Archives On The Air

What country do we blame for starting WWI? Most of us would say “Germany;” but not Harry Elmer Barnes.

Sometimes those “film cowboys” in westerns were real cowboys, like Wyoming native Wally Wales.

David Brown started producing movies in the 1950s and worked on a number of famous movies, including, Jaws, one of Steven Spielberg’s first films.

When the Heart Mountain Relocation Center was established after Pearl Harbor, many of the Japanese-American internees found ways of documenting their experiences.

Today we are going behind the scenes at UW’s American Heritage Center and taking a look at some of the work unseen by people using the archives.

Although Wyoming has roots in women’s suffrage, the transformative women behind these movements often go unnoticed.

Amalia Post, a Michigan native turned Wyomingite in 1868, was heavily involved in the emerging conversation of women in politics.

Our visual understanding of the Cold War is often limited to images of the Berlin Wall and what is was like for the boots on the ground.

Frank Lloyd Wright was a powerhouse of American architecture. He designed over 500 buildings across the country. Wright’s works include the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the residential house Fallingwater in Pennsylvania.

Norman Dyhrenfurth and Jim Whittaker took every precaution possible when preparing for their 18-day ascent of Mt. Everest in 1963.

William Octavius Owen was a big name for a small person, so he was always just “Billy.” Billy and his family moved to the new tent town Laramie in 1868 when he was nine.

Frank Scully held many titles in his life: author, journalist, humorist, & politician. However, his interests eventually led him into a niche field: flying saucers.

How far is too far when it comes to parody? Young Joe Jacobucci found out in 1934 when he edited a parody issue of The Branding Iron, the University of Wyoming’s student newspaper.

Pearl Harbor was attacked December 7, 1941 and the U.S. was catapulted into World War II. To understand events and place blame there were nine investigations between 1944 and 1946. A central figure was Admiral Husband Kimmel.

Jack Casement and his brother Dan won the track laying contract for the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha, Nebraska to Promontory Point, Utah.

UW’s American Heritage Center is teeming with collections on the philosophy, law, and practice of the country’s landscape heritage.

To understand the true nature of environmental preservation, we can turn to the papers of Fritiof Fryxell. Fryxell studied the history and changes of nature and culture throughout time.

In May 2017 Barnum and Bailey’s staged their final show. However, in their earlier years, the entertainment titans had a connection with Wyoming.

You may have heard Rosa Rio before on the radio, in soap operas, or in film, but not her voice – you would have heard her music. Rio was a composer whose best known works were in the silent film industry. An odd thing to be remembered for.

The most famous line of The Virginian was based on an anecdote recorded by author Owen Wister in his 1894 diary. It was attributed to saloon-owner John Lawrence in notorious and short-lived Fetterman, Wyoming, in 1885 or 1886. 

Legendary entertainer Jack Benny was a pretty good violinist. In 1911 Benny was a 17-year old professional violinist playing in Chicago’s vaudeville theaters.

But Benny found more success with his comic timing than the violin. By 1921, his fiddle was more of a prop and comedy took over.

A running gag was his hopeless attempts to play the violin. He made the illusion seem real by trying to play pieces too difficult for his skill level.

Frank Allyn joined the newly created Wyoming Highway Department in 1920 as a draftsman. At the time, the department was surveying existing roads across the state. By 1924 the survey was completed. From the results, Allyn created the first road map of Wyoming for the motoring public.

Marie Montabe was the wife of Albany County’s Woman’s Army Corps recruiter Harry Horton. She worked tirelessly to help her husband enlist young women, especially UW coeds, into the Corps during World War II.

Young novelist Owen Wister made his first trip to the West in the summer of 1885. He stayed at a ranch on Deer Creek located south of what is now Glenrock, Wyoming. Wister was from an upper-crust Philadelphia family. So, what did he think of Wyoming upon his arrival?

The 1930s usually conjure images of dust and despondence – not of lion cubs sitting in the back of racing airplanes. But from 1930 to 1938, legendary Pilot Roscoe Turner was flying in cross-country airplanes with his pet lion Gilmore.

The 77 mile stretch of Interstate 80 between Laramie and Walcott Junction has been dubbed the “Snow Chi Minh Trail.”

In 1934, the Hays Code was being strictly enforced in Hollywood to clean up alleged indecency in movies.

What spurred the prudish policing? Movies like Baby Face.

Have you heard of the Lone Scouts? It was a brother organization to the Boy Scouts.

Byron Hirst was called the “Tom Dewey of the West” after Thomas Dewey, a well-known New York prosecutor who fought organized crime.

The superhero business is booming now, but that was not always the case.

When young Stanley Lieber landed his first job in 1939 with Timely Comics, the comics industry was lowbrow publishing.

"The highest badge of honor a person can wear is honesty. Be truthful at all times.”

Many children in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s were familiar with these words - part of Hopalong Cassidy’s Creed for American Boys and Girls.