One of the things I love about West Virginia is our unique history - the only state created from another one without its consent. Still, that idea, although it's a singular event in the nation's history, wasn't limited to the Appalachians. Today's New York Times has an interesting article about a movement in the 1930s to carve a new state out of parts of Wyoming, South Dakota, and Montana.
The new state, to be called Absaroka, would have had its capital in what is now Sheridan, Wyoming. And it was not just idle chit chat:
The tale of the would-be rebels, who called their new state Absaroka (pronounced ab-SOR-ka), from the Crow word meaning 'children of the large-beaked bird,' then faded into the mist. Details were forgotten — how a baseball-player-turned-street-commissioner in Sheridan named A. R. Swickard appointed himself governor and began hearing writs of grievance, and how license plates were distributed along with pictures of Miss Absaroka 1939, the first and apparently last of her breed. There was even an Absarokan state visit, when the king of Norway made a swing through Montana.It's nice to know that the girlfriend's home state has some colorful history, too!
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