All posts by gliffen

Miriam Corthell Moreland Golfing

Restaurant History
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Photo and information used with the courtesy of Ann Mullen Boelter.

Miram Moreland Corthell was a part of the Corthell family, who held a high social standing in the community and were very active in the development of Laramie.

The building the Cavalryman Steakhouse occupies today was built in 1925 to serve as the clubhouse for the local Laramie Country Club. It had a nine hole golf course built on sand as well as a swimming pool. Pictured here we see Miriam Mooreland Corthell being her typical active self, playing golf at the country club golf course. The country club moved to the west side of town in the 1960’s and the building was abandoned for 10 years. In 1970, Bob and Betty Gerard founded the Cavalryman Supper Club in its present location. Just to the east, remnants of the nine-hole golf course can still be found.

History of Cavalryman Steakhouse
Cavalryman Steakhouse is located on the parade grounds of historic Fort Sanders, established in July of 1866. Originally named Fort Buford, for Major General John Buford, the post was designated Fort Sanders on September 5, 1866, in honor of Brigadier General William P. Sanders. In its heyday, the Fort Sanders Military Reservation protected the Overland and Lodgepole Creek emigrant routes, the Denver-Salt Lake City stage route, and the construction crews for the Union Pacific Railroad.

The post headquarters were laid out according to standard military plans around a parade ground some 400 ft. by 200 ft. in size. Troops from Companies A and F of the Third Battalion, 18th Infantry, and Company G of the 2nd Cavalry salvaged logs from the decommissioned Forts Collins and Halleck to build the barracks and kitchens, as well as the officers’ quarters on the southeastern side of the parade grounds.

Ruins of the Fort’s powder keg are visible just southwest of the restaurant’s main building. The Cavalryman Steakhouse building was built in 1925 to serve as the clubhouse for the local country club. Just to the east, remnants of the nine-hole golf course can still be found, with the pro shop building still standing just to the southeast.

On March 1, 1970, Robert & Betty Gerard founded the Cavalryman Supper Club in its present location. Cavalryman Steakhouse quickly became known as a great western steakhouse. Marion Griffin and various partners owned and operated the restaurant from 1975 to 2005. In January 2006, a group of investors purchased the restaurant with the intent of honoring its rich tradition while modernizing the restaurant concept. In December 2012, the local managing partner acquired the business and revitalized this historic steakhouse.

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Woman Teeing Off

Restaurant History

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The building the Cavalryman Steakhouse occupies today was initially built in 1925 to serve as the clubhouse for the local Laramie Country Club. It had a nine hole golf course built on sand as well as a swimming pool. Here we see one of the members teeing off at the Country Club Golf Course. The Country Club moved to the west side of town in the 1960’s and the building was abandoned for 10 years. In 1970, Bob and Betty Gerard founded the Cavalryman Supper Club in its present location. Just to the east, remnants of the nine-hole golf course can still be found.

History of Cavalryman Steakhouse
Cavalryman Steakhouse is located on the parade grounds of historic Fort Sanders, established in July of 1866. Originally named Fort Buford, for Major General John Buford, the post was designated Fort Sanders on September 5, 1866, in honor of Brigadier General William P. Sanders. In its heyday, the Fort Sanders Military Reservation protected the Overland and Lodgepole Creek emigrant routes, the Denver-Salt Lake City stage route, and the construction crews for the Union Pacific Railroad.

The post headquarters were laid out according to standard military plans around a parade ground some 400 ft. by 200 ft. in size. Troops from Companies A and F of the Third Battalion, 18th Infantry, and Company G of the 2nd Cavalry salvaged logs from the decommissioned Forts Collins and Halleck to build the barracks and kitchens, as well as the officers’ quarters on the southeastern side of the parade grounds.

Ruins of the Fort’s powder keg are visible just southwest of the restaurant’s main building. The Cavalryman Steakhouse building was built in 1925 to serve as the clubhouse for the local country club. Just to the east, remnants of the nine-hole golf course can still be found, with the pro shop building still standing just to the southeast.

