# States in the Senate | Wyoming Timeline

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**Introduction****Senators****Timeline**

AllArtCommittees          Elections          Leadership

1868

## July 25

The Territory of Wyoming was created by Act of Congress. It was formed from land taken from the Dakota, Idaho, and Utah Territories.

1869

## December 10

Passage of the Suffrage Act in the first session of this year's territorial legislature gave Wyoming the distinction of being the first government within the jurisdiction of the United States to grant women the right to vote.

1872

##  

Congress designated Yellowstone, in northwestern Wyoming, as the first national park.

1890

## July 10

Wyoming was admitted as the 44th state in the Union and became the first state to grant women full voting rights.

1890

## December 1

Joseph M. Carey and Francis Warren, both of Cheyenne, presented their credentials and took the oath of office as Wyoming's first U.S. senators. The senators then drew lots to determine their class assignments. Warren drew Class 1, with a term to expire on March 3, 1893. Warren drew Class 2, with a term to expire on March 3, 1895.

1891

## December 17

Joseph M. Carey became chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor (today's Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions), a position he held until 1893.

1893

## March 

 After the state legislature failed to elect a senator for the term beginning March 4, 1893, the state governor appointed Democrat Asahel Beckwith to the vacant seat. The states of Washington and Montana had similar legislative deadlocks and followed Wyoming's example of sending a temporary gubernatorial appointee. An economic depression and the debate over whether to remove silver as a basis of the nation's monetary system caused the Senate session to extend through the summer. On July 11, Beckwith withdrew his claim to a seat to return to managing his businesses. In late August, the Senate voted to deny the Montana and Washington claimants their seats. This left all three states without their full Senate representation until early 1895.

1895

## March 4

Francis Warren returned to take Wyoming's Class 2 Senate seat. He served until his death in 1929 and is Wyoming's longest-serving senator, with a total of 37 years and 4 days.

1905

## December 18

Francis Warren became chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs (today's Committee on Armed Services), a position he held until 1911 when, on April 27, 1911, Warren became chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. He served as Appropriations chair until 1913.

1916

## November 7

John Kendrick of Sheridan, a cattle rancher and former governor, became the state's first directly elected senator after the Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect in 1913.

1923

## October 

The Committee on Public Lands and Surveys (today's Committee on Energy and Natural Resources) began a series of hearings to investigate the leasing of government oil reserves in Wyoming to oilmen and developers. This became known as the "Teapot Dome" investigation.

1929

## November 24

Francis Warren died. At the time of his death, Warren had served in the Senate for 37 years, longer than any other member to that date. He held two other distinctions: he was the last surviving senator to have served the Union during the Civil War, and he was among the first senators to hire a woman staff member.

1929

## November 26

A funeral service was held for Francis Warren in the Senate Chamber.

1934

## February 22

Joseph C. O'Mahoney of Cheyenne read George Washington's 1796 Farewell Address on the floor of the Senate, a tradition dating to 1862.

1945

## January 10

Joseph C. O'Mahoney became chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, a position he held until 1947. On January 10, 1949, he became chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs (today's Committee on Energy and Natural Resources), a position he held until 1953.

1954

## February 22

Lester Hunt of Lander read George Washington's 1796 Farewell Address on the floor of the Senate, a tradition dating to 1862.

1954

## June 19

Several days after announcing his plans to resign, Senator Lester Hunt committed suicide in his Senate office. Political foes who sought to punish him for his stand against the anti-communist tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy and strove to add another Republican to the narrowly divided Senate had threatened to publicize his son's 1953 arrest in a male prostitution sting. Hunt's suicide was the basis of Allen Drury's 1959 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, *Advise and Consent*. 

1958

## November 4

University of Wyoming history professor Gale McGee of Laramie won a Senate seat in the year's Democratic landslide with the help of his students and without prior governmental service. In this election Democrats gained an unprecedented 16 Senate seats.

1960

## April 6

The state dedicated its first entry in the National Statuary Hall Collection, a bronze likeness of Esther Hobart Morris. A pioneer in the women's suffrage movement, Morris earned her distinction as the first U.S. woman to serve as a justice of the peace. No decision of hers was ever reversed by appeal to a higher court.

1960

## December 9

Representative Keith Thomson, 41 and a senator-elect, died before his Senate term began. Democratic governor J. J. Hickey of Cheyenne subsequently resigned from his office so that his successor could appoint him to the vacancy, which ran until the 1962 general election. Hickey lost his 1962 election bid to former Republican governor Milward Simpson of Cody.

1961

## January 2

Joseph O'Mahoney of Cheyenne ended a 25-year Senate career, making him the second-longest-serving Wyoming senator after Francis Warren, who served more than 37 years.

1977

## January 3

For the first time since becoming a state in 1890, the Wyoming Senate delegation included two members from the same political party: Republicans Clifford P. Hansen of Jackson and Malcolm Wallop of Big Horn.

1977

## January 4

Republicans elected Clifford P. Hansen as their Conference secretary, a position he held until his resignation at the end of 1978.

1981

## January 4

Alan K. Simpson of Cody became chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, a position he held until 1985. He chaired the committee again from 1995 to 1997.

1984

## November 28

Senate Republicans elected Alan Simpson as party whip. He held that post through 1994, when he lost a bid by a one-vote margin to be majority leader.

1995

## February 20

Senator Craig L. Thomas of Casper read George Washington's 1796 Farewell Address on the floor of the Senate, a tradition dating to 1862.

1996

## January 26

Senator Craig L. Thomas received the Golden Gavel Award for presiding over the Senate for 100 hours in a single session.

1997

## July 8

Senator Michael B. Enzi of Gillette received the Golden Gavel Award for presiding over the Senate for 100 hours in a single session. He won a second Golden Gavel in 2004.

2000

## September 7

Congress held a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to mark the unveiling of Chief Washakie, a Flathead-Shoshone warrior, the second of Wyoming's two entries in the National Statuary Hall Collection.

2005

## January 6

Senator Michael B. Enzi became chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, a position he held until 2007 and again from 2015 to 2017.

2011

## December 13

Republicans elected John Barrasso as their Policy Committee chairman.

2015

## January 8

John Barrasso became chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, a position he held until 2017.

2017

## January 5

Senator Michael B. Enzi became chairman of the Senate Committee on the Budget, a position he held until his retirement on January 3, 2021.

2017

## January 5

Senator John Barrasso became chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, a position he held until 2021.

2018

## November 14

Senator John Barrasso was elected Republican Conference chairman beginning with the 116th Congress.

2021

## January 3

Cynthia M. Lummis became the first woman to represent Wyoming in the U.S. Senate.

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