The Diocese in General

Bishop McGovern

[3] The diocese of Cheyenne comprises within its boundaries 101,352 / 97548 square miles, thus ranking third in area among the sees of the United States. This year’s federal census (1940) credits Wyoming with 250,742 inhabitants; and, taking deaths as the basis of computation, the Catholic population numbers a minimum of 31,343. In other words, Catholic births and deaths are respectively about one-sixth and one-eighth of the total for the State. Besides Wyoming, the diocese includes Yellowstone National Park, which for the beauty and variety of its scenery, and its extraordinary natural phenomena, ranks among the marvels of the world. It is worthy of note that the first Territorial legislature of Wyoming in 1869 conferred the suffrage on women, and on its admission as a State a provision to this effect was embodied in the constitution (1890).

Ecclesiastically, the territory within the present limits of Wyoming has been subject to sees as remote from each other as the civil authority to which its component parts owed allegiance. For within its boundaries is part of the Louisiana Purchase which was made from France in 1803, part of the Oregon Country which was acquired by the Florida treaty with Spain in 1819, part of the Texas annexation of 1845, and finally part of the [4] Mexican cession of 1848. However, any jurisdiction that the French, Spanish, or Mexican bishops may have had over these districts was rather de jure than de facto, since prior to the building of Fort Laramie as a trading post in 1834 and 1835, there were no white settlers in the territory, nor had any missionary work been done among the Indians.

With the creation of the diocese of St. Louis in 1827, Wyoming came under the authority of that see. In 1851, it was included in the vicariate of the Indian Territory, over which the Most Rev. John B. Miège, S.J., D.D., was called to preside as vicar apostolic. His see embraced all the region from the southern boundary of Kansas to the British possessions, and all west of the Missouri river to the crest of the Rocky mountains. The vicariate of Nebraska, which included Wyoming, was carved out of this vast region Jan. 6, 1857, and received as its ruler Most Rev. James O’Gorman, D.D., (consecrated May 8, 1859) who took up his residence in Omaha. When that city was named an episcopal see in 1885, its ordinary, Most Rev. James O’Gorman, D.D., continued to guide the destinies of Wyoming up to the erection of the diocese of Cheyenne, Aug. 9, 1887.