Immigrant families built Wyoming. We must remember that.

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In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner wrote “The Frontier in American History.” He declared that the American frontier was no more. My folks were new to the country, and as such, they may have missed the eminent historian’s proclamation. It’s possible they were busy with their efforts to scratch out a living in the sagebrush sea of southwestern Wyoming. My ancestors were immigrants.

Turner never spoke about the nature of that frontier with stern little Laban Heward, my great-grandfather. Laban was an immigrant from England who came to Wyoming to do what he had done in Leicestershire — mine coal. He arrived here in 1880 with his brothers and brothers-in-law. They found work in the most dangerous mines on the Union Pacific line, near Evanston. A year later, he was joined by his beautiful wife, Elizabeth Fearn, and their children, one of whom became my grandmother. 

The great scholar never talked with my great-grandfather Friedrich Gasson, either. A perpetual immigrant, Fred immigrated with his family from eastern Germany to a sheep station in South Australia, then to a small farm near Ogden, Iowa. Not content to farm in a German immigrant community where the gently undulating land gets 36 inches of rain annually, Fred and his sturdy wife Caroline and their three young children climbed on the train and headed out for the territories: in this case, the Wyoming Territory and the small railroad town of Green River. A huge man, and undaunted by anything the cold desert had to offer, I’m sure he needed every ounce of courage to explain to Caroline that this was indeed the promised land. 

On my mother’s side came (legally or otherwise) the French-Canadian George Gravelle, a druggist — the pharmacist of his day — fresh from the gold rush at South Pass. The boom had busted, and the action was now in Green River. And action there was, when the widow Martha Baker accidentally dropped her baby in the river in 1875. His heroic attempt to save the child failed, but the Québécois’ courage must have impressed Mrs. Baker. They were married the next year, and my grandfather Gid was born the year after that. George died within months, at age 31.

From different parts of the world, with vastly disparate stories, these men and women came to the frontier that was southwest Wyoming and created the foundation for our family. But why did they come? I’ve wondered that from time to time, when I look at their photographs and walk the places they walked. What divine plan or series of random events threw these people onto that harsh landscape at that time? What was their motive? Why here? Why then? I think I know the answer. In a word, opportunity.

They were not alone. My hometown was replete with opportunity seekers from all over the world. In no small part, this was about the Union Pacific Railroad. Railroad jobs were good jobs — even if your English wasn’t quite perfect. The work was hard, for sure. The farther down you were on the organizational ladder, the harder it was. But the pay was good — good enough to support a family, if you had one or wanted to have one someday. 

So they came. The Basque guys came to herd sheep, and in time started sheep outfits of their own. Mexican guys came to herd sheep in the summer, but some of them stayed and got railroad jobs. The Greek guys and the Italian guys and the Eastern European guys started out on railroad jobs, but went on to own small businesses. Young men from all over the world found work and stayed to marry and raise families in Green River. Were they all legally naturalized citizens? Based on a sample of my own family, some were and some weren’t. Perhaps from a Shoshone point of view, none of us are. 

But all of us brought something to the dance. We brought our stories. We brought our cultures. We brought a fierce determination to make sure our kids had it better than we did. And we made our community a better place for it. The community I was born into in 1954 had multiple generations of people whose stories began someplace outside the United States. It was a place for people who were willing to take a chance. Immigrants all, they came to Wyoming because it was a better place than where they were before. Laban mined coal so his children could be ranchers. Fred ran a sheep outfit so his kids could run bigger sheep outfits. George gave his only child the best life he could and promptly died. All told, they invested and exhausted themselves in hard lives that gave their children a chance to live lives a little less hard, a little less exhausting. 

I don’t think it’s different today. People come to Wyoming from all over the country, all over the world. They come to work in the gas patch so their kids can be teachers. They come to be roofers so their kids can be accountants. They come to make hotel beds so their kids can be welders. It would be hypocritical for me to hold that against them, knowing that my own family came from England and Germany and Quebec for the same things. I know there are folks out there who want to draw a line between “us” who were born here and “them” who were not. But Wyoming was built on the foundation of immigrant families like mine. It will continue to be built on the labors of people from someplace else. And at the end of the day, literally and figuratively, there is no “us” and “them.” There’s only “we.”