Cheyenne is planning a big celebration for the Fourth of July this year in honor of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Chairman of the Cheyenne and Laramie County 250 Commission Nathaniel Trelease helped plan the events.
Wyoming Public Media’s Grady Kirkpatrick spoke with Trelease about the celebrations. But first, they talked about a new series called “America’s Minutes: Stories of America 250,” meant to be the education side of things.
Editor’s Note: This interview was lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Nathaniel Trelease: When we started planning this more than 24 months ago, we wanted to leave something more enduring than fireworks and concerts. We wanted to leave something that would inspire people to learn more about their heritage, both as Americans and as Wyoming citizens. And by inspiring them to learn more, encourage them to be active and good stewards of their heritage, good citizens. Celebrate, yes, but learn and give something back to your community.
We came up with two things, [one of] which is America's Minutes. [This] was the most important educational component. We wanted to tell people stories about the American Revolutionary War, more broadly the founding period, but also elements of Wyoming, specifically Wyoming history that people may have forgotten. What we wanted to do is go out and say, "These are our stories. These are the things that we have in common, particularly in a tumultuous time. Learn, grow, and give something back." That was our inspiration.
What we did is we created 65 episodes, each about 90 seconds long, very well-produced, that tell the story of an iconic figure, a battle, a moment, a turning point in either American history, again during that period, the founding period, or Wyoming history. In that way, we hope to bring people back into the story of America and of Wyoming.
Grady Kirkpatrick: There are some fascinating stories. We've started those on Wyoming Public Radio. Nathaniel, just tell us some of the Wyoming connections. There are many in America's stories.
NT: Let's start with our leaders. Let's start with the presidents. When you think about the great presidential families, a family that has had more than one of its members become president of the United States. The two that immediately pop to mind are the Adams family, John Adams and John Quincy Adams, but also the Roosevelts, Teddy Roosevelt and then Franklin Delano Roosevelt were cousins.
But there are other families. There are obviously the Bushes, George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush, the father and the son. There's another family in there that often gets forgotten, and that's the Harrison family, William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison.
Did you know that the Harrison family has a deep connection with the state of Wyoming? In fact, William Henry Harrison III, the great-grandson of the first president and the grandson of the second president, represented Wyoming in Congress in non-consecutive terms in the '50s and the '60s and served in the Wyoming Legislature.
That's fascinating. There are other things, too, where Wyoming is connected in a unique way to global history. Everybody remembers, or perhaps not everybody, I'm old enough that I remember, United States senator from Wyoming, Malcolm Wallop, who was from the Big Horn area. I didn't realize that his grandfather, Oliver Wallop, is the only person in world history to serve both in the Wyoming State House of Representatives and the British House of Lords. I didn't know that.
As I delved into this more and more, I learned that there was even a movement at one point to have Yellowstone [National Park], which is a distinctive part of the great state of Wyoming, leave Wyoming and actually become part of Montana.
There were a lot of incendiary newspaper columns in the late 1800s about how Wyoming, obviously pre-statehood in the territory days or after statehood, was mismanaging Yellowstone, and for ecological reasons, it should be transferred to Montana. Obviously, it didn't happen, but that was something new to me as well.
So it's an opportunity to rediscover our history as Wyomingites but also as Americans.
GK: The goals of the project, you mentioned a little bit about inspiring learning, encouraging acts of citizenship and stewardship, and then, of course, celebration. A big one planned for July 4th in Cheyenne, the Capital City Celebration. Tell us about some of the things happening on July 4th.
NT: I think no matter what your age, whatever your interest is, whatever activities you like, to celebrate or to relax, you will find them in Cheyenne, Wyoming, between June 27 and July 4 itself.
What do we have going on? There's a big community festival in Cheyenne that's now more than 20 years old. It's called Super Day. It's a family festival [on June 27]. We're adapting that this year to make it the American Heritage Festival, where children will be able to learn about our founding period. They'll be able to participate in crafts and arts that are patriotically themed.
There will be additional musical acts, that will be rock and roll, some patriotic. There will be a number of elements from a community festival of booths and bouncy games and other rides for children, but also help them to learn and help parents to introduce their children to this period in American history.
Throughout the week, there will be other activities. I'm excited by two or three.
First, we're mounting a performance of the classic American Broadway musical “1776” in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It's on July 2 at the Civic Center. The Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra, together with a group of actors, is creating that and mounting that for us in Cheyenne. Sean Ambrose is the leader of that.
We are also unveiling that week, “Echoes: Wyoming at America 250.” I told you, Grady, that we wanted to leave something behind for America 300 and America 350. The fireworks, the concerts, the musicals, they're gonna be great, but what we have done is we have crafted four bronze panels, 60 inches wide, 40 inches high, four of them, each of which depicts different eras of Wyoming history.
The first panel depicts Wyoming's natural history. The second panel depicts westward expansion, the explorers and the settlers. The third panel depicts, importantly, the creation of a distinctive Wyoming civilization, and the fourth panel is our great state's political history, contributions to women's suffrage and equality.
These panels will be installed in downtown Cheyenne, and they depict all of the elements of Wyoming history. So we have that.
We have the Broadway musical on the Fourth of July itself. We have a big parade, 9:00 a.m. downtown. Throughout the day, there will be concerts on stages in front of the Capitol on 24th Street in front of the state capitol building.
All the state buildings, or a lot of them, will be open with special activities and community affairs. There will be food trucks, activities and military vehicles. The governor will have a ceremony on the steps of the Capitol in the early afternoon. The crescendo of all of this is going be fireworks over the state capitol at approximately 9:40 p.m., but that'll be in conjunction with a full choral performance and a full symphonic performance by the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra in front of the state capitol. Imagine that scene, for 90 minutes playing the patriotic canon.
This is a rare opportunity to celebrate who we are as Americans and Wyomingites.
