WYOMING, FLAG OF

U.S. state flag consisting of a dark blue field (background) bordered by white and red; in the centre is the white silhouette of a bison (commonly called a buffalo) bearing the state seal. The seal was adopted by the state legislature in 1893. It includes the state motto, Equal rights, recalling that in 1869 Wyoming's constitution was the first such document to give equal voting and office-holding rights to women. The figures of the miner and cowboy flanking the woman in the centre refer to the principal occupations of the state, further mentioned in the ribbon around the two pillars that reads Livestockminesgrainoil. Also shown are an American eagle over a shield and a star bearing the number 44 (the order of admission of Wyoming to statehood). The design is completed by the dates 1869 and 1890, representing the years Wyoming became a territory and a state, respectively. In 1916 there were 37 proposals submitted in a flag design competition sponsored by the Wyoming chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The creator of the winning design was Verna Keays from the town of Buffalo. Her flag featured the national colours, the white silhouette of a bison, and the Wyoming state seal. The seal appeared on the flank of the bison, suggesting the Western tradition of branding animals. The legislature adopted Keays's flag on January 31, 1917. Its white is said to stand for purity and uprightness, and blue represents the sky and fidelity, justice, and virility. The red border symbolizes both the blood shed by early pioneers and the original Native American population of the state. Whitney Smith History Prehistory to white exploration The first occupants of Wyoming were Paleo-Indian hunters and gatherers who arrived from Siberia through Alaska more than 20,000 years ago. The total number of these peoples was never large because they were highly dependent upon local game populations. By the time the first well-documented visits by white men to Wyoming occurred, the state's population likely did not exceed 10,000. The Shoshoni were the largest tribal group in Wyoming around 1800, but there were also smaller numbers of Arapaho, Crow, Cheyenne, and Oglala and Brul Dakota (Sioux). The first known white men to enter Wyoming were the French-Canadian brothers Franois and Louis-Joseph, sons of Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Lord de La Vrendrye. The brothers visited the northeastern corner of the state in 1743 while unsuccessfully searching for a route to the Pacific Ocean. Although the Lewis and Clark Expedition (180406) missed Wyoming by 60 miles, a member of the group, John Colter, broke away from the main party and trapped in northern Wyoming for some time; the official journal of the expedition includes Colter's route and descriptions of the Jackson Hole and Yellowstone Park areas. Fur trade and the Union Pacific Railroad The early explorers were followed later by small numbers of fur traders. Although there were likely never more than 500 of these mountain men in Wyoming at any given time, the state's economy between 1825 and 1840 was heavily dependent on the activities of such famous trappers and traders as Jim Bridger, William Sublette, Jedediah Smith, and Thomas Fitzpatrick. The number of people entering the Wyoming area increased with the westward movement of the American population. As many as 400,000 emigrants crossed Wyoming between 1841 and 1868 on the trails leading to what is now Oregon, Washington, Montana, Utah, and California. In 1850 alone it is estimated that as many as 55,000 crossed the future state. Pony Express riders, including Buffalo Bill Cody, carried the mail across Wyoming between April 1860 and October 1861. In November 1867 the first train of the Union Pacific Railroad reached Cheyenne and opened Wyoming as never before. Cheyenne grew from a handful of people to more than 6,000 in the first year, though the town consisted largely of tents and shacks with a limited number of commercial buildings. This rapid population growth continued in southern Wyoming as the Union Pacific tracks continued across the state, finally entering Utah in 1868. The building of the railroad focused attention on the West, and the Wyoming Territory was created on July 25, 1868.