Aerial.America.S05E06.Wyoming
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00:00It's a land that can take your breath away, with towering volcanic pinnacles to make you
00:07gasp in awe, stunning canyons to knock the wind right out of you, and encounters with
00:15wild creatures that might just leave you waiting to exhale.
00:21But here in Wyoming, there are man-made wonders too, from the mysterious circle of an ancient
00:27tribe, to giant mines carved by the biggest machines in the world, to vast stretches of
00:38oil fields that light up the prairie sky, worrying environmentalists, but giving jobs
00:43to thousands from across the nation.
00:48Aerial Wyoming soars through the lush valleys of the world's first national park, high up
00:55into icy peaks, and across a landscape of where the meeting of sky, earth, and water
01:02make it hard to know just where you stand.
01:05Here cowboys still ride the range, and hold on for dear life, just for fun, just as the
01:12people of Wyoming have always hung in there and done what's right when it really matters,
01:18condemning a horrifying act of hatred in the 21st century, and celebrating equal rights
01:24for women in an age when few others would, revealing the true spirit of one of America's
01:30most breathtaking states, a place whose volcanic wonders will always boggle the mind.
01:39All this in Wyoming.
01:54In the mid-1880s, a group of prospectors came to the unmapped mountains of northwest Wyoming
02:22in search of gold. They found something they didn't expect instead, something that left
02:29them scratching their heads, and remains a mystery to scientists today, a giant rock
02:35circle known as the Bighorn Medicine Wheel. Its 28 spokes seem to match the lunar and
02:42solar cycles, but there are no clues as to who built it or why.
02:50Carbon dating suggests that construction of the ring began as recently as 500 years ago.
02:55By then, humans had already been living in Wyoming for over 11,000 years.
03:02A Stone Age tribe scientists called the Clovis people were among the first to arrive. They
03:09were known to hunt big game. Other groups followed, including the Folsom and the Eden
03:15Valley.
03:19About 500 years ago, the ancestors of today's Native Americans began sweeping into the region
03:25in a competitive search for land and food.
03:30The Shoshone came first in the 1600s, moving up from what is now Nevada. A hundred years
03:38later, in the 1700s, the Arapaho, Crow, Cheyenne, and Lakota Sioux started muscling in on the
03:45Shoshone's new territory from the north and east. But in the early 1800s, members of the
03:52most aggressive and well-armed tribe yet started fanning out across Wyoming, European Americans.
04:00Starting with prospectors like those who discovered the Medicine Wheel, the most legendary of
04:04them all was a mountain man named Jim Bridger. Bridger was the first white man to see Utah's
04:12Great Salt Lake, and one of the first to visit what is now Yellowstone National Park. But
04:17he earned his fame as one of the greatest guides on the Wyoming frontier.
04:25Bridger's adventures began in 1822, when he joined a party of 100 trappers on a trip up
04:30the Missouri River and onto the land that's now Wyoming. He and his companions traveled
04:38Wyoming's waterways in search of beaver pelts to sell back east. But they, and hundreds
04:46of other hunters, helped nearly wipe the beavers out, and soon Bridger was forced to seek another
04:53line of work.
04:57In the 1840s, wagon trains were carrying thousands of pioneers west, right across the land that's
05:03now Wyoming. In 1843, hoping to cash in on this mass migration, Bridger and his partner
05:11Luis Vasquez opened a trading post in a beautiful valley of trees, meadows, and streams, including
05:17one known as Black's Fork. For a decade, they prospered as their primitive stockade grew
05:25into a key stop on the Oregon and Mormon trails. But in 1853, local Mormon settlers accused
05:34Bridger of illegally selling liquor and guns to the Indians. When they came to get him,
05:41Bridger fled to the mountains for safety. The Mormons seized the post and turned it
05:46into a fort during a conflict with the federal government over their practice of polygamy,
05:52a conflict known as the Mormon Wars. When the U.S. Army came to drive them out, they
05:58burned their fort to the ground and fled. Today, all that remains is this small piece
06:04of charred wall.