On March 1, 1970, Robert & Betty Gerard founded the Cavalryman Supper Club in its present location. Cavalryman Steakhouse quickly became known as a great western steakhouse. Marion Griffin and various partners owned and operated the restaurant from 1975 to 2005. In January 2006, a group of investors purchased the restaurant with the intent of honoring its rich tradition while modernizing the restaurant concept. In December 2012, the local managing partner acquired the business and revitalized this historic steakhouse.

Resources

Elinore Pruitt Stewart

Equality Wall - Wyoming Women
Above - Elinore Stewart on a horse-drawn hay mower, 1925.
Elinore Pruitt Stewart documented her life as a woman homesteader in Wyoming.

In the early 1900s, Elinore Pruitt was the ultimate single mother in search of a better life for herself and her young daughter in the Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory of Oklahoma.

She took a position as a domestic for a widowed schoolteacher in Denver, Colorado, but an ad in the Denver Post caught her eye and changed her life forever. Clyde Stewart, a rancher in a small Wyoming hamlet known as “Burntfork” was seeking help to run his homestead ranch following the death of his wife. Not only did Pruitt and Stewart meet, but they also married, and, under the Homestead Act, Elinore filed her own 160-acre claim near his.

Although single women made up roughly 12 percent of all homesteaders, what set Elinore apart from the others is that she documented her homestead experiences in southwestern Wyoming in numerous detailed letters and stories that were frank, vivid, eloquent and perceptive.

 “To me, homesteading is the solution of all poverty’s problems, but I realize that temperament has much to do with success in any undertaking, and persons afraid of coyotes and work and loneliness had better let ranching alone. At the same time, any woman who can stand her own company, can see the beauty of the sunset, loves growing things, and is willing to put in as much time at careful labor as she does over the washtub, will certainly succeed, will have independence, plenty to eat all the time, and a home of her own in the end.” —  Elinore Pruitt Stewart, Jan. 23, 1913

Two collections of Elinore’s writings were published as Letters of a Woman Homesteader, which was the basis for the film “Heartland,” and Letters on an Elk Hunt.

Learn more about Elinore Pruitt Stewart

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Chief Washakie

Trappers and Native American History

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Chief Washakie  (1804—1900) was a Shoshone chief who performed extraordinary acts of friendship for white settlers while exhibiting tremendous prowess as a warrior against his people’s tribal enemies. When wagon trains were passing through Shoshone country in the 1850s, Washakie and his people aided the overland travelers in fording streams and recovering strayed cattle. He was also a scout for the U.S. Army.

Washakie served as representative for both the Shoshone and the Bannock tribes at the 1868 Fort Bridger negotiations. As a result, Washakie’s people surrendered the Green River Valley of eastern Utah and southern Wyoming to provide the right of way for the Union Pacific Railroad. Today, the Wind River Reservation serves as the contemporary home of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe tribes. The reservation covers more than 2.2 million acres in central Wyoming’s beautiful Wind River Basin.

A statue of Washakie was given to the National Statuary Hall Collection by Wyoming in 2000. Washakie’s prowess in battle, his efforts for peace, and his commitment to his people’s welfare made him one of the most respected leaders in Native American history. Another statue can be seen in front of the Wyoming State Capitol.

Learn more about Chief Washakie. 

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The Physics Lab

University of Wyoming History
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The physics lab at the University of Wyoming.

In 1999, the University of Wyoming considered closing its physics and astronomy department citing a decline in the number of physics and astronomy majors.  If they had done so, UW would have been the only state university without such a program.

Not only did the University of Wyoming avoid closing the physics and astronomy program, but it also received an astounding $5 million donation from the Hess Corporation in 2013 to support research and buy equipment for the Hess Digital Rock Physics Laboratory.

The lab does proprietary research for the company related to the unconventional recovery of gas and oil.

Learn more about the history of the University of Wyoming. 

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Grace Raymond Hebard

University of Wyoming History
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Tree dedicated to Grace Hebard’s memory. 

Grace Raymond Hebard may not have been the first woman in Wyoming to break the “glass ceiling,” but her achievements were nevertheless remarkable! Not only was Hebard the first woman admitted to the Wyoming State Bar in 1898, plus the first woman to practice law before the Wyoming Supreme Court, she was also an engineer, suffragist, librarian and historian.

