24 of the last 26 United States Presidents have visited Wyoming, dating back to Ulysses S. Grant, who first came to the Cowboy State while serving in the Army and returned during his second term in office.

Perhaps the longest Presidential visit took place in 1883, when Chester A. Arthur spent two months vacationing in Wyoming. Locals teased the New York aristocrat for wearing business suits during his rugged adventures across the state.

Theodore Roosevelt made several trips to Wyoming, including a two week stay in Yellowstone in 1903. That spring, Roosevelt gave speeches in Newcastle, Evanston, Laramie and Cheyenne. He famously made the trip from Laramie to Cheyenne on horseback.

Of all the Presidents, however, nobody spent more time in Wyoming than Gerald Ford. Ford's grandfather Charles Henry King was a prominent banker who helped establish several Wyoming cities, including Casper, Douglas, Riverton and Shoshone.

King also founded the First National Bank of Casper and built the First Union Bank in Shoshoni, which is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

As a boy, future President Ford spent summers vacationing in Wyoming. In college, he worked as a Park Ranger at Yellowstone National Park. Two years after leaving office in 1976, he returned to Casper to explore the town his grandfather once helped put on the map.

Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison are the only two Presidents since Grant that never visited Wyoming.

Interestingly, Harrison's grandson William Henry Harrison, the great - great grandson of his namesake, 9th President William Henry Harrison, was a long time Wyoming resident, who served five terms in the United States Congress representing the Cowboy State.

 

 

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