Laramie

Laramie, a city and the county-seat of Albany county, Wyoming, U.S.A., on the Laramie river, 57 m. by rail N.W. of Cheyenne. Pop. (1900) 8207, of whom 1280 were foreign-born; (1905) 7601; (1910) 8237. It is served by the Union Pacific and the Laramie, Hahn’s Peak & Pacific railways, the latter extending from Laramie to Centennial (30 m.). The city is situated on the Laramie Plains, at an elevation of 7165 ft., and is hemmed in on three sides by picturesque mountains. It has a public library, a United States Government building and hospitals, and is the seat of the university of Wyoming and of a Protestant Episcopal missionary bishopric. There is a state fish hatchery in the vicinity. The university (part of the public school system of the state) was founded in 1886, was opened in 1887, and embraces a College of Liberal Arts and Graduate School, a Normal School, a College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, an Agricultural Experiment Station (established by a Federal appropriation), a College of Engineering, a School of Music, a Preparatory School and a Summer School. Laramie is a supply and distributing centre for a live-stock raising and mining region—particularly coal mining, though gold, silver, copper and iron are also found. The Union Pacific Railroad Company has machine shops, repair shops and rolling mills at Laramie, and, a short distance S. of the city, ice-houses and a tie-preserving plant. The manufactures include glass, leather, flour, plaster and pressed brick, the brick being made from shale obtained in the vicinity. The municipality owns and operates the water-works; the water is obtained from large springs about 2½ m. distant. Laramie was settled in 1868, by people largely from New England, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, and was named in honour of Jacques Laramie, a French fur trader. It was first chartered as a city in 1868 by the legislature of Dakota, and was rechartered by the legislature of Wyoming in 1873.