Cheyenne ( or or Shy-anne) is the capital and most populous city of the
U.S. state of
Wyoming and the
county seat of
Laramie County. It is the principal city of the Cheyenne, Wyoming,
Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Laramie County. The population is 59,466 at the
2010 census. Cheyenne is the northern terminus of the extensive and fast-growing
Front Range Urban Corridor. Cheyenne is situated on
Crow Creek and
Dry Creek. The
Cheyenne, Wyoming Metropolitan Area had an 2010 population of 91,738, making it the
354th most populated metropolitan area in the United States.
History
On July 5, 1867, General
Grenville M. Dodge and his survey crew platted the site now known as Cheyenne in
Dakota Territory (later Wyoming Territory). This site was chosen as the point at which the Union Pacific Railroad crossed Crow Creek, a tributary of the
South Platte River. The city was not named by Dodge, as his memoirs state, but rather by friends who accompanied him to the area Dodge called "Crow Creek Crossing." It was named for the American Indian
Cheyenne nation, one of the most famous and prominent
Great Plains tribes closely allied with the
Arapaho.
There were many from a hundred miles around who felt the construction of the
Union Pacific Railroad through the area would bring them prosperity. By the time the first track was built into Cheyenne November 13, 1867, over four thousand people had migrated into the new city. Those who did not leave with the westward...
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