06:08To reassert federal authority in the region, the Army built a fort of its own on the site
06:13and named it Fort Bridger. With barracks for up to 350 men, a school for up to 100 students,
06:21and this elegant residence for the commanding officer, the base remained a center of pioneer
06:33life for the next three decades, as thousands more poured through Wyoming on the way west
06:41to Oregon and California. Near this ridge, known as the Oregon Buttes, they finally passed
06:49over the Continental Divide. From here, every river flowed west, and so did the pioneers,
06:56riding into the sunset in search of a dream.
07:02For many Mormon travelers, their dream was to reach the Great Salt Lake in Utah. But
07:09on the way, this rocky formation, known as Church Buttes, knocked more than one devout
07:16traveler to their knees. The Buttes' steeple-like needles and eroded 75-foot sandstone cliffs
07:26reminded them of the houses of worship they had left behind back east. The site caused
07:32many of the settlers to stop, drop, and pray.
07:40But while most westbound pioneers passed right through Wyoming, some decided to stay and
07:46try to make a go of it. In 1897, 27 Mormon families came to this valley to extend their
07:53new faith into new lands. They built homes and barns on the valley floor and began to
08:00farm. The sandy soil soon proved to be less fertile than they had hoped, but they shouldered
08:07on, working for decades to realize their dream of a new utopia in the wilderness.
08:14Farmer Thomas Moulton spent 30 years just building this one barn. Today, it still stands
08:21as a reminder of the Mormons' struggle to survive here. It's also one of Wyoming's
08:27most photographed sites, thanks in part to the fact that the barn's backdrop is one
08:34of the most dramatic in the American West. The great, jagged, icy peaks of the Tetons.
08:44The Shoshone people, who lived in northwest Wyoming before Europeans arrived, had a deeply
08:51spiritual relationship with this land. They lived in the shadows of a string of dramatic
08:57peaks that they called the Tiwanot, which they considered ancient ancestors to be respected
09:03and revered. But in the 1700s, when lonely French trappers arrived in present-day Wyoming,
09:11they saw something else in these peaks and gave them the name Teton, or Tetons, which
09:18was French for breasts, and reserved the name Grand Teton for the highest peak in the range,
09:24a surprisingly salacious name that survives to this day. Perhaps because most English
09:31speakers have no idea what Tetons actually means. As some of the youngest peaks in the
09:38Rocky Mountain Range, they now serve as the centerpiece of Grand Teton National Park.
09:46These mountains were created by uplift, when two sections of the Earth's crust collided
09:51deep below, pushing the ground upward. Thanks to their youth, the Tetons are relatively
09:58untouched by erosion and time, still jagged and steep, unlike many other Rocky Mountain
10:04peaks. The Shoshone, Blackfoot, Crow, Nez Perce, and other native peoples came here
10:11in spring to hunt, gather plants, and collect minerals during the warm months. When winter
10:18came, they'd return to lower, less wintry lands. The tallest peak in the range, Grand
10:25Teton, reaches to 13,775 feet above sea level, and is still growing at a fast clip, at least
10:33in geological terms, up to a foot every three or four hundred years, as the basin to the
10:40east drops away.
10:46In 1829, even before the Mormons arrived, a trapper named David Jackson made his camp
10:52here, and the area was named Jackson Hole, prospector slang for valley. It stretches
10:59along the base of the Tetons for 40 miles. During the Ice Age, a series of glaciers shaped
11:05its floor, carving basins for a chain of alpine lakes that mirror the mountains, and dazzle
11:11the eye. In 1965, hoping to capitalize on these stunning views, a group of skiing investors
11:18opened the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. It's nestled at the edge of a valley in Teton
11:26Village. Today, it's one of the most popular winter destinations in the U.S. After riding
11:35the aerial trams to the top of the mountain, skiers can hurtle back down on one of the
11:40longest vertical drops in the nation, more than 4,000 feet in all.
