Behind the scenes we’re busy as ever archiving and processing collections. Here’s another round of finding aides we’ve published so you can see what’s been added to our collections.
The strengths of our collections include Wyoming and the American West, politics and public policy, ranching and energy, entertainment and popular culture, industry, transportation, and military history. The documents and archives we hold serve as raw data for scholarship and heritage work, and support thriving communities of place, identity, and interest in Wyoming and beyond.
Finding Aid Updates
Cartoonist Jerry Palen. Jerry Palen was born in Paris, Tennessee, on July 9, 1943. He moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, with his parents at the end of the World War II. His father worked as a large animal veterinarian for 32 years, thus giving Palen extensive experience in Wyoming agriculture. He received his B.A. in political science and economics from the University of Wyoming in 1969. Jerry, his wife Ann, and their sons owned a Wyoming ranch for several years, and eventually operated the Saratoga Publishing Group. Palen is best known for his cartoon series Stampede, which was the largest syndicated cartoon feature in the agricultural sectors of the United States and Canada. His papers contain cartoon scrapbooks, correspondence, printed material, original drawings, calendars, and prints related to Palen’s cartoon series Stampede. It also contains antique spurs, bridles, stirrups, a pair of chaps, saddles, and a saddle vice.
University of Wyoming Wool Division. The UW College of Agriculture began to study sheep and wool in 1907 after passage of the Adams Act, which provided $5000 per year for land-grant universities for sheep and wool research. UW purchased the Wyoming Territorial Prison near Laramie in 1907 and remodeled it for livestock work, including housing of its Rambouillet sheep flock. The college established the Animal Husbandry department in 1911. It was renamed Animal Production in 1934, then the Animal Science Division in 1961, and then the Animal Science Department in 1986. The Wool Department was established in 1913 and conducted research, training, and experiments on sheep and wool in cooperation with the Agricultural Experiment Station before being merged with the Animal Science department in 1955. The collection contains administrative records, projects, events, photographs, news clippings, and scrapbooks on the evolution of the Wyoming wool industry and on international processes and tests. The UW Wool Laboratory Collection is located at UW Libraries’ Emmett D. Chisum Special Collections.
University of Wyoming Geology professor D.L. Blackstone. Donald L. Blackstone was a geologist and professor of geology at UW. Born in Montana, he earned a PhD from Princeton University in 1936. He worked for Carter Oil Company before taking a teaching position at UW in 1946. He became head of the Dept. of Geology in 1963. From 1967 to 1969 he was Wyoming State Geologist and oversaw the reorganization of the Wyoming State Geological Survey. He retired as a UW faculty member in 1974 but continued to teach Structural Geology into the 1980s. The collection contains information about the UW textbook investigation of 1947-1948, the National Park Service Centennial in 1972, photographs and manuscripts by Blackstone and others, and a binder relating to the Carter Oil Company. Also included are geological, mining, and oil maps, mainly in Wyoming.
University of Wyoming Geology professor Albert C. Boyle. Albert C. Boyle was a geologist and mining engineer. He was born in 1880 in Salt Lake County, Utah, and graduated from the Utah State University in 1906 with a bachelor’s degree in mining engineering. He received a Ph.D. in the same field from Columbia University in 1913. After his time as an assistant professor of geology and physics at Columbia from 1907 to 1910, he became professor of mining and geology at UW, serving from 1910 to 1920. He was also state assayer and mineralogist of Wyoming. He resigned from UW after a dispute regarding his summer employment by the Union Pacific Railroad. He became chief geologist for the Union Pacific in 1920. He also worked as a consulting geologist for numerous oil companies in various western states. His papers contain photos of mines and geological sites in Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Washington, Utah, and California. There is also correspondence; geological reports; UW Dept of Mining and Geology annual reports; and business records and photos of the Pyramid Garage, a Boyle family-owned business in Laramie, Wyoming.
These and other AHC collections can be discovered in the University of Wyoming Libraries catalog. Our reading room is currently closed due to concerns about COVID-19, but our reference department is happy to assist you by email or phone at ahcref@uwyo.edu or 307-766-3756.
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