Marking America’s Progress in the West

Abstract

This article examines the everyday memory practices Westerners employed to shape the meaning of Wyoming in the early twentieth century. Resisting the “Wild West” image of the cowboy that was popularized by Western mythmakers from the East, like Owen Wister and Frederic Remington, Grace Raymond Hebard led an effort to mark Wyoming as settled, “civilized,” and equal to the East. Hebard worked with the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the Wyoming Oregon Trail Commission (WOTC) to mark the path of the Oregon Trail across the state of Wyoming. Hebard’s commemorative discourse domesticated Wyoming’s image as she celebrated signifiers of Wyoming’s domesticity and drew on the agrarian myth to elevate the settler—who tamed the Wyoming land and built a permanent home—as the Western hero. By commemorating and marking local sites throughout Wyoming, Hebard constructed each marker as a material manifestation of Wyoming’s progress, civilization, and mythic significance.