Wyoming’s History Through Listeners’ Eyes!
Congratulations to this year’s Wyoming Public Media Photo Contest winners!
We were lucky to receive so many beautiful entries from all over Wyoming, and it was difficult for viewers to choose the best. These photos portray Wyoming’s rich history, natural beauty, national parks, and monuments. The winners are based on the top votes from Wyoming Public Media’s listeners and viewers. The top winners are posted below.
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Wyoming Public Media invited Wyomingites to get out and take photos of Wyoming’s beautiful scenery, people, and history. The top choices are featured on this site and will be showcased on 2026 calendars, as well as greeting cards and a traveling exhibit.
This project is funded in part by a Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources Semiquincentennial grant.
Wyoming Public Media 2025 Photo Contest (September 1 – October 31, 2025, Voting November 1 – 15, 2025)
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1. Adam Bowen - A quick embrace from some wild horses in the McCullough Peaks range at last light.
Adam Bowen is a wildlife photographer who has been living in Cody, Wyoming for the last 2 years, spending his days guiding in Yellowstone. Photography has always been a passion of his, and Wyoming has some of the greatest wildlife he’s ever seen. This photo was taken at the McCullough Peaks Wild Horse Management Area just outside of Cody. He had spent countless hours trying to photograph these wild horses from the “Red Point Band”, and on this particular evening, all the stars had aligned for a great shot!
2. Holly Sandefer - Desert Exhale - In the vast Wyoming sky, pink hues slip through a window’s reflection on the prairie, a gentle exhale of the day, a simple reminder to breathe, and a hopeful whisper that tomorrow is another new beginning.
1. Davidson Family - Strawberry Hill Dance ~ 1918
1. Phil Hilson - Echoes of Earth and History. Heart Mountain has a dual history of an Ancient landslide and a WWII Internment camp.
Golden wildflowers ripple across the Wyoming plains like sunlight poured onto the land. Above them rises Heart Mountain — steadfast, commanding, unforgettable. It's very summit is a monument to Earth’s power: a colossal block of ancient limestone that slid miles from the Absaroka volcanic plateau in what scientists consider the largest known landslide on land. An event so immense that it reshaped the very story of this mountain.
But Heart Mountain holds human history, too. In its imposing shadow once stood the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, where thousands of Japanese American citizens and immigrants — families, children, veterans — were forced to live behind barbed wire during World War II. Their lives uprooted, their freedom temporarily stolen, even as the mountain remained unchanged.
This photograph embraces these two truths.
The land itself is an echo — of upheaval and survival.
The history beneath it is an echo — of resilience and remembrance.
The flowers bloom freely today, a reminder that life continues. Yet the mountain asks us not to forget what has been endured here — by stone, by earth, by people.
Beauty and memory coexist in this place.
Heart Mountain is not only seen — it is felt.
5. Mary Whalen - October 2025 - Enjoying the Wyoming Traffic
6. Rose Fry - Reenactment of the Battle of Hundred in the Hand at Ft Fetterman.
This photo was taken at the reenactment of the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand, which was also known as the Fetterman Fight. The actual battle took place in December of 1866.
6. Chad Coppess - Sacred eagle wings surround the sacred tower of stone.
Ojibwe dancer/artist Michelle Reed jumped at the chance to do a photo shoot at the sacred Mato Tipila, or Devils Tower. The gracefulness of her eagle wings and movement instantly made me think of the many birds I've seen circling the tower each time I visit there.
6. McKenzy Ellisen - Under the Lights
6. Dave Otto - A Wyoming Memory
10. Teresa Maddox - Hoar Frost on the Popo Agie
11. Hongjin Li - At dawn, a herd of bison moves through the misted river, their shapes dissolving into light and steam. In their quiet passage lies the continuity of the wild — an unbroken rhythm that has pulsed across Wyoming for centuries. Each step recalls the echoes of the frontier, when survival and freedom were one and the same. Here, the land does not merely remember its past; it speaks it. In this moment, nature is history — alive, breathing, and eternal.
12. Shane Epping - Where storms break and rainbows rise, Wyoming’s wide horizons reflect a legacy of resilience and vision. From pioneering women’s suffrage to innovations in energy and agriculture, the Equality State has shaped ranching culture, Native traditions, and western heritage in America.
13. Denise Hawkins - Bottles and tins from years gone by line the storefront window of an abandoned building in Shoshoni, Wyoming.
14. Mark Harvey - Old Bedlam at Fort Laramie National Historic Site. I took the photo early one October morning at sunrise.
15. Becky Brock - Florence W. Roginson (12/12/1889-11/21/1971) lived with Jake and Carrie Webster at their ranch 10 miles up Wood River from Meeteetse, WY. She taught in a one-room school three miles from Websters during the 1919-1920 school year. Here she is pictured sitting on the corral fence at the Websters October 1919. She and one of the Webster's hired hands exchanged clothes for a fun-filled day of photo shoots at the ranch.
16. Jessica Flock - John Wesley Powell Monument in moonlight.
View the many other submissions on the Wyoming’s History Through Listeners’ Eyes Photo Gallery!