American Heritage Center archivists, Erin Shadrick and John Waggener, recently coauthored a book about the history of the Western Research Institute and its predecessor Bureau of Mines.
The 73-page book, One Hundred Years on the High Plains of Technology, tells the story of the first 100 years of what began as the federal Bureau of Mines located on the campus of the University of Wyoming and eventually expanded into what became the Western Research Institute that now occupies research facilities on nearly 27 acres of land just north of Laramie on U.S. Highway 30 (North 3rd Street).
The United States Bureau of Mines played a crucial role in the development of the nation’s mineral resources, ensuring safety in mining operations, and fostering innovation in the energy sector. Established in 1910, the bureau’s function was to promote wise development and use of the nation’s mineral resources and safe working conditions in its mineral industries.
The federal agency had an immediate presence in the state of Wyoming. Mine rescue and safety offices were established in several mining communities, including Rock Springs, where numerous underground coal mines operated to supply coal to the Union Pacific Railroad. In 1913, an office opened in Casper to oversee petroleum development at such sites as the Salt Creek Field and later Teapot Dome. In 1913, the U.S. Geological Survey launched an investigation of the country’s largest concentration of oil-shale resources: the Green River Formation, covering over 17,000 square miles of land in southwest Wyoming and northwest Colorado and northeast Utah.
The Bureau of Mines also opened multiple research laboratories around the nation. When oil and gas exploration boomed in the 1920s, states like Wyoming, rich with petroleum resources, could benefit from having a research station to assist companies in developing the resource.
Wyoming’s Bureau of Mines research station was initiated during a chance meeting on a train. George E. Brimmer, a prominent attorney who practiced in Rawlins before moving to Cheyenne, had an interest in developing Wyoming’s economic resources, including petroleum. While on a trip from Oklahoma back to Wyoming in June 1923, Brimmer met Theodore E. Swigart, the Superintendent of the Bureau of Mines research station in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Brimmer related his encounter to members of the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees:
In the latter part of June, I was down in Oklahoma, and while coming up North on the train a gentleman came back and introduced himself as Mr. Swigart, as I remember the name. It appeared that he formerly knew me in Wyoming. At the present time he is head of the Bartlesville Testing Laboratory, Bureau of Mines, located at Bartlesville, Oklahoma. It appears that Bartlesville is the principle testing laboratory station of the Bureau of Mines…I went into the proposition of establishing a branch testing laboratory in Wyoming with Mr. Swigart and requested him to take it up with the Chief of the Bureau of Mines when he went back to Washington. This was agreed to. About a month later I received a letter from Mr. Swigart advising me that he had taken the matter up with Mr. Tough, his chief, and that he wished I would look into the matter thoroughly when I went to Washington.
Dictation of George Brimmer testimony to Secretary to the University Trustees, August 22, 1923, University of Wyoming President’s Office Records, Box 28, Folder 19, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
Brimmer then traveled to Washington to meet Fred B. Tough, the chief petroleum engineer for the bureau. Brimmer described his meeting with Tough:
When I was at Washington in July, I went in to see Mr. Tough, and found him conversing with Mr. Hill who is a brother of Prof. [John A.] Hill of the University. Mr. Hill is one of the chief chemists in the Government service, and is a personal friend of Mr. Tough. Mr. Tough had been in Wyoming a good many years and personally we were well acquainted.
Ibid.
F. B. Tough had been involved in the development of the Salt Creek Field near Casper several years earlier. His bureau research led to methods of using cement for water shutoff in the Salt Creek Field. He also engaged in oil shale research in the Green River Formation of southwest Wyoming and northwest Colorado and was instrumental in locating a naval oil shale reserve in northwest Colorado, near Parachute.
Tough had moved into his Washington office a year earlier. He had been the supervisor of oil and gas leases for the Bureau of Mines and was replaced by Harry H. Hill in the fall of 1922. Hill came to that position from Bartlesville where he had been the superintendent. When Hill left the Bartlesville position, it was filled by T. E. Swigart.