11:47And today, Trapper Jackson will probably have a hard time recognizing much of the valley
11:52that bears his name, especially if he paddled down the Snake River, past a stretch of vast
12:00luxury homes known as Billionaire's Row. Part-time residents here include a president of the
12:08World Bank, a former CEO of Columbia Pictures, a Walmart heiress who's also the richest woman
12:14in America, and many other members of the 1% of the 1%. Not to mention, John D. Rockefeller
12:22IV. The real estate wars here have transformed this once quiet valley into the most expensive
12:28ranch land in the U.S., leading some to joke that all the mere millionaires are getting
12:33priced right out of the market. But there's one relatively modest house here that stands
12:39out among the mega-mansions, perhaps because it was partially hand-built by its owner,
12:45actor Harrison Ford, a former carpenter who bought 800 acres here in 1985. In the years
12:53since, Ford has committed himself to preserving and protecting his share of this beautiful
12:58valley. The people who actually work and live here full-time stake their claim to another
13:06corner of Jackson Hole, the Town of Jackson. It lies on the southeastern side of the Jackson
13:12Hole Valley, near the rushing waters of the Snake River. It was founded and run by working
13:19men and by working women. Postmistress Maggie Simpson named Jackson in 1894, future mayor
13:26Grace Miller laid out the streets three years later, setting aside space for an old-fashioned
13:32town square, now famous for the Elk Antler arches over its corner gates, a charming centerpiece
13:38to a town that gained fame as the first in America run entirely by women, after Miller
13:45and an all-female slate of candidates swept the city elections in 1920. But even if the
13:52town's men didn't always feel welcome at City Hall, they were always welcome here,
13:58Jackson's million-dollar cowboy bar. It was granted Wyoming's first post-prohibition liquor
14:04license. Ever since, locals and tourists have been saddling up to the bar with its famous
14:10saddle-style bar stools for a drink. In 1953, its owner added a distinctive neon sign that
14:18stands over the new Jackson as an enduring symbol of an old way of life in Wyoming. The
14:25life of the working cowboy, men and women who perform difficult and dangerous tasks
14:31every day, using skills they get to show off once a year in the little town of Sheridan
14:38at the Sheridan Rodeo. Here, Bronco Busters risk their spines to prove they've got what
14:45it takes to tame a horse, or at least hang on for the eight seconds required by the rodeo's rules.
14:55But there's one trick that may be the toughest to pull off, dual calf roping. To make it
15:02work, one cowboy has to rope the calf's head, the other the feet, and do it with perfect
15:09timing. Thrilling the crowd and proving they've got what it takes to make it in this cowboy
15:16state. Here in Wyoming, cows outnumber humans two to one and put working cowboys to the
15:26test every day. The state's herds got their start from cattle abandoned by settlers on
15:33their way west. When their offspring flourished, ranching in Wyoming took off. By 1870, there
15:41were over 8,000 head of cattle in the territory, and more were flooding in along with the cowboys
15:47to keep them moving. Today, livestock is Wyoming's biggest agricultural commodity, but cowboys
15:56aren't the only ones out working on the range. Here in Sheridan County and across the state,
16:04farmers grow hay, barley, wheat, and more, giving Wyoming more than eight times as much
16:10agricultural land as most American states. But there's one business in Wyoming that's
16:16bigger than ranching and farming combined, much bigger. And it got to number one not
16:23by reaping enormous profits from what's on the land, but from what's under it. Coal.
16:34This fossil fuel got its start millions of years ago, when soggy masses of vegetation
16:39were covered by layers of soil. As the soil's weight squeezed the water out, energy generating
16:45carbon was left behind. Carbon in the form of coal. So much coal that it takes some of
16:52the largest machines in the world, digging some of the biggest mines in the world, to
16:59strip it from the land. To get to the dark veins, huge excavators work 24-7. These machines
17:08are called drag lines because their giant shovels are dragged across the mine on thick
17:13steel cables to strip away the soil above, known as the overburden. Then, it's hauled
17:21off and dumped out of the way, allowing the harvesting of the coal itself to begin.
