TORRINGTON – The state of Wyoming has been called home by many extraordinary women throughout its history. As expected from the “Equality State,” each of these women made unique impacts on women’s rights, both within the state and the country as a whole.

To educate others on the outstanding women in Wyoming history, Michael Kassel, the associate director and curator of collections for the Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum, was the guest speaker at this month’s Goshen County Historical Society (GCHS) meeting.

Historically the very first woman from Wyoming that impacted the rest of the country was Sacajawea and countless women followed in her footprints.  

With this in mind, the six women Kassel spoke of were women who each lived in Wyoming around the time of statehood.

Estelle Reel

Estelle Reel was born in 1862, in Illinois. She settled in Burns in 1886 as a schoolteacher after being educated in Boston, Massachusetts, St. Louis, Missouri and Chicago, Illinois. 

“The school board criticized her, basically telling her she wasn’t doing what she was supposed to do, not wearing the right clothes and not living where they told her to,” Kassel told the audience. “She basically came out in the paper and told them that they had no right to tell her where she would go to church, what clothes to buy or where she boarded.”

The voters in Laramie County appreciated Reel’s show of strength and elected her to be the Laramie County School Superintendent in 1890. Four years later, she also became the Wyoming Superintendent of Instruction. Making her the first woman to win a statewide election in the territory. 

“[In preparation for the election], she actually went almost everywhere that could be found, she did it on horseback, foot, stagecoach,” Kassel said. “In one case in Rock Springs, she even went down a mineshaft to talk to the miners herself. There were some people who accused her of getting cowboys to vote for her by sending them perfumed letters, which she firmly denied.”

Kassel said as the superintendent, Reel took control of the state’s investments on behalf of public schools. She then helped sell a large quantity of land to ranchers and homesteaders to fund schools across the state. She also fought to standardize the teacher certification in Wyoming and free textbooks for all students.

In 1897, Reel was appointed as the National Superintendent of Indian Schools by President William McKinley. Making her also the first woman to fill a federal appointment, which required Senate ratification. 

“In the first 17, of the 26 months she worked, she actually traveled 41,000 miles across the country to visit almost every school,” Kassel said. “She oversaw 250 schools, 20,000 students and a $3 million budget.”

Unfortunately, as was required at the time, Reel was forced to step down from her duties in 1910 when she married Cort Meyer. After their marriage, she followed her husband to Toppenish, Washington. She lived there until she passed away in 1959.

Caroline Cameron Lockhart

Caroline Cameron Lockhart was born in 1870, in Illinois. 

“She was a wild tomboy, who liked to race her horse through town, and often on the sidewalks raising a lot of ire from a lot of people,” Kassel said. “Since her father couldn’t get her under control, he sent her away to school in Pennsylvania.”

There Lockhart trained to become an actress and eventually worked for the Boston Opera. However, it wasn’t long before she decided against the profession and became an investigative reporter. 

“She actually got involved with the Boston Star, and started doing amazing things, such as being the very first woman to go to the bottom of the Boston Harbor in a diving suit,” Kassel said. “Then she also decided to be the first woman to jump out of a second-story window into the new invention called a fireman’s net.”

Later, she even climbed into a lion’s cage and became a lion tamer for a day. Throughout her career, she developed a wonderful reputation and visited several interesting places.

“Once, she did an undercover story about being in the brothels of Boston,” Kassel continued. “Unfortunately, once she got it, the men who were running the brothel did not take her word when she tried to get out that she was actually a reporter. The police and the newspaper editors had to storm the brothel to rescue her.”

At one point, Lockhart did a feature story on Buffalo Bill Cody. 

In 1904, she came out west to work for the Denver Post. Her first feature story was on the history of the Blackfoot Indians of Montana. However, when working on the project, she fell in love with the community of Cody.

After moving to Cody, she began to write books about her experiences. A few of her books included “The Lady Doc,” “The Full of the Moon,” The Man with the Bitter Roots,” “The Fighting Shepherdess,” “The Dude Wrangler” and “The Old West and the New.”

