Wyoming audio

In this episode we’ll be talking about the US state of Wyoming, also known as “the equality state” and “the cowboy state.”

Admitted to the US as the 44th state in 1890, Wyoming has always been among the least populous states in the nation. Roughly rectangular in shape and located in the western part of the country, straddling the continental divide, Wyoming is the 10th largest state by area, and its current day population is just over 585,000, making it the second-least densely populated state after Alaska. The climate here is semi-arid and continental, drier and windier than the rest of the U.S., with greater temperature extremes.

The state is famous as the home of the first US National Park, Yellowstone and the first US national monument, Devil’s Tower. Historically important industries include coal, cattle and tourism.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Hong Kong, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Switzerland. (Theme music by Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella)

Here are a few things you may want to read/watch more about:

To get a good overview of the geography of this place, PBS has a great film that takes you all over the state. You can find it on YouTube.

The images of Yellowstone National Park that were promised are in the gallery below.

Jim Bridger, the famous ‘mountain man’ who plays a small role in The Revenant is profiled by Brittanica here.

is profiled by Brittanica here. The Union Pacific featured prominently in this episode. It’s still going today, and you can learn more about its chequered history over at Wikipedia.

Crowheart Butte, the site of the epic battle between two Native American chiefs, is profiled by Wyoming Tales and Trails here.

We spoke at length in this episode about the shady story behind women winning the right to vote in Wyoming. You can dive deeper into that whole story thanks to WyoHistory. The site also has tons of deep dives into other elements of the state’s history, many of which were mentioned in this episode.

‘Fantastic Yellowstone’, the archival film that’s featured in this episode, traces the history of the national park and is available here on the Internet Archive.



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The music you heard in this episode was from the following sources;

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