17:28Over 100 million tons were extracted here at the North Antelope Rochelle Mine in 2012
17:34alone, making this the most productive coal mine in the U.S. And the output, here and
17:41across Wyoming, is on the way up, since coal is one of the world's hottest commodities.
17:49There's so much coal in Wyoming, it requires mining equipment so big and so powerful, it
17:55boggles the mind. Like this drag line at the Black Thunder Coal Mine. Its 360-foot boom,
18:04240-ton bucket, and cab the size of an apartment, earned it the title Ursa Major, or Big Bear.
18:14It cost $50 million and took three years just to assemble here on site. The raw power of
18:21Ursa Major is astounding. Thanks to its boom, it can swing hundreds of tons of earth hundreds
18:27of feet in seconds. Its long drag line cables enable it to scoop up overburden that's too
18:33hundred feet below the drag line itself. And this one machine is operated by just a
18:39single person. Ursa Major's power to tear through the earth gives headaches to environmentalists,
18:47but also powers an industry that provides thousands of jobs.
18:53Most coal in Wyoming is extracted from the earth in giant surface mines like these. But
18:59dig much deeper in this state, and there's even more treasure to be found. Vast oceans
19:06of crude oil, thousands of feet underground. It lies below a landscape that's unlike any
19:12other in Wyoming. Nearly 35 square miles of land covered by almost nothing but oil wells.
19:21This is the Salt Creek Field, one of the longest continuously producing oil fields in the world.
19:28One reason the Salt Creek Field can still produce oil today is because companies here
19:33are using new technologies to force what remains out of the ground. Crews are busy drilling
19:40new wells that use carbon dioxide injection. As the carbon dioxide is pumped into the earth,
19:47it forces the oil out. And a controversial side product common to many wells, natural
19:55gas, the oil companies don't want, and merely burn away in flames that dot the landscape.
20:01A practice many decry as a waste. Proponents of carbon dioxide injection claim the new
20:08technology provides safe and innovative ways to tap a vital natural resource. Foes warn
20:16that it could contribute to global warming and poison Wyoming's drinking water.
20:25During its big boom, all the oil that flowed out of Salt Creek made its way south to Casper,
20:32a city that got its start when Mormon settlers built a ferry crossing over the Platte River
20:37in 1847. Thousands of pioneers rode across in the following decades. When the trains
20:45arrived, the crossing became a town. The discovery of oil at Salt Creek in the 1890s transformed
20:52it into the oil capital of the Rockies. A transformation celebrated here with this recreated
20:59wooden derrick, part of a new black gold byway state park. Today, Casper is Wyoming's second
21:07largest city, with a population of over 55,000 residents. And it still has a giant tank farm
21:14to hold the oil being forced out of Salt Creek.
21:21People in Wyoming have spent more than a hundred years and billions of dollars trying to find
21:26ways to get energy out of the ground. But there's one place in this state where the
21:32power deep below explodes to the surface, all on its own, with terrifying force, in
21:39one of the most volatile volcanic hot spots in the world.
21:47Sometimes the truth seems too fantastic to be true. In the early 1800s, scouts and trappers
21:55started coming back from the mountains of northwestern Wyoming with tales of a land
22:00called Yellowstone, a land unlike any they'd ever seen before. A place so fantastic that
22:08the people who heard the stories were convinced they were fiction. Frontiersman Jim Bridger
22:14told of finding a canyon there so deep that a man could shout, goodnight, into it and
22:19be awakened by his echo at dawn. People just accused him of spinning tall tales.
22:27A group of prospectors wrote a book about what they'd seen beyond the canyon. Their
22:31New York publisher rejected it as fiction. But more and more explorers kept coming back
22:37with similar tales. So Ferdinand V. Hayden, head of the U.S. Geological Survey of the
22:43territories, assembled the first federally funded survey team to explore the area and
22:50set out to see this strange land for himself. In 1871, Hayden led a 32-man team into this
22:58valley. They included a zoologist, a botanist, a mineralogist, and a group of mapmakers.
