Because of Wyoming's location as part of the Louisiana Purchase, the Oregon Country, and the Mexican Cession, the land which became Wyoming has a complicated history of territorial relationships. Portions of the territory, which eventually fell under Wyoming's jurisdiction, were at various points associated with the territories of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Dakota, Nebraska, and Utah, and had previously belonged to the independent states of Great Britain, France, Spain, Mexico, and Texas. The portion of the Wyoming Territory east of the continental divide was acquired by the U.S. in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and organized into the Nebraska Territory in 1854. On March 2, 1861, the northern portion of the Nebraska Territory, including the northeastern portion of future Wyoming Territory, became part of the Dakota Territory, while the southeastern portion remained with Nebraska, forming an extended Nebraska "panhandle". In 1863, the Idaho Territory was formed; it included the entirety of the modern states of Idaho and Montana and almost all of modern Wyoming save the southwest corner. The portion of the Wyoming Territory west of the continental divide and north of the 42nd parallel was originally part of the Oregon Country, which was organized into the Oregon Territory in 1848; when Oregon entered the union as a state under its present boundaries in 1859, this land became part of the Washington Territory became briefly part of Dakota Territory once again, although a strip of land along the western border of what would become Wyoming remained part of the Idaho Territory.
History
On July 25, 1868, President Andrew Johnson signed the Wyoming Organic Act creating the Wyoming Territory using lands from the Dakota, Idaho, and Utah territories, and on April 17, 1869, the territorial government was organized. In 1869 the territory granted women's suffrage for all elections in an attempt to attract new settlers. A later attempt to repeal the law was defeated after the governor vetoed the repeal; the legislature failed to override the veto by one vote. In 1872, Wyoming Territory had five counties: Albany, Carbon, Laramie, Sweetwater, and Uinta, each a tall narrow rectangle comprising approximately one-fifth of the territory. On July 10, 1890, the territory was admitted as the forty-fourth state seven days after the Idaho territory was admitted by President Benjamin Harrison.