The strong connections that Fred Tough and Harry Hill had to the state greatly increased Wyoming’s chances of securing a Bureau of Mines facility. Harry H. Hill and his brother John A. Hill graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1911 and 1907, respectively. In the summer of 1913, Harry Hill began working for the Bureau of Mines in Washington D.C. As Brimmer noted in his report to the Board of Trustees in 1923, John A. Hill was, by then, the Dean of the University of Wyoming’s College of Agriculture.
On September 1, 1923, Brimmer sent a Western Union telegram to the Board of Trustees advising:
Suggest that if favorable action is to be taken that resolution be adopted providing for expenditure not exceeding Twenty-Five Thousand for construction of building on campus to be utilized by Bureau of Mines for petroleum laboratories and offices under plans to be furnished by Bureau conditioned that Secretary of Interior agrees to establish branch at Laramie.
Telegram from George Brimmer to the Secretary of the Board of Trustees, September 1, 1923, University of Wyoming President’s Office Records, Box 28, Folder 19, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
During its September 5, 1923, meeting, the Board of Trustees voted to enter “negotiations with the Government and that the Committee be authorized to furnish such quarters as they deem advisable to secure the location on the campus of a Federal petroleum testing laboratory, the expenses not to exceed $25,000.” (Source: University of Wyoming Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes, September 5, 1923, Board of Trustees Records, Box 11, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.)
The new Bureau of Mines facility opened on July 1, 1924, and was initially housed in the new Engineering Shops located behind the College of Engineering Building that was still under construction. In the fall of 1935, the operation moved into a new building located along Lewis Street behind the College of Agriculture. Bureau of Mines research grew significantly during World War II when the demand for petroleum resources increased.
In 1944, efforts to open a much larger research facility began. A new Bureau of Mines Building site was located at the northwest corner of campus at the intersection of 9th and Lewis Street. The multi-story building was completed in 1947 and offered additional space for the expanding number of engineers and scientists who would begin their work in Laramie.
In the late 1960s, the Bureau of Mines secured land just north of the city on U.S. 30 (North 3rd Street) to conduct larger-scale retort experiments. As the nation was expanding its highway system, asphalt research expanded, and the Laramie Research Station became a leader in asphalt research. Each year since the mid-1960s, an international conference, now known as the Petersen Asphalt Research Conference (PARC) has held an annual conference in Laramie. The conference is named in honor of Joseph Claine Petersen who came to Laramie in 1964 where he focused on asphalt research at the bureau. He is recognized as one of the foremost experts in asphalt research. He retired from the Western Research Institute in 1990.
In the 1970s, during a federal reorganization, the Bureau of Mines became a part of the Department of Energy, and the Laramie station became known as the Laramie Energy Technology Center (LETC.) Then, in 1983, the federal government planned to shut down the Laramie office, after a reorganization of the Department of Energy. The University of Wyoming saw the need to maintain the Laramie office and entered negotiations with the Department of Energy to take control of the office. An official signing ceremony occurred on campus on March 19, 1983, when the federal office was turned over to the university as the University of Wyoming Research Corporation that was overseen by a board of directors. Several months later, this research corporation became known as the Western Research Institute.
When the Western Research Institute and the University of Wyoming came to realize that the joint relationship was no longer necessary, the Western Research Institute formally separated from the university on September 17, 2020, making WRI an independent non-profit research corporation. WRI slowly began to move its operation from the Bureau of Mines Building to the north site.
On July 1, 2023, 99 years to the day after the Bureau of Mines established a presence on the University of Wyoming campus, the WRI had fully transitioned to the north site. Though this marked an end to its physical presence on campus, WRI and UW continue to work closely together on a variety of research projects. WRI has expanded its research and development beyond asphalt to biomass, hydrocarbon, and polymer resources.
Copies of the book that tell this story in more detail are available by contacting the Western Research Institute directly. The authors want to thank Paul Flesher, the director of the American Heritage Center, for supporting this project and Didier Lesueur, CEO of Western Research Institute for providing the opportunity to research and write the book – a project that took more than one year to complete.
Post contributed by University Archivist John Waggener and Accessing Unit Supervisor Erin Shadrick.
Sources:
- University of Wyoming Presidents Office records, Collection 510000, American Heritage Center.
- University of Wyoming Board of Trustees records, Collection 500000, American Heritage Center.