23:05But the two who would have the biggest impact on the American public were photographer William
23:10Henry Jackson and painter Thomas Moran. Hayden and his men knew that Yellowstone was home
23:17to volcanic hotspots, but what they didn't know was that they were actually standing
23:22in a giant collapsed crater of a supervolcano, and one that had erupted with catastrophic
23:28force 640,000 years ago, when 250 cubic miles of heated magma and other material exploded
23:36into the air, creating an ash cloud that's been traced from Canada to Mexico to Louisiana.
23:47Based on past events, scientists say Yellowstone is overdue for another major eruption, but
23:54warn that it's impossible to predict when exactly that will happen. In the meantime,
24:01its strange volcanic landscape draws huge crowds to Yellowstone today.
24:10In 1871, Hayden and his party had never seen anything like it, and were eager to see more.
24:18On July 28, they reached the shores of Yellowstone Lake, America's largest high-elevation lake,
24:25and set up their base camp. By then, they were already suspecting that everything they'd
24:31heard about this place was actually true. From here, they set out to explore Yellowstone
24:38and document its every feature in maps, photographs, paintings, and statistics, starting with Yellowstone
24:46Lake itself. They were careful to avoid the fate of Truman Everett, an explorer who spent
24:5437 days lost in Yellowstone in 1870 without a horse or supplies. When a search party finally
25:01found Everett stumbling through the wilderness here on the banks of Hart Lake, he was delirious
25:06and near death. He weighed just 90 pounds and was so dirty his rescuers mistook him
25:12for a wounded bear. Hayden's men fared better as they traced the course of the Yellowstone
25:19River through the canyon Jim Bridger had described. They found it to be just about as big as he
25:25had promised. Now known as the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, it winds through a plateau
25:32created by lava from the volcano's Big Bang. Modern scientists know the extreme heat of
25:39the blast weakened the lava, making it easier for glaciers and water to cut through the
25:44colorful stone that gives this region its name. The explorers' stories of the amazing
25:51things they discovered here fascinated the American public. But it was the paintings
25:57and photographs of Yellowstone's geysers that really blew people away. Yellowstone
26:03has half of all the known geysers in the world, around 300 in all. Here, at the Clepsydra
26:10Geyser, cold water flows into tight crevices in Yellowstone's molten core and explodes
26:17into steam. Clepsydra's been erupting almost continuously since 1959. Its plumes of water
26:28can reach up to 40 feet, making it one of Yellowstone's most reliable and photographed
26:33sites. But the meeting of water and hot stone here doesn't always bring such explosive
26:40results. Nearby, the calm waters of the Excelsior Crater seem to invite the unwary for a swim.
26:49But don't be fooled. That beautiful blue color means the water is so hot, not even
26:56the heartiest bacteria can survive. This same deadly blue lies at the center of what
27:03is, without doubt, one of nature's most amazing sights. A place that alone lures thousands
27:12of people from around the world to Yellowstone. It's known as the Grand Prismatic Spring.
27:27This is the largest hot spring in the U.S. and the third largest in the world. Its blue
27:33core may be deadly, but the colorful, cooler bands at its edges are evidence the Grand
27:39Prismatic is also home to plenty of life. Each band supports a unique bacteria or algae
27:45that creates a color of its own. When visitors on the boardwalk of the Grand Prismatic cross
27:51patterns that look like giant flames, they are stepping over descendants of some of the
27:56earliest forms of life on Earth. These microbes, called thermophiles or heat lovers, thrive
28:04in extreme environments like the waters of Grand Prismatic Spring. There are literally
28:09billions of these tiny orange-colored microbes here. So many, they create dramatic flame-like
28:16patterns that look like a work of art that was painted by Mother Nature herself. Getting
28:22a chance to experience this colorful, steaming, cold thing is why many come to Yellowstone
28:27in the first place. But there's nothing like seeing it all from the air.
