Some Crazy Wyoming Women Are Making News

Recently, there has been a rash of news stories involving Wyoming women in trouble with the law. Wyoming women outlaws are nothing new, and maybe I'm seeing something that isn't there, but I've seen enough to ask - WHAT THE HECK WYOMING WOMEN?

A Gillette woman is accused of plotting to have her husband kill her brother.

A Wheatland woman is accused of asking a friend to kill her husband.

A Bar Nunn woman is accused of embezzling $200.000 from Special Olympics.

A Wyoming woman reporter is accused of multiple forgeries.

A Lander woman is accused of making false accusations about sexual assault.

The legend of "Crazy Woman" in Wyoming centers on a creek and canyon near Buffalo, likely named after a woman—either a grieving Native American or a white settler—who lost her mind following a violent tragedy in the mid-1800s. Common stories include a woman witnessing her family's massacre and a trader’s wife going mad after a deadly attack.

Wyoming has a long history of wild women in trouble with the law.

Annie Bruce is widely recognized as the first woman convicted of murder in Wyoming, entering the Wyoming State Penitentiary (Rawlins) around 1908 at age 17 for poisoning her father. Other sources suggest Nettie Stewart Wright was the first female inmate at the Wyoming Territorial Prison, detained earlier for stealing, while Eliza "Big Jack" Stewart was also an early female convict.

Another Crazy woman is Polly Bartlett, also known as The Murderess of Slaughterhouse Gulch, near South Pass City.

Nettie Stewart Wright: Recognized as an earlier, perhaps first, female inmate at the Territorial Prison for theft.

While some were housed in the Wyoming Territorial Prison (Laramie), others were in the Wyoming Frontier Prison (Rawlins).

There have been no women executed in Wyoming, nor are there any women currently on death row in the state. Wyoming has not executed anyone in over 30 years, and, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, there is no current death row population.

Let's not forget one of the craziest Wyoming ladies of them all:

Martha Jane Canary (1852–1903), known as Calamity Jane, was a legendary American frontierswoman who spent significant time in Wyoming during the 1870s, working as a scout, cook, and mule skinner. She frequented towns like Cheyenne, Fort Laramie, and Piedmont, often wearing men's clothing and living a rough, nomadic life in the Wild West.

I could continue by adding a list of Wyoming Madams of our state's most famous brothels. But those were the old days.

It looks like Wyoming women, and we love them all, are still a handful to this day.