is rapidly increasing, and no territory in the union is to-day attracting greater or more favorable attention than Wyoming, lying as it is, in the very pathway of the great tide of immigration which has swept the plains of Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota. Wyoming must certainly secure her share of the home-seeker and investor.
Until within the last two or three years the territory of Wyoming has been considered by most people within the territory or out of it, as being valuable only as a grazing or stock-growing country, and very little attention has been paid to the development of its agricultural or mineral resources.
With the change which has taken place in the method of conducting the range cattle industry, within the period before mentioned, there has come an appreciation of the agricultural interests of the territory, and the farmer, who had heretofore been looked upon by the cattlemen as an intruder, is now gladly welcomed by all, and will readily find a home market for all he may raise.
Farming throughout the territory has been demonstrated to be more profitable than in the east – even in those localities where irrigation is necessary, and great activity is being manifested to occupy and utilize our fertile agricultural lands.