“The Man from the Bitter Roots’ was eventually turned into a Hollywood movie in the 1920s,” Kassel said. “It continued to be remade all the way into the 1950s.”

After becoming a successful novelist, Lockhart decided to retire from the Denver Post and purchased the Park County Enterprise, which was renamed the Cody Enterprise. She also decided to start the Cody Stampede Rodeo and became its first president. 

Kassel said that Lockhart eventually started her own ranch in Montana. From then on, she would ranch in the summertime in Montana and winter in Cody, until her death in 1962.

“What’s now amazing is that her 6,000-acre ranch in Montana, the L/Hart Ranch, is now being considered by the National Park Service to become a national monument,” Kassel said.

Nellie Tayloe Ross

Nellie Tayloe Ross was born in 1876, in Missouri. Her family was rich and owned slaves prior to the Civil War, however, they lost everything after the war. 

After graduating from high school in 1892, Ross moved to Omaha, Nebraska where she taught piano and kindergarten. 

At a family event in Tennessee, she met and fell in love with William Ross. They went on to have four children together. 

William was very involved in politics and a progressive Democrat. He held a position in the legislature in 1906 and became the governor of Wyoming in 1923. 

“[Nellie] would meet [William] every day and they would discuss tactics on how to deal with the Wyoming Legislature and the United States Congress,” Kassel said. “She quickly began to be very reliable and had a great deal of acumen for politics.”

In 1924, William passed away of appendicitis, only halfway through his term. As they were grieving, the democratic party president came up to her and asked her if she would like to be nominated to be her husband’s replacement. At the time she did not respond.

“The democratic party continued to try and advocate for her and eventually wore her down,” Kassel continued. “She finally said that she would do it only 48 hours before the [deadline] to sign up for the election was to pass. They made a deal with her, that they would campaign for her so she could continue to mourn and grieve for her husband.” 

Ross was elected as the governor of Wyoming in 1924, becoming the first woman to serve as a governor in the United States.

“Nellie Tayloe Ross had a very difficult time but did not give up raiser her children,” Kassel said. “She would go from legislature, to parties and then up to her children’s bedrooms to wish them goodnight or take care of them. Fortunately, many women in Cheyenne volunteered to help her do the job.”

As governor, Ross focused on trying to push her husband’s policies through the legislature. However, she constantly struggled with a very reticent republican legislature who disagreed with the policies. In the end, Kassel said she only got two or three things approved during her single term, including giving women and children protection in industrial jobs and curtailing child labor.

At the end of her term, Ross got involved with the women in the democratic party in national politics. She also became a basic representative on the National Democratic Congress for Women’s Rights. There she supported many different democratic nominees for president, including Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“When [Roosevelt] became president in 1932, he remembered what she did and decided to reward all her efforts on behalf of his party over the last 10 years,” Kassel said. “So, he made her one of the first women to actually hold a position of federal authority in the United States by giving her the title of director of the United States Mint.”

During her 20-year career, Ross served under Presidents Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. She also was the one responsible for getting Roosevelt’s face on the dime and President Thomas Jefferson’s face on the nickel. Her name appears on both the National Silver Repository in West Point and the Gold Depository at Fort Knox.

“The whole time she was in Washington, D.C., she loved to keep coming back to Wyoming and being involved with politics,” Kassel said. “Even though she made her residence in Washington, D.C., she was still sought out by many people in Wyoming for her thoughtfulness or wisdom. That continued until she passed away in 1977 at the age of 101.”

Reflection

“These are only [three out of the six] women that represent our wonderful territory and our wonderful state,” Kessel told the audience. “As you might recognize, they have made a national significance and certainly a statewide significance on what we are and how we perceive ourselves.” 

“Without their considerable effort and their considerable acumen, the love of our state and the power that they had with their own personalities, we wouldn’t be the state we are today,” he continued. “So, I think we should recognize these women as being extraordinarily strong women of Wyoming.”

This story was split into two parts in order to appropriately tell the stories of each of these incredible women. Part one included the stories of Esther Hobart Morris, Theresa Jenkins and Grace Raymond Hebard. Part one was in the Sept. 29th edition of the Torrington Telegram.