Reared in Iowa, Hebard received a B.S. in engineering from the State University of Iowa in 1882, followed by an M.A. through a correspondence course in 1885. A job opportunity as a draftsman in the land office of the United States Surveyor General brought her and her family to Wyoming. Once here, her love of the state never waned.

Hebard became a member of the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees in 1891, serving as its secretary. Later, she taught political economy. By the end of her long career, she was heading the Department of Political Economy and Sociology. Hebard was a popular speaker and writer whose books were considered highly romanticized. These included the History and Government of Wyoming and Pathbreakers from River to Ocean.

As if that weren’t enough, Heard was also Wyoming’s reigning tennis champion for a time!

Learn more about Grace Raymond Hebard.

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Dr. Wilbur Knight

University of Wyoming History
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Professor Knight with Bones from an 1899 excavation.

Dr. Wilbur Knight served as the assistant territorial geologist of Wyoming (1886-87) and was appointed state geologist in 1898. He joined the University of Wyoming faculty in 1893, and in addition to his instructional responsibilities, served as curator of the Geological Museum.

Knight led many expeditions into the Wyoming heartland, famous for being one of the richest fossil regions in the United States. He was the leader of the 1899 Union Pacific Railroad Expedition in which railroad officials invited geologists and paleontologists from universities, colleges, and museums around the country to participate in a scientific expedition to Wyoming.

Under Knight’s direction, the University of Wyoming identified fossils unearthed by members of the group, and the Union Pacific Railroad transported them to their home institutions free of charge. Since then, the Geological Museum at the University of Wyoming has become a tremendous attraction in Laramie and an asset to Wyoming. Although Wilbur died rather young, his son Samuel “Doc” Knight, the legendary Wyoming geologist, later became the curator of the museum and expanded its scope.

Learn more about the history of Wilbur Wright and the University of Wyoming Geological Museum.

 

Assaying Class

University of Wyoming History

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A course in assaying — the process for determining the amount of a certain metal contained in an ore or alloy — was one of University of Wyoming’s School of Mines’ early offerings taught by Professor Wilbur C. Wright.

For a number of years, assaying was provided to the citizens of Wyoming for as little as 50 cents for lead or up to $5.00 for platinum or cobalt. Water analysis was also available.

Learn more about the history of the University of Wyoming.

 

Aven Nelson Leading Students to Centennial, WY

University of Wyoming History
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Aven Nelson, President of the University of Wyoming,  leads students to a summer school picnic in Centennial, Wyoming on July 4, 1919.

Aven Nelson was one of the original founding faculty members of the University of Wyoming. Nelson came to the university in 1887, the year it was founded. He served UW for 55 years before retiring in 1942. Nelson was the University of Wyoming’s first professor of botany, as well as the university’s 10th President.

In his role as a botanist, Nelson shared his expertise with students and the Wyoming public. As secretary of the State Board of Horticulture, Nelson wrote numerous publications intended for the general population. In 1893, he co-founded the Rocky Mountain Herbarium — today one of the finest in the United States—and the Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Science. Nelson also served as president of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, Phi Kappa Phi and the Botanical Society of America.

Nelson’s achievements were recognized with an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Colorado, as well as an honorary doctor of law degree from Wyoming.

The Aven Nelson Memorial Building is named in his honor.

Learn more about Aven Nelson. 

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Aven Nelson Botany Class

University of Wyoming History

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Aven Nelson was one of the original founding faculty members of the University of Wyoming. Nelson came to the university in 1887, the year it was founded. He served UW for 55 years before retiring in 1942. Nelson was the University of Wyoming’s first professor of botany, as well as the university’s 10th President.

In his role as a botanist, Nelson shared his expertise with students and the Wyoming public. As secretary of the State Board of Horticulture, Nelson wrote numerous publications intended for the general population. In 1893, he co-founded the Rocky Mountain Herbarium — today one of the finest in the United States—and the Colorado-Wyoming Academy of Science. Nelson also served as president of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, Phi Kappa Phi and the Botanical Society of America.

Nelson’s achievements were recognized with an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Colorado, as well as an honorary doctor of law degree from Wyoming.

The Aven Nelson Memorial Building is named in his honor.

Learn more about Aven Nelson.

Resources