Anti-German sentiment
Emblem was founded in 1896 when Solon Wiley's Big Horn Basin Development Company brought irrigation to the Emblem Bench. Lutheran Germans Settled there. The area now known as Emblem was once called Germania Bench after a settlement of German Lutherans arrived to farm the land. The name became a subject of Anti-German sentiment during the first World War and the surrounding communities demanded that it be changed. Specifically, the community was told that the new name should be an "emblem of liberty." Accordingly, the name was changed to Emblem and the area was often referred to as "Liberty Bench."