First Woman Jury

Laramie had no courthouse in March 1870, so the court sat in the Trabing brothers' store at First and Garfield streets, and this stone marks where it stood. The jury the tablet calls a woman jury was mixed, men and women together. The store later became the Variety Theater, and in November 1919 Grace Raymond Hebard brought Carrie Chapman Catt's party to stand inside it. The experiment did not outlast its judge: after John Howe left the bench in October 1871, women were kept off Wyoming juries, with one brief exception, until the law changed in 1949.

What the plaque says

This tablet marks the site where the first woman jury served during March 1870 Placed in 1922 by the Jacques Laramie Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vedauwoo — 16 mi
  Knobs of 1.4-billion-year-old granite between Laramie and Cheyenne, rough as sandpaper and famous among climbers for its wide cracks.

More markers nearby

• Laramie — 0.7 mi
• Fort Sanders — 2.6 mi
• Old Overland Trail — 7.4 mi
• Henry B. Joy Monument — 9.7 mi