Fun Fact: Former President Gerald Ford Lived In Wyoming
Here's a fun President's Day fact. Former United States President Gerald Ford once lived in Wyoming.
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 in Wyoming. He returned to the Cowboy State in college and worked as a Park Ranger at Yellowstone National Park in 1936. Two years after leaving office in 1976, Ford returned to Casper to explore the town his grandfather helped put on the map.
Including President Trump, 25 of the last 27 United States Presidents have visited Wyoming, dating back to Ulysses S. Grant. 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 Cowboy 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.
Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison are the only two Presidents that didn't visit Wyoming after Grant designated Yellowstone as the country's first National Park in 1872. 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 representing the Cowboy State in the U.S. Congress.