N.K. Boswell was one of the first settlers in the Laramie area (1865). A Civil War veteran who served in the Union Army, Boswell helped with the building of Fort Sanders. Eventually, he and his brother became ranchers and were instrumental in establishing Laramie. Boswell was an original member of the local “Vigilance Committee”, organized to help bring order to the lawless city when after the newly elected mayor and town council resigned after only six weeks in office.
Real law and order were established when the Wyoming Territory was organized in 1869 and Gov. John Campbell appointed Nathaniel K. Boswell as the first sheriff of Albany County. He was also the first warden of the Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie in the 1860s.
During his career, he arrested Jack McCall, the man who shot “Wild Bill” Hickok in Deadwood City, South Dakota as well as the notorious stage robber George “Big Nose” Parrott. Boswell was a Republican, who participated in Theodore Roosevelt’s famous 55-mile ride from Laramie to Cheyenne. Boswell’s ranch house, which was constructed by Tom Walden in approximately 1878, is now listed on the National Register of Historical Places.