Gas Replaced the Noose, 1937

In 1937, following the lead set by Nevada, Arizona and Colorado in the quick and painless method of executing criminals by gas, Wyoming has installed a lethal gas chamber to replace the noose, a fast disappearing method of capital punishment.

The Wyoming death chamber, manufactured by a Denver, Colorado, firm, was claimed to be the most humane yet devised. Several other states were said to be considering the adoption of gas chambers for legal executions.

New lethal gas chamber which replaced the noose in Wyoming. The girl studying the apparatus was Helen Williams of Denver, Colo., where chamber was made for Wyoming authorities.

Car Served as Stamp Album, 1936

By making the exterior of his car serve as his album, Ed “600” Hadley of Casper, Wyoming, has assembled one of the world’s strangest postage-stamp exhibits in 1936. His daughter and her friends worked for six weeks to plaster the machine with the 10,000-odd specimens, which are covered with a protective coat of varnish to shield them from the weather and hardships of the road.

Ed used his 1936 Oldsmobile as a way of publicizing his business, The Palms Ice Cream & Floral Company. He later paid the girls to remove the stamps after using the promotional vehicle for a year. Ed Hadley was known to go to great lengths to promote his business. Once, he was tackled by the Secret Service while running up to the President’s motorcade with a large bouquet of flowers from his shop.

40 Captivating Vintage Photos of People in Encampment, Wyoming From Between the 1920s and 1930s

When her youngest child reached 4 years of age and the Nichols family committed to remaining in Encampment after the last of the mining and railroad work left town, Lora Webb Nichols (1883-1962) purchased a storefront and established the Rocky Mountain Studio in the center of Encampment, Wyoming.

Many of the images were made in and around the boardwalk that surrounded the studio and Lora’s other Encampment business venture, The Sugar Bowl soda fountain. She created and collected approximately 24,000 negatives over the course of her lifetime in the mining town of Encampment. The images chronicle the domestic, social, and economic aspects of the sparsely populated frontier of south-central Wyoming.

Nichols received her first camera in 1899 at the age of 16, coinciding with the rise of the region’s copper mining boom. The earliest photographs are of her immediate family, self-portraits, and landscape images of the cultivation of the region surrounding the town of Encampment. In addition to the personal imagery, the young Nichols photographed miners, industrial infrastructure, and a small town’s adjustment to a sudden, but ultimately fleeting, population increase.

As early as 1906, Nichols was working for hire as a photographer for industrial documentation and family portraits, developing and printing from a darkroom she fashioned in the home she shared with her husband and their children. After the collapse of the copper industry, Nichols remained in Encampment and established the Rocky Mountain Studio, a photography and photofinishing service, to help support her family. Her commercial studio was a focal point of the town throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

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35 Amazing Vintage Photographs Record Life in Wyoming From Between the 1900s and 1910s

Laura Webb Nichols (1883–1962) got her first camera on her 16th birthday, October 28, 1899, as a gift from Bert Oldman, a miner who would become her first husband the following year and the subject of many of her early photographs.

The earliest photographs are of her immediate family, self-portraits, and landscape images of the cultivation of the region surrounding the mining town of Encampment, Wyoming. In addition to the personal imagery, the young Nichols photographed miners, industrial infrastructure, and a small town’s adjustment to a sudden, but ultimately fleeting, population increase. The images chronicle the domestic, social, and economic aspects of the sparsely populated frontier of south-central Wyoming.

As early as 1906, Nichols was working for hire as a photographer for industrial documentation and family portraits, developing and printing from a darkroom she fashioned in the home she shared with her husband and their children. After the collapse of the copper industry, Nichols remained in Encampment and established the Rocky Mountain Studio, a photography and photofinishing service, to help support her family. Her commercial studio was a focal point of the town throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Elva and Carrie Hinman, 1902

Mabel Wilcox, 1902

1902

Bert Oldman, 1906

Nora and Irwin Fleming, 1906

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No Safety Bars Needed, These Vintage Photographs of Snow King Chairlifts Will Give You the Anxiety!

Many people freaked out by these vintage photographs of Snow King chairlifts from between the 1950s and 1970s. The biggest issue is the lack of safety bars over the front, and people detailed how the images made them feel sick, anxious, or worried. It also might have to do with the perspective of the photos, which show the entire town of Jackson in the background and might be a forced perspective that makes the lift look much higher than it actually is.

Safety bars are sometimes used on chairlifts, but not always. Their presence arguably interferes with the primary application of chairlifts in their contexts — enabling riders to enter them and, a few minutes later, disembark onto ski slopes with ease.

In 1936, the Civilian Conservation Corps created a switch-back horse and hiking trail to the top of the mountain and the trail became one of Snow King’s first skiing race courses. The Jackson Hole Ski Club was established in 1937, and two years later lift-served skiing began on Wyoming's first ski area with the addition of a 4,000-foot (1,220 m) rope tow.

The first chairlift was installed in 1946, a converted ore tram from Colorado. It had four stations, with the first starting where 1 town hill apartments are located. Stations 2 and 3, which were up the hill, were for beginners and intermediate skiers and snowboarders. The lift to the top originally began as a single chair lift in the 1940s, but by the late 1950s, the single chair was replaced with a double. In 1981 the entire lift was replaced with the Summit Lift there now.

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50 Amazing Photos That Document Everyday Life of a Wyoming Girl in the Early 20th Century

Here is an amazing photo collection from Wilbert Bregar that documented everyday life of a Wyoming girl named Jean Johnson in the early 20th.

Jean Johnson Joslin through the years

“Many of these photos were made in Jean's Kodak Signature camera. Jean was born in 1904 and grew up in Greeley Colorado. She graduated from Greeley High School in 1922. After normal school, she taught in one room schools in Wyoming.

Jean married Dwight Joslin in 1930, raised 3 children: Paul, Betty, and Dorothy (Dottie). She died in 1990 (Cheyenne, WY) at the age of 85.”

Jean Johnson 5 years old, 1908

Jean Johnson 8 yrs, 1911

Jean Johnson, circa 1918

Jean Johnson, circa 1918

Jean Johnson and friend, circa 1920s

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Wonderful Kodachrome Prints of Everyday Life in Wyoming in the 1950s

These are what everyday life in Wyoming looked like in the 1950s.

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Stunning Color Portraits of American Indian Girls in the Early 1970s

American photographer Nick DeWolf took these stunning portraits of beautiful girls at a Miss American Indian pageant in Wyoming in 1971.

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22 Breathtaking Photos of the Peaceful Jackson Hole Valley in Its Dude Ranch Days from the 1940s

Long before the skiers arrived in the winter, national park-goers in the summer and mountain lovers all year round, the peaceful Jackson Hole valley was home to cowboys, cowgirls and stunning views of the Teton Mountain Range. In 1948, LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured the region’s quiet yet dramatic beauty in vivid Technicolor, preserving it—at least on film—for posterity.

Snake River with the Grand Tetons in the background, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 1948.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 1948.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 1948.

Young cowgirl Esther Allen trout fishing in String Lake. Teton Mountains behind. Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 1948.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 1948.

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Color Pictures of 1950 Cheyenne Frontier Days Parade

Cheyenne Frontier Days is an outdoor rodeo and western celebration held annually since 1897 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The event, claimed to be one of the largest of its kind in the world, draws nearly 200,000 people every year. Lodging fills up quickly during the peak tourist season throughout southern and eastern Wyoming and even into Colorado and Nebraska. The celebration is held during the ten days centered about the last full week of July.

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