28:38In 1872, it was Thomas Moran's paintings of the Grand Prismatic Spring that helped inspire
28:44Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant to declare Yellowstone the world's first national
28:50park, preserving all its geological wonders for generations to come. It also protects
28:58some of the last remains of the great herds of elk that used to wander across the American
29:03heartland. So much protection that an elk population explosion once threatened to overwhelm
29:12the park. The reintroduction of wolves in 1995 brought the elk explosion to an end,
29:20either restoring a natural balance or endangering the elk's survival, depending on whom you
29:27ask. One of the best places to see the elk that remain here is Hayden Valley. It's also
29:37the best place to see an animal that is an icon of both the park and the American West,
29:43American bison, or buffalo. More than 4,000 of these massive herbivores roam free here.
29:52Favorite times to see them are in May, when the calves are born, and August, when Hayden
29:57Valley hosts the largest free-roaming bison rut, or buffalo orgy, in North America. Today's
30:05herds are descended from the park's original mountain bison, and from 21 plains bison brought
30:10here in 1902. The goal was to provide vital breeding stock for a once vast bison population
30:18that had been reduced to just 25 animals. The herd's revival is a Yellowstone success
30:26story, while the story of the slaughter that brought the bison to the edge of extinction
30:31here and across North America is a part of Western lore, thanks in large part to a self-promoting
30:38sharpshooter who called Wyoming home.
30:51In southern Wyoming, in what seems to be the middle of nowhere, a mysterious form looms
30:58upon the horizon. A strange granite pyramid thrusting itself 60 feet into the sky. Architect
31:11Henry Hobson designed and built this lonely monument in 1882. Superstar sculptor Augustus
31:18St. Gaudens created its memorial plaques that few people ever see, all to honor the role
31:25played by Massachusetts brothers Oaks and Oliver Ames in one of 19th century America's
31:30greatest achievements, the building of the first transcontinental railroad. Congress
31:37authorized the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroad companies to start building the cross
31:42country line in 1862. For seven years, teams from the rival firms raced towards each other.
31:51Railroad tycoon Oliver Ames and his congressman brother Oaks played a key role in the Union
31:57Pacific side of the race. After their death, the company built them this memorial here
32:04in Wyoming at what was once the line's highest point. But the Union Pacific did more than
32:11build railroads and memorials in Wyoming. It transformed this remote state by bringing
32:18the world to its door. Thanks to this imposing new train station here in the city of Cheyenne,
32:26which was founded by the railway itself. In 1867, the Union Pacific Railway Company was
32:32searching for a place to establish a new railroad hub. They chose the site of a U.S. Army camp
32:37at the crossing of Crow Creek and named it Cheyenne after one of the region's Native
32:41American tribes. Today, with 60,000 residents, it's the most populated city in the entire
32:47state and home to the Wyoming State Capitol, the tallest building in town, which was built
32:53starting in 1886. That same year, the Union Pacific began work on an impressive railroad
33:00depot for the new Capitol. It's one of many designed by architect Henry Van Brunt, but
33:05one of just two still standing. Van Brunt designed it in a solid Romanesque style and
33:11gave it an imposing clock tower to symbolize Union Pacific's importance to the future state.
33:16The depot's cemented Cheyenne status as an important crossroads for freight trains
33:21full of sheep, cattle, agricultural products, and minerals. And for passenger trains full
33:28of people eager to explore the newly opened West. Today, freight trains continue to stop
33:35here, but passenger service ended in 1983. Out back, a once massive roundhouse built
33:42in 1931 to house and repair trains has been reduced from 48 stalls to seven. But the giant
33:49rotating track built to funnel trains in and out of the fan-like storage yard still spins,
33:55delivering the downsized roundhouse's new tenants, antique rail cars and locomotives
34:01from the Union Pacific's golden age. A time that transformed Wyoming and turned a young
34:08man named William Cody into one of the world's first Western stars.
