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© 2004 Mary Steinbacher Introduction Essay for Wyoming 24/7 Like a Rock By Ann Franscell It would be easy to mistake the piles of rocks jutting from the prairie all over Wyoming as a quirk of geography, as some kind of geological afterbirth of the Rocky Mountains. But these are sheepherders' monuments, and they are no accident. A century or so ago, sheepherders shouldered rocks one at a time and hauled them to high spots where they painstakingly constructed obelisks that might stretch 15 feet into the blue Wyoming sky. Meticulously, they fitted small rocks and large rocks into a solid mass-for no good reason, some say, other than to pass the time or mark a spot. The dance of wind and water across the rocks over those 100 years strengthened them, locking the pieces together in such an embrace that they are now immovable. In their simplicity, they are grandeur. In their ruggedness, they are unique. Just like Wyoming. Extreme geology is the likely reason that only half a million people populate the big square state (a description that fits both its geography and its mind-set). For all the beauty in Wyoming's grand national parks, there is little to compel people to live in the surrounding sagebrush badlands. In 2003, Wyoming made the short list for the bizarre Free State Project, in which a group of libertarian ideologues sought to hijack a vulnerable state-proposing that 20,000 libertarians move in and take over the state's politics. In the end, they chose New Hampshire. Perhaps they felt as one East Coast visitor to Wyoming did when he got off the plane and gazed at the empty vastness around him. "What's the opposite of claustrophobia?" he asked as he turned around, got back on the plane, and flew back to his version of civilization. What he did not see was Wyoming's quirkiness. Cheyenne put up a statue of Esther Hobart Morris, who led the charge to make Wyoming the first state to grant women the right to vote, while Niobrara County has a monument in honor of a madam known affectionately as Mother Featherlegs. Another quirk: Wyoming was the site of the first National Monument (Devils Tower) and the first National Park (Yellowstone), yet proudly calls Vice President Dick Cheney-whose environmental views don't quite mesh with Theodore Roosevelt's-one of its own. Another quirk: Wyomingites pride themselves on standing behind one another-as long as they aren't standing too close. They like their space. What the state lacks in human abundance, it makes up for in natural resources. The awe-inspiring Tetons are truly among America's wonders. Yet in an opposite corner of the state lies a natural resource that stretches not to the sky but into the earth. Buried beneath the flat prairie of the Powder River Basin are at least 20 billion of tons of coal-the nation's largest deposit of the mineral and truly another of America's wonders. One resource gives Wyoming (and, indeed, the nation) a natural beauty, and the other provides the state (and, indeed, the nation) the means to enjoy it. It's another of Wyoming's quirks. Our environment shapes us, whether we worship it in the backcountry or rely on it for our paychecks from the minerals industries. And somehow, we become as solidly fused as the stones in the sheepherders' monuments. Weathered, rugged, unique. Greybull native ANN FRANSCELL is publisher and editor of The News-Record in Gillette. Browse    View All    Like a Rock    Hearth & Home    Hard at Work    Wyoming at Play    Reason to Believe Photos: 129 Photographers: 25 Towns: 32

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