World War I & II

Bomber Mountain's Namesake Tragedy

June 1943 saw forty-one heavy bombers lost within the continental United States, including a B-17 that went missing over Wyoming late during the night of June 28. That aircraft had ten young men on board destined for World War II. They had been ordered overseas to participate in the intense and constant bombing raids being conducted in Europe, but they never made it out of America. Two years later, area cowboys discovered the wreckage strewn across an otherwise picturesque landscape. U.S. Air Corps Captain Kenneth G. Hamm noted in his personal diary, “The plane was so completely demolished that we were almost on top of it before we saw it.” Author Sylvia A. Bruner shares the stories of the men who lost their lives deep in the Bighorn Mountains and recounts the events of the crash, search and U.S. Air Corps accident investigation.

More than 14,000 people of Japanese descent—two-thirds of them US citizens—were exiled from August 1942 to November 1945 to the Heart Mountain Incarceration Site on the high desert prairie of Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin.

The site was the temporary home for Japanese Americans forced from their homes in California, Oregon, and Washington. Believed to be saboteurs or spies or both, the prisoners were viewed with fear, hatred, and sometimes acceptance by their neighbors in nearby Cody and Powell. During their time at Heart Mountain, the incarcerated people lived like the residents of any American city. Under the eye of the federal War Relocation Authority, they taught school, worked at the fire and police departments, ran stores and barbershops, and spent much of their time wondering what had happened to their former lives. Today, the site is part of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center and Mineta-Simpson Institute.

Ray Locker is the director of communications and strategy for the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation. The foundation’s staff consists of experts on Japanese American history, the intersections between Wyoming’s Indigenous community and World War II’s incarcerated people, and museum professionals dedicated to telling the story of this sad chapter of American history. They used donations from those incarcerated and their families, collections in the foundation archives, the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and museums from around the country.

On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941 the world changed for the North State—and the nation.

A national call to arms by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after the bombing of Pearl Harbor spurred local residents to action, and the normal rhythm of life immediately and dramatically changed. By Christmas of that year, everyone understood their roles. Those who could enlist served in Army and Navy operations in the Pacific and Europe. The rest gave their all to support the war from the home front. Residents volunteered their time and skills, served as Red Cross workers, airplane spotters and scrap metal collectors. Local factories and canneries ramped up production. And building the Shasta Dam to provide power became a crucial part of the war effort.

Author Al M. Rocca recounts the determination and tribulations of North State citizens during World War II.

Immigration in the Equality State

Long before Heart Mountain Internment Camp brought Japanese prisoners to Wyoming, an immigrant work force put down lasting roots. Beginning in 1892, Japanese came to toil on Union Pacific's railroad and coal mines. But they weren't warmly welcomed. Newspapers charged every Japanese section worker was secret Japanese Army. Allegedly, "600 Japs in Utah, [and] about 400 in Wyoming and probably 100 in Colorado," were ready to serve Japan during the Japanese Russo War. George Wakimoto said the number was closer to six. Such misinformation about Japanese laborers spawned violence against Asians. The citizens of Evanston tried to blow them up. Rawlins ran the Japanese out of town. And in Laramie, young boys threw stones and dragged a Japanese man through the street. Author Dan Lyon chronicles Japanese perseverance, before and after both world wars, in their adopted state.

Montana's cowboys, miners, foresters, farmers and nurses entered World War I in April 1917 under the battle cry that would resonate on the battlefields in France—Powder River, Let 'Er Buck!

Montana men served in a greater percentage per capita than any other state. Hundreds responded to the call, including local women and minorities, from the nation's first congresswoman, Jeannette Rankin, to young women serving as combat nurses on the front lines. Additionally, the state provided vital supplies of copper and wheat. Learn what role celebrities like cowboy artist Charlie Russell played in the war and how Montanans mobilized, trained and deployed.

Acclaimed historian Ken Robison uncovers new and neglected stories of the Treasure State's contributions to the Great War.

Through historic photographs discover how the citizens of Boulder City contributed to the war effort in World War II.

During the early years of World War II, the United States Army established a camp on the federal reservation in Boulder City, Nevada. This camp consisted of barracks, a mess hall, officer quarters, a hospital, a guardhouse, a commissary, and a theater for several hundred men. Most of the men were being trained for military police duty. The citizens of Boulder City were not aware of much of the activity that took place at Camp Williston as they were finally settling down into everyday life after the construction of the Hoover Dam. On December 7, 1941, though, the town of Boulder City had the busiest Army camp in the West. Established only a decade earlier in 1931, the camp’s “Be Generous, Equal Victory” slogan was one the community lived by, even more so throughout the war effort.

Tiane Marie is a writer, historian, and photographer. She is dedicated to preserving history by sharing the information for anyone who is wanting to learn. She is the author of Past and Present: Boulder City.

Nineteenth-century Chinese pioneers voyaged across the vast oceans to reach the last steamboat stop in the 旄舝 Gold Mountain, bringing centuries of wisdom from China’s ancient civilization.

Tehama County played a crucial role in shaping California’s early statehood. Its fertile terrain presented ample opportunities to succeed. Despite harsh discriminatory laws and racially driven tunnel folklore to perpetuate a negative narrative, five original families— Foey (Wong), 謯 Chew (Yuen), 鄺 Fong, 衒 On (Liu), and 蠊 Chin—made Red Bluff their permanent home, thriving as merchants and productive citizens. Individuals like Dr. Chew Yuen and Bo Do Hong operated traditional Chinese medicine practices throughout America with Red Bluff as their headquarters. Tehama County blended cultures, with its most distinguishable townsmen attending an annual Chinese and American banquet in Red Bluff’s Chinatown, merging the two cultures together. The deep bonds formed would culminate into a powerful petition by 20 influential leaders in support of the Chew family, who were detained at Angel Island in 1916, proving that Tehama County valued the Chinese community. This single act of kindness set the stage for a 20th-century Chinese American pioneer to be born, Dr. Kenneth Kendall Chew, and his research in aquaculture would change the world.

The Helen and Joe Chew Foundation has selected rare images from its collection and invited Chinese American descendants to narrate their origin stories, preserving the legacy of these pioneering families for future generations.