34:20In 1867, a call went out for riflemen to hunt buffalo for meat to feed the customers and
34:26crews the railroads were bringing into the West. Bill Cody, a 21-year-old frontier scout,
34:33pony express rider, prospector, and Union soldier in the Civil War, was one of the many
34:38who answered the call. Over the next 18 months, the sharpshooting Cody killed over 4,200 buffalo
34:46for the railroad. One of the largest shares in a legendary slaughter that almost brought
34:51the buffalo to an end. But started William Cody on a surprising journey to worldwide
34:58fame as Buffalo Bill. A dime novelist turned Buffalo Bill into the hero of a series of
35:05highly fictionalized stories and plays based on his exploits. He spent the rest of his
35:11life playing Buffalo Bill in plays and Wild West shows, but it wasn't all make-believe.
35:19As an experienced frontier scout, Cody knew the West as well as any man and was determined
35:25to claim his share of the wealth it offered, even in corners of Wyoming where others saw
35:30nothing but dry and dusty plains. Places where the Rockies hold back the rain, deserts spread
35:37across the state from south to east, and some of America's most surreal landscapes unfold.
35:43Landscapes like the Kilpecker Sand Dunes, where these sinuous ridges wind through the
35:50heart of North America's largest active dune ecosystem. Over a hundred miles long and up
35:57to 150 feet high, the dunes drift across the bottom of a vanished prehistoric lake, seeming
36:04like a landscape imported from the Sahara or the moon. Strange yet peaceful, they seem
36:13ready-made for a desert retreat, for a remake of Lawrence of Arabia. But things haven't
36:22always been so quiet here. This part of Wyoming, like most of the state, has a violent volcanic
36:29past. A past that has almost been erased by the dunes, except here, where Boar's Tusk
36:38erupts from the sand.
36:44This 400-foot spire began forming less than three million years ago, when a volcano left
36:50this core of hardened lava behind. As erosion stripped away much of the volcano's sides,
36:57its tusk-like form was exposed, revealing a natural monument to Wyoming's volcanic
37:04past that looms over the desert, and offered shelter to some of the region's first human
37:10inhabitants. Boar's Tusk came to be sacred to those first people. It still is to their
37:18descendants today. But then, as now, any Native American on a vision quest might decide to
37:24pass Boar's Tusk by, choosing to head north instead, to a spot that may be the most sacred
37:31in the state. Another pillar of ancient lava, known as Devil's Tower.
37:41Millions of moviegoers know this strange mountain as the alien landing site in Steven Spielberg's
37:461977 blockbuster, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But this mysterious, 1,000-foot,
37:5450-million-year-old column of lava was central to life here long before the white man entered
37:59the picture. Over 20 Native American tribes still practice spiritual rites here to this
38:08day. Their ancestors told of how its distinctive vertical clefts had been carved by a giant
38:14bear's massive claws. They called it Mateo Tipi, or Grizzly Bear Lodge. A confused U.S.
38:22geologist mistranslated the name as Devil's Tower in the 1870s. Local Indians called it
38:29an insult to a sacred place, but the name stuck. In the late 1800s, preservationists
38:36began asking Congress to make it a national park like Yellowstone. When Congress dragged
38:41its feet, President Theodore Roosevelt stepped in and declared that Devil's Tower would
38:46become the nation's first national monument instead.
38:55For thousands of years, the ancestors of today's Native Americans cooked their food and built
39:00their homes with wood harvested in Wyoming's forests. They hunted antelope, elk, buffalo,
39:07and other wildlife on its plains, and fished its rivers, traveling on foot wherever they went.
39:16But the arrival of Europeans transformed this ancient way of life, starting with the
39:21horses the Europeans brought with them. Modern horses originally evolved in America four
39:27million years ago, then spread to Asia and Europe over a long-gone land bridge over the
39:32Bering Strait. Once Europeans brought them back, strays and stolen steeds soon made their
39:39way into Native hands. Horses became part of their way of life, and the ritualized warfare
39:45they used to defend their homelands from rival tribes. The Shoshone claimed most of
39:52western Wyoming, including many of the lakes, mountains, and canyons the state is most famous
39:57for. The east, with its plains, was home to the Cheyenne. The north, from the Bighorn
40:04Mountains to the east, belonged to the Crow, while the Ute and Arapaho lived side by side
40:11in the south. These homelands were central to their culture, religious life, and identity.
