Wyoming: A Bicentennial History

For centuries Wyoming was a land no one wanted--high, dry, and remote--more often a thoroughfare on the way to some place else than a final destination. Many of the sweeping developments that overtook the rest of the nation simply passed it by, leaving Wyoming to sit in lonely grandeur behind its granite walls and silent snows. The problem, explains T.A. Larson in this history, was people--and how to get them there.

The settlers who came to Wyoming stayed to build a special way of life. It i...