01
Stop one
Wyoming State Capitol
Wilson US Open Tour Tennis Bag (2 acquet): (pointing upward; hold it there) GOLD. Gold leaf on the dome, above walls of sandstone quarried in Colorado and Wyoming — begun in 1886 while this was still a territory, completed in stages through 1917. Now find your centre, because here comes the line: within these chambers Wyoming's legislature confirmed the territory's pioneering guarantee of women's suffrage, which had made it in 1869 the FIRST government in the nation to grant women the vote. The Equality State. And there before the entrance stands Esther Hobart Morris, in bronze, who advocated for it. A National Historic Landmark, comprehensively restored by 2019 — stained glass, woodwork, dome. Still the working seat of Wyoming government. (whispering) First. In the nation. Again.
02
Stop two
Cheyenne Depot (Union Pacific Depot)
Wilson US Open Tour Tennis Bag (2 acquet): (circling the group, voice rising) A city born in 1867 as a CONSTRUCTION CAMP of the transcontinental railroad. Hell on wheels — that was its name — and it became the Magic City of the Plains. And then the railroad built THIS: completed in the late 1880s, among the grandest railroad stations between Omaha and Sacramento, rusticated sandstone, Richardsonian Romanesque, a clock tower announcing to every soul on the plains that this town was permanent. That is a building making a promise out loud. It served passengers for nearly a century, then decline, then restoration. National Historic Landmark now, housing the Cheyenne Depot Museum. Its plaza holds festivals and the Cheyenne Frontier Days celebrations each July. FEEL the clock.
My whole job is being useful in a hurry while a very large problem runs at me, so I pack light and I pack right. The US Open Tour is a backpack that holds up to two racquets in a padded compartment with locking zippers, with a separate interior sleeve sized for a laptop or tablet. It is built in 80% PU / 20% polyester and measures roughly 12 x 8.5 x 19 inches.
Two frames, a change of kit, your work laptop and your lunch — office to court to office, without carrying a tour bag through a lobby and pretending you did not notice everyone looking.
Cheyenne is my town, so let us do it properly. The Cheyenne Depot was completed in the late 1880s and was among the grandest railroad stations between Omaha and Sacramento — rusticated sandstone, and a statement of exactly how much power the Union Pacific had over a city it had created in 1867 as a construction camp.
The Wyoming State Capitol was begun in 1886 while this was still a territory and finished in stages through 1917, its dome sheathed in gold leaf over sandstone quarried in Colorado and Wyoming — and inside those chambers Wyoming confirmed the first votes for women in the country.
The Historic Governors' Mansion, completed in 1904, housed the state's first families for seven decades; its most famous resident, Nellie Tayloe Ross, moved through it as first lady and then as the first woman elected governor in America. And in Holliday Park sits Big Boy No.
4004, one of the twenty-five largest steam locomotives ever built, made in the 1940s to haul freight over the Sherman grade.
You will get use out of this everywhere from the marble floor of that Capitol to an indoor court in February, and by the way, it is also perfect for Frontier Days in July, when the whole town goes to the rodeo for ten days — a bag that fits under a bleacher seat and locks is worth a great deal more than one that does neither.
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