40:19But the European Americans who began arriving here in the 1800s seemed to think the land
40:24was theirs for the taking. As the trickle of settlers became a flood, the tribes began
40:31a bloody campaign to defend their ancient homelands and keep the newcomers out. So the
40:37U.S. government sent in the cavalry to protect the settlers from attack. In 1849, the army
40:44established Fort Laramie on the site of an old trading post to serve as its base. It
40:49built this headquarters and barracks that same year. Carousing and wild parties soon
40:56earned it the nickname Old Bedlam, after London's Bedlam and Seine Asylum. From here, the often
41:03hungover soldiers rode out to wage some of the most decisive battles of the Indian Wars.
41:10The wounded rode back to get stitched up in this base hospital, while many never made
41:15it back at all. Finally, the battered army was forced to give up. The federal government,
41:22desperate to end the most successful war against the United States ever fought by an Indian
41:28nation, sued for peace. In 1868, the great Sioux chief, Red Cloud, came to Fort Laramie
41:35to sign a peace treaty and end the wars. In return, the Sioux and other tribes were promised
41:41rights to their homeland for as long as the grass shall grow and the buffalo shall roam.
41:48But the white men broke their word as soon as gold was found in South Dakota's Black
41:54Hills. The Indians were forced off the land they had been promised and onto reservations,
41:59a betrayal that would go down in history as one of America's darkest moments. But it wasn't
42:05the last time Wyoming played host to man's inhumanity to man.
42:15In early October 1998, a mountain biker spotted something along this road near Laramie he
42:21couldn't quite make out. He took a closer look and discovered a young man who had been
42:28beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die in the freezing cold. The world soon learned
42:36that the young man's name was Matthew Shepard, and that the two other young men had apparently
42:42done this to him because he was gay. After Shepard died a few days later, his case became
42:49a rallying cry for gay rights. In October 2009, Congress responded by passing a new
42:55Hate Crimes Prevention Act bearing Matthew's name. By then, his killers had already been
43:01sentenced to life behind bars. For their protection, their exact location is kept under lock and
43:09key. If they'd committed their crime in the 1800s, U.S. Marshals might have brought them
43:18here to Laramie's Wyoming Territorial Prison. It was the Marshals' job to round up the bad
43:24guys and bring them to justice. Between 1872 and 1903, evildoers of all classes and kinds
43:33paid for their crimes behind these bars. 1,063 in all, including Butch Cassidy, but not the
43:42Sundance Kid, who Cassidy met soon after his release. 50 miles to the east, this very
43:52different tower stands guard over those elected to make, not break, the laws of the state
43:58here at the Wyoming State Capitol Building in Cheyenne. The cornerstone for the Capitol
44:04was laid with great fanfare in 1887. Thirty years later, work on the 146-foot dome and
44:11massive wings finally came to an end. But Wyoming's greatest legislative moment may
44:17have come in 1870, long before construction of the Capitol began, when the territorial
44:23government gave American women the right to vote for the very first time. The U.S. Congress
44:29threatened to derail Wyoming's statehood unless the right was revoked, but Wyoming refused
44:35to back down. In 1890, it entered the Union as the first state to allow women to cast
44:41their own ballots, earning fame as the Equality State and proving that folks in Wyoming aren't
44:48afraid to stand up for opportunity, freedom, and justice when it counts. Perhaps because
44:56they know that their state's awe-inspiring scenery is there to be shared by all. From
45:04the great weathered spires of lava that soar into the sky, over ribbons of sand that seem
45:11to stretch on for eternity, from steaming valleys that tell of the terrifying forces
45:17that lie below, to the wild creatures that come here to its grasslands to roam, and the
45:24cowboys that ride the range to drive their herds home, this is the spirit of the land
45:32called Wyoming.