Hon. John W. Lacey, senior partner in the law firm of Lacey & Lacey, of Cheyenne, and at one time chief justice of Wyoming, was born in Randolph county, Indiana, October 13, 1848, a son of the Rev. Henry J. and Elizabeth (Thompson) Lacey. The father was a Methodist minister and reared a family of four sons and three daughters. Well descended and well bred. Judge Lacey had the advantages offered in a home of culture and refinement.
    He pursued his education in the public schools of various towns in which the family lived owing to the custom of itinerant ministry in the Methodist church at that period. Later he entered DePauw University of Indiana and was graduated therefrom with the class of 1871. He took up the profession of teaching, which he followed for a short time, but regarded this merely as an initial step to other professional activity and began reading law under the direction of Isaac Van Devanter, of Marion, Indiana, who remained his preceptor until he was admitted to the bar in 1875. Prior to 1875 he had read law at intervals in the office of William O'Brien of Noblesville, Indiana. It has been said that a lawyer's experience should be as broad as the universe, for he has to do with every phase of life. Judge Lacey brought to the starting point of his career certain rare gifts–eloquence of language and a strong personality. He, moreover, had back of him experience as a soldier of the Civil war. He was only fifteen years of age when he enlisted for active service at the front, becoming a member of Company F of the One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Indiana Infantry in 1863. He was mustered out the following year but later in that year reenlisted, becoming d member of Company B of the One Hundred and Fifty-second Infantry, with which he served until the close of the war. His training, too, at home had been of that kind which develops character and self-reliance. He entered upon the practice of his profession in Marion, Indiana, where he remained until 1884, when he was appointed by President Arthur to the position of chief justice of Wyoming and served in the highest judicial office of the territory until 1886. In November of that year, having resigned his position upon the bench, he entered into partnership with W. W. Corlett and Judge John A. Riner under the firm style of Corlett, Lacey & Riner. Following the death of Mr. Corlett the partnership was continued under the firm name of Lacey & Riner and so existed until the junior partner was appointed United States district judge m 1890. Later Mr. Lacey entered into partnership relations with his hrother-in-law, Willis Van Devanter, who is now a justice of the United States Supreme Court, and was thus associated until 1897, but is now senior partner in the firm of Lacey & Lacey, a firm that ranks with the foremost practicing at the bar of Cheyenne. Nature endowed him with some of those qualities indispensable to the lawyer–a keen, rapid, logical mind plus the business sense and a ready capacity for hard work. An excellent presence, an earnest, dignified manner, marked strength of character, a thorough grasp of the law and the ability to accurately apply its principles are factors in his effectiveness as an advocate.
    In 1878 Judge Lacey was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Van Devanter, daughter of Isaac Van Devanter, and to them have been born six children: Herbert V., an attorney of Cheyenne; Walter M., M. D., and a captain in the United States service at Fort Riley, Kansas; Ruth, the wife of W. H. Barber, of Eaton, Colorado; Elizabeth, instructor in economics in the University of Nebraska: Louise, teaching home economics in the Colorado Agricultural College at Fort Collins: and Margaret.
    In 1874 the degree of A. M. was conferred upon Judge Lacey by his alma mater, De Pauw University, and in 1914 he received the degree of LL. D. from the University of Denver. In his political views he is a republican and upon all the vital questions of the day keeps abreast with the best thinking men of the age. Fraternally he is a Mason and has taken the degrees of the commandery and of the consistory. A resident of Cheyenne since 1884, he has done much to uphold public stability and to advance the standards of citizenship in relation to municipal and commonwealth afifairs.