DENVER - Some may look at the Wyoming quarter - which was the subject of a ceremonial striking at the U.S. Mint here Monday - and see the duality in the state's culture engraved on the tails side of the coin.
On the right of the coin is the state slogan, "The Equality State," celebrating Wyoming's groundbreaking role in providing equal rights for women.
On the left is the well-known cowboy on a bucking bronc - a masculine symbol of individualism that brings to mind the popular moniker "The Cowboy State."
Nellie Tayloe Ross, Wyoming's first female governor and the first woman in the nation sworn in as a state governor, would not see those values in opposition though.
On Monday, her grandson, Bradford Ross, said, "I think my grandmother would say that the suffrage issues really helped illustrate the reality of the (cowboy on) the bucking horse symbol.
"The men of Wyoming - the cowboys of Wyoming - are so self-confident that they don't feel like they're losing anything by giving women the right to vote. My grandmother saw the people of Wyoming were progressive and insightful."
The wife of Gov. William Bradford Ross, Nellie was elected to the office after her husband died of complications following surgery for appendicitis in 1924.
She served from January 1925 to January 1927, and though she ran for reelection she did not campaign.
"She was so deeply stricken by the loss of my grandfather; I think she did not campaign in deference to him," Bradford Ross said.
She lost by about 1,500 votes, which may have had as much to do with her support for Prohibition as avoiding the campaign trail. But she went on to become the first female head of the U.S. Mint.
On Monday, Wyoming quarters - which will be released Sept. 4 - spilled from a printing device like a giant slot machine gone haywire commemorating the state Ross governed.
Dignitaries and media milled about the highly secured production floor of the Mint in Denver, a facility Ross knew well.
Wyoming's quarter-dollar coin is the 44th in the 50
State Quarters Program of the U.S. Mint.
Wyoming became the 44th state to join the union in 1890, and the quarters are being issued in the order of territories and possessions achieving statehood.
Guillermo Hernandez, U.S. Mint spokesman, said the Mint has been producing about 500 million of each
State Quarter. But the number of coins varies, depending on the amount of currency needed at the time.
The Federal Reserve orders the money; the Mint prints it.
Wyoming quarters have been produced at the Denver Mint since early July.
About half of the coins ordered by the Federal Reserve will be produced at Denver; the other half at the Philadelphia Mint.
The final number will be available on the U.S. Mint Web site once complete, Hernandez said.
Randy Johnson, production manager at the Denver Mint, said the press produces 750 strokes a minute, and the dies are set up to strike both sides of the quarter and the edge at once. The dies are manufactured at the Philadelphia plant, he said.
Milward Simpson is director of the Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources. He also was a member of the Wyoming Coinage Advisory Committee that reviewed and whittled down the options for the coin.
He said public suggestions for the bucking bronc and cowboy as a symbol for the coin ran 10-1 as the most recommended symbol in 3,200 suggestions.
Historian Philip Roberts said the bucking horse and rider are well recognized and are not pinned to a landmark, such as Devils Tower or Old Faithful. Those tend to be more regional symbols rather than that of a state, he added.
"The state has so few unifiers," said Roberts, who specializes in Wyoming history at the University of Wyoming. "One thing that does unify it is the bucking horse symbol."
Some people see the two slogans - "The Equality State" and "The Cowboy State" - as contradictory, but he does not.
"The nature of the cowboy as a symbol is retrospective, and the Equality State is aspirational. So they sort of fit together," he said.
Roberts added that the state was known as the Suffrage State early on. But for most of the 20th century it was known as the Equality State, which was officially adopted by the Legislature in the late 1930s.
At the same time, Roberts said residents began to use the "Cowboy State" as a nickname.
But a large part of the celebration at the Mint on Monday focused on Nellie Tayloe Ross.
Wyoming has several firsts in the area of equal rights for women.
In 1870, Eliza Swain of Laramie was the first woman to vote, and four months later women were sitting on juries in Wyoming. Well-known Wyoming suffragettes, like Esther Morris and Julia Bright, serve as symbols as well.
Simpson said Ross' role at the Mint made her the logical choice to exemplify Wyoming's commitment to equality for women during the striking of a coin.
She was appointed to head the U.S. Mint by President Roosevelt in 1933 and served until 1953.
Bradford Ross said his grandmother's accomplishments at the Mint included overseeing the opening of a new building in San Francisco in 1937; producing coins for European nations after World War II; and pushing for automation and efficiency at the Mint facilities.
Bradford Ross said, "Walking the halls of this building as a little 12-year-old boy with my grandmother, I could see how proud she was of the people who work here and the work that they do."
Ross' legacy lives on at the Mint, said Barbara Hurtgam, acting deputy plant manager.
She said she hoped the attendees witnessing the ceremonial striking would find the facility "as automated and efficient as (Nellie Tayloe Ross) would want us to be."
Posted 08/07/2007 12:49 pm
