Wyoming has long been recognized as the first territory to grant woman suffrage. Esther Hobart Morris, the South Pass City resident who advocated for rights for women, and then became the first female justice of the peace in the nation, and Louisa Swain who cast the first woman’s vote in Laramie, are often celebrated for their role in suffrage.
Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first woman governor in the nation, serving Wyoming from 1925-27. She later became the first woman to direct the United States Mint, serving in that role from 1933 to 1953. Women have held other top offices in the state and nation.
But it was a group of strong-willed women who took over the town of Jackson in 1920. That year Jackson elected an all-female town council.
Grace Miller was a two-to-one winner over Fred Lovejoy for the mayoral seat. Others elected were Rose Crabtree and Mae Deloney both for two-year terms on the council and, and Genevieve Van Vleck and Faustina Haight, who won one-year council seats.
For Mrs. Crabtree the victory was close to home since she defeated her husband, Henry. He didn’t begrudge her and told reporters she had done a good job in running the Crabtree Hotel as his wife, so he felt she was competent to run the town.
Newspapers across the nation remarked on the election. The New York Sun said the “sole issue was that of sex and the two gun man didn’t stand a chance with his wife and her rolling pins.”
A Boston paper reported, “Governor Calvin Coolidge in an address yesterday referred to the action of the citizens of Jackson, Wyo., in electing women to all town offices and paid a high tribute to the good sense of the people of the town.”
Of her election, Mayor Miller told reporters, “We were not campaigning for the office because we felt the need of pressing reforms. The voters of Jackson believe that women are not only entitled to equal suffrage, but they are also entitled to equality in the management of government affairs.”
But there was more that year in Jackson. Not only were the town’s elected offices held by women, but the town’s appointed positions also went to females.
Pearl Williams Hupp took over as town marshal, Marta Winger became town clerk, and the town’s health officer was Edna C. Huff, the wife of Dr. Charles Huff. In the town minutes she is referred to as “Mrs. Dr. Huff.”
The women didn’t let any time slip by. Upon taking office they focused first on city finances. At the time they took their seats, the town had about $200, but within two weeks there was about $2,000 in the treasury because they collected unpaid debts.
With finances in hand, the women then set to work on other concerns: Stagnant water, no garbage disposal system, narrow culverts across the various ditches in town, and an unsightly cemetery.
The women started to spend the $2,000 they had collected as new culverts went in the ditches. They passed health laws making it a misdemeanor to put garbage in the streets or on vacant lots.
These newly-elected town leaders organized a clean-up week and then gathered up the refuse and hauled it out of the town where they established a permanent dumping spot. They had the streets graded and built board sidewalks to replace pioneer trails.
Finally, attention went to the cemetery. The old site got a face life with a new fence, stones to mark the graves, and a road up the steep hillside.
These women only served their initial terms, but they had proven they had the will – and the ability – to